Book 17 - Stardust by Neil Gaiman

Neil Gaiman is a pretty big thing in the fantasy/horror and comic community. I loved the depth and creative mythology of his Sandman comics, and have heard rave reviews about American Gods and Good Omens. So I guess my standards were pretty high when it came to reading Stardust, recommended by my friend Ozhaggis.

Stardust is the story of Tristran Thorn, born half of this world and half of faery. Raised in the town of Wall, which is just this side of the wall between the two realms, he has no idea of his heritage. At around the age of 17 he impulsively vows to bring the town beauty a falling star in return for granting him his one desire. Of course the star has fallen on the other side of the wall, so he sets off on a quest to find it. Faery being what it is, the star is not a chunk of rock but a girl with a broken leg who strongly objects to being given to someone else. And of course Tristran is not the only one looking for the fallen star.

Overall the interplay of plot and characters is well done, and the play on traditional fairy tale themes is quite clever. But it just seemed a little light to me - some of the characters and sideplots were a little underdeveloped. I think the problem was that I was expecting it to be a more adult fairy tale along the lines of Gaiman's other work, especially as I found it in the Adult Fiction section of the library. In reality it's probably more suited to the young adult audience, 11+. When viewed from the YA perspective it's a pretty enjoyable read and a great way to look at fairy tale themes and plot techniques. I have to say when it comes to modern fairy tales with a bit of meat to them I still prefer Robin McKinley's "Beauty" or the Once Upon a Time series.

Book 16 - Wide Sargasso Sea

Ok, so I didn't read Wide Sargasso Sea this week, and in fact haven't read it since 1999. But the last text of Regarding Jane Eyre, a series of letters by the author Jean Rhys, took me right back to where I started - my year 12 HSC class where we studied both Jane Eyre and Rhys' revisionist novel. It may not have impressed me as deeply as Jane Eyre, but most of it came flooding back after reading these letters. Apologies in advance for errors in plot or theme - as I said, it has been 9 years and unfortunately my copy of the novel is at my parent's house 5 hours from here.

A native of the West Indies and a product of the 20th century, JeanRhys objected strongly to Bronte's portrayal of Rochester's first wife as the mad Creole woman in the attic. It took her years to craft her response: a story of a sensual yet innocent woman named Antoinette Bertha and a suspicious young man who falls violently in love. In the lush and humid tropics lust and Obeah magic clash violently with Victorian prejudice and colonialism. The way I'm describing it makes it sound like a bodice-ripper!

Actually it's quite disturbing - Rochester projects all his inner conflict with his intense passion and sensuality onto Antoinette. His Victorian sensibilities could not handle a sexually responsive wife - as Bronte has Rochester suggest in Jane Eyre, Bertha's "gross sensuality" must have been early symptom of true madness. Combine that with her tainted Creole blood, and Rochester instantly believes the first poisonous story he hears of madness in the family.

What follows is a spiral of cruelty, lust and betrayal where Rochester gradually strips Antoinette of her identity - her friends, her country, her name, until she becomes poor mad Bertha, trapped in an English attic. She can only reassert her identity by burning down Thornton Hall and throwing herself to her death. The question hovers above the text - was Antoinette/Bertha truly prone to madness, or did Rochester drive her to it?

Trust me when I say that you will never look at Rochester in quite the same light again. Don't read this if you object to your heros having feet of clay. It's an intense read ripe with violence and sensuality. One image from the text still stays with me, nine years after reading Wide Sargasso Sea - the image of a moth, drawn to the light and heat of a candle that in a moment of ecstasy will prove to be its doom.

Book 15 - Regarding Jane Eyre

More Jane Eyre folks! I promise I am almost done with the topic.

Regarding Jane Eyre is a collection of writers' responses to Jane Eyre. It's an eclectic little collection, containing excerpts from various biographies on Bronte, some literary criticism, and some fictional writing as well. It's an Australian publication edited by Susan Geason, and several of the texts had a distinctly Australian flavour.

Here's a quick rundown of what's included: an excerpt from the Bronte biographies of Gaskell and Lyndall Gordon; an article on what boarding school was really like at the time (the stories are chilling), a psychologist's analysis of the child abuse and recovery that Jane experienced, questions about where Jane's rage went after Lowood; Amy Witting writing the ongoing story of a very minor character; and Morag Fraser relating the complex relationships of fathers and lovers to her own modern family. I will talk about the other three texts in a little depth as they had more of an impact.

My favourite article was janeyre@window by Carmel Bird (click the title to read the full text online, it's worth it). She has terrific fun identifying all the recurring symbolic motifs within the text - from red, fire and windows to Jane's inherent materialism revealed in an ongoing obsession with describing the furniture of a room. I love recurring motifs and teasing out their possible significance, it's what draws me to poetry as well.

Bird envisioned a cd-rom with a hypertext network of links between all these themes - clicking on "window" in the text would take you to all the other references to window etc. This was probably reasonably groundbreaking, given that it was written in 1996 in the early days of the web revolution. It's certainly a great idea and if it's been done I would like to know about it.

The strangest text was Jean Bedford's Crown me with Roses Pastiche, a somewhat bizarre modern re-imagining of the story where Gateshead is a commune, Lowood is an abusive cult and Thornfield a solitary outback homestead. Let's just say that the ending is nowhere near as positive as in the original text!

The last text, a series of letters by Jean Rhys, actually leads me to her novel Wide Sargasso Sea, which I think deserves an entirely separate review. So sorry, you will have to put up with Jane Eyre for one more post!

My final take on Regarding Jane Eyre: overall I felt there was a bit of an obsession with Jane's childhood and the boarding school, and Rochester suffered significantly under the withering gaze of modern feminism. But nevertheless it is quite a refreshing way to dig deeper into a text without having to resort to the traditional and not always reader-friendly literary criticism.