Posted on Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Writing anonymously on the Yorkshire moors, Bronte appeals directly to our sense of victimization, our smothered superiority. Why are we not loved? Why don’t people recognize us for who we really are? How long must we endure this “ever-torturing pain”? These are the broiling adolescent questions that ‘Jane Eyre’ gives voice to in such full-throated cries. The novel allows us to luxuriate in our wounded sense of others’ unreasonable disregard for how wonderful we really are. And that same tone of emotional extravagance is reflected in the marvelously gothic plot of ‘Jane Eyre’ that finally bursts into flames and consumes everything.
from a Washington Post book review by Ron Charles of The Flight of Gemma Hardy, a book that tries to be a modern retelling of Jane Eyre but fails (via laughgiant)

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