Becoming Jane Eyre
Ratings1
Average rating3
15
Ratings1
Average rating3
A beautifully imagined tale of the Brontë sisters and the writing of Jane Eyre. Sheila Kohler's memoir Once We Were Sisters is now available. The year is 1846. In a cold parsonage on the gloomy Yorkshire moors, a family seems cursed with disaster. A mother and two children dead. A father sick, without fortune, and hardened by the loss of his two most beloved family members. A son destroyed by alcohol and opiates. And three strong, intelligent young women, reduced to poverty and spinsterhood, with nothing to save them from their fate. Nothing, that is, except their remarkable literary talent. So unfolds the story of the Brontë sisters. At its center are Charlotte and the writing of Jane Eyre. Delicately unraveling the connections between one of fiction's most indelible heroines and the remarkable woman who created her, Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre will appeal to fans of historical fiction and, of course, the millions of readers who adore Jane Eyre, as well as biographies about the Brontës like Claire Harman’s Charlotte Brontë: A Fiery Heart.
Reviews with the most likes.
Kohler writes this novel much in a way that complements the language and dynamic of the authors she herself focuses in on. Having read and loved <i>Jane Eyre</i>, it was interesting to see Kohler's take on how Charlotte Brontë and her life's experiences filtered into the title character and her companions. The author also goes into great detail, although I didn't quite enjoy the first part and the details regarding the Brontë father's time recovering from eye surgery.
Overall, this isn't so much a novel with an intricate plot with extreme character development, but rather a vignette of sorts - a look into what the life of the Brontë sisters very well may have been like, and in particular into the life of Charlotte.
