Jane Eyre

I really enjoyed Jane Eyre. I think it's my favorite so far that I've read from my list, and perhaps one of my top five favorite books that I've ever read. It's so well written that it could easily have been published just last year, instead of 165 years ago. I loved Jane as a character and I agreed with pretty much every major decision she made throughout the story (except that at the first hint of something being locked in Rochester's attic, I would have investigated a little more than she did, or at least really bugged Rochester to tell me what exactly was up there. She infuriated me with how long she took to discover what it was. Was it a ghost? An animal? The servant Mrs. Poole?)

I didn't like Rochester at first, I will admit. I thought she could do a lot better and I initially thought it was because she was so innocent and not used to men that she felt herself in love with him. He was abrupt, rude and played mind games. Three things I can't stand in men. But as the story went on and St. John Rivers was introduced into the story, Rochester started looking a little better. Eventually, after a long period without him and with only the petulant, intimidating and God-fearing St. John to entertain the reader as a possible love interest, I started wondering when Rochester would come back into the story (because obviously, as Jane often pined for him, it was not over between them). The ending was surprising, but very good.

As I was reading Jane Eyre, I couldn't help but wonder why books aren't written like this anymore, with symbolism and well thought out plots, interesting dialogue and characters with depth. Like I said, this book was published 165 years ago and has never been out of print since. That's quite an accomplishment. I was also so in love with the portrayal of Jane: a strong-minded, morally conscious female in a time when women were not normally that way. She stood up for herself, she carried her own weight, she made hard decisions based on her own scruples where other women would have folded and settled. She's probably my favorite literary character in history.

Can you tell how much I liked this book?

What I did not like was the 2011 film adaptation of Jane Eyre. What a terrible movie. It skipped so much between ending, beginning, middle, ending, middle, beginning, etc. and left out important conversations and scenes, that would leave someone who had never read the book completely lost and confused. The movie moved along so fast through the events that there was no way to enjoy it. The director obviously never read the book, or if he had, he didn't get it. Awful film, really. Waste of money.

Since I finished that one pretty quickly, my next book hasn't arrived yet. As I mentioned in my previous post, I like the book to choose me. As I was nearing the last quarter of Jane Eyre, I started to wonder when it was going to pick me because I needed time to order it and have the library mail it to me. Wasting time on Facebook one day, a post from George Stroumboulopoulos came across my newsfeed with this video. A big fan of George, I always click on whatever he posts as it's usually an interesting little fact or spotlight on a person or news story I might have missed. And there it was, my next book choice: Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad. 

I really do love my way of deciding what title to read next. 

It's not here yet, so I get a little break to think about what I just read before I jump into something else. I'm looking forward to Heart of Darkness. I love imagery. I love descriptions and this book has that in abundance, I've been told. It's only a short read, so let's hope that another book will pick me soon.

I also have another movie to look forward to after reading this book. Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now was based on Conrad's book. Not really my kind of movie, but I'll give it a shot.  I'm a huge Doors fan, so if nothing else, I'll be rewarded for watching the film by hearing "The End". The reason I know this, having never seen the movie, is a friend of mine used to tell me all he thought about was Apocalypse Now whenever "The End" came on while we were in my car. All I would think about was Jim Morrison's hotness.