Tuesday 21 April 2009

101 in 1001 - Item One...

Read Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte



...has been completed!

As you might know, I got a Nintendo DS for my birthday last year. And you can now get a cartridge for it (game is not the correct word) that has the full text of 100 classic books on it. I bought it two weeks ago.

The first book I read on there was The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stephenson which I liked. I must admit that the term strange definitely is a good one for that story though! And reading on the DS isn't too hard. The "pages" are very small however which means there are a lot of them. I do quite like the portability and the light weight of the ds when it comes to reading and I think it will work much better for reading when out and about - my handbag will fit my DS but won't fit a book so I can only take books with me on the train or whatever when I take my flowery shopping bag which then obviously can't be used for as much shopping!

Anyway, Jane Eyre.

I quite liked it. To start with it reminded me of Pride and Prejudice but as the story continued that fell away. The topics are a lot darker and in some ways go into the seedier side of life more than Jane Austen ever did. Her worlds did always show some of the less pleasant aspects but were generally happy it'll be all right in the end worlds.

And it is alright in the end when you finish Jane Erye too. But it's certainly a lot grittier and maybe realistic than I had anticipated. My expectation had been, as I said, of a Jane Austen type book. And to start with the plot and more so the character of Jane Eyre herself really reminded me of Elizabeth Bennett. But this isn't a romance of the Jane Austen type. I did enjoy it, it just surprised me. And I will read more of her work as there are others on the cartridge.

A friend who used to teach English said to me yesterday that she thinks you are either a "Brontes" person or a "Jane Austen" person. And having read 5 Jane Austen books, and two Bronte books (this one and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights which I hated) I can now see what she meant.

I'm definitely an Austen girl.

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