Book Review: Shirley
Nov. 16th, 2024 12:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerI finally finished Charlotte Bronte’s Shirley! There’s a good book in the middle of it, but unfortunately it’s surrounded on both sides by two significantly less good books, which makes getting started and getting to the end rather a slog.
Reading it right on the heels of Jane Eyre, I noticed a similarity in structure: you have the somewhat slower first section, the middle section where the book catches fire around a single central relationship, and then again a slower third section wherein that central relationship is torn asunder. However, although (IMO) the middle section is the best part of Jane Eyre, it’s highly readable all the way through (if only for “OMG St. John have you considered falling into the fire?” reasons in certain parts), whereas the beginning of Shirley in particular is so boring. So so so boring. I gave up the first time I tried to read this book because the beginning was so incredibly dull.
The story picks up when Caroline Helstone appears on the scene, but it doesn’t really catch fire till she meets her best friend Shirley Keeldar, and then we get a number of chapters of marvelous friendship. And then they simply never appear on the page together again.
There is no rupture to their friendship. It’s just that Bronte has abruptly remembered that she still hasn’t sent up Shirley’s endgame romance, so suddenly that takes over. We even learn secondhand near the end that Shirley and Caroline just had a sleepover where they exchanged heartfelt confidences… but we don’t get to see it! Maddening.
Shirley’s romance also feels oddly cut off at the end. She and her suitor get engaged, but after the initial rush of excitement, Shirley starts to behave like a caged bird. The chapter ends with an excerpt from her fiance’s diary, which concludes, “She breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive; darted, or melted, from my arms—and I lost her.”
Smash cut to the wedding. Well, okay, not directly to the wedding; first we smash cut to the fates of the three extremely boring curates we first met at the beginning of the book. Then Caroline’s beloved proposes to her. THEN smash cut to the double wedding. How did Shirley overcome her doubts about giving up her independence to marry? We’ll never know!
Shirley Keeldar is evidently based on Emily Bronte, which is FASCINATING to me, because the more recent interpretations of Emily that I’m familiar with tend to portray her as a cranky gremlin with no social skills. This is not Charlotte’s vision of her sister at all. Shirley, an Emily Bronte to whom Charlotte has gifted the health and wealth Emily lacked, is a vivacious, witty tomboy who charms everyone who knows her.
I’m planning to round out my Bronte project with some biographical reading about the Brontes, starting with Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Bronte and Daphne Du Maurier’s The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte, and then finishing up with least one more recent biography. (Any recs?) I’ll be curious to compare all the different versions of Emily.
First, however: onward to Villette!
Reading it right on the heels of Jane Eyre, I noticed a similarity in structure: you have the somewhat slower first section, the middle section where the book catches fire around a single central relationship, and then again a slower third section wherein that central relationship is torn asunder. However, although (IMO) the middle section is the best part of Jane Eyre, it’s highly readable all the way through (if only for “OMG St. John have you considered falling into the fire?” reasons in certain parts), whereas the beginning of Shirley in particular is so boring. So so so boring. I gave up the first time I tried to read this book because the beginning was so incredibly dull.
The story picks up when Caroline Helstone appears on the scene, but it doesn’t really catch fire till she meets her best friend Shirley Keeldar, and then we get a number of chapters of marvelous friendship. And then they simply never appear on the page together again.
There is no rupture to their friendship. It’s just that Bronte has abruptly remembered that she still hasn’t sent up Shirley’s endgame romance, so suddenly that takes over. We even learn secondhand near the end that Shirley and Caroline just had a sleepover where they exchanged heartfelt confidences… but we don’t get to see it! Maddening.
Shirley’s romance also feels oddly cut off at the end. She and her suitor get engaged, but after the initial rush of excitement, Shirley starts to behave like a caged bird. The chapter ends with an excerpt from her fiance’s diary, which concludes, “She breathed a murmur, inarticulate yet expressive; darted, or melted, from my arms—and I lost her.”
Smash cut to the wedding. Well, okay, not directly to the wedding; first we smash cut to the fates of the three extremely boring curates we first met at the beginning of the book. Then Caroline’s beloved proposes to her. THEN smash cut to the double wedding. How did Shirley overcome her doubts about giving up her independence to marry? We’ll never know!
Shirley Keeldar is evidently based on Emily Bronte, which is FASCINATING to me, because the more recent interpretations of Emily that I’m familiar with tend to portray her as a cranky gremlin with no social skills. This is not Charlotte’s vision of her sister at all. Shirley, an Emily Bronte to whom Charlotte has gifted the health and wealth Emily lacked, is a vivacious, witty tomboy who charms everyone who knows her.
I’m planning to round out my Bronte project with some biographical reading about the Brontes, starting with Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Bronte and Daphne Du Maurier’s The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte, and then finishing up with least one more recent biography. (Any recs?) I’ll be curious to compare all the different versions of Emily.
First, however: onward to Villette!
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