skygiants | (no subject)

I went into The Tenant of Wildfell Hall all ready to defiantly love it, in large part because the person writing the introduction to my c. 1900 Project Gutenberg edition (Mrs. Humphry Ward, turn-of-the-century British novelist and President of the Women's Anti-Suffrage League) kept harping on about how Anne was by far the least talented Bronte sister and had none of Charlotte's spark. This seems an obnoxious thing to say about someone in the introduction to their own book.

It is thus somewhat to my chagrin that it turns out I don't actually think Anne has Charlotte's spark. I liked Tenant of Wildfell Hall, but it doesn't have the transcendent weirdness that make Jane Eyre and Villette so compelling.

This is not to say that our heroine Helen is not extremely sympathetic. In the first part of the book, our narrator, Gilbert Markham, relates how Helen the beautiful and mysterious widow Helen Graham moves into the village with her son and just! wants! to be left alone! with her kid! for TWO SECONDS!

Alas, nobody will allow this.

HELEN: I would prefer my five-year-old son did not drink alcohol.
THE NEIGHBORS: Your child will be the VERIEST MILKSHOP.
HELEN: OK, but his father was an abusive alcoholic, so I'd prefer that he didn't -
THE NEIGHBORS: We're calling the vicar to convince you that you're being a terrible mother!
THE VICAR: Not letting your child drink alcohol is CRIMINAl and DESPISING THE GIFTS OF PROVIDENCE!
HELEN: .... I think I'll stay home next time.

HELEN, AT HOME: oh ok looks like everyone's ... come to visit me ...
THE NEIGHBORS: We're just gonna check out every room in your house now, OK? Oh, a painting, tell us all about your paintings!
HELEN: Yes, I'm looking forward to the next time I can take my son out on a long walk to go paint the beach, and enjoy the peace and solitude of nature -
THE NEIGHBORS: It's silly for you to go by yourself, we'll all go and make a daytrip of it! It'll be so much fun!
OUR NARRATOR GILBERT: "Poor Mrs. Graham looked dismayed, and attempted to make excuses, but Rose, either compassionating her lonely life, or anxious to cultivate her acquaintance, was determined to have her; and every objection was overruled."

At this point I had to put the book down for a moment out of sheer empathy at Helen's plight, as would anyone who has ever been bearded in their lair and trapped into a daytrip with irritating strangers.

Anyway, inevitably Gilbert falls for Helen and Helen tells him Their Love Cannot Be, and then terrible rumors start to circulate about her and a fellow called Lawrence who Gilbert is kind of friends with, and then Gilbert sees them embracing! in the garden! and then Lawrence tries to make sympathetic chitchat with Gilbert when he meets him on the street and Gilbert KNOCKS LAWRENCE ON THE HEAD WITH HIS WHIP, WATCHES HIM FALL OFF HIS HORSE, AND RIDES FURIOUSLY OFF.

Oh, but Gilbert's not a monster! eventually his conscience gets the better of him, he feels guilty and comes back --

-- and then, when Lawrence is like 'wtf asshole,' has another fit of rage, throws Lawrence a handkerchief, watches Lawrence try and fail to get on his horse, watches Lawrence collapse yet again into a ditch, and then LEAVES. AGAIN. WAY TO GO, GILBERT.

(It later turns out that Lawrence is, of course, Helen's brother. Gilbert is understandably embarrassed by the whole thing. Fortunately for Gilbert, Lawrence does not have a chance to tell Helen that her new boyfriend beat him up in the middle of the street and left him to die before Gilbert has a chance to come find him and apologize: "The truth is, Lawrence, I have not quite acted correctly to you of late."

AMAZINGLY, Lawrence -- lying in bed, feverish, after spending a night in a ditch -- eventually accepts this wildly awkward apology.)

But all this is really just setup for Helen to have a chance to tell Gilbert the story that forms the meat of the novel: how she married a handsome rake, thinking she could reform him, and spent the next several years in increasingly intense misery before finally deciding to grab her kid and run.

This grim portrait of an abusive marriage is where Anne gets her reputation for taking a Hard Line on Byronic Assholes. It's a worthwhile book to have written, and made quite a storm in Victorian England for its thesis that wifely virtue is not a blank check. (I mean, it's still Victorian England, so Helen can't close up shop for good until the Moral Well-Being of her Son is threatened and maternal responsibilities can justifiably trump marital responsibilities, but it's still a solid start.) I like, respect, and sympathize with Helen, but I don't get the same intense sense of her individuality that I do with Jane Eyre, and Lucy Snowe, and even terrible Catherine Earnshaw. That said, Tenant is also just fundamentally a more pragmatic book than anything written by the other Brontes; the prose has no particular interest in soaring.

Anyway, in the end we're back to Gilbert, who eventually, after some rom-com travails and a fit of the unworthies upon realizing his crush is of a higher social class than he is, manages to successfully get engaged to Helen. This is theoretically a happy ending, although Gilbert is pretty mediocre at best, and also, again, did definitely leave Helen's completely unobjectionable brother to die in a ditch that one time, so the reader's opinion may vary. At least he's not an alcoholic!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

From:

misbegotten

This seems an obnoxious thing to say about someone in the introduction to their own book.

*giggle*

From:

skygiants

It's SO RUDE. Then I read about Mrs. Humphry Ward and her campaign against women's suffrage and felt very vindicated in my instant antipathy.

From:

genarti

This does sound intriguing in terms of its general theses of "wifely virtue is not a blank check" and "sometimes a person would really just like to be left alone to have some peace and quiet"! Although it also sounds as if the reader is doomed to spend at least 70% of the time cringing sympathetically on Helen's behalf...

From:

skygiants

I would up that percentage to 80% or even 90! Helen does not spend most of this book having a good time. There are a few nice discussions about books she seems to enjoy!

From:

genarti

Aieeee. Yeah, I want to want to read this but I am pretty sure I don't actually want to read this. SORRY HELEN I HOPE YOUR POST-CANON IS FULL OF QUIET PAINTING AND NICE BOOK DISCUSSIONS.

From:

skygiants

If you want to read another Bronte, read Villette! (This is not just because I want to talk to everyone about how weird Villette is but it's maybe like 75% because I want to talk to everyone about how weird Villette is.)

From:

labingi

Thanks for this write-up. I've never actually read the book, though I saw the Masterpiece Theatre production and liked it pretty well. Your description fits my impressions from skimming over it but elucidates a lot. :-)

From:

skygiants

I've been curious about the Masterpiece production since reading the book! Mostly because I wonder whether Gilbert comes off less mediocre when played charmingly by a handsome actor from the BBC stables.

From:

labingi

You know, what threw me was Rupert Graves in the role of the awful husband. It was the second role I ever saw him in and the first in which he was speaking received English, so it took me, like, 25 minutes to recognize him. And then I was sad because I really love him as an actor and didn't want to see him play the bad guy. The cast was all really good though. (I don't remember Gilbert well; I think he struck me as rather boring.)

From:

skygiants

I bet it probably also helps to see a very charming actor as the awful husband, too, to understand even more why Helen goes ahead and marries this guy who is pretty obviously Bad News.

From:

gramarye1971

I also confess to a certain amusement over how Gilbert, in his extreme thirstiness, seems to substitute Lawrence for Helen at one point once he knows about the family connection:

I took a secret delight in pressing those slender white fingers, so marvellously like her own, considering he was not a woman, and in watching the passing changes in his fair, pale features, and observing the intonations of his voice, detecting resemblances which I wondered had never struck me before.

Edited Date: 2017-11-19 03:38 am (UTC)

From:

skygiants

I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT TO MENTION THIS, IT WAS HILARIOUS.

(Meanwhile, poor Lawrence gets more uncomfortable with Gilbert by the day? Possibly my favorite thing in the book is when he accidentally-on-purpose fails to invite Gilbert to his wedding.)

From:

gramarye1971

Bwahaha, yes! It did have that accidentally-on-purpose feeling to it -- a complete "oh, did you not get my message? how awful, it must have just missed you" exchange. Poor Lawrence indeed.

From:

skygiants

And Gilbert is SO HUFFY about it, like, Gilbert, did you -- fail to remember that time when -- like, WE ALL UNDERSTAND why Lawrence might not want you at his wedding, right???

From:

alias_sqbr

Tenant is a more Worthy And Historically Important, but I always preferred Agnes Grey as a novel, even if it doesn't stand out in any particular way.

From:

skygiants

I need to read Agnes Grey! And also Shirley. I can't remember if Emily has any books I'm missing, but I'm less invested in catching up on Emily's Entire Oeuvre anyway.

From:

alias_sqbr

I think she just has the one, but I was never inspired to care either.

From:

davidgillon

Mrs. Humphry Ward, turn-of-the-century British novelist and President of the Women's Anti-Suffrage League

*Headdesk*

And double *headdesk* to me for reading that entirely wrongly the first time through.

From:

skygiants

I DID TOO, I had to go back and double-check the first time I looked her up, But Indeed She Was. What a claim to fame.

From:

davidgillon

What a claim to ~~fame~~ infamy.

I fixed that for you ;)

From:

thistleingrey

I did like _Agnes Grey_ better, though as I recall it's also less complex. Nearly dropped the phone in surprise when I reached the part in _Tenant_ where Helen leaves. I dunno, I appreciate Anne Bronte's pragmatism.

From:

skygiants

The introduction ALSO spoiled me for the fact that Helen leaves, so then I was just reading that whole section waiting for what was going to be the Final Straw. Thanks, Ms. Humphry Ward!

I do appreciate Anne's pragmatism -- I appreciate a lot about the book, but I don't have the kind of fascination with the psychology of it that I do with Charlotte's. Which, again, is an unfair comparison, there's no reason to always be weighing Brontes against each other, and yet.

From:

thistleingrey

Oh no. I would've found it hard to reach that point with spoilers, though usually I don't mind them.

Charlotte's are definitely in the Wordsworthian-sublime bucket, IMO, though I don't really care for them.

From:

oracne

I've never read this one. Maybe I should, some day.

From:

skygiants

I think it's worth the read!

From:

larryhammer

Tenant is Anne's better novel, but I've never reread it, and I have Agnes Grey. Neither is in the High Bronte mode, which makes readers looking for more Charlotte and Emily ignore her, I think.

From:

skygiants

Yeah, it's definitely a very different mode of writing -- which honestly surprises me when I read that some contemporary readers thought that Jane Eyre and Tenant were by the same author. It doesn't feel like that at all.