Category: 19th Century / Victorian

The Wonder by Emma Donoghue

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A Fast didn’t go fast; it was the slowest thing there was. Fast meant a door shut fast, firmly. A fastness, a fortress. To fast was to hold fast to emptiness, to say no and no and no again.

Inspired by Victorian fasting girls and the story of Welsh wren – Sarah Jacobs, the necessities of whether needing food to survive was a fascinating subject of its time, a dive-hard pseudoscience and some kind of phenomenon that was taken advantage of to achieve means in different kinds of professions: journalists either praised the girls – deeming them as practising a prodigious fast, debunked the myth, or unmasked fraud; doctors spent time on whims or unseen theories that could make their reputation; locals and priests tried to make their counties famous and beautified the acts; photographers composed images which entailed innocence or foreshadowed deaths.

Cheat me, hoodwink me, as long as you eat.

Eleven years after the end of Irish Potato Famine (1845-1852) sets as a backdrop of the story. The Irish fasting girl, Anna, whose family claimed her living without food for four months after her eleventh birthday, was kept under surveillance day and night at home by a Charity nun and a Nightingale nurse working on shifts. Hired, received order and to follow it meticulously was easy in the beginning – was there some calculated covert device the nurse was bent on exposing it. Vocation and vows, resignation and rectitude worked abreast simply for observation sake. She fumbled around the drawers, treasure chest, nooks and crannies searching for evidence that could prove the committee and others her abilities and be of something big in her future paths.

It was when the affection took hold that crumbled the nurse’s judgment of how she should be perceiving Anna. Calm, innocuous, loving, inquisitive, and intelligent, Anna had a mature feminine qualities which embedded the notion of Angel of the House. The devout faith in her religion and a sense of redemption were accomplices of the girl’s waning health as a result of the fasting; and two weeks of watch escalated and loosened her remaining time on the tarnished earth. The nurse induced herself to finally see the truth – the blindness, blighted side of the locals. Her strident and destructive acts in rage against the townsfolk in order to save the girl that we read in the latter half of the story was blasphemous towards the Holy pact between the priest and his people, defiant and disruptive to the considerable delicacy of the domestic sanctum of the Home – following her heart to perform the opposite of nursing in a “rapid, efficient work of chaos” was her proud sacrilege which somehow reminded her of Guy Fawkes’s gunpowder plot.

I like this novel and appreciate its culmination – I think Emma Donoghue did justice – especially as a modern writer of our century. It is as if she has found the mission of means to salvage the fasting girls from the eyes of seeing them as commodities of their day, and help them born again in a new world.

Frankenstein (1818) by Mary Shelley

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“[W]hen I discovered that he, the author at once of my existence and of its unspeakable torments, dared to hope for happiness, that while he accumulated wretchedness and despair upon me he sought his own enjoyment in feelings and passions from the indulgence of which I was for ever barred, then impotent envy and bitter indignation filled me with an insatiable thirst for vengeance. I recollected my threat and resolved that it should be accomplished. I knew that I was preparing for myself a deadly torture, but I was the slave, not the master, of an impulse which I detested yet could not disobey.”

Mary Shelley understands so much about human nature and relationships. Oftentimes individuals toil on their overwrought and arduous tasks night and day – this is all in their intentions that “Passion” and “Mission” are assimilated into one ultimate being. Accomplishment and adulation are the other names with which hard work is rewarded. It is with this spiritual essence, an amalgamation, which sometimes, if unnoticed, leads restless beings astray, malnourished and athirst, and drives them into delirium and detachment from reality. Think of religious fervour and the craze for artistry pursuits of her days – when in extremity, how precarious these little longings of acquisition become a source of destruction in both body and mind.

In this novel, Frankenstein has an inquisitiveness of acquiring scientific knowledge. His assiduity is able to hypothesise, theorise, and actualise something so peerless and mighty that defies all beliefs in his field. With this, he creates an identity that becomes a real-world catastrophe – something which is too monstrous and hideous to be a plausible being. This “demon” only has one course to live – to haunt and destroy his creator by avenging and killing his loved ones – an unstoppable action only when death claims one of the two lives. Repeatedly, alike his unceasing trials and errors, Frankenstein goes through despair, poignancy, and estrangement from his society as he witnesses the lifeless forms befallen in front of his eyes one by one.

In terms of human desire, I might think of a relationship of one fulfilling and one consenting. In nuptial lives, whether a femme covert would one day stand up disagreeing being a silent partner of the ideals and fight for her own rights, to be that femme fatale. This idea could be incorporated as an analogy into Shelley’s novel.

To be honest, Frankenstein, as a novel, is not one of my favourites in terms of its storylines. It is too poignant to behold that becomes at times an irritation. But I really admire the depth that comes along with it; and I certainly agree with others that I would find some new ideas if re-reading it.

(Spoilers) Lily: A Tale of Revenge by Rose Tremain

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“Lily prefers not to remember her first days and nights at the Foundling Hospital. She has always tried to consign them to oblivion, but they have always resisted. They are like a world that will not heal, like a snatch of melancholy music that will not fade, like a mathematical sum which never alters but is never solved.”

I read this book right away after finishing Lucky Button by Michael Morpurgo and was so overwhelmed and enshrouded by the deep well of darkness of Lily, a Tale of Revenge by Rose Tremain. This historical fiction is a far cry from the former cheerful and hopeful aura of the other book. I remembered watching about a half-an-hour interview of Michael Rosen on YouTube hosted by the London Foundling Museum. He says the picture he likes the most among the illustrations of the Book is the portrayal of Thomas Coram at the Gin Street (?) witnessing the anguish and destitution of homeless and neglected children. At a shocking and decisive moment Coram decided to do something about it that he raised the funds and founded the Hospital in 1741. On the other hand, regarding Lily, there goes a paragraph to describe the poignancy of children after they were admitted to the charitable institution:

…”Siren cry of wickedness and rage […] Coram also knew that many of those he took in at six years old had formed attachments to their foster-parents and that these partings caused them a virus of sorrow from which they might never recover. All he could do was suggest to those who had the day-to-day care of the children that severity be demonstrated towards this “illness”…” (p.59)

So as you see, Lily seems to be an antithesis of Lucky Button. Moreover, I have been to the Foundling Museum thrice; it is always one of my favourite museums in London. Being always reminded over and over again in the book that orphans and abandoned babies who were being ensconced at the Hospital have been living sins since their births takes out some of the positivity I have regarding this book. While I started perusing the chapter named “No Entry to Children” (halfway of the book), I doubted whether I could keep on reading it because everything about this story is too brutal and unsympathetic. This book honestly really got on my nerves after a full-day’s work.

“…How fine a thing it was that the world kept changing and that nothing lasts beyond some finite and allotted season.” (p. 184)

However, excuse my subjectivity about the history and mission of the Foundling Hospital, there are many sides which I like about this book. The scariest thing at the Foundling Hospital for the children in this story was not the fear of catching deaths from smallpox and diseases but their diminishing will to live for an unknowing future, the inoculation from the carers at the Institution reprimanding that the children that they were shameful entities to be rescued from God; that they were the ungrateful wretches who are inescapable to be blamed for being born and destined to enter the gate of hell. This confinement maimed their mental strength adding on their weak constitution.

Lily is a gripping melodramatic story with plots intertwined between the heroine’s younger times and womanhood. While Lily’s younger and rebellious self is being silenced and rotten away bit by bit with loss and departure from the loved ones as well as abuses at the Hospital, the seventeen-year-old self is too agitated to find a recourse to heal the past trauma and unable to quieten a part of mind full of chaos and shame. With this, she undertakes an action which could be seen as an vile act of wickedness and incorrigibility, but it is the only means to cure and extricate herself as an urgent need of survival without any hateful associations with the past.

Although the sub-heading of this book underlines itself as a revenge tale, there is also a side about rescuing, redeeming herself from darkness, and seeking the unadulterated lights through various means – church windows, places, people, dreams, a haven she imagines, a belief of goodness, and an unfaltering love. For Lily, she loves at the same time just when she is experiencing the traumatic childhood. She could not find these without pain. She denies being a nameless entity and not seeking to be forgiven. She is not a thistledown blown away by the wind but flowing and hurling to find her ground of abode. Pain and warmth rays of sunshine seem to coexist and symbiotic. And this is how a life could be for Lily – and she realises what it means much earlier on than us.

All in all, although this book is not a favourite fiction of mine, I quite enjoy the story because there is a desolation in the atnosphere with a really interesting backdrop and vivid imagery.

Dissolution of graven images in Jane Eyre: The pillars of Mr. Rochester and St. John Rivers

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The First Meeting of Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, Thomas Davidson (1842–1919)
Bronte Parsonage Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/the-first-meeting-of-jane-eyre-and-mr-rochester-20999

For me, I felt at home in this sort of discourse. I could never rest in communication with strong, discreet, and refined minds, whether male or female, till I had passed the outworks of conventional reserve, and crossed the threshold of confidence, and won a place by their heart’s very hearthstone.

Jane Eyre, Chapter XXXII

Jane Eyre likes investigating the human’s heart, the strengths and weaknesses of her acquaintances. When trying to dissect Jane Eyre with aspects of how she copes with patriarchal sphere, she is a strong heroine who seems to be so undisciplined by challenging the societal thoughts and considering the mental facades of others, dispensing any conventional ties and medium of customs constrained with the external world while having “with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy”. At critical points, her spirit bursts through expansively, revolts against the feminine husk that hedges its preternatural sheen. For instances, when she is confronted with John Reed’s cruelty in childhood, she recognises in her being that there is no hierarchy and subordination between the two. Stripped off his esteemed rearing of athleticism, effusion of being enshrouded in motherly love and all inbred qualities she lacks physically as a orphan girl, John Reed’s “violent tyrannies, all his sisters’ proud indifference, all his mother’s aversion, all the servants’ partiality, turned up in my disturbed mind like a dark deposit in a turbid well” (Chapter II). “Drive out the mocker, and out goes strife; quarrels and insults are ended” (Proverbs 22:10), she does not know what she does with her hand, her spirit predominates, summons the resource to respond the pungent suffering, which she also later on mutinies against her maternal aunt before departing for Lowood. Compared with Eliza Reed, a sister of John Reed and a product of patriarchal preferences, who answers her call of novitiate duties and cuts all familial ties upon her mother’s death, Jane’s resolution of rebellion is deemed a much more aggressive action.

On the other hand, just as Jane ponders her peers’ motives and true countenances without decors and societal indoctrination, the peers must also have observed her with same equal measures, especially the male characters, who might have examined her indiscriminately, juxtaposing and assimilating her characteristics with their own to fulfill their hearts’ desire, like the qualities they acknowledge of in the case of a feme covert. Their self-righteousness mutates into an act of compliance and manipulation respective of both parties which they think is conducive in the first place but ends up detrimental to a relationship which they intended to proceed. It results from the fact that they could not strike a balance between Feeling and Reason considering Jane’s standpoints.

Mr. Rochester

“The flame flickers in the eye; the eye shines like dew; it looks soft and full of feeling; it smiles at my jargon: it is susceptible; impression follows impression through its clear sphere; where it ceases to smile, it is sad; an unconscious lassitude weighs on the lid: that signifies melancholy resulting from loneliness. It turns from me; it will not suffer further scrutiny; it seems to deny, by a mocking glance, the truth of the discoveries I have already made,—to disown the charge both of sensibility and chagrin: its pride and reserve only confirm me in my opinion. The eye is favourable.”

Jane Eyre, Chapter XIX

Regarding Mr. Rochester, when I first read it, his dissection of Jane Eyre is so accurate as well as poignant, because as readers who have witnessed Jane’s sufferings from childhood of isolation and misunderstandings, there is finally a character (or a male protagonist) who shares her sympathies and analyses her character unprecedentedly in details and richness like a seasoned novelist, essayist, physiognomist, and an irascible old sage of human nature. The gypsy scene with his observance of Jane’s face at close reading dumbfounds me dramatically. To Jane, she must have felt a spirit connected to her own, a mentality which is disrobed and cognizant by another and vice versa. Her tearful confession of the romantic love towards him is seen as a volcanic eruption of Feeling with a sardonic way of aiding and abetting from another, surrounded by a seemingly consecrated ground at the orchard garden which is devoid of human activity and gossips. The spasms also denote an intelligence of Rochester’s correctness in “mind-reading”. Moreover, through his confiding the secrets and previous loss of love from tête-à-tête with Jane, we are as sure as the heroine that she is the only one who is eligible for salvaging Rochester and paves his path towards reformation and regeneration, as a domestic fairy to tame a restless Samson, an angel of the house.

Yet after all my task was not an easy one; often I would rather have pleased than teased him. My future husband was becoming to me my whole world; and more than the world: almost my hope of heaven. He stood between me and every thought of religion, as an eclipse intervenes between man and the broad sun. I could not, in those days, see God for His creature: of whom I had made an idol.

Jane Eyre, Chapter XXIV

Just as we are convinced of how the plot goes, reality keeps us in check and, like Jane, the graven image vanishes and disperses in front of her visage. “Thou shall not commit adultery”; Rochester might have a clever flair of gauging Jane’s passion and Feeling, but he underestimates and overlooks Jane’s Reason and Consciousness. She could be gentle, submissive, pliant; but her wanderer qualities are instinctive, and judgement is strong-willed if needed be. Jane’s resilience and self-worth to be independent of mistreatment and temptation against a wrongful union testify Rochester’s miscalculation.

Laws and principles are not for the times when there is no temptation: they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigour; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be. If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth? They have a worth – so I have always believed; and if I cannot believe it now, it is because I am insane – quite insane: with my veins running fire, and my heart beating faster than I can count its throbs. Preconceived opinions, foregone determinations, are all I have at this hour to stand by: there I plant my foot.”

Jane Eyre, Chapter XXVII

From the introduction of Victorian Love Stories: An Oxford Anthology edited by Kate Flint (OUP, 1997), one of the short stories Margaret (1869) by Christiana Fraser-Tyler tells of a young governess, Margaret, being seduced by the eldest son of the family. When she receives a love letter from the man, after much deliberation and a battle of emotional ambivalence, she defies the temptation and decides to leave her work permanently. It imparts a didactic message that an indigent employee, however defenceless and dependent might be, must take heed to consult the most appropriate action for herself based on class position and propriety. Reciprocated and unrequited romances between masters of households and young governesses were much popularized since the publication of Jane Eyre. “Young girl should be able to act with pragmatic common sense” (p. ix). Furthermore, Margaret serves a warning to underline the anxiety surrounding the three-decker romances of the time.

Although Jane and Rochester reconcile in the end, the affection she has for Rochester at the time of temptation gives her time to make a moral distinction; moreover, invoking the help of Mother Nature after leaving Rochester indicates that there is a more therapeutic and soporific Force as well as a powerful Being which oversees her rightful path and guides Rochester’s fitful desolation back on the right track. Her husk invisibly and silently treads on moorlands, hollows and glens, and her solitary spirit always seeks to be embraced amidst a vast manifestation.

Picture from Look and Learn History Picture Archive:
https://www.lookandlearn.com/history-images/M576635/Illustration-for-Jane-Eyre

St. John Rivers

Compared with Rochester who tries to conquer Jane’s Reason, St. John Rivers is the one who intends to conquer her Feeling and colonises her with Reason.

“To live here buried in morass, pent in with mountains – my nature, that God gave me, contravened; my faculties, heaven-bestowed, paralysed – made useless.

Jane Eyre, Chapter XXX

St. John Rivers, the Clergyman at the Morton village in North-Midland, and Rochester, the inheritor of Thornfield Hall are exact antipodes. St. John River has a stature tall and slim, fair hair, blue eyes, an appearance of a Grecian profile. Rochester, jet-black hair and thickset, is a figure of Samson and Vulcan. The similarities shared between them would be that though envincing different charisma, they both have a fitful and brooding nature which verges on shadows of melancholy. Rochester overbears wounded memories, his is a spirit who searches for love, a kindred soul, and a peace of mind; St John’s craves for a lifelong mission, a raging and tempestuous voyage, pitches and plunges – all trials which comprise the essentials of testing his resolve to spread his Master’s Word and glory. He dreads monotony, he embarrasses those who offer desultory and affectionate remarks which he finds them anything but salubrious. His considers himself the pack leader, inoculating and enlightening those who live in the void with his sole happiness resting on “my king, my lawgiver, my captain, the All-perfect”. He is the ultimate disciplinarian and dogmatist in the story.

Like many others, I also think St. John Rivers is a fascinating character. What I find him most interesting is that he keeps scrutinising every move of Jane and monitors every action, which is kind of comical in my opinion. He keeps a mental checklist of her fortitude and servitude to prove himself she is of a worthy pack, a good disciple complementing his lifelong mission and work. From assigning the task to Jane of “toiling” as a village schoolmistress to her generous distribution of inheritance, he is experimenting her will at his quiet recess and carefully drafting what goes on in his head and executing his plans.

I happened to look his way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye. How long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over, I cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious—as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny.

.Jane Eyre, Chapter XXXIV

The disposition of St. John Rivers reminds me at times of Villette and the surveillance of Madame Beck, of the religious doctrines and debates between Catholicism and Protestantism being expostulated throughout the novel. He is no Mr. Brocklehurst, who is an abominable flatterer, a hypocrite who somehow gets trampled by Miss Temple; he is not Helen Burns because he does not “appear to enjoy that mental serenity, that inward content, which should be the reward of every sincere Christian and practical philanthropist”; he is not Eliza Reed because he repels mundune life. St John is a really complex character indeed that demands quite a lot of time to wrestle with before we get to know him in entirety.

“God and nature intended you for a missionary’s wife. It is not personal, but mental endowments they have given you: you are formed for labour, not for love. A missionary’s wife you must—shall be. You shall be mine: I claim you – not for my pleasure, but for my Sovereign’s service.”

Jane Eyre, Chapter XXXIV

While Rochester teases Jane “having the air of a little nonnette; quaint, quiet, grave, and simple”, St. John trusts his instincts that she is destined to be a missionary wife whose work consists of duty and not for love. They should be married and spread the word of God in a foreign remote land rather than he goes alone as a bachelor. It is over this matter that although he has talent, a righteousness, he is too self-centered to put himself first over Jane’s Feeling, which he thinks is merely transient, superficial and futile.

“He is not my husband, nor ever will be. He does not love me: I do not love him. He loves (as he can love, and that is not as you love) a beautiful young lady called Rosamond. He wanted to marry me only because he thought I should make a suitable missionary’s wife, which she would not have done. He is good and great, but severe; and, for me, cold as an iceberg. He is not like you, sir: I am not happy at his side, nor near him, nor with him. He has no indulgence for me – no fondness. He sees nothing attractive in me; not even youth – only a few useful mental points.”

Jane Eyre, Chapter XXXVII

In Jane’s self-enlightening journey, we witness her rebellion against justice, against hypocrisy, against temptation, against Reason, against misconceptions of God’s faith, against all who try to instill perceptions of her, and comes back to what she think is most truthful path according to her heart.

Jane Eyre (1847) by Charlotte Brontë

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Yet in what darkness, what dense ignorance, was the mental battle fought! I could not answer the ceaseless inward question – why I thus suffered, now, at the distance of – I will not say how many years, I see it clearly.

The novel starts with Jane Eyre as a ten-year-old orphan girl living with her maternal side of a family. “Children can feel, but they cannot analyse their feelings”. It is with that pang of pain and isolation that it becomes her will to figure out means to attest her substantiality and congeniality with the world. Throughout the novel, it reflects the elements of “Presentiments”, which Jane possesses within her mental self; “Sympathies”, which she has summoned to relate with other beings, and “Signs”, which Mother Nature whispers in her ear while ego thinks itself remain the sole arbitrator of its own actions. In the beginning, she recognises “Presentiments” and “Signs”, which is instinctive in nature. Conversely, the lack of “Sympathies” is still awaiting to flouish; and the yearning of Jane to connect with others is so deep and fiery within.

As a bildungsroman novel, we go through various phases that Jane forbears, overcomes, and reaches to a self-enlightenment. In Gateshead Hall, she is seen as a cumbrous discord in temperament and looks, an intimidating imp with ireful eyes that scrutinise every movement and head that plots malicious thoughts against the family. In Lowood Institution, she “tries to do her best: it is a pity that doing one’s best does not always answer”. Labelled as a liar and picked upon by Mr. Brocklehurst, Jane nevertheless keeps the resolution with an inquisitive mind to learn and an eagerness to please the others whom she adores: Miss Temper the superintendent, and Helen Burns, her frail good friend. In Morton village in North-Midlands, Jane is described by St John Rivers the clergyman as “docile, diligent, disinterested, faithful, constant, and courageous; very gentle, and very heroic”, a woman born with a missionary mission and a form of labour, not of love. Driven by people’s perception of herself, She questions her position and place constantly, and always adjusts merely not to become a discomfiture as well as satisfy the expectations of others. Some consider her quiet and pliant, though in fact she is, it is merely her difficulty to distinguish the medium “between absolute submission and determined revolt” against unfair judgement and despotism.

It is not until later that when Jane gets to see clearly her inner thoughts as well as self-consciousness and reason that she finally exerts her autonomy: it is an innate quality not to be effaced and subdued. It is in her soul and spirit that is awakened to call forth the husk and fulminate. With Jane Eyre, we feel the same spasms of joy, a hunger that is at last sated, and a mind elated when we become limpid to realise our true self. As humans, we are scarred and scorched at some points; all are infallible beings with respective traumas and subjectivity. In the same case, Jane is able to summon the mutiny and voice her mind, because she knows the persons who address flaws against her are also imperfect and she stands among her equals. In the universal truth, there is no persona superior and inferior to another, only caste and class confine the hedge and boundaries.

The epithets that are said about her are not without societal views of patriarchal conventionality and self-righteousness. It is in their immutable nature and nurture that others try to conquer her and are unsympathetic towards her. In Gateshead, it is not because children are supposedly handsome, romping, happy and contented that she is repugnant in the visage of Mrs Reed. Of Lowood, as a charitable orphaned institution, it is fatally congruous with Clergy Daughters’ School at Cowan Bridge in Brontës’ time, of an epitome of fearful biblical consequences of punishment and sins, wants, malnutrition, torpidity, and illness. Confronting with the actions of St John, his nature delineates a “steadfast bulwark” that aspires to a greater cause, that prostrates towards an afterlife where he believes himself predestined to be in a convoy of the most courageous hearts of “lawgivers, statesmen, and conquerors” but not one belonging to a domestic life and cosy parlour. It only takes time and patience to unveil the true facades behind the decors.

“Know, that in the course of your future life you will often find yourself elected the involuntary confidant of your acquaintances’ secrets: people will instinctively find out, as I have done, that it is not your forte to tell of yourself, but to listen while others talk of themselves; they will feel, too, that you listen with no malevolent scorn of their indiscretion, but with a kind of innate sympathy; not the less comforting and encouraging because it is very unobtrusive in its manifestations.”

In this novel, we observes Jane’s understanding of the world and human relations. These revelations of another being’s struggles and hardship denote a goodwill of her own to excel for the present and future as well as to heal her past wounds. While reading her narrative, we never find a rant dressed in disguise and a blame catapulted towards others. She sees everyone’s pains in nooks and crannies including her own, their perturbed nature, and their ambitions in virtue and vice. Their weakness in minds is endeavoured not to be discovered, her eyes flash truth which shoot like arrows straight through another’s heart. Hers is a nature which summons and demands sincerity of another.

“I sometimes have a queer feeling with regard to you – especially when you are near me, as now: it is as if I had a string somewhere under my left ribs, tightly and inextricably knotted to a similar string situated in the corresponding quarter of your little frame. And if that boisterous Channel, and two hundred miles or so of land come broad between us, I am afraid that cord of communion will be snapt; and then I’ve a nervous notion I should take to bleeding inwardly.”

With an impassioned and fiery heart not devoid of love and feelings, a mind that never thwarts, Jane reconciles to another being whose soul yearns for her spirit. It demands for another existence which is symbiotic in nature and tightly knitted by Moirai. Mr Rochester’s disposition and temper is of a changeable kind, irascible at times, unmanageable and easily agitated; his heart is restless and hard to be consoled. On the other hand, he is willing to defy constraints to confess his love for Jane and believes she could make him regenerate into a better person, a reformed living, to compensate for his past mistakes. His love even seeks to transcend and verge on a pagan note – of sacrificing himself and kneeling before his goddess with will and energy, a soul of virtue and purity. Rochester’s religious faith is unlike St John; it is not the loss of striving for a social position that makes one pensive to confide in God, but it is the desertion of love consequential to defilement and temptation against consecrated laws of marriage that he finally comes to term and understands God’s wisdom, omnipotence and infinitude. In this novel, Providence always works in tandem with protangonists’ Feelings when they supplicates Reason and Conscience from a Higher Being to make the right judgement.

Jane Eyre is a beautiful novel with so much passion, depth and enrichment which hits you hard on a personal note. It divulges a message to your spirit that with a heart and faith that never falter, love and forgiveness can heal oneself properly. The energy within enables one to unmask and connect with another kindred soul whom you can trust in solace and tranquility.

The Leavenworth Case (1878) by Anna Katharine Green

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“Now it is a principle which every detective recognises, that if of a hundred leading circumstances connected with a crime, ninety-nine of these are acts pointing to the suspected party with unerring certainty, but the hundredth equally important act is one which that person could not have performed, the whole fabric of suspicion is destroyed.” – Ebenezer Gryce, The Leavenworth Case

Upon graduating from college, Anna Katharine Green (1846-1935) embarked on a literary journey of writing poetry, but later on, without telling her father, who was a lawyer, she secretly began to write her very first detective novel, The Leavenworth Case. It received enormous critical acclaim with its publication in America in 1878 as well as the United Kingdom the following year. Following its success, Green wrote many more and with that she was earned the wonderful sobriquet – “the mother of detective novel”. I’ve just lately discovered this lady and her works, and I was thrilled after finishing the novel in finding that Wilkie Collins also adored The Leavenworth Case. He claimed to have read this book dozens of times without ignoring the fact that he always paused to “admire the fertility of invention, the delicate treatment of incident – and the fine perception of event on the personages of the story”.

Blue curtains, blue carpets, blue walls. It was like a glimpse of heavenly azure in a spot where only darkness and gloom were to be expected. 

Accidents all happen in the fairest scenes, and profound secrets are to be divulged under the veneer of hospitable roofs – that we of course commonly acknowledge. But while devouring this novel, I was still amused by how Anna K. Green crocheted this aura of mystery brilliantly. The matter of duality is explored not only in terms of household surroundings between levity of ornaments and grimness of the case, but also of its characters as well. There are multi-facets of personalities one gets to witness and exhume in another person gradually in time, or thoughts and actions which are considered perceptibly incongruous. These portrayals of characters debunk experiences and meddle in the heads of contemporary readers. Means of living do not fit one’s looks and appearance seamlessly: the duties of an amanuensis make one apparently behave like an automaton, but deep down, he might own a fiery heart and be capable to love; a girl who is stripped off the favours and attentions by elders might be seen to constitute a mind full of envy and hatred, conversely she could be an effigy symbolising self-respect and the willingness to sacrifice. In this novel, everything does not look what it seems to be and shrouded in clouds of mystery.

Ambition, love, jealousy, hatred, revenge – transitory emotions with some, are terrific passions with me.

The vagueness and uncertainty are also illustrated in the aspect of how one possessing feelings and affections towards another.

“It was enough that I was allowed to stand in her presence and look unrebuked upon her loveliness. To be sure, it was like gazing into the flower-wreathed crater of an awakening volcano. Fear and fascination were in each moment I lingered there; but fear and fascination made the moment what it was, and I could not have withdrawn if I would.”

A lady in the story, although being haughty in her position, to a man, she seems to illuminate him in rays of sunshine. Several characters are also besotted by her grace and beauty, but it is the loneliness which underlines a human’s fragility, contributes to his downfall, crushes his sense and reason, incriminates and hurls himself into the deep irretrievable gulf of darkness. The derailment, emotional complexity and psychological development keep us weighing every circumstance of the criminal case and its suspects. At one point, Detective Gryce states that a murderous crime must be uprooted mainly by a motive of none other than avarice. Because of that, while we are guessing the real culprit, we are also led blindly into a cul-de-sac, but in the end, the summation of the story actually points to the avarice of love and the endeavour to dispel one’s loneliness.

Mr. Gryce was a portly, comfortable personage with an eye that never pierced, that did not even rest on you. If it rested anywhere, it was always on some insignificant object in the vicinity, some vase, inkstand, book, or button. These things he would seem to take into his confidence, make the repositories of his conclusions; but as for you – you might as well be the steeple on Trinity Church, for all connection you ever appeared to have with him or his thoughts. At present, then, Mr. Gryce was, as I have already suggested, on intimate terms with the door-knob.

I love everything about this novel. The locked-room murder case is gripping, the romance is alluring and flowery descriptive, the confessions and denouement are superb with no stones being left unturned. The idea of incorporating the superstition element with the crime is interesting. I also like the symbiotic relationship from enmity to amity between the two cousins, Mary and Eleanore.

Reading along the plotlines with twists and convolution, I am amused and fascinated by Ebenezer Gryce. He has not the typical look of a detective. There are no gimlet eyes and glaring eyes staring about at the stakeholders of the affairs, but he has that brooding disposition of “conversing” and “caressing” the objects around him. And then there is his personal assistant Q (short of “query”), a sprightly, ubiquitous young lad who is good at disguising anything but a gentleman. They not only propel the people in motion, but also provide more or less a comic relief regarding the investigation of a painstaking criminal case. When the “knight errand”, or the protagonist is still fastidious over moral scruples, them two have already worked on some discreet and cheeky espionage on their own.

I am glad when finding out they are actually recurring characters of the “Gryce series”, which I hope to spend more time reading in future. What’s more, I would also like to read Anna K. Green’s Amelia Butterworth crime cases. This amateurish spinster detective is said to be the prototype of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple and Patricia Wentworh’s Miss Silver.

Quotes:

He remained a moment silent. “Mr. Raymond,” he cried at last, “have you any idea of the disadvantages under which a detective labors? For instance, now, you imagine I can insinuate myself into all sorts of society, perhaps; but you are mistaken. Strange as it may appear, I have never by any possibility of means succeeded with one class of persons at all. I cannot pass myself off for a gentleman. Tailors and barbers are no good; I am always found out.” – Ebenezer Gryce

Turning my attention, therefore, in the direction of Mr. Gryce, I found that person busily engaged in counting his own fingers with a troubled expression upon his countenance, which may or may not have been the result of that arduous employment. But, at my approach, satisfied perhaps that he possessed no more than the requisite number, he dropped his hands and greeted me with a faint smile which was, considering all things, too suggestive to be pleasant.

“Women are a mystery; and though I flatter myself that ordinarily I am a match for the keenest bit of female flesh that ever walked, I must say that in this case I feel myself thoroughly and shamefully worsted.” – Q

Yuki Chan in Brontë Country by Mick Jackson

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“She holds the light steady on a crack in the ceiling, then turns the torch off. So that the crack seems to burn there in the dark, before slowly fading away. Does this three or four times, at different points around the ceiling. And thinks, if an image can burn itself into your mind like that, why can’t a thought be strong enough to be caught in a photograph?”

“And it was only on a later viewing that she finally noticed the guy at the back, leaning in, with an old-fashioned pair of headphones clamped to his head, like some sort of spy from the ordinary world…Because in this instance, Yuki feels, the sound is the crucial element. The medium where the event’s real power resides.”
Ada Emma Deane (1862-1957), spiritual photographer

The Brontës siblings lost their mother at young age, the bereavement was much reflected by their works, and their passion and contribution to the literary scope are what they are famous and admired for. Set in the strong backdrop of a Brontë setting, this story reversely depicts how the local residents in Haworth inevitably revolve their daily lives with the Brontës and its long-sought ritual remembrance. For instance, there’s a scene where an elderly woman recalls that as a girl, she’s visited by Tomokichi Fukurai (a pseudo-scientist famous for holding clairvoyance and thoughtographic experiments) along with William Hope. In 1928, with her “supernatural talents”, she’s drained by the adult attention that whole day to watch out constantly and spiritually for the Brontës – just because the public wants to hear more about them and crave for their spiritual presence.

However, the author of this novel chooses a Japanese girl as the heroine. This foreign heroine doesn’t understand much in English, and most importantly, she has no prior knowledge of the Brontës. Yuki is catapulted into Yorkshire and her Moors which only embed nothing but bleak insulation. Only she has her own special pilgrimage in mind. Carefully placed in the envelope are five photos that her departed mother took in London and Haworth ten years ago. Putting this envelope in rucksack, Yuki embarks on a journey in search of the truth. Considered herself as a “psychic detective”, she rummages and gauges necessary evidence to prove that her mother didn’t choose to end her life in Japan in madness or pain. She has the oddity and scattered thoughts of fancy. Because she bluntly denies being a fan of the Brontës, She mentally debunks the romanticized side of the three sisters by imagining them frequenting the pubs and committing highway robbery. At one point in the dark, Yuki even clambers up the wall of the graveyard and breaks into the Parsonage garden! Perhaps it’s only about a story with a heroine having no prior knowledge of the Brontës that this is all the more about her unique journey being unmixed with other influences – simply purely and intensely focuses on understanding her mother alone.

Visit Haworth Parsonage, roam around the town to be immersed in a place which seems to be frozen in time, hike the Moors to admire the nature and the realm of the Brontës. The hallowed grounds repair the cleft between two worlds and replenish their deep emotion wells. Walking parallel to the Brontës aficionados, only with Yuki comes to Haworth could she trek alongside with the biography of her departed mother, heal the pain, mend the sadness, and complete the spiritual circuit. Every person has unknown truths to seek, memories to miss and someone to hold in remembrance.

Most unforgettable reads in 2020

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(1) Villette, Charlotte Brontë

Lucy Snowe embarks upon a journey of self-discovery. To find, understand, and assert oneself is hard. On one hand, she considers herself so prosaic, a shadow that submits to fate and flow, lives and circumstances; on the other, she deep down seeks and prides herself with notions of independence – submission to fate and suffering yet voluntary, teeming with morals, faith and trust in God. It is with this belief, self-respect and dignity that she finds paths, affronts injustice and asserts herself not only in heart but also with action. Through her voice and openness she also finds something more than her own that is worth living for.

(2) Mayflower Lives, Martyn Whittock

It’s been 400 years since the Mayflower passengers sighted Plymouth, Massachusetts. It has interesting spicks and specks of how “Pilgrims” fled from England in the first place, settled in Leiden, Holland, and embarked on Speedwell but ultimately found themselves being on the same “boat” with the “Strangers”. What a tough sea journey of 102 passengers. More importantly, it’s also about how Natives coped with the newcomers rather than the other way round. I hope to read more detailed non-fiction of this topic in future.

(3) The Black Robe, Wilkie Collins

One of the most poignant novels of Wilkie Collins and one of my top five favourites of his. There are so many things to ponder and reflect. It’s not only about the intense rivalry between “priestly patriarchy” and “petticoat government”, but it also embeds a deep study of human nature and unfulfilled means. A person’s vulnerability is another’s gain.

(4) John Halifax, Gentleman, Dinah Mulock Craik

It includes the most beautiful friendship I have ever come across. Listening to “Chase the Night Away” by Keane while reading the passages, because this song defines all the relationships and characters I had made acquaintance with in the novel. I love the didactic messages in the book!

(5) The Discomfort of Evening, Marieke Lucas Rijneveld (translated by Michele Hutchinson)
So unsettling in how teenagers cope with a sibling’s death by experimenting with cruelty and pain only to avoid numbness, and vent their feelings in farm surroundings on their own.

(Spoilers in) Some favourite quotes from Villette

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  • He had still such kind looks, such a warm hand; his voice still kept so pleasant a tone for my name; I never liked “Lucy” so well as when he uttered it. But I learned in time that this benignity, this cordiality, this music, belonged in no shape to me: it was a part of himself; it was the honey of his temper; it was the balm of his mellow mood; he imparted it, as the ripe fruit rewards with sweetness the rifling bee; he diffused it about him, as sweet plants shed their perfume. Does the nectarine love either the bee or bird it feeds? Is the sweetbriar enamoured of the air? (Dr. John)
  • That goodly river on whose banks I had sojourned, of whose waves a few reviving drops had trickled to my lips, was bending to another course: it was leaving my little hut and field forlorn and sand-dry, pouring its wealth of waters far away. The change was right, just, natural; not a word could be said: but I loved my Rhine, my Nile; I had almost worshipped my Ganges, and I grieved that the grand tide should roll estranged, should vanish like a false mirage.
  • I used to think what a delight it would be for one who loved him better than he loved himself, to gather and store up those handfuls of gold-dust, so recklessly flung to heaven’s reckless winds. (M. Paul)
  • No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.
  • “Truth stripped away Falsehood, and Flattery, and Expectancy, and here I stand—free!”
  • “Yes, you were born under my star! Tremble! for where that is the case with mortals, the threads of their destinies are difficult to disentangle; knottings and catchings occur—sudden breaks leave damage in the web.” (M. Paul and Lucy)
  • Two minutes I stood over Madame, feeling that the whole woman was in my power, because in some moods, such as the present—in some stimulated states of perception, like that of this instant—her habitual disguise, her mask and her domino, were to me a mere network reticulated with holes; and I saw underneath a being heartless, self-indulgent, and ignoble.
  • We reached Madame Beck’s door. Jean Baptiste’s clock tolled nine. At this hour, in this house, eighteen months since, had this man at my side bent before me, looked into my face and eyes, and arbitered my destiny. This very evening he had again stooped, gazed, and decreed. How different the look—how far otherwise the fate! (M.Paul and Lucy)
  • How seem in the eyes of that God who made all firmaments, from whose nostrils issued whatever of life is here, or in the stars shining yonder—how seem the differences of man? But as Time is not for God, nor Space, so neither is Measure, nor Comparison. We abase ourselves in our littleness, and we do right; yet it may be that the constancy of one heart, the truth and faith of one mind according to the light He has appointed, import as much to Him as the just motion of satellites about their planets, of planets about their suns, of suns around that mighty unseen centre incomprehensible, irrealizable, with strange mental effort only divined.”