Jane Eyre

I liked this book. It was very exciting and dramatic; I would say without a doubt that more "happened" in this book than in Pride and Prejudice. I don't know that I liked it better, but definitely I liked it differently. I would like to read it again because I am sure that there are events and clues and foreshadowing that I missed. At least I hope there was because otherwise my opinion of the book might change.

I enjoyed the story in this book, and I liked Jane Eyre as a character. I don't know that I liked her as a "person"; if she was alive today I don't think we would be friends, but I think that is as much an indicator of my persona and values as it is hers. The story was very engaging and it was a book that once I got started reading, I didn't want to put it down.

I just have one minor complaint about the book; namely, it is from the same publishers as the edition of Pride and Prejudice, so the place names were blanked out; but, I also had a more significant problem with it. The edition that I had informs the reader that this novel was originally published as an autobiography of a girl named Jane Eyre. The editors are quite right to do so, as this is interesting information about publishing standards at the time it was written. Women had a difficult time publishing novels and were not accepted as authors, so this book was presented as a memoir of a girl, edited by a man named Currer Bell. However, I have a major problem with the fact that people actually BELIEVED that this was a true story. It is an excellent plot for a novel, but I would never believe that this actually happened to someone. Everything that happens is just a little too convenient, a little too kismet. I know the world was a smaller place back then, but so-and-so from the West Indies knows so-and-so from Spain who knows so-and-so from this place in England who is related to so-and-so from the West Indies and around and around and Jane just happens to show up at exactly the right places to meet the right people. Her actions in these situations are very believable, but the situations themselves are beyond the stretch of what would be reasonable in the real world. This took me out of the story quite a bit. Had I just thought that it was a novel I would think, "How interesting/convenient!" and read on, but knowing that people believed this to be true just made me roll my eyes at the plot contrivances. Also, many of them were completely unnecessary; it wouldn't have been a huge detriment to the story to have some of the relationships between the characters dropped, or to add some more characters. To avoid completely spoiling the story (but spoiling it a little bit anyway), I'll just say that not EVERYONE in a book needs to be related.

Now, I've complained quite a bit about this book, but I don't want to leave the impression that it is a terrible book. I really did enjoy reading it and I think that it is a great piece of literature and a wonderful love story. I would recommend it to others and I will definitely be reading it again.