Jane Eyre
by Eleanor, age 12
The book "Jane Eyre" is a very tragic novel. I did not like it very well; I much prefer Howl's Moving Castle. The book is about a girl named Jane who is brought up by a cruel Aunt, and scorned by her cousins. After getting sent to a bad school, where she survives a fever epidemic, Jane takes the job of governess at Thornfeild Hall where her employer preposes to her and they nearly get married. but Mr. Rodchester (her employer) turnes out to have a mad wife locked away in a tower. After that, Jane runs away and meets cousins she never knew she had. One of them, Singon Rivers, wants to take her to India to be a helper to him in his missionary work, only he want her to marry him first because he thinks that she will go off with someone else while they're being missionarys. Then Jane goes back to Thornfeild Hall, only to find that it is a burnt ruin because of Mr. Rodchester's mad wife, who is now dead because she threw herself from the roof of Thornfeild Hall after setting the house on fire. Mr. Rodchester himself is now blind, one eye out, the other suffered nerve damage. Jane and Mr. Rodchester get married, and by the time they have a baby boy, two years later, Mr. Rodcester's eye that suffered nerve damage got better enough to see pretty well. If you unfocus your eyes you will have an idea of what his vision is like.
The End
Bronte certainly has tighter plots and more intricate characterization, but there's no question that Diana Wynne Jones writes a rollicking tale.
ReplyDeleteAnd I see from the spelling that she knows how to pronounce St. John, too.
Love it! She hit the plot points pretty well. Themes come later. Maybe in another year.
ReplyDeleteI don't know why she said she didn't like it, because she did while we were reading it. My fault for luring her into reading Howl's Moving Castle, I suppose; I'd been trying to get her to read it for a long time, and finally I resorted to the expedient of reading a few chapters aloud during dinner and then saying, "Well, that's enough for me right now," and putting the book down by her. "Singon" made me laugh, but since she never saw it written out (though I did tell her once that it was spelled St. John) I guess I can't be surprised. We had a long discussion about how Mr. Rochester might have regained his sight when we read the last chapter, so I'm glad to see that people around here remember what I say.
ReplyDeleteWe watched the newest Jane Eyre yesterday (keeping the younger ones out of the room until Jane was out of Lowood), and Isabel said, 'I can see why you wanted us to read the book before we watched the movie. They left out a lot of things." So gratifying.
What was your opinion of "the newest Jane Eyre" (and what year was that, by the way).
ReplyDeleteThis is impressive for a 12-year-old! She certainly understood the plot.
ReplyDeleteAh, I saw that the new Jane is on netflix. Might have to go for a re-run.
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