Since First I Saw Your Face

by Emma Donoghue

A short story by Emma Donoghue from the collection Reader, I Married Stories inspired by Jane Eyre.

‘Since First I Saw Your Face’ reimagines a relationship between two notable Victorian women.

Edited by Tracy Chevalier, the full collection, Reader, I Married Him, brings together some of the finest and most creative voices in fiction today, to celebrate and salute the strength and lasting relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s game-changing novel and its beloved narrator.

Genres: Adult Fiction, Historical Fiction, Short Stories, Historical

24 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 21, 2016

About the author

Grew up in Ireland, 20s in England doing a PhD in eighteenth-century literature, since then in Canada. Best known for my novel, film and play ROOM, also other contemporary and historical novels and short stories, non-fiction, theatre and middle-grade novels.

Reviews

[Corrie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Since First I Saw Your Face: A Short Story from the collection, Reader, I Married Him by Emma Donoghue is a wonderfully written short about two Victorian women who meet in Wiesbaden. Minnie, a married woman and mother of six, is there to get a break from her family. Ellen is there to write a book. The more time they spend together to closer they get.

Here are some lines I loved:

But it doesn’t sound to me as if it’s modern life that’s done the damage. Minnie’s given the headmaster six children in eleven years, and her health collapsed after the last. “Small wonder,” I tell her. “The womb is our Waterloo.” That makes her laugh. “Is that why you’ve never gone to war, Ellen?” Spinsterhood has more than that to recommend it.

“A French lady is visiting,” she hisses in my ear before she sits down at the breakfast table. For a moment I’m confused – three of our number being from Bordeaux – and then I catch her meaning. “Deo gratias,” I intone. No seventh child prodigy, then; or not this year, at least.

The bonds draw tighter. We talk about it but indirectly, eyes on the lashing treetops. Minnie calls what’s happening a kindling, a fascination, a yearning, a restless tingling. I say less. Perhaps because – I suspect – I feel more. If I were to put words to it, we’d be in deep waters indeed.

f/f

Themes: convalescence, motherhood, trapped in a unhappy marriage, duty.

5 stars

[Ra · Rating 4 out of 5]

#pride2022 okumaları 1'sapphic

[Andy Hickman · Rating 2 out of 5]

“Since First I Saw Your Face” by Emma Donoghue
**

“But it doesn't sound to me as if it's modern life that's done the damage. Minnie's given the headmaster six children in eleven years, and her health collapsed after the last.
'Small wonder,' I tell her. 'The womb is our Waterloo.'
That makes her laugh. 'Is that why you've never gone to war, Ellen?'
Spinsterhood has more than that to recommend it.” (p80-81)

“She accuses herself of a weakness for luxury, but I'd call it the simplest acceptance of what each day offers. A soft chair, a book, an orange: why live at all if we can't enjoy that much?” (p84)

[Bethal · Rating 5 out of 5]

Historians will say they were ‘best-friends’.

I loved it and wish it was longer but within the meagre 8 pages or so I enjoyed it more than most 300+ page stories I’ve read this year.

[Zeynep · Rating 4 out of 5]

gece gece efkarlandık? thanks @busé