Sandra’s Comments (group member since Jan 21, 2020)

Sandra’s comments from the The Obscure Reading Group group.

Yes. All three sisters wrote of tumultuous love in their novels. John, as a young woman, my favorite was Wuthering Heights, but when I reread as an adult with my high school students, I was surprised how much I had romanticized Heathcliff and his brutality. My students caught it immediately, but they still loved the book. I guess the setting on the English moors is what I most appreciate.

Thank you, Diane and Kathleen.

What I like best about this book is your conversations. I also had to plod through, and I have little to add to all the great comments and insights.

I will say that if you grew up with a troublesome male in your childhood (my father divorced my mother when I was six and thereafter disappeared ) and/or if you therefore romanticized love, and simultaneously disrespected men, you may write about the same themes as Charlotte, Emily, and Anne.

I could relate to some of the dysfunction in Helen’s relationships, although as others have observed, Brontë overly dramatized every single thing.
I will end with a poem I wrote some time ago.

The Power of Books

At sixteen I sat up at night
nursing my infatuations
until my book fell
from my tired grip.

Heathcliff,
that poor orphan boy---
and Hamlet,
the seeker of revenge.
Literature seemed so
much safer than Life.
Melancholy and disappointment
filled my fatherless heart.

But perhaps even then
it was the ghosts
I really understood,
their need to touch,
to communicate,
to return from the grave
and visit once more
the only person
who could help them
to finally find peace.

Welcome, Miriam. We have lively and interesting discussions! Looking forward to your comments.

I agree. The book is primarily “talking heads.”

I am reminded of Charlotte Brontë’s famous quotation: “I am no bird; and no net ensnares me; I am a free human being with an independent will, which I now exert to leave you.” This is Helen, too.

I would like to mention how well Brontë portrays Helen’s predicament-a woman with a child-trapped in a disastrous marriage with few options of escape. Times have changed, but I am aware that this entrapment still exists. How profoundly sad. Yet, Helen remains her own person, which is a great testament to women’s strength.

I must agree that it grates my nerves whenever I hear the media or a person I am talking with use these new meanings for words I already internalized such as “grooming.” But I am old. And so there it is.

I’m anxious to discuss the next section as I feel it delves more deeply into marital issues that I can relate to somewhat.

I loved Russian Lit when I read it in college. I need to refresh my memory of that vivid and in-depth writing of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I found Emily Brontë much more descriptive and in-depth than this novel, which I am barely compelled to keep reading. I love Dickens too. And Edgar Allen Poe was writing around the same time as Brontë, but oh how different the style.

Love this passage as I feel this way often. I have always avoided parties!

“Is it that they think it a duty to be continually talking,' pursued she: 'and so never pause to think, but fill up with aimless trifles and vain repetitions when subjects of real interest fail to present themselves? - or do they really take a pleasure in such discourse?'

'Very likely they do,' said I; 'their shallow minds can hold no great ideas, and their light heads are carried away by trivialities that would not move a better-furnished skull; - and their only alternative to such discourse is to plunge over head and ears into the slough of scandal - which is their chief delight.”

This raises my esteem for Gilbert a little.

Surely Anne Brontë is satirizing the superficialities of Victorian society! The melodrama is laughable if you don’t have to live it, which Anne did. Her characterization of Gilbert illustrates to me just how unsuccessful his mother’s view of raising sons is! He’s petty and moody and as some have pointed out—childishly immature. I’m hoping Helen’s protection of her son fares better, but we mostly agree that a mother’s desire to keep a child away from temptation rarely works.

I am filled with misgivings about Helen’s infatuation with Arthur. I agree with Kathleen that Brontë illustrates realistically the way many young women fall for wayward men.

I am interested enough to keep reading and hope Helen succeeds with her son, although I do tire of all the small talk!!

I will begin at the beginning. I could see that Brontë was writing a somewhat feminist novel(for her time). I have four sons, and so I found the conversations in chapter one about raising boys quite interesting. Mrs. Graham’s protection of her son brought criticism about whether it’s better to keep a boy away from temptation or teach him to resist it. Have girls always been coddled more than boys, “delicately nurtured like a hothouse plant”? I wanted to discuss this and see if you thought Brontë was sympathetic with Mrs. Graham. And I also dislike every male character. I’m not sure if I like any of the females either!

Yes, it certainly does, Dianne.

I’m laughing, Ken. I guess it’s not your favorite book? I’m almost done with the first section. I don’t have much to say so am looking forward to your comments!

My favorite Eliot novel though is The Mill on the Floss. Brilliant.

Oh I loved Middlemarch! And I am so envious you are in the south downs.

Yes, Darrin. Quite different in tone from our Jude.

Starting the book today. I’ve only read a few pages but oh my, it seems very “chatty”!

Hi Yvonne. The Poisonwood Bible is one of my all time favorite books! I even taught it in a high school Contemporary Lit class. I just finished Stegner’s Angle of Repose. What an amazing book. I wish I were in a book club to discuss it. But I also have another book to read before beginning Anne Brontë’s. This is the only book club I am in since I have so many other projects. Looking forward to our discussion!

My book arrived today. Made an otherwise gloomy frosty snowy cold Wisconsin day much better.