Enter Mr Rochester

[poliphilo]

The first thing he does is fall off his horse. It's a Don Quixote moment. In the movie- as I remember- it's the apparition of Jane in the darkening lane that makes the horse shy and rear. Ooh gothick!. In the book the horse trots past Jane without incident, then slips on ice. Bump, He comes off. And swears a lot.

Bronte knows how to mix it up. A romantic setting, twilight, the rising moon, intimations of the supernatural. is the dog a gytrash? is the horse a gytrash? Then whoopsadaisy-  there's a man down. Is he badly hurt? Naah, it's just a sprain. .

Bronte breaks down even as she builds up. She adores the gothick. She thinks the gothick is silly. She blends gothickism and silliness into a smooth even paste.

Mr Rochester takes the book over. It used to be Jane's book; now it's his. He lounges and declaims- with his foot up on a stool because of the sprain.  He's very romantic, very Yorkshire- half Lord Byron, half Geoff Boycott. He balloons with magnificently wordy self-contempt- and cool Jane slips under his guard with a hat-pin. No wonder he falls in love.

One expects a Victorian novelist to be coy. I don't know why but it's a prejudice we've been encouraged in. Some of them are coy- Dickens for instance; he never saw a prossie he couldn't find a euphemism for. He hates the evangelicals but he's been infected with their cant. Bronte ain't that way; she grew up in a vicarage so she's worldly-wise; she calls a French mistress a French mistress and no beating about the bush. The story of Rochester's Parisian amour is as tough minded as anything in Balzac. She's frank, she's sensual, she's withering. She has none of the Victorian whimsy about children either. Adele is nothing special, not very bright. If it were now she'd be dressing up as a Disney princess. The child is mother to the woman- nice kid; don't expect too much of her; her Daddy certainly doesn't. If this was Dickens (again) Rochester would be in awful trouble for this attitude of his. Bronte and Jane are far too sensible for that.

Here comes the madwoman. Demonic laughter at the keyhole. So far so ghastly. Now Mr Rochester is on fire! O no! So Jane puts him out with a jug full of water.  Mr Darcy wet shirt moment! Mr Rochester forbids Jane to look. Does he have a boner? "Don't leave me Jane". "Sorry but I have to." Firm manly handshake. Oh, but this is wonderful stuff.....

Comments

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

half Lord Byron, half Geoff Boycott

So true!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love it how Yorkshire he is.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

Never thought of that! Can you give examples?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The brooding, the moodiness, the self-obsession (very Geoff Boycott), the not suffering of fools (including children and old women), the bluntness- along with the expectation that people accept the bluntness without taking offence. His questioning of Jane on first acquaintance is pretty insufferable- and would have destroyed a weaker vessel- but she's Yorkshire too and gives back as good as she gets. Also he's got the Yorkshire build- big and slabby with the floppy hair
falling across the broad forehead- just like Ted Hughes.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

I had NEVER thought of the boner possibility, but now I ALWAYS WILL.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

He's woken up in the middle of the night to find the woman he desires standing in his bedroom- in her night clothes....

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

And she's soaked him, indeed... quenched the fire in his bedstraw. Oh Charlotte!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

It's a very naughty scene. I didn't think the Victorians wrote stuff like this.

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

As a teenager, I always thought that Rochester's 'naked feet' were much saucier than the simple 'bare feet'. No wonder she published it under a male pseudonym.

Re:

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Naked is a lot nakeder than bare.

[cmcmck.livejournal.com]

I will assure you now that the reason I write poetry under the pen name Marianna Rochester has nothing to do with the mad wife, but everything to do with where I was born and raised.

That's my excuse, anyway and I'm sticking to it! :o)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe you- absolutely...:)

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Orson Wells was my favourite Rochester.

Far better book than Wuthering Heights in my opinion.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love Orson Welles.

I've read W H a couple of times. It never did anything for me. Maybe I should try again.

Have you read Villette? That's amazing too. I don't understand why it isn't better known.

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

No, I haven't but I will give it a try. I'm not generally keen on Victorian novelists (I loathe Dickens for instance). I'm more of the Les Liaisons Dangereuses type of reader.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I love Dickens, but Bronte (who I'm coming to love too) is so very different. She's frank where he's evasive, her characters are psychologically complex where his are
all on the outside. She's funny but subtly so. Her prose is gorgeous in a richly coloured, mid-romantic manner that puts me in mind of de Quincey. Her descriptions- of places, scenery, weather, times of day- are wonderfully precise.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

his are all on the outside

Not all, perhaps. I've recently reread Great Expectations, and find Pip's Bildungsroman at least as psychologically subtle as Jane Eyre's.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Fair enough. There are exceptions. The young David Copperfield is beautifully observed too.

I wouldn't want to give the impression I'm dissing
Dickens- whom I adore. No writer ever created a greater number of unforgettable characters.

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I think the aftertaste of Dickens is often dominated by those larger-than-life characters with their tics and catchphrases - but then when you start to read him you remember that, ah yes, he can be subtle!

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

I am loving your reactions to Jane Eyre. I assume you saw the Orson Welles / Joan Fontaine version. Other more recent versions are good, too.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thanks.

Yes, that's the only film version I know.

[sovay]

He balloons with magnificently wordy self-contempt- and cool Jane slips under his guard with a hat-pin. No wonder he falls in love.

As an adaptation, it didn't work for me entirely, but this was one of the currents the recent (2011, Mia Wasikowska/Michael Fassbender) film got right.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The only film version I know is the one with Welles and Fontaine. I may also have seen TV versions but if so I've forgotten them.

[sovay]

I may also have seen TV versions but if so I've forgotten them.

I liked very much the 2006 version with Ruth Wilson and Toby Stephens. Thoughts on the 2011 film here. You might still find it worth trying, to see how it matches or differs from the version inside your head. What is the Welles/Fontaine lke?

[edited for confusing the two actresses who play Jane at different ages]

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

The Welles/Fontaine version is moody and atmospheric. Lots of shadows. To be honest it's a long time since I saw it and my memories are vague. (To be honest I may only ever have seen clips.) I remember Welles on a rearing horse and Liz Taylor-as Helen Burns- dying beautifully.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

My favourite version is the 1995 one with Ciarán Hinds as Rochester and Samantha Morton as Jane. Morton absolutely nails it, really distils what it is makes Jane what she is. In essence Jane Eyre is the forerunner of Commander Data and all the emotionally dysfunctioned characters in scifi. She even says it herself in the novel - "Do you think I am an automaton?"

Her replies are mechanical and spare; she doesn't understand the nuances, having a laser eye for the truth instead. The non-committal, droidlike nature of her answers (betraying a deprived childhood, a state Morton knew a lot about) only makes Rochester all the more determined to break her down. Samantha Morton is the only Jane I know who deeply, instinctively gets that.

Hinds as Rochester is a bit overacted - he could ease off on the shouting - but has the packed intensity of the character in the novel and his large presence. His presence is very sensual and powerful, making it clear why Jane tends to adopt "shields up" in his presence.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I haven't been reading Jane that way, but I think you're onto something.

I'll look out for that line about her being an automaton.

[ideealisme.livejournal.com]

Trust me, you won't miss it.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

If it weren't for the lushness of the prose, you could sometimes mistake Bronte for a modern. So here she is writing about robots and it's the 1840s. Remarkable woman!

[sorenr.livejournal.com]

Oh, I need to re-read this as soon as I get home to my library. As it is, I'm taking a few days in the Summer House, and the book case here is somewhat more limited than the 40 shelf-meters in the apartment.

I read Jane Eyre for the first time when I was 12. I think I re-read it again at 24, so perhaps now at 34 it might be a good time to read it for the third time. With your notes in mind...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I'm flattered.

I'm glad I didn't read it as a kid. I think I'd have found it way above my head.