I just finished reading this last night. Mallory picked it for me because she loves the name Emily. It is a collection of five novels written by two of the Bronte sisters. Charlotte wrote four of the novels and Emily wrote one, Wuthering Heights.
Here are my rankings of the novels:
1. Jane Eyre
I really, really loved this novel. Everything about it was fantastic. The Jane character was great and encountered many other great characters along her life's journey. I have nothing but praise for this book. It was easily my favorite novel in this collection.
2. Wuthering Heights
I really liked this novel as well. It is much darker than Jane Eyre, or the other novels for that matter. But I always enjoy exploring characters with dark motives and actions. And this novel had a few of those type of characters. It was really well done. My only complaint is a minor one (and one that will be hard for me to explain), but it bothered me throughout the story: Much of the story is told to the narrator by a servant; one character often referenced throughout the story spoke with very, very poor English; and the servant in relaying the dialogue from this character would then herself speak in that very poor English while telling the story; every time and for several paragraphs; seems like if she were telling a story to the narrator she would explain to the narrator how this particular character spoke poorly, etc. and then after such a preface would then just talk normal herself; but no, I had to imagine this servant lady talking in way broken English impersonating a certain character while she sat by the fire telling this tale to the narrator. Again, this is only a minor quibble, but it did bother me for some reason. But the novel is still pretty awesome.
3. Villette
This one is ranked next because it had a few different relationships between characters that I really enjoyed. The young Polly/young Graham relationship at the beginning of the novel was great. The Lucy Snowe (the first-person narrator)/Ginerva Fanshawe was my clear favorite. I always loved the parts when those two were together. The Lucy Snowe/Paul Emanuel relationship was also great, especially at first. It was a good book overall, but not great. I really, really didn't like how much French was used throughout. I was like, "Um, I don't speak or read French, so I don't know anything that is being said in this way long conversation."
4. The Professor
This was Charlotte's first book written, but never published until after her death. It's alright, but nothing special. It too has a few good character relationships. I loved the William Crimsworth (first-person narrator)/his older brother relationship. The older bro was a punk to him and treated him poorly, but it was an interesting thing to observe and read such a curious relationship between brothers. The other good one was William/Hunsden. It became an increasingly interesting relationship as the novel progressed, but really became great once William got together with his wife, thus becoming the Mr. and Mrs. Crimsworth's/Hunsden. This book also had way, WAY, too many discussions written in French. I wish my book at least had footnotes to translate what was being said.
5. Shirley
This one was also so-so. The Caroline and Shirley characters were good, but it just seemed like a lot of pointless characters were introduced throughout the novel. This is the one novel where my mind would wander and had a number of pretty boring and seemingly unnecessary chapters. But, surprisingly, it seemed like this one had a lot of pretty good lines and quotes, more than a lot of the others.
So those are my rankings. The first two are must-reads. The other three are all similarly average for the most part. I am really interested in the Bronte's lives and their struggles. I want to read a biography on the family, or the one by Elizabeth Gaskell on Charlotte Bronte's life.
This post is already long, but I wanted to share several quotes as well. Read on if you can muster it:
From Jane Eyre:
"Something of vengeance I had tasted for the first time; as aromatic wine it seemed, on swallowing, warm and racy: its after-flavour, metallic and corroding, gave me a sensation as if I had been poisoned"
"It is far better to endure patiently a smart which nobody feels but yourself than to commit a hasty action whose evil consequences will extend to all connected with you."
"Would you not be happier if you tried to forget her severity, together with the passionate emotions it excited? Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity, or registering wrongs. We are, and must be, one and all, burdened with faults in this world."
"If all the world hated you, and believed you wicked, while your own conscience approved you, and absolved you from guilt, you would not be without friends."
"Besides this earth, and besides the race of men, there is an invisible world and a kingdom of spirits: that world is round us, for it is everywhere; and those spirits watch us, for they are commissioned to guard us; and if we were dying in pain and shame, if scorn smote us on all sides, and hatred crushed us, angels see our tortures, recognise our innocence... and God waits only the separation of spirit from flesh to crown us with a full reward."
"[A] memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure - an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment."
"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"
"Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones."
"Humility... is the groundwork of Christian virtues"
From Wuthering Heights:
"Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves."
"A person who has not done one half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone."
"If I were in heaven, Nelly, I should be extremely miserable." "Because you are not fit to go there, I answered. All sinners would be miserable in heaven."
From Shirley:
"If I had a means of happiness at my command, she thought, I would employ that means often; I would keep it bright with use, and not let it lie for weeks aside, till it gets rusty."
"Nothing refines like affection. Family jarring vulgarizes - family union elevates."
"[A] sweet countenance is never so sweet as when the moved heart animates it with compassionate tenderness."
"Sincerity is never ludicrous; it is always respectable. Whether truth - be it religious or moral truth - speak eloquently and in well-chosen language or not, its voice should be heard with reverence."
"Men and women never struggle so hard as when they struggle alone, without witness, counsellor, or confidant; unencouraged, unadvised, and unpitied."
"We have none of us long to live: let us help each other through seasons of want and woe."
"[W]hen people are long indifferent to us, we grow indifferent to their indifference."
"God mingles something of the balm of mercy vein in vials of the most corrosive woe. He can so turn events, that from the very same blind, rash act whence sprang the curse of half our life, may flow the blessing of the remainder."
From Villette:
"We should acknowledge God merciful, but not always for us comprehensible. We should accept our own lot, whatever it be, and try to render happy that of others."
From The Professor:
"I watch, I toil, I pray; Jehovah, in his own time, will aid."
"But the man of regular life and rational mind never despairs. He loses his property - it is a blow - he staggers a moment; then, his energies, roused by the smart, are at work to seek a remedy; activity soon mitigates regret. Sickness affects him; he takes patience - endures what he cannot cure. Acute pain racks him; his writhing limbs know not where to find rest; he leans on Hope's anchors. Death takes from him what he loves; roots up, and tears violently away the stem round which his affections were twined - a dark, dismal time, a frightful wrench - but some morning Religion looks into his desolate house with sunrise, and says, that in another world, another life, he shall meet his kindred again."
"A man is master of himself to a certain point, but not beyond it."
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