Jane Eyre

Being sick has its benefits; well only one, reading a good book or 3!  What makes a good book anyway?  Sometimes a classic that sets the foundations to be copied, sometimes a true life experience, and sometimes overcoming challenges and making this world a better place.  This weekend I read all three types of books.  But for this entry I’ll focus on the classic, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.  The book is broken into five parts – Jane growing up with her rotten to the core aunt (can you say a precursor to Cinderella?).  Her aunt sees Jane as competition to her children and eventually needs to go away to a boarding school to get away from the abusive situation.  Jane goes to the Lowood School (where she again finds pretty horrid social conditions and actually physical conditions as well as her friend Helen dies of consumption due to the lack of heat in the facility). In the next phase of her life she goes to Thornfiled to become a governess (after a few years of moving to the teaching rank at Lowood).  I believe Jane Eyre’s next three sections serve as the true beginnings of the “romantic novel” of today  (you see it time and again, “The Sound of Music,” almost all of the Disney romance cartoons, and certainly the cheap $5.99 trashy romance novels on the market.).  Jane is employed at the home of Mr. Rochester (who is on the road often) and ready to marry a rich woman when he realizes his love for Jane, proposes, and then all heck breaks lose.  I won’t go into the detail as it is a series of “no way this is going to work out.”   I bet you guess what happens in the end?  You’ll need to read this one.  So much better than the other classics, I just couldn’t get into like Pride and Prejudice, etc.  This one is really a precursor to the love stories of Nicholas Sparks.  Nice ending, Charlotte!  Read it if you haven’t had to for AP English.