Two of her presents were Brontë-related - a book and a DVD about them.
Dark QuartetLynne Reid Banks
I am sure all my readers know who the Brontë sisters were; they are still considered to be among the most famous writers in the English language. In spite of that, can you believe I have so far never read anything written BY one of the Brontë sisters, only ABOUT them? Many years ago, a biography (non-fiction) that had me interested in them mainly because they lived in Yorkshire, and a handful of articles in various papers.
This book is a biographical novel, but it appears so well researched that it could pass for non-fiction. The author states that she has spent the better part of three years working on it, and whenever it comes to dialogue, she has tried to use the protagonists' own words, as handed down to us through numerous letters, diary entries and the like.
The Brontë siblings had rather short and tragic lives.
Of the five girls and one boy, only one of them (Charlotte) ever got married, and none of them lived long enough to see their 40th birthday. Two died as children (Maria and Elizabeth, at age 11 and 10 respectively). The other three sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, lived into adulthood and achieved literary fame, originally publishing under male pen names, as back then it was not considered appropriate for women to write as they did.
Their brother, Branwell, could have done well for himself, as he was not a bad painter and a gifted writer, but he was addicted to opium (laudanum) and alcohol and wasted any chance at a decent life he had, dying at 31.
The siblings' father outlived them all - how sad his life must have been, carrying first his wife to her early grave and then six children, one after the other, following.
And yet there were brief interludes of happines and hope for them all, and even in their darkest times, they kept their creative talents going - almost (?) to the point of madness, living more in their fantasy worlds than in - often unbearable - reality.
I enjoyed this book very much, even though I already knew the outcome. It ends with the death of the next-to-last sister, leaving Charlotte the only surviving sibling. A second book by the same author is dedicated to her remaining years, during which she seemed to make up for everything the first 30+ years of her life were not. It is likely that I am going to look for the sequel eventually.
To Walk InvisibleTV drama by Sally Wainwright
The second part of the Brontë-themed birthday presents from my sister, I watched it the same evening I had finished reading the book.
It is a touching and very well made film, but I can not recommend it to anyone who has no previous knowledge of the Brontë family. Quite a few bits in the film are not explained and can not be undrestood if you don't know the background, such as the flashbacks when the siblings are children.
What impressed me was learning about how their family home, the parsonage in Haworth, was completely rebuilt - not as an open stage, but as a proper house with all the walls, roof etc., so that filming would really be done inside small rooms, making it all appear as limited, isolated and closed-in as the young women often felt.
Costumes, cast, lighting, music, accents - it is very well done, and although of course due to the limited time a lot had to be left out, it tells the story as we know it to be true.
Sad lives indeed but they were by no means unique. Before we had antibiotics so many families lost loved ones - particularly to TB - the scourge of those generations.
ReplyDeleteI know, Pat; mortality rate in children was very high back then, and once a girl made it to adult age, childbirth became a big risk, too, as was the ever-present TB alomg with cholera and other illnesses.
DeleteI've read a non-fiction about the Brontes but I plan to get this now that I know about it. I was very surprised by the name of the author. Lynn Reid Banks was quite famous for her Indian in the Cupboard books which my son love when he was growing up. Looking on amazon I see she has written a lot of other books which look quite interesting.
ReplyDeleteI had not come across this author before. Pleased to know you plan on reading the book!
DeleteI have read the most famous novels by all three sisters more than once (I think both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights were also included in my English literature classes at University), and have also seen TV/film versions both of the novels and about the Brontë family. Not the titles that you review here, though.
ReplyDeleteI think this DVD was my first viewing of any material about the family; as for their works' adaptations for TV/film, I am not sure but I believe I have seen something of it; many years ago, so I do not remember it clearly.
DeleteYes, we English Grammar School gals were made to read the Bronte books back in the sixties - though I doubt they are nowadays!!!
ReplyDeleteThe DVD sounds interesting - I may try to locate a copy or see if I can stream it.
As you know Yorkshire well Meike I'm sure the scenery was familiar.
I've not yet been to Haworth, but the scenery as such with the moors and the typical features such as drystone walls and the buildings are familiar, yes. I wonder what you as a teenager in the sixties thought of the Bronte books; it's sometimes difficult to like or enjoy reading material one HAS to read for school, isn't it?
DeleteTo Walk Invisible was beautifully filmed and brilliantly cast. It caught the magic of time and place perfectly. Watch the Extras on the DVD. The parsonage at Haworth was at the heart of the drama as were the North Yorkshire moors. If you walk the moors you have the sense of being in a high place with wide-open skies. The film ends with the three sisters standing on a grassy crag, watching a celestial object in the sky that could almost be a UFO. Lynne Reid Banks, author of The Dark Quartet, wrote a brilliant first novel, The L-Shaped Room, made into a classic movie with Lesley Caron and Tom Bell, again available on DVD. Lynne Reid Banks lived for some time in Israel, being married to an Israeli sculptor. Read her obituary: The Guardian online.
ReplyDeleteJohn Haggerty
Hello John! Thank you for commenting, and welcome to my blog.
DeleteI have watched all the extras on the DVD - otherwise, how would I have known about the rebuilding of the parsonage for the film?
And of course, having watched the DVD, I have also seen the last scene; the celestial object the three sisters are looking at did not remind me of a UFO, but rather like three suns, which is what they also say when they see it, and their friend Mary says "it is you three".
I've not heard of The L-Shaped Room and will have a look at what it is about.
You are correct. It looks like three suns, and wonderfully symbolic when you think of the three sisters, and how their genius only shone for a brief time. Did you ever read *Villete*? It was the only novel Somerset Maugham selected from his study when he left his home in the Riviera, following the German invasion of France.
Delete*The L-Shaped Room* is about a woman on her own in London, pregnant, finding unexpected happiness in a house of solitary people in bedsits. It was filmed by Bryan Forbes, one of the undervalued British directors. (One of his other movies is *The Whisperers* about a very old woman living on her own.) Lynne Reid Banks wrote two other novels about the young woman in the London bedsit, all compelling, one of them with scenes in Israel.
John Haggerty
Strange but true - I have so far never read anything written BY one of the Brontë sisters, only ABOUT them; therefore, I have never read "Villette". Maybe my current "Bronte phase" will lead to me eventually reading some of their own works!
DeleteI have looked up "The L-Shaped Room", it has its own entry on wikipedia. It does not particularly appeal to me, but my reading material depends of course very much on my mood, how much time I have and what is readily available; so, thanks for the tip.
I envy you, with *Wuthering Heights* and *Jane Eyre* still to read. They belong to what I, a Scot, think of as deep England. You say that your book choice depends on your mood, OK, but never be the slave of your moods. Read the second volume of Brian Boyd's biography of Nabokov. He taught his American girl students to read the great books without being swayed by mood, and without caring whether they could identify or not with the characters in the story. How could I identify with Emma Bovary? But she is still a character who will live forever. On the other hand I can identify with Pip in *Great Expectations* though I would enjoy the novel just as much even if I did not.
DeleteIf you want to be a passionate and attentive reader, get a copy of Nabokov's *Lectures on Literature* (with an introduction by John Updike) then get his essays on Russian writers, his own native language. You will be glad to have him as mentor. Nabokov will make you laugh and think.
John Haggerty
Thanks for the tip! Anyone who will make me laugh and think is welcome.
DeleteI am by no means a slave of my moods, they just influence my choice of reading material just like most people's moods influence the music they listen to, what they watch on TV, what they eat or wear.
My reading is also often on recommendation, or because I received a book as a gift; when it is my own choice, it is usually not something because it is at the top of a bestselling list; when that happens (as with Michelle Obama's "Becoming" or many years ago with the Harry Potter books), it is coincidence.
And what defines a great book? Do other people define that for me, or can I apply my own discernment to it?
Thank you for this very interesting discussion!
The danger is when bad critics influence our reading. The Wikipedia description of *The L-Shaped Room* is nothing like the life-affirming novel I read at the age of 17 in 1968. Nabokov shows us why a novel is great (or just good) and creates a benchmark against which the novels we discover for ourselves can be judged and enjoyed.
DeleteA.S. Byatt is another very perceptive reader (look up interviews with her online) and she has written an introduction to a new translation of Thomas Mann's *The Magic Mountain* published in England by Everyman's Library. I don't know if Antonia Byatt has any German, but she describes Mann's masterwork as *a new way of seeing*. Another remarkable reader is Susan Sontag; something she wrote about Paul Goodman and D.H. Lawrence sent me back to their work. Lawrence was championed by Frank Leavis, the Cambridge don who taught a generation how to read. Roland Barthes influenced me, though I never believed in his theory of the death of the author.
On a lighter note, I can recommend a non-fiction book by a Canadian who now lives in Germany and swims in your lakes. *Turning - Lessons from swimming Berlin's lakes* by Jessica J. Lee (published by Virago in 2017). The Guardian described it as a brilliant debut.
I never learned to swim and I am afraid of water, but I like being close to the sea and lakes. Joseph Conrad, a Pole who learned to write fluent English as you do, wrote one of the greatest of sea novels, *Lord Jim*, which Virginia Woolf (another reader of genius) kept returning to.
John Haggerty
Thomas Mann - I have mixed feelings there. He was no doubt a great writer, but in my opinion, he loved listening to his own voice a bit too much, what with his overly elaborate sentences which, as much as they show his skill at mastering the most complex grammatical structure, can also be a little annoying (I find myself thinking "get to the point, man").
DeleteYou are right, there is danger of being negatively influenced by bad critics. I try not to be influenced of reviews at all, but I find that some of the men and women whose blogs I read have similar reading taste to my own. When they review a book or a film, that sometimes inspires me to read the book or watch the film, and I have rarely regretted having followed their recommendation. Sometimes, though, I read a review and instantly know that the book or film is not for me.
Yes, I understand what you mean. Get to the point, man. Or even, *Get to the point, Herr Mann!* My father sold me on The Magic Mountain years before I read it. He said it was about this man Hans who went to visit a sick friend in a sanatorium on a mountain, and did not come back down for seven years! How could I NOT wish to know more? The late Henry James is demanding because he verbally dictated his *complex grammatical structures* to his secretary. The Golden Bowl and The Wings of the Dove baffle many readers, but The Europeans and The Portrait of a Lady (earlier works) are like a walk through the park ... or the Black Forest.
DeleteMax Beerbohm did a witty cartoon of the young Henry James confronting the elderly Henry James. Both of them are pointing the finger at each other and saying *Your prose is unreadable!*
John Haggerty
I have read three of Henry James' books so far, all of them reviewed on my blog. If you are interested:
DeleteEugene Pickering
The Marriages
The Spoils of Poynton
I read your amusing review of The Spoils of Poynton. I can imagine an Edwardian maidservant in London repeating your remark: *Mr. James does love his long-winding sentences, don't he?* I remember something from Leon Edel's elegant four volume biography. A maid said it always gave her a start to open the door and see Mr. James standing there. *His eyes look right through the back of your 'ead!* the girl said.
DeleteFor coded sentences read his cryptic (autobiographical?) ghost story, The Jolly Corner. Colm Toibin unwound the mystery of Henry James in his speculative novel, The Master.
There is a novel by Elizabeth Taylor (my favourite postwar English writer) and the central character names The Spoils of Poynton as her favourite work of fiction. You begin to grasp the enigma of James when you read his Journals; and all the dinners he enjoyed in those big London houses with all their secrets.
Jack Clayton directed a film based on The Turn of the Screw (re-titled The Innocents) with a stellar performance by Deborah Kerr. Henry's father broke away from high Calvinism, and the idea of this may be at the heart of this ghost story with its tragic ending.
John Haggerty
My apologies. Lynne Reid Banks born in 1929 is very much alive. The Guardian article on her is an interview. In 2013 she won the J.M. Barrie Award (Barrie wrote Peter Pan) for her contribution to children's literature. Lynne Reid Banks wrote *The Indian In The Cupboard* a much-loved children's novel.
ReplyDeleteJ Haggerty
J Haggerty
Hello again, John, and thank you for the additional information about Lynne Reid Banks. The title "The Indian in the Cupboard" sounds vaguely familiar, but I don't think I have read it, probably just seen it at the library when I was still working there.
DeleteI grew up reading the Bronte books and walking the moors. I first visited the parsonage well over half a century ago. It was then a dark, dour place, not lightened in any way by the view from the windows of the darkened tombstones in the graveyard! On my last visit I was surprised to see that the rooms had been prettied up, sprigged wallpaper and so forth. This has also happened at many National Trust properties, most sadly to the formerly magical wizard's den at Snowshill where tables suddenly acquired cloths and everything was tidied up, resulting in much magic being lost. Why do they do this?
ReplyDeleteJane Eyre - you will love it!
Have you ever been to Brodsworth Hall? There, the English Heritage people have left it largely as they found it when the last owner died - there is a degree of disorder and decay, as would naturally come when a formerly large household shrinks more and more, and a way of life disappears.
DeleteWhile I believe that the Bronte family did not live in utter poverty, their standard of living was not actually high, either; so maybe they had wallpaper in some of the rooms, and the parsonage was furnished, decorated and kept (with the help of servants) as a reasonably nice home. No central heating, of course, and the sanitary conditions were as dreadful as for everyone else, I guess.