Rachel Kovaciny's Blog, page 108

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Chapter 9

Holy semicolons, Batman!

Anyway, this starts out cheerfully -- spring is here, Jane isn't frozen half the time, and she gets to roam around pretty flower gardens and the woods!  But then we learn that all is not cheerful -- "forty-five out of the eighty girls lay ill at one time" (p. 91).  Good heavens.  Places like Lowood, with too little food and too many people crammed into unhealthy living quarters, must have been regularly devastated by disease, don't you think?  Poor...

The Rose-Covered Cabin: Inkling Explorations for June, 2016

The prompt for this month's Inkling Explorations link-up is "Roses in book or film."  And I'm going to do something very different this month.  I'm going to share an excerpt of my own writing, namely, a passage from "The Man on the Buckskin Horse."  Actually, my original title for my western retelling of the Sleeping Beauty story was "The Rose-Covered Cabin," but it got changed to something more distinctly western-y when it won a spot in the Five Magic Spindles anthol...

"The World of Raymond Chandler (In His Own Words)" edited by Barry Day

You most likely know by now that Raymond Chandler is my favorite author.  I go into occasional rhapsodies about his startlingly delightful writing style.  I've reviewed several of his novels here.  I mention him a lot.

But I really didn't know much about him before now.  I knew a few things, like that he grew up in England.  And that he wrote some screenplays.  That was about it.  

I must admit that I shy away from biographies of people whose work I really adm...

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Chapter 8

Finally, finally, light enters the story.  Whew!

Which is not to say that everything is going to be sunshine and rainbows for the rest of the book.  There will be more unhappiness, I'm afraid -- of such is drama made.  Stories where everything goes well are boring, right?  (I need to remember that more often in my own writing.  My inclination is to make things easy and happy for my characters, but then there's no real story!)  Still, it's nice that the unremitting...

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Chapter 7

I really hate this chapter.  This chapter is why I often skip straight to chapter 11 when I only have time to re-read "the Good Parts Version" of my favorite novel.

I really relate with Jane when she says that "[t]he fear of failure in these points harassed me worse than the physical hardships of my lot" (p. 72).  I fear failure more than just about anything.  I know a lot of people fear public speaking, but I fear it only because I'm afraid I'll fail at it.  

Anyway, yikes,...

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Chapter 6

Yikes!  The water in their water pitchers was frozen in the morning.  Now, when I was a kid, we lived in Michigan, and I slept in the attic.  The nails on the walls would get frost on them overnight during the winter, so it was pretty nippy.  But that's nothing compared to frozen water.

And poor Helen Burns.  I'm afraid I'm much more of Jane Eyre's inclinations.  I want to strike out at injustice, not patiently endure it.  And yet, I know Helen is correct --...

"A Lantern in Her Hand" by Bess Streeter Aldrich

If you dearly love this book (::cough::EmmaJane::cough::), smile to yourself and say, "Oh, good, Hamlette has read this at last.  I'm so happy for her!"  Then close your browser window, go for a swim or eat a popsicle, and leave it at that.

I'm not even kidding.

Shoo!

Sigh.  I expected to like this book.  I expected to at least enjoy it.  I mean, it's about pioneers, and I'm quite fond of pioneers.  It's about the Midwest, and I'm from the Midwest.  It's a...

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Chapter 5

First, I'm sorry this read-along has gotten off to a slow start.  I was gone most of last week, then hosted a yard sale on Saturday, and spent most of yesterday recovering from that, lol.  Getting back on track now, and should be able to make these posts only have 1 or 2 days between them, not 3 or 4.  But hey, that's summer, right?

And here Jane is at Lowood School.  She makes her first solitary journey to get there, fifty miles by herself.  Don't you get the feeling...

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Chapter 4

Mr. Brocklehurst is creepy, and that's all there is to it.  I mean, come on, dude -- that's how you speak to a child?  Try to scare her into obedience, give her tracts about children you identify with her getting sent to Hell, and then tell her stories about unctuous little yes-men who know how to weasel two treats out of you by telling you what you want to hear?  Bleah.

I'm sure Mr. Brocklehurst thinks he's helping.  But he makes Austen's Mr. Collins look positively charmi...

Jane Eyre Read-Along: Chapter 3

After the fervor of the first two chapters, this one feel a little tame.  It's kind of an interlude, I guess, bridging from Jane's terror in the Red Room to her leaving Gateshead Hall.
I feel so sad for little Jane, that she feels "an inexpressible relief, a soothing conviction of protection and security, when I knew that there was a stranger in th eroom" (p. 25).  Poor thing really is terrified of her aunt and cousins, and with good reason, as we have seen.  I'm glad this apoth...