A Reason to Read and Being a Misanthrope.

Having seen dear Natalie safely across the bridge leading into the college grounds, and being relieved that she is now free of the influence of the tyrant Tony (whose status as either real or imagined remains a matter of conjecture), I am now travelling back two hundred years to see whether I can gain insight into the mind of baby Brontë. In short, tonight I began reading Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (hereinafter referred to simply as Tenant should I have reason to do so.)

This is an issue with me, you see. When I read a novel, and certainly if it’s a celebrated one, I’m as much interested in what it suggests about the author’s nature as I am in the writing style, the evocation of a sense of place, and the overall plot. And Tenant is certainly celebrated, being considered a significant marker on the road to feminist enlightenment (which happens to matter to me.) It will also have been noted, no doubt, that I am somewhat fixated on the Brontë girls. (And you may draw inference, if you wish, from the fact that I use the term ‘girls’ rather than the more usual ‘sisters.’)

I gather that Charlotte once said that the character of Caroline Helstone in her own novel, Shirley, was modelled on Anne, so that gave me some clues. But now I want to hear what Anne has to say for herself to add more flesh to the bones of my existing impressions. Having tonight read the prologue and first chapter, I have to remark that it contained rather too much trivial domestic detail for my taste, and the writing style – while being impeccably constructed – was a little stilted and lacked any trace of lyricism. But it’s early days yet and maybe that will change. And if it doesn’t, the fact in itself will stand as one of the clues.

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Having reviewed this post, I’m reminded that sometimes I don’t like myself very much. I wonder why I seem condemned to observe people going about the business of prosecuting a life without ever really joining them in the process. (It sometimes seems a little arrogant, which I don’t really want to be.) And in so doing I find that I don’t like very many of them either. There have been, and still are, exceptions.