I finished reading Jane Eyre last night. I can't quite remember exactly what prompted me to read it again — for it was the third time I've read it in my life, having read it once at school, once at university and a third time now — but I'm glad I did read it. I suspect it was most likely on my mind after playing, writing about and making a video about the rather fabulous adventure game, The Excavation of Hob's Barrow, which is very much steeped in the ideas of "the female Gothic" and particularly that style of literature's distinctive breed of heroine.
But I feel like it was also a bit of a challenge to myself; in recent years, all I've really read in book terms are modern English novels and serialised (translated) light novels that originated in Japan — not that there's anything wrong with either of those, but they're not exactly one might call a challenging read for the most part. And that's fine; sometimes you don't want to have to work to enjoy something.
Going back and reading literature from the past, though, is always interesting. I found with this most recent re-read of Jane Eyre that, as I expected, it took a while to get back into the swing of 19th century English. This is a particularly interesting time for the language when there is a lot that is perfectly recognisable and parsable to a modern audience — we had reached a point where most words were spelled as they are today, for example — but there are a lot of more subtle things, like structural elements, turns of phrase and the way sentences are constructed, which can be challenging to dive headlong into. Take a look at this, for example, which is technically all one sentence:
He was, in short, in his afterdinner mood; more expanded and genial, and also more self-indulgent than the frigid and rigid temper of the morning: still, he looked preciously grim, cushioning his massive head against the swelling back of his chair, and receiving the light of the fire on his granitehewn features, and in his great, dark eyes—for he had great, dark eyes, and very fine eyes, too; not without a certain change in their depths sometimes, which, if it was not softness, reminded you, at least, of that feeling.
(Jane Eyre, Chapter XIV)
I'm willing to bet that, unless you make a habit of reading 19th century literature on the regular, it probably took you a scan or two to read and fully parse that single sentence. There's nothing there that is particularly difficult in and of itself — there are no complex, archaic words to decipher, no random untranslated French phrases (which do occur elsewhere in the book) and not even any particularly complicated concepts to understand — but the sheer number of subordinate clauses, semicolons, colons, dashes and suchlike means that the sentence, as a whole, goes several "layers" deeper into nested punctuation marks than a 21st century copy editor would be altogether comfortable with.
And so it was for me when I started re-reading Jane Eyre. I remember having this struggle when first I beheld it for (I think) A-level English Literature, and being actually quite relieved when it came up early in my university studies, as it was still fairly fresh in my mind, meaning I wouldn't have to go through the whole "calibration" process again. But it had been long enough since those university studies and today that this time around, I did have to recalibrate my mind somewhat — and I wasn't sure I'd be able to do it at first.
But, to my surprise (and delight) it happened a lot quicker than I thought it would. The thing with pre-20th century literature (heck, anything from before the mid-20th century, even) is that you kind of have to bang your head against it repeatedly until it yields enough to let you in. And when it does — because it will, eventually, given sufficient perseverance — you will be rewarded. Because as complicated as that sentence quoted above is, it's also terribly evocative. If you're the sort of person who can derive mental pictures from the words you read — and I'm aware not everyone can do that — then you probably got a pretty strong one from the above description of Mr. Edward Fairfax Rochester.
The thing that makes Jane Eyre particularly enjoyable to me is its first-person narration. You're not just listening to a disinterested narrator explaining what has happened; you are, instead, listening to a participant of the story recount and reflect on the things that happened to them. I've always been rather drawn to first-person narratives — many of my own prior creative works are written in first-person — and I suspect that Jane Eyre was one of several influences on me in that regard. For me, a first-person narrative style really allows you to get to know the protagonist of the work; it's why I resonate so well with Japanese visual novels and light novels today, I think, which are also typically written from the first-person. It gives you the sense of separation that you are not the star of the story — this is a contrast between visual novels and traditional adventure games, for example, as the latter use second-person narration — but also allows you a particularly intimate relationship with the protagonist; one that even the protagonist's closest confidantes in the narrative itself don't enjoy, in many cases.
For example, consider the relationship between Jane and Rochester in Jane Eyre. Many of their interactions between one another take the form of verbal sparring, with Jane's sharp wit matched by Rochester's sarcasm; both spend a significant portion of the novel trying to get the full measure of the other, with each concealing their true feelings for reasons that are their own. If this were presented from a disinterested outsider's perspective, we might not get the same understanding of the situation, as to someone who doesn't know at least part of what is going on, their interactions might look like genuine snippiness with one another.
In the case of us, the audience, we only get to learn the absolute truth of Jane's take on the situation, which is that part of her wants to keep Rochester at arm's length because she senses a certain degree of danger from him (which, it turns out, is not entirely unjustified) but also because she detects he enjoys their repartee. We later, of course, learn from Rochester himself that he has been playing his own little game with Jane — with certain members of high society forming his playing pieces — but without Jane's suspicions about the situation or Rochester's eventual admission, it would have been very easy to misinterpret everything.
It's interesting to contemplate the book's viewpoints on certain matters, given how society has changed since the time it was written. Jane Eyre is often cited as one of the first great feminist works, for example, and it's not hard to see why. Jane herself is a powerful figure who is, for the most part, in control of her own destiny; she learns and grows stronger from hardships and adversity, and it's only at one point in the narrative — where she flees Thornfield Hall after learning of Rochester's mad wife in the attic, then accidentally leaves her meagre worldly possessions in a coach before getting stranded on the Moors in the middle of nowhere — that we ever see her display what one might call "weakness". Even during that time, however, she's shown to have a good head on her shoulders, and makes some wise decisions that ultimately pay off, despite the indignity of collapsing on a stranger's doorstep.
The book is surprisingly scathing about religion — a fact which caused some critics to baulk at it on its original release — but it makes a solid argument. The figure of St. John Rivers, a character from the latter part of the narrative, presents an interesting challenge for Jane; up until now, she has attempted to live her life in a good, Christian sort of way, but St. John shows that one can perhaps take things in that regard a little too far — particularly once he starts proposing a loveless marriage to Jane (who, we have learned by this point, is actually his cousin) on the grounds that she would "make a good missionary's wife". Jane is having none of that shit, of course, and tells him so; even so, the fact that she does start to wonder if she might be coming around to his way of thinking by one point presents a surprisingly potent exploration of how abusive relationships work, because this crack in her resolve is the result of St. John's unrelenting dickishness towards her after her initial rejection of him. St. John is a cunt and I'm glad he died alone in India. There, I said it.
Anyway, yeah. Jane Eyre was a good read. This is, of course, something of an understatement given what a classic work of literature it is considered to be — and how it ranks highly in various "greatest books of all time" polls — but I think it's easy to forget that pre-20th century literature can just be "enjoyable" as well as "great" and "important".
I certainly enjoyed re-reading Jane Eyre. Now I have to determine whether to continue riding this wave of enthusiasm for classic literature, given that my brain has been successfully recalibrated for 19th century prose, or if I should read something for a bit of light relief. I haven't quite decided yet, but I will definitely be making more time for reading.
Want to read my thoughts on various video games, visual novels and other popular culture things? Stop by MoeGamer.net, my site for all things fun where I am generally a lot more cheerful. And if you fancy watching some vids on classic games, drop by my YouTube channel.
If you want this nonsense in your inbox every day, please feel free to subscribe via email. Your email address won't be used for anything else.
