#jane eyre heresy

[janeeyreheresy]

Jane Eyre Heresy Masterpost

Warning and Disclaimers

Introduction (incl Quick Summary of the Beginning)

Jane's Arrival at Thornfield Hall

Meet Cute

Enter Mr Rochester

The First Nocturnal Incident

The Party at Thornfield

The Gypsy Woman Episode

The Merry Company

The Second Nocturnal Incident

Interlude

Mind Games

With a proposal like this, who needs death threats?

Would I Lie To You? (Yes, You Would)

Blanche Ingram (incl Digression - A Better Man)

A Note on Fake Dating

The Engagement (incl Mrs Fairfax's Warning and The High Street Hell)

The Third Nocturnal Incident

The Wedding

The Secret Wife

The Connections of the the Uncle in Madeira

The Solicitor and the Clergyman

Rochester the Scoundrel

Rochester's Origin Story

Not Insane in the Brain

The Inconsistencies

I Choose Violence

Mad and Bad and Dangerous?

Some ideas on Bertha's State

Age Is Mad

Richard Mason

Wide Sargasso Sea

What Edward Did Next

Celine Varens (incl Digression - What in the Sherlock?)

Womaniser, Womaniser

Indecent Proposal

The Escape (incl Was There a Better Way?)

The Shelter

New Fortune, New Family

The Saint John (incl What Could Have Been)

The Return to Thornfield

The Innkeeper's Testimony

Grace Poole

The Firestarter

Reunited

Stupid Girl

Reader, She Married Him

Adele

Happily Ever After

Final Thoughts

What the Year of Our Lord?

Real Life

The Cancelled Sister

But Really?

Bronte Tragedy

Other Posts

[gatheringbones]

best books of 2022 rec list:

fiction:

chouette by claire oshetsky

forty thousand in gehenna by cj cherryh

fierce femmes and notorious liars by kai cheng thom

sula by toni morrison

everyone in this room will someday be dead by emily r. austin

jane eyre by charlotte bronte

villette by charlotte bronte

non-fiction:

gay spirit by mark thompson

we too: stories on sex work and survival by natalie west

transgender history by susan stryker

blood marriage wine & glitter by s bear bergman

love and rage: the path to liberation through anger by lama rod owens

gay soul by mark thompson

between certain death and a possible future: queer writing on growing up in the AIDS crisis by mattilda bernstein sycamore

the man they wanted me to be: toxic masculinity and a crisis of our own making by jared yates sexton

nobody passes: rejecting the rules of gender and conformity by mattilda bernstein sycamore

cruising: an intimate history of a radical pastime by alex espinoza

gay body by mark thompson

what my bones know: a memoir of healing from complex trauma by stephanie foo

the child catchers: rescue, trafficking, and the new gospel of adoption by kathryn joyce

the opium wars: the addiction of one empire and the corruption of another by w. travis hanes III

a queer history of the united states by michael bronski

the trouble with white women by kyla schuller

what we don't talk about when we talk about fat by aubrey gordon

the feminist porn book by tristan taormino

administrations of lunacy: a story of racism and psychiatry at the midgeville asylum by mab segrest

the women's house of detention by hugh ryan

angela davis: an autobiography by angela davis

ten steps to nanette by hannah gadsby

neuroqueer heresies by nick walker

the remedy: queer and trans voices on health and healthcare by zena sharman

brilliant imperfection by eli clare

the dawn of everything: a new history of humanity by david graeber and david wengrow

tomorrow sex will be good again by katherine angel

all our trials: prisons, policing, and the feminist fight to end violence by emily l. thuma

if this is a man by primo levi

bi any other name: bisexual people speak out by lorraine hutchins

white rage: the unspoken truth of our racial divide by carol anderson

public sex: the culture of radical sex by pat califa

I'm glad my mom died by jenette mccurdy

care of: letters, connections and cures by ivan coyote

the gentrification of the mind: witness to a lost imagination by sarah schulman

skid road: on the frontier of health and homelessness in an american city, by josephine ensign

the origins of totalitarianism by hannah arendt

nice racism: how progressive white people perpetuate racial harm by robin diangelo

corrections in ink by keri blakinger

sexed up: how society sexualizes us and how we can fight back by julia serano

smash the church, smash the state! the early years of gay liberation by tommi avicolli mecca

no more police: a case for abolition by mariame kaba

until we reckon: violence, mass incarceration, and a road to repair by danielle sered

the care we dream of: liberatory & transformative justice approaches to LGBTQ+ health by zena sharman

reclaiming two-spirits: sexuality, spiritual renewal and sovereignty in native america by gregory d. smithers

the sentences that create us: crafting a writer's life in prison by Caits Messner

[mzannthropy]

Linda. 40s. European. Welcome to the delicious mess that is my Tumblr blog. Agatha Christie, L.M. Montgomery, Sherlock Holmes, Star Trek, Marvel, self-improvement, writing, photography, quotes. Sam Claflin. (A lot of Sam Claflin.)

Cat lady. Anti-heroine. Madwoman in the attic. Part fairy godmother, part problematic aunt. I support women's rights and women's wrongs. Heretic and frequent strong opinions haver. That one Sam Claflin fan who hates Me Before You and Love Rosie.

Adults only please. If you see me post something that resonates with you, great. Interact if you want to. If not, move along, nothing to see here.

Links:

Photography blog (Wordpress)

Writing blog (Wordpress)

Jane Eyre Heresy sideblog (block if you're a fan of the book)

My AO3

I write original fiction (short stories) primarily, and post them on the above mentioned Wordpress writing blog. I don't write much fanfic, but I have written some pieces for Billy x Camila of Daisy Jones and the Six, as I cannot accept what the show has done with them.

Tags:

My photographs #mine

Sam Claflin #samblogging

Agatha Christie #agathablogging

L.M. Montgomery #lmmblogging

Very unpopular/controversial Hunger Games opinions #suzanne botched it (filter if you're a fan and value your life, please!)

[inoppositionflorien]

Heresy is a fun concept. "no you're interpreting these characters and stories so wrong you should DIE"

Anyway Animal Farm by George Orwell is about how horses are either devoted communists who work so hard they die or defect immediately away from communism with no in between, and Jane Eyre is about how you should murder your prospective husband's wife who lives in the attic killing small birds and blind him yourself, otherwise you'll have to hang out with your annoying cousin for a couple months.

[brontes]

13, 28, 30

13. what books make you happy?

Jane Eyre!! also Fangirl just gives me the warm fuzzies

28. do you always finish a book, even if it is dull?

yes! the only book I didn’t finish was the Age of Reason by Thomas Paine…because it veered into weird heresy instead of being an interesting exploration of natural law

30. favorite book this year?

new book? a grief observed by c.s. lewis. it was just so heart-wrenchingly honest

[derangedrhythms]

"An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but will never break."⁠ — Chinese Proverb

"There’s something between us [...]  a sort of pull. Something you always do to me and I to you⁠—"

⁠— F. Scott Fitzgerald, from 'Presumption'

"I am stretched like a bow with your pull."

⁠— Rumi, The Forbidden Rumi: The Suppressed Poems of Rumi on Love, Heresy, and Intoxication; from ‘Give Up Yourself’, tr. Will Johnson and Nevit Ergin

"Something of you still taut / still tugs still pulls, / a rope that trembled / hummed between us."

⁠— Sandra Cisneros, Loose Woman; from 'Vino Tinto'

"I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you—especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame."

⁠— Charlotte Brontë, from ‘Jane Eyre’

"There was a silence between them, and a strange tension of hostility. They always kept a gap, a distance between them, they wanted always to be free each of the other. Yet there was a curious heart-straining towards each other."

⁠— D. H. Lawrence, from 'Women in Love'

"I could feel the inevitable magnetic polar forces in us, and the tidal blood beat loud, Loud, roaring in my ears, slowing and rhythmic."

⁠— Sylvia Plath, from ‘The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath’ ⁠— 15th May 1952

"The tides inside your heart still pull me towards you."

⁠— Richard Jackson, from 'After All This', published in 'Salt Hill 22'

"By then I was used to silence. / Though something stretched between us / like a whisper, like a rope:"

⁠— Margaret Atwood, Interlunar; from ‘Orpheus (1)’

"⁠— what still deepens pulls us back together."

— Caitríona O’Reilly, The Nowhere Birds; from ‘Possession’

"We're connected by a thread / If we're ever far apart / I'll still feel the pull of you"

⁠— The National, from ‘The Pull of You’

[wedreamedlove]

On Row 1:

The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham

The Aleph by Jorge Luis Borges

Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Maugham’s novel is about an American pilot traumatized by World War I who sets off in search of meaning in his life. I think this echoes Evan’s terrible past in the Blood Clan. The novel is surprisingly hopeful though, because the main character’s search for meaningful experiences allows him to thrive compared to other materialistic characters. Or maybe this is a comment about how the hedonistic Blood Clan will fall because they’re too blinded by material things.

Borges’ story is hard to explain, so I suggest people read it themselves. I think this is just one of those philosophical things Evan likes to contemplate. He thinks a lot about eternity, infinity, the universe, etc.

Does anyone need an introduction to Faust? Haha, it’s the play about the man who makes a deal with Mephistopheles. Anyway, I like this summary about its message: “Faith and heresy, hope and nihilism, sensuality and asceticism, love and lust, art and politics – all of these battle for redemption or damnation in different versions of Faust.” This is Evan’s character theme in a nutshell. He is a man of extraordinary contradiction. I can go on and on about his innate gentleness and the monstrosity of his vampirism. Light and Night writers balance this tension so, so well.

On Row 2:

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

The Minds of Billy Milligan by Daniel Keyes

Dracula by Bram Stoker

Uh, there’s a lot of stories in the Canterbury Tales so I’m not too sure what to take from this.

Daniel Keyes’ non-fiction novel is about the first person in the US to be acquitted of a major crime by pleading multiple-personality disorder. I’m also not sure what to take from this? It’s also interesting that this is a non-fiction story, because Evan has said on multiple occasions that he prefers fiction stories to non-fiction.

Evan’s reading list containing Dracula will never not make me laugh. Naturally, the Blood Clan should know about the most influential work on vampires out there. On another note, with the addition of Dracula, Evan’s reading list consists of a lot of famous English literature.

On Row 3:

Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Kirkegaard’s philosophy work “outlines a theory of human existence, marked by the distinction between an essentially hedonistic, aesthetic mode of life and the ethical life” which sounds so much like the thoughts Evan has about the Blood Clan society. He disdains their hedonism.

Harari’s book is not too surprising. Evan is extremely curious about people’s experiences in life and whatnot, and I imagine he’s also curious about how humanity reached this point.

One other book brought up strongly with Evan is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, although this was actually his mother’s favorite book. It can vaguely apply to Evan and the heroine’s relationship too though, such as the “skeleton in the closet” for Rochester, and how the two only got together after Jane became truly independent and Rochester was no longer haunted by his past.

[thebeladimitrescu]

Vague || Closed RP

@the-dimitrescu-seamstress   “The answer was evasive. I should have liked something clearer; but Mrs. Fairfax either could not, or would not, give me more explicit information of the origin and nature of Mr. Rochester’s trials. She averred they were a mystery to herself, and that what she knew was chiefly from conjecture. It was evident, indeed, that she wished me to drop the subject, which I did accordingly.” Bela shut the novel gently within her hands at the close of the thirteenth chapter, as tempting as it was to continue onward in the reading. If only they did not run through maids as often as they did, a part of her wondered if she would have been contented leading a small group of them into becoming more cultured, educated creatures. When they died so soon there was little point in bringing them above being dull as cattle. Most of them were only that, but there were a few exceptions. After placing the book gingerly aside, Bela removed her gloves. She never did so before reading from the book. It was a seventh edition, but even so Jane Eyre was on the list of nearly sacred texts. Not literally, of course, and she certainly wouldn’t make such a statement out loud. That was heresy.  “I wonder why she was being so vague....” She said of the novel, despite the fact that she absolutely knew why the household staff was refusing to reveal certain aspects of his background. Despite having read it so many times discovering the secret that Jane’s new employer kept was surprising and scandalous each time.  Certainly, it was less shocking than what occurred regularly in the castle dungeons and cellars. Other people’s skeletons in the closet- or attic, as it were- always seemed worse than one’s own. Though it could not be said that the Dimitrescus were exactly hiding any skeletons- be it figurative or literal. Bela observed Magda at work. When the seamstress had invited her to recite poetry in her workshop the witch had been thrilled. It was the chance to behave like a proper lady. Have poetry readings and a cup of ordinary tea. The tea she would merely touch her lips to and make a pantomime of drinking, of course. If there was blood it would be more agreeable to her, but it would ruin everything. There was was more fun in this rare façade of humanity.  Over the months, the poetry inevitably evolved into this. Hell would freeze over before she let any.... companion of hers pass through life without having read her favorite novel. Companion was an interesting word, would friend be better? Was that too....- Favourite? No. Bela would think more on it later. “What are you currently working on?”

[hopefullystillliving]

Tag 10 people you wanna know better

Tagged by @miriel-therindes, thank you!

Relationship status: Single as a pringle and perfectly content. (also alsjdflsj Lyndeth I've proposed to people with ringpops before as a joke)

Favorite colour(s): Blues, teal-greens, purples, gold, silver

Favorite food: Specifically my mom's cucumber sushi. It's to die for.

Song stuck in my head: Don't Stop Believing. I heard it over a store radio and it's been haunting me. I hate it.

Last thing you googled: Ring verse black speech

Time: 8:18 pm

Dream trip: I literally don't know. I want to visit all seven continents (3/7 so far) so maybe get Antarctica out of the way?

Last thing you read: Today's Dracula Daily

Last book you enjoyed reading: In full? Lord of the Flies

Last book you hated reading: Jane Eyre. Not my cup of tea.

Favorite thing to cook/bake: Hmm. Probably devil's food cake or chocolate chip cookies. The former because it's to die for and the latter because they're super easy. I like making lots of stuff though.

Favorite craft to do in your free time: Well if writing counts, that, I do origami sometimes when I'm bored and I've been trying to get into embroidery...

Most niche dislike: Bad history teachers, specifically. More than any other subject to me, a history teacher makes or breaks the class, and even I who loves history will grow to hate it.

Opinion on circuses: I haven't been to one since I was six, and barely remember it. I remember thinking it was pretty cool- the acrobats are definitely a highlight, but I'm glad that less circuses are using animals now.

Do you have any sense of direction? ...A little. A very little. I can figure out NESW via the sun and can sorta recognize how to get to places I'm very familiar with but. Yeah. GPS is a wonderful thing.

Tell us about your D&D character(s): HAHAHAHA!!! INFODUMP TIME!!!

Kaelind Siankiir-Kranuv: Half-elf Bard/Cleric (College of Lore/Life domain), my perfect angel of do no harm take no shit. She's got wanderlust and a tendency to never fit in, made worse by her setting, but she's shockingly well adjusted overall. Her backstory is very jack of all tradesy- her parents traveled for her mother's seasonal dock-work and her father's scholarly odd-jobs, she was involved in both of those and music from a young age, she became a cleric bc her mother was healed by one after a serious accident. She actually isn't a cleric to her primary deity (his domain is mostly music) so her service has some interesting warlock-pact undertones since she is doing it for power, even if that power is intended to help. Which is kinda heresy but unbeknownst to me at the time actually fits her god's backstory really well. Her campaign has been set aside for now in favor of Aret's bc hers is all homebrew while theirs is Waterdeep: Dragon Heist so it'll be easier to get everyone used to each other/the game. She's my pfp!

Aret "Reign" Pyrnomos: Tiefling Sorcerer (Wild Magic) and also an investigative attorney. They came about bc I thought "You know what would be funny? A bunch of demon tiefling lawyers who love order but have super chaotic magic. And like a really big family. I mean really big. The family tree I made has 75 people. The family business (Pyrnomoi & Co. at Law) was started by great-great grandpa who made a pact with his grandmother Fierna for power and prosperity of his descendants so long as the law firm stands, more or less. Aret and their family and the business are all kind of inexorably linked? As a result of prejudice everyone is hyper aware of how what they do affects the family and business, and are very strict in how they act publicly. We have a rogue on the team but Aret literally refuses to aid/abet crime without serious backup plans so that's gonna be interesting! Also they have half-proficiency in animal handling bc of all their little cousins XD

Aster Stardew: "Drow" Oracle Track Druid (1st lvl but he's gonna be Circle of Stars). His name coinciding with my favorite game was unintentional on my part but delightful- I translated it from dndelvish "Holistacia" without realizing lol. Drow is in quotes bc his campaign is in a homebrewed Owl House setting (hence the Oracle Track)! I know very little about the Owl House, so it's gonna be interesting to play! He is best characterized in short as "neurodivergent and a minor", and also "looks like he wants to kill you (edgy), is actually a cinnamon roll". He tries to be edgy (his background is "haunted one" bc it's hilarious but also suits if I play up the edgelord a little) but literally can't stop himself from being nice, to his dismay and his therapist's delight. He's probably read the Boiling Isles version of My Immortal unironically. I just made him a few days ago, so he's still percolating in my mind, but he's babie and I love him.

Tagging: anyone who sees this and wants to. I don't have the brainpower to tag people right now, but rest assured I want to get to know yall better!

[grundyscribbling]

The lovely @avantegarda tagged me for 11 questions. (The deal as I understand it is answer the 11 questions, come up with 11 questions of your own, tag 11 people.) Here we go...

Which of your OCs likes pineapple on pizza and which of them is FURIOUS AT THE VERY IDEA? Anairon loves pizza and pineapple and thinks both together is wonderful. But I don’t think any of my other OCs have ever considered the question (some of them don’t even know about pizza) so none of them can really take the part of the ‘pineapple on pizza is sacrilege or possibly heresy’ crowd.

What is your favorite mood to write? (angst, comedy, etc) Changes based on my current mood.

Do you prefer writing/headcanoning about romance or friendship or family more? This is not an either/or for me so much as a ‘how do I feel today?’

Which author would you fight in a Denny’s parking lot at 3 am? If I’m awake at 3am, I’m either reading or writing, not fighting. That said, in the unlikely event that I were in a Denny’s parking lot at 3am and Ayn Rand happened to be there...

Do you like to write and highlight in your books or do you keep them pristine? I do not write in books. I am however the queen of post-it flags.

Which is harder: writing dialog or writing description? Whichever one I am having trouble with at the moment. (Right now, description. Tomorrow may be the other one.)

Which fictional character would you like to run your country? Pippin Galadriel Moonchild.

Is there a historical period you really like writing or reading about? Yes. (As you didn’t actually ask which one it was, I am saved the trouble of trying to narrow it down to fewer than five.)

Are you secretly a robot? If I tell you, it’s not a secret, is it?

Are there any books you read in school that you really hated? Finally, a question that’s easy to answer! The Red Badge of Courage, Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, whatever the assigned Herman Melville book was that I noped out of so hard I just turned in a blank paper because I wasn’t even going to Cliff Notes that crap, Traumnovelle, Leiden des jungen Werther, and Der Richter und sein Henker (but I feel like I should give that one a second chance, for Reasons. The other ones I’m pretty sure I still cordially detest and will never open again.)

Is that a raven rapping at your chamber door? Tis some visitor, nothing more.

Ok. That was difficult. Now for the 11 questions I came up with:

1. What hobby do you do that might surprise people?

2. What are you writing/drawing/creating right now that isn’t ready to share but you would love to tell people about (in even a vague sort of way)?

3. What’s your favorite non-fictional animal?

4. You can take a 48 hour vacation anywhere in the world. Time, money, and distance are no impediment. Where are you going?

5. Which fictional character would you like to run your country? (Yes, I didn’t come up with this one, but it’s an excellent question and I’m curious what other people will say.)

6. What’s a book you re-read regularly/semi-regularly?

7. Spiders - friend or foe?

8. William Shakespeare or Christopher Marlowe?

9. What is your favorite drink?

10. Do you have a favorite planet?

11. Why 11?

I tag @heartofoshun, @jane-ways, @joyfullynervouscreator, @naryaflame, @feanope, @essenceofarda, @princess-faelivrin, @queen-haleth, @zeroatthebone, @z-h-i-e, and @hrymfaxe. As ever, only if you want to play, no pressure! (Anyone else, if you look at this odd jumble of questions and think, ‘I WANT TO ANSWER THOSE!’, consider yourself tagged!)

And for the record, my ability to come up with 11 people was severely hampered by Tumblr’s insistence on a) putting the suggestions all the way at the bottom of the screen so I could only see the top 2, and b) continually suggesting Neil Gaiman as soon as I got as far as ‘@’. (Which is not to say that Neil Gaiman is not awesome, but I am not going to tag him on this.)

[bluewatsons]

Ashley Tucker, Considering the Autobiographical ‘I’: Between Self-Narration and Fiction, Magnificat (April 2016)

The telling and retelling of one’s own story is a powerful experience, giving the voiceless a voice, granting authorial freedom, and offering a window into potentially untold stories. J.M. Coetzee’s and Charlotte Brontë’s first person narratives in Foeand Jane Eyre foreground female protagonists telling of their personal histories. Jane Eyre and Susan Barton represent the complexity of autobiography in demonstrating how sources outside of the women themselves have a dominant influence on the way that their stories are experienced, as well as the way that they are later retold. Jane’s story is driven by the oppression to which she responds. Susan’s tale is shaped by her attempt to convince Foe that she is “a bold adventuress” (Coetzee 45). Both fictional characters are left with the task of constructing their stories in such a way that evokes a desired response from their audience. In doing so, however, one of the challenges becomes presenting these stories with authenticity. This conflict arises not only in the isolated instances of these novels, but can be applied to a much greater context: the telling and retelling of all autobiography. Through a fictional platform, Jane Eyre and Susan Barton show that by allowing one the liberty to tell their truth, autobiography affords a narrator the opportunity to claim ownership of their story, develop self-awareness and identity, and provide a sense of concreteness to a series of experiences that at one time may have seemed unreal.

In its simplest form, an autobiography is when a person is narrating their own life story. In “The Veto of the Imagination,” Louis Renza expands on this definition and suggests that autobiography is “an indeterminate mixture of truth and fiction about the person writing it” (Renza 1). What both of these definitions fail to encompass, however, is the inevitable evolution that the author experiences by writing. In “Some Principles of Autobiography,” William Howarth goes even further to suggests that in producing an autobiography in the truest sense, one will undergo, “a spiritual experiment, a voyage of discovery” (Howarth 85). It is irresponsible to neglect this kind of unfolding when defining autobiography because it becomes equal to, or perhaps more significant than the story itself. Renza considers it to be a “‘literary’ event whose primary being resides in and through the writing itself: in the ‘life’ of the signifier as opposed to the life being signified” (Renza 1). What this suggests is that written autobiographical text reflects an outward expression which is only one component of the autobiographical experience. In the piece “Girl Talk: Jane Eyreand the Romance of Women’s Narration,” Carla Kaplan sees an autobiography, in Jane’s case, as “the story of the growth of a writer, someone who can extend the gesture – or invitation… of her own, assured voice to an unknown and unpredictable other (the reader)” (Kaplan 334). If one is to approve of Howarth’s notion that an autobiography functions as a self-portrait does, in the way that the artist and author “work from memory as well as sight, in two levels of time, on two planes of space, while reaching for those other dimensions, depth and the future” then one can also accept that both Jane and Susan are telling their stories in a way that can be classified as autobiography (Howarth 85).

Jane Eyre and Foe are similar because their authors present two women protagonists who manifest both a drive and a will to tell their unthinkable stories. They set up Jane and Susan as authors themselves. As stated in “Fictions of Autobiography,” “it is essential to reach some understanding of the state of mind that motivates autobiographical discourse in the first place” (Eakin 3). Brontë and Coetzee make a statement about autobiography as these characters raise questions about the parallel between function and form. The authors manipulate the way these stories are told which leaves the reader wondering what might happen when one tells their story one way rather than another. Through Jane’s assertive voice, the reader is given a clear interpretation of personal events. Different from Brontë, Coetzee uses Susan’s character to complicate stories themselves. Given the Postmodern context, Susan is depicted as an undermined female narrator and presents issues of power.

McLeod defines this issue of power as a fight for “who gets to establish and maintain the narrative framework and with who is going to seduce (and/or compel) whom into living inside his or her story world” (McLeod 3). This is significant because “to ‘narrate the world’ is to gain power and authority” (McLeod 3). Both protagonists endure this very power struggle. Jane finds other characters such as Mr. Rochester presenting interpretations of her own story. Kaplan references Mary Poovey who exposes Rochester’s tendency to “usurp Jane’s control over what is, after all, primarily her story” (Kaplan 14). St. John also attempts to kidnap Jane’s story when he says “I find the matter will be better managed by my assuming the narrator’s part, and converting you into a listener” (Brontë 438). Jane not only struggles to find a reasonable listener, but Kaplan suggests that she herself must “settle” to become the listener (Kaplan 15). She therefore battles to hold onto the “narrative framework” to which McLeod refers (McLeod 3).

Susan also wrangles with a conflict regarding ownership of narration. There is a clash between Susan and Foe, as Susan thinks of her story in one way, while Foe chooses to project it in another. Susan makes it very clear that she aims to tell a story as close to the truth as possible. She argues that “if I cannot come forward, as author, and swear to the truth of my tale, what will be the work of it?” (Coetzee 40). Foe, however, has a different agenda. He sets out to attract a mass audience and “cause a great stir,” even if it jeopardizes Susan’s “truth” (Coetzee 40). Though Susan firmly states that “[she] will not have any lies told,” ultimately she is dependent upon Foe. To begin, Susan relies on Foe because she doesn’t see herself as a born storyteller (Coetzee 81). Additionally, given the limitations of the patriarchal society in which Susan lives, the reality is that for her story to be heard, it must be projected through a man’s voice. In some ways, without Foe, Susan sees herself as “a being without substance” in the eyes of her reader (Coetzee 51). In the article “Reading History, Writing Heresy,” Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran, however, track a progress in Susan’s dependency when they suggest “Susan moves from a position of sexual and hermeneutic dependency[…] to one of sexual and authorial independence” (Macaskill and Colleran 440-441).

In addition to this power struggle between the author and the other characters, there is also a tension between the author and the crafted “I.” Brontë and Coetzee demonstrate how autobiographical writing calls for the author to develop a sense of self-awareness and identity. As one works to tell their story, they must first establish a clear understanding of themselves. They are forced to see themselves as the primary character, and consider the way that they act and react within the greater context of the story. Eakin articulates this evolution in saying:

I view the rhythms of the autobiographical act recapitulating the fundamental rhythms of identity formation: in this sense the writing of autobiography emerges as a second acquisition of language, a second coming into being of self, a self-conscious self- consciousness. (Eakin 9)

So when considering the “I” of autobiography, the reader must make the distinction between the author and the character. Howarth identifies this relationship as the “artist and model” (Howarth 87). It is only possible for the narrator to present a replica of themselves for two primary reasons: the author is blinded by their perception of themselves and the story is told in retrospect, therefore after the events have come to some sort of conclusion. Howarth points out that the character the reader sees is “far different from the original model, resembling life but actually composed and framed as an artful invention” (Howarth 86). He goes on to identify an important dynamic about this author to character relationship. He explains that though the narrator may have more knowledge than the protagonist, “he remains faithful to the latter’s ignorance for the sake of credible suspense” (Howarth 87). Howarth also notes that these two individual characters “have to merge, as past approaches present, the protagonist’s deeds should begin to match his narrator’s thoughts,” which is particularly relevant to the development of identity (Howarth 87).

Although Jane demonstrates an evolution from a victimized child to a self-governing adult, the reader observes the poor perception that Jane has of herself. This is revealed in the way that Jane portrays her character. She is dependent upon the respect of others to fill the void of a lack of self-respect. She makes it clear that she desires “to earn respect and win affection” (Brontë 81). Although Jane is eventually able to claim “I care for myself,” it is evident that at the core she has a “wounded…self-esteem” (Brontë 365, 28). In addition to Jane’s direct assertions of her low self-esteem, it is revealed implicitly as well. There is a significant scene in which Jane does a series of paintings. As she compares the drawing of herself to the drawing of Rosamond Oliver she demonstrates a moment of class-consciousness. This instance, a mode of autobiography in itself, illustrates not only Jane’s self-awareness, but also her resistance to her social status. The reader watches as Jane grapples with why she is excluded from certain forms of life.

Susan’s self-perception becomes evident as well. As she tells her story to Foe it becomes clear she is on a desperate campaign for validation. She not only questions herself, but more importantly questions her story itself. Towards the end of the novel, she says “I am full of doubt. Nothing is left to me but doubt. I am doubt itself. Who is speaking me? Am I a phantom too? To what order do I belong?” (Coetzee 133). Susan, once strictly dedicated to presenting facts, now loses any sense of solidity. As she tells her story, and begins to develop self-awareness, it also becomes clear that she feels she lacks significance within it. Susan says, “when I reflect on my story I seem to exist only as the one who came, the one who witnessed, the one who longed to be gone: a being without substance, a ghost beside a true body of Cruso” (Coetzee 51). Susan fears that her place in her own story, and more broadly, her position on the island, has been minimized.

The women’s motivation for sharing their stories becomes significant when considering these identities. Eakin believes that “the impulse to write autobiography is but a special, heightened form of that reflective consciousness which is the distinctive feature of our human nature” (Eakin 9). Jane chooses to tell her story because she sees it as a way to take back the power which she had lost over time. In doing so, she owns it. She can orchestrate, for example, surrounding characters, most importantly her oppressors such as John Reed, Mrs. Reed, and Mr. Brockelhurst. They are “living inside [of Jane’s] story world” as McLeod describes it (McLeod 3). Jane proudly proclaims that she “will tell anybody who asks […] this exact tale” (Brontë 44). Kaplan identifies this statement, directed to Mrs. Reed, as the first time that the reader witnesses Jane’s self-narration (Kaplan 5). This moment is dynamic because of the light it sheds on Jane’s determination to release her story and her truth. The idea of authorship, even in this preliminary instance, caused Jane to feel as though her “soul began to expand, [and] to exult with the strangest sense of freedom [and] triumph” (Brontë 44). Susan has similar motives for sharing her story, as it also allows her the feeling of liberation. She makes the claim that “I am a free woman who asserts her freedom by telling her story according to her own desire” (Coetzee 131). Coupled with Jane’s desire to emancipate herself and illustrate her own evolution, Jane also hopes to gain an audience that will justify her experiences. Jane, as Kaplan sees it, searches for a source to “credit her version of her life” (Kaplan 9).

Jane and Susan approach the telling of their stories in different ways. Though Jane insists that readers understand that it is “not a regular autobiography,” the novel traces a somewhat chronological account of her life events (Brontë 98). Her story offers a clear beginning, middle, and substantial conclusion. Her tight-knit relationship with her primary listener (the reader) is also significant. She addresses the reader directly, calling them by name. Howarth insists that these strategic stylistic decisions are significant because they “lead to larger effects like metaphor and tone” (Howarth 87). This portrays Jane’s authoritative voice. Additionally, this personal connection compels the reader to listen attentively with a greater degree of accountability. Susan, on the other hand, tells a story about stories. As she recounts the tale of the island, her narration is directed solely to Foe. Unlike Jane who engages her outside reader, Susan blocks them out. Perhaps Coetzee structured the narrative in this way to further reflect Susan’s insecurity. Susan searches for meaning and until she finds clarity (which she is never able to achieve) she can not include an outside reader in the way that Jane does.

The way that Brontë and Coetzee present a gendered story-telling style is also particularly noteworthy. Jane exercises her own right to tell her story. Much like her character, the way in which Jane tells her story breaks outside of the typical feminine narrative. In his article that observes the difference between male and female narration, James Krasner decides “men’s life stories describe either success or failure” (Krasner 114). Though Jane enumerates her tribulations, ultimately, her reflections represent her achievements. Her story is told in a way that appears complete. This style of storytelling matches the “linear” structure that Luce Irigaray associates with masculine writing in her work “The Power of Discourse and the Subordination of the Feminine” (Irigaray 797). She is direct, patterned, and comprehensible. Susan, however, represents a rejection of this linearity and serves as more of an exploration of sorts. Krasner contrasts the male oriented narrative when he describes women’s narratives as “manifestly fictional; their stories describe the construction of fictions” (Krasner 114). Susan does not achieve Jane’s same completeness considering, even in the final pages of the novel, Susan proclaims to be “doubt itself” (Coetzee 133). Her construction fits into the “fluid” state that Irigaray associates with feminine writing, and models the way that “its ‘style’ resists and explodes every firmly established form, figure, idea or concept” (Irigaray 797). This fluid narrative technique is represented literally at the end of the book. Susan presents images of water and describes the “slow stream” that “flows” from Friday’s mouth (Coetzee 157). “Petals floating around me like a rain of snowflakes” is another image of fluidity that contrasts Jane’s images of concreteness (Coetzee 156).

Through their storytelling they begin to create something clear and permanent. Susan describes this concreteness as “a substantial body” (Coetzee 53). In many ways, the women encountered unspeakable circumstances. Once they account their experiences for the characters themselves, the stories become real. The effort to recall events, account for them in chronological order, and identify their meaning can serve as therapeutic as the mind tries to come to grips with a life narrative. In the work, “Narrating From the Margins: Self-representation of Female and Colonial Subjectivities in Jean Rhys’s Novels,” Nagilhan Haliloğlu explains how “the need to order past and future events […] to account for the passage of time by recounting past events, is an impulse people give in to by means of narrative” (Haliloğlu 14). Finally, and perhaps most relevant, the women write their stories because by doing so they are not only rewriting a series of events, they are also rewriting themselves, which forces them to craft their own identity. Haliloğlu touches upon John Shotter’s argument that says, “What we talk of as our experience of our reality is constituted for us very largely by the already established ways in which we must talk in our attempts to account for ourselves” (Haliloğlu 15-16).

These motivations become crucial because they play a role in the authenticity of autobiography, an element that must be questioned on several accounts. In many ways, the audience unconsciously shapes the nature of an autobiography. The author writes them in mind, again, remembering that they are creating an “artful invention” (Howarth 86). Howarth says that narrators tend to “obey the dictates of audiences, whose responses justify their craft” (Howarth 98). Susan realizes that autobiography “must not only tell the truth about us but please its readers too” (Coetzee 63). She emphasizes McLeod’s idea of seduction when she says that we use our tongues as an instrument to “jest and lie and seduce” (Coetzee 85). Authors of all narratives to some degree set out to manipulate the reader.

The unreliability of memory organically contributes to the failure of accuracy as well. Susan even suggests “the secret meaning of the word story [might be] a storing-place of memories” (Coetzee 59). The women must rely on their memories, which Howarth names as one of the “essential controls” of autobiography, to convey their stories because these narratives are being told in hindsight (Howarth 86). Jane describes her memory as “not naturally tenacious” (Brontë 88). Despite this, memory (and some degree of imagination) is essentially their only resource. Memory becomes significant because as Susan suggests, “the secret meaning of the word story [might be] a storing-place of memories” (Coetzee 59). Authors then must fill in certain gaps to create completeness. Renza sees autobiography as more of an “imaginative” rather than “descriptive” outlet of writing (Renza 4).

What matters here is not the undoubtable sense that the author’s memory is often undependable, but rather to what degree these women are exercising selective memory. The narrators omit parts of their story, not always because they do not remember, but because they opt not to share. In “Speech and Silence in Jane Eyre” Janet H. Freeman identifies Jane’s narrative as “only [a partial version] of the complex narrative” (Freeman 685). Susan is willing to claim these empty spaces when she declares “I choose not to tell it because to no one […] do I owe proof that I am a substantial being with a substantial history in the world” (Coetzee 131).

As readers of autobiography, either fictional or otherwise, there is an ethical responsibility that lies within one’s interpretation. Accepting the genre of autobiography in a way that one would any other story, readers must keep in mind the claims made by J. Hills Miller’s piece, “The Ethics of Reading,” which argues that “stories contain the thematic dramatization of ethical situations, choices, and judgments” (Miller 3). It is therefore the reader’s duty to interpret these three defining elements in a way that allows them to connect to a larger message beyond the characters themselves. It becomes more productive to search for meaning opposed to truth. Ultimately, it is not the who, what, when, and where of Jane’s and Susan’s story that will lend the reader substance, but instead the why. MacLeod points that the fulfillment of the novel comes into play when “the discourse of the novel overrides ‘the truth’ or our actual experiences and we begin to feel and see things according to the framework the book posits even when we aren’t reading it, even between readings” (MacLeod 8).

In an attempt to find a resolution, Renza poses the question:

Must we settle […] for the compromising, commonplace, conception that depicts autobiography as a formal mutation, a hybrid genre, a vague, unresolved mixture of “truth” about the autobiographer’s life dyed into the colors of an ersatz, imaginative “design?” (Renza 5)

To insist as readers upon the truth, one robs the narrator authorial freedom. It takes away the author’s truth which is the very element that classifies the story as autobiography. To elicit this “proof” that Susan refers to is to undermine not only the accuracy of the events, but more importantly the meaning behind these stories. The question then becomes, is an entirely “authentic” autobiography even practical?

Krasner suggests that it is an unrealistic request when he poses the question “in a world of such chaotic inconsistency, in which desire, perspective, and comprehension change from moment to moment, is it possible to write a consistent personal history?” (Krasner 116). The answer is in fact, no. Instead of insisting, however, Freeman asks the reader to evoke it. It is our responsibility as readers to be active listeners. In doing so, we must receive these personal histories. She says that as the audience, “only, our presence, listening, can endorse… truth-telling” (Freeman 700). She goes on to say that “for…[the] truth to be fully told, we are the ones who must hear it” (Freeman 700).

Brontë and Coetzee set up Jane and Susan as authors of their own narratives to show the power behind autobiography. Though Jane and Susan are fictional characters, it is fair to speak of them in real terms because of the way they represent larger real-life significance. They echo the power behind self-narration in demonstrating the personal evolution that it evokes. To tell one’s own story is to tell one’s truth. How this truth is conveyed is primarily dependent on one’s motivations and desired outcomes. The narrator is robbed of their authorial freedom, the very driving point of autobiography, when the reader challenges their truth. It is the reader’s responsibility to be aware of this lack of authenticity, yet accept these versions. In doing so, one will truly be able to welcome autobiography as “a work of art and life… [that] defines, restricts, [and] shapes [a] life into a self-portrait” (Howarth 86).

Works Cited

Brontë, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. Penguin Classics, 2006. Print.

Case, A. A. (1992). Writing the Female ‘I’: Gender and Narration in the 18th- and 19th- Century English Novel. Web.

Coetzee, J. M. Foe. London: Secker & Warburg, 1986. Print.

Freeman, Janet H. “Speech and Silence in Jane Eyre.” Studies in English Literature 1500-1900. 24.4 (1984): 683-700. JSTOR. Web.

Howarth, William L. “Some Principles of Autobiography.” New Literary History 5.2 (1974): 363-81. JSTOR. Web.

Irigaray, Luce, and Margaret Whitford. The Irigaray Reader. Cambridge, MA: Basil Blackwell, 1991. Print.

Kaplan, Carla. “Girl Talk: Jane Eyre and the Romance of Women’s Narration.” NOVEL: A Forum on Fiction 30.1 (1996): 5-31. JSTOR. Web.

Krasner, James. “The Life of Women: Zora Neale Hurston and Female Autobiography.” Black American Literature Forum 23.1 (1989): 113-26. JSTOR. Web.

Macaskill, Brian, and Jeanne Colleran. “Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe”. Contemporary Literature 33.3 (1992): 432–457. Web.

MacLeod, Lewis. “‘Do We of Necessity Become Puppets in a Story?’ Or, narrating the World: On Speech, Silence, and Discourse in J.M. Coetzee’s Foe.” Modern Fiction Studies 52.1 (2006): 1,18,259. ProQuest. Web.

Miller, J.H. “Reading Doing Reading.” The Ethics of Reading. New York: Columbia University Press, 1987. 1-11. Print.

Renza, Louis A. “The Veto of the Imagination: A Theory of Autobiography.” New Literary History 9.1 (1977): 1-26. JSTOR. Web.

[janeeyreheresy]

It just occurred to me, with regards to Bertha's knife, the one she stabbed Richard with. I always presumed she took it from the kitchen, during one of her nightly escapades out of the attic. It seems the most logical place, as that's where you usually find knives. So--why was it not discovered that a knife was missing? Did the cook not notice? How many knives do they have in the Thornfield kitchen??

It's possible Mary, the cook, could have thought another servant took it for whatever purpose they needed, but if it wasn't returned for some time, did she not get suspicious? (Unless Bertha got it only a short time before she attacked Richard.) The servants knew there was a "lunatic" under Rochester's roof and they knew the "lunatic" occasionally slips out of the attic. They should have been more cautious. Or, Rochester should have trained them better, I should say. I don't want to place any blame on the servants. I like to think of Mrs Fairfax as a good housekeeper.

Bertha could have taken the knife from another room, but I can't think of another place she would have got it from. It's not mentioned if Thornfield has a weapons room or anything like that--and if there was one, then it should have been doubly locked, under the circumstances... Kitchen is the most obvious place to go when you need a knife. And it would be empty at night.

The "I suppose she has no knife now" and "One never knows what she has, she's so cunning, yadda yadda" after the aborted wedding is just... callous, like they're being so carefree about a person the author constantly tries to portray as dangerous. I very much defend Grace on this blog, I wrote a fanfic of which half is from her POV, in first person, but I admit I struggle with that line of hers. I put it down to her being overly dramatic or trolling, though it's a lazy way out. Anyway, Grace is only an employee. If she can be so casual about her charge picking weapons left, right and centre, and yet her boss still keeps her and pays her generous wages, then that's says something about the boss.

All of this is just another proof that Bertha was not mad. Because if she was, and if she was truly that dangerous, there would have been better safeguarding at Thornfield. Or else it's just incompetence, in which case, fuck you, Edward, for putting your staff in such danger!

[falling-through-lost-spaces]

Books Owned But Unread

Fiction:

Joe Hill - The Fireman

Patricia Highsmith - The Talented Mr Ripley

Emma Cline - Girls

Kirsty Logan - The Gracekeepers

Seth Patrick - Lost Souls

Slyvain Neuval - Waking Gods

Mark Z. Danielewski - The Familiar Vol 1

Graeme Macrae Burnet - His Bloody Project

Austin Wright - Tony & Susan

Patricia Highsmith - Carol

Darcie Wilder - Literally Show Me A Healthy Person

Tracy Chevalier - New Boy

Andy Weir - Artemis

Michelle Paver - Dark Matter

Robert Daws - The Posisoned Rock

Laura Lam - False Hearts

Italo Calvino - If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler

Megan Bradbury - Everyone Is Watching

Sunil Yapa - Your Heart Is A Muscle the Size of A Fist

George R.R. Martin - A Clash of Kings

Sarah Moss - The Tidal Zone

Matthew Blakstad - Lucky Ghost

Toni Morrison - Tar Baby

Jeff Vandermeer - Annihilation

Colson Whitehead - Zone One

Kathy Reichs - Death Du Jour

Ann Cleeves - The Crow Trap

Ward Moore - Bring the Jubilee

Lisa McInerney - The Glorious Heresies

Chuck Palahniuk - Haunted

Michael Crichton - State of Fear

Neil Gaiman - How the Marguis Got His Coat Back

Agatha Christie - The Double Clue

James Patterson - NYPD Red 2

Maud Pember Reeves - Round About A Pound A Week

Paul Torday - Salmon Fishing In the Yemen

Jonathan Safran Foer - Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close

Daniel H Wilson - Robopocalypse

Yann Martel - Life of Pi

David Wong - John Dies At the End

Lauren Weisberger - The Devil Wears Prada

James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist As A Young Man

John Ajvide Lindquist - Let the Right One In

Gregory Maguire - Wicked

Richard Yates - Revolutionary Road

Paul Beatty - The Sellout

Jane Shemilt - Daughter

Jane Isaac - The Truth Will Out

Karin Slaughter - Genesis

S.K. Tremayne - The Fire Child

Isaac Marion - The Burning World

Adrien Bosc - Constellation

Laura Power - Air-Born

Laura Power - Earth-Bound

Keith DeCandido - House of Cards

Wayne Simmons - Flu

Harper Lee - Go Set A Watchman

Dean Koontz - The City

Charlotte Bronte - Jane Eyre

Ali Smith - The Accidental

John Burnside - Glister

Lauren Owen - The Quick

Tom McCarthy - Satin Island

Dave Eggers - The Circle

Donna Tartt - The Secret History

Robert Harris - The Ghost

Michel Faber - The Fire Gospel

Michel Faber - The Book of Strange New Things

James Patterson - Pop Goes the Weasel

Jeff Lindsay - Dexter’s Final Cut

Gaston Leroux - The Phantom of the Opera

Banana Yoshimoto - Kitchen

Sinclair Lewis - It Can’t Happen Here

Kurt Vonnegut - Cat’s Cradle

Joseph Heller - Catch 22

Mark Twain - The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

Bram Stoker - Dracula

Cory Doctorow - Makers

YA/Children's Fiction:

A.S. King - Still Life With Tornado

Patrick Ness - More Than This

Andrew Smith - Stand Off

Andrew Smith - The Alex Crow

Johan Harstad - 172 Hours on the Moon

Ernest Cline - Ready Player One

Tommy Wallach - We All Looked Up

Karen Thompson Walker - The Age of Miracles

Tess Sharpe - Far From You

Leila Sales - This Song Will Save Your Life

Darragh McManus - Shiver the Whole Night Through

Rachel Cohn & David Levithan - Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist

Laura Lam - Pantomime

Laura Lam - Shadowplay

Cassandra Clare - The Bane Chronicles

Cassandra Clare - Tales From the Shadowhunter Academy

Cassandra Clare - The Shadowhunters Codex

Cassandra Clare - Lady Midnight

Cassandra Clare - Lord of Shadows

Andrew Smith - 100 Sideways Miles

Karen Nesbitt - Subject To Change

Anna Day - The Fandom

Brendan Reichs - Nemesis

Chinelo Okparanta - Under the Udala Trees

Nina LaCour - We Are Okay

Sarah Alexander - The Art of Not Breathing

Liz Kessler - Read Me Like A Book

Lisa Williamson - The Art of Being Normal

Laurie Halse Anderson - Wintergirls

Marie Lu - Legend

Eve Ainsworth - 7 Days

Lesley Walton - The Strange & Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender

Malinda Lo - Ash

Larry Duplechan - Blackbird

Makina Lucier - A Death Struck Year

James Patterson - Witch & Wizard

Jandy Nelson - I’ll Give You the Sun

Nick Burd - The Vast Fields of Ordinary

Libba Bray - Beauty Queens

Jack Cheng - See You In the Cosmos

Jennifer Niven - Holding Up the Universe

Becky Albertalli - The Upside of Unrequieted

Lauren Oliver - Replica

Ken Catran - Deepwater Black

Will McIntosh - Burning Midnight

Tahereh Mafi - Shatter Me

Libba Bray - The Diviners

Emily M Danforth - The Miseducation of Cameron Post

Carolyn Jess-Cooke - The Boy Who Could See Demons

Bali Rai - Killing Honour

Gayle Forman - If I Stay

Andre Aciman - Call Me By Your Name

E. Lockhart - We Were Liars

Katie Coyle - Vivian Versus the Apocalypse

Leah Thomas - Because You’ll Never Meet Me

David Arnold - Mosquitoland

Laure Eve - The Graces

Lisa Heathfield - Paper Butterflies

Ransom Riggs - Hollow City

Em Bailey - Shift

Francesca Haig - The Map of Bones

Rainbow Rowell - Carry On

Bryony Pearce - Phoenix Rising

Lou Morgan - Sleepless

Graham Marks - Bad Bones

Jess Vallence - Birdy

Teri Terry - Slated

Non-Fiction:

Brian Cox - Human Universe

D’Arcy Jenish - The NHL: A Centennial History

Greg Oliver - Don’t Call Me Goon

Andrew Hodges - Alan Turing: The Enigma

Susan Cain - Quiet: The Power of Introverts

Carl Sagan - Cosmos

Rebecca Skloot - The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Brian Cox - E = mc“?

Stacey Schiff - The Witches

Julian Sayarer - Interstate

404 Ink - Nasty Women

Lynn Povich - The Good Girls Revolt

Michael Finkel - The Stranger In the Woods

Kent Russell - I Am Sorry To Think That I Have Raised A Timid Son

Luke Harding - Snowden

Mary Roach - Stiff

Yuval Noah Harari - Homo Deus

Bill Bryson - The Lost Continent

Naomi Klein - No Is Not Enough

Dave Cullen - Columbine

Ian Nathan - Inside the Magic: The Making of Fantastic Beasts

Bob McCabe - Harry Potter Page To Screen

Adharanand Finn - Running With the Kenyans

Aurellien Ferenczi - Masters of Cinema: Tim Burton

Steven Levitt & Stephen Dubner - Think Like A Freak

Olivia Lang - The Lonely City

Michelle Tea - The Chelsea Whistle

Simon  Singh - Big Bang

Tristan Taormino - The Feminist Porn Book

Kurt Vonnegut - A Man Without A Country

Nick Frost - Truths, Half Truths & Little White Lies

Russell Brand - Revolution

Robert M Pirsig - Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

Francis Spufford - The Child That Books Built

Dominic Hibberd - Wilfred Owen

George Vecsey - Baseball

Richard Wiseman - Paranormality

Neil Gaiman - Adventures In the Dream Trade

Nicola Field - Over the Rainbow

Jaclyn Friedman & Jessica Valenti - Yes Means Yes

Elizabeth Kolbert - The Sixth Extinction

Eddie Izzard - Dress To Kill

Stephen Smith - Underground London

Plays/Poetry/Short Story Collections:

Tom Hanks - Uncommon Type

Joe Hill - Strange Weather

Dean Atta - I Am Nobody’s N*****

Amerlle - Because You Love To Hate Me

Roxanne Gay - Difficult Women

Mark Gatiss - Queers: Eight Monologues

Graphic Novels/Manga:

Tsugumi Ohba - Death Note Vol 6

Tsugumi Ohba - Death Note Vol 7

Tsugumi Ohba - Death Note Vol 8

[mzannthropy]

Excerpts from L.M. Montgomery's journals that mention Charlotte Bronte.

LMM visited Haworth on her honeymoon (a rare pleasure she got out of that marriage), though she couldn't go inside the Parsonage. However, I have to disagree with her here: "we went to Leeds and next morning motored twenty miles through a very ugly country to Haworth". Don't listen to her, Yorkshire moors are breathtaking! I know bc I've been there too and I have pics to prove! (I mean I've not gone the way from Leeds to Haworth bc I live in Manchester, so that's where I travelled from, but I doubt it's much different; even going on a train from Manchester to Leeds is a pleasant ride). I suppose the moors are an unusual type of a landscape. Also it depends on your own definition of beauty.

Anyway, what I like about these excerpts is that while LMM obviously admired Charlotte a lot, she had no issue with roasting her, and I'm so here for it!

It is customary to regret Charlotte Bronte’s death as premature. I doubt it. I doubt if she would have added to her literary fame had she lived. Resplendent as her genius was it had a narrow range and I think she had reached its limit. She could not have gone on forever writing Jane Eyres and Villettes and there was nothing in her life and experience to fit her for writing anything else.

Ha!

But then this:

There was a marked masochistic strain in Charlotte Bronte—revealing itself mentally not physically. This accounts for “Rochester.” He was exactly the tyrant a woman with such a strain in her would have loved, delighting in the pain he inflicted on her. 

Speaking the truth. LMM had no time for "brooding" heroes. (And yeah, there's Dean Priest, but he's a different case and he was not Emily's true love.)

I have been asking myself “If I had known Charlotte Bronte in life how would we have reacted upon each other? Would I have liked her? Would she have liked me?” I answer “no.” She was absolutely without a sense of humor. I could never find a kindred spirit in a woman without a sense of humor. And for the same reason she would not have approved of me at all. All the same, had she been compelled to live with me for awhile I could have done her whole heaps of good. A few jokes would have leavened the gloom and tragedy of that Haworth parsonage amazingly. Charlotte would have been thirty per cent better for it. But she would have written most scathing things about me to Miss Nussey and Mrs. Gaskell.

I think she gets it.

And this:

People have spoken of Charlotte Bronte’s “creative genius.” Charlotte Bronte had no creative genius.

I love this bc that's totally something I would say. People will be like: "thing/person is sooo amazing" and I'd say, "thing/person is not amazing".

Her genius was one of amazing ability to describe and interpret the people and surroundings she knew. All the people in her books who impress us with such a wonderful sense of reality were drawn from life. She herself is “Jane Eyre” and “Lucy Snowe.” Emily was “Shirley.” “Rochester,” whom she did “create” was unnatural and unreal. “Blanche Ingram” was unreal. “St. John” was unreal. Most of her men are unreal. She knew nothing of men except her father and brother and the Belgian professor of her intense and unhappy love. “Emmanuel” was drawn from him and therefore is one of the few men, if not the only man, in her books who is “real”.

Talk about "burn".

I have argued on my Jane Eyre Heresy sideblog that Rochester, too, is based on Professor Heger. Nothing stopping Charlotte from putting the same dude into more than one book. I actually think Rochester is very real. The way he talks about Bertha is quite typical of douchebags like him talking about their wives/ex-wives/soon-to-be ex-wives/ex-girlfriends. "She a mad bitch" is, like, the most common phrase uttered by men over the course of human history. There is nothing special about Rochester.

Emily Bronte also gets a mention, but Anne does not. I wonder what LMM thought of Anne Bronte, if she had ever read her. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall's romantic hero is named Gilbert!

[vermontparnasse]

Some harder (maybe?) ones! Top 5 books I need to read ASAP, I'd love to know your Top 5 Irish things (plays, books, etc.), and Top 5 meals you would love to eat again.

AHHHH

books you need to read ASAP (i am targeting this specifically at chelsea, fyi, but also everyone should read these)

1. rebecca by daphne du maurier2. east of eden by john steinbeck3. jane eyre by charlotte bronte4. of human bondage by w. somerset maugham5. never let me go by kazuo ishiguro

irish things (i hate this i’m so mad that i came up with this) 

1. colin2. the heart’s invisible furies by john boyne3. the glorious heresies by lisa mcinerney4. all we shall know by donal ryan5. the hit 1992 film the crying game

meals i’d like to eat again

1. noodle pudding gnocchi2. this veggie wrap thing from my favorite caribbean fusion restaurant in new orleans3. pizza margarita from gusta pizza in firenze4 - 5. other pasta from bologna that will only end up depressing me if i describe it in detail

[ao3feed-sansan]

Inextricably

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2isNszg

by bravelikealady

The war is all but done and a Dragon Queen sits the Iron Throne. Sharing a home with Jon Snow- or Targaryen- has made Sansa privy to a myriad of loose ends in the kingdom of Westeros and she finds herself temporarily (Jon promises her) on the counsel of the Queen Daenerys. As crimes are brought forward serious charges are brought forth against one Sandor Clegane... crimes she knows he would never have committed. Sansa Stark takes her courtesy and the Queen's good graces and sets off to find him. Only to clear his name.

Loose inspiration from the conclusion of Jane Eyre

Words: 2352, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: F/M

Characters: Sansa Stark, Sandor Clegane, Gregor Clegane, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, House Stark - Character, most only mentions at this point

Relationships: Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark

Additional Tags: Implied Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark, Eventual Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark, Clegane's Keep, The Seven, dog angst, Light heresy, garden mourning, general house stark melancholy

read it on the AO3 at http://ift.tt/2isNszg