Jane Eyre!

After lying about it for years (I'm a terrible person), I have actually finished Jane Eyre. I have to admit it, I liked it a lot. Charlotte Bronte was a genius... All things I have said at the bookstore over the years while trying to talk high schoolers into picking it for their summer reads were true. I feel like less of a fraud now. I liked Jane a lot. Though for my money, Rochester could man up a little. I'm not a fan of pretending your illegitimate daughter is your "ward", or that the crazy woman in the attic trying to kill you is a servant (poor Grace Poole, she was just a girl trying to do a job), but since he helped Thursday Next in The Eyre affair, I've decided he's great. And how long did we need to spend with the cousins? I know, I know, Bronte was proving Jane was independent, and providing a way for her to go back to Rochester without compromising her character, but did I care about St. John's missionary trip? Not so much. But then Jane went back to Rochester and there was a happy ending (thanks to Thursday).

I feel smarter, like reading a classic counteracts reading Us Weekly. Which is why a number of years ago I decided to read a classic every summer. It's been more fallish than summerish lately, but I've kept it up pretty well. Last year was Sense and Sensibility, the year before Catch 22 (I'm not entirely sure I finished that one, to be honest, I got confused, put it down, and I should really go back and check for a bookmark in the middle of my copy someday). I've been doing it since the summer between my freshman and sophomore years at college. And now that I think about it, I did it to impress a boy. I was reading probably Stephen King or Dean Koontz or something equally fun and easy at my summer job, and he came in one day with The Prince. And I countered with Les Miserables by Victor Hugo. He was going to be a senior, and going to England for a semester, and I wanted to seem smart. Of course, by the time I finished all 2000 pages of Les Mis, he still hadn't finished the Prince (200 pages in large print that one). Perhaps, looking back, he was trying to impress the funny well read girl in the tram booth, and I actually ended up with an almost ten year long project that has led me to books like Jane Eyre, all the Austens, and several other classics I missed in school (MacBeth, read almost entirely on a beach once).

My reward? I get to read the fabulous, funny and interesting Jasper Fforde novel, The Eyre affair. Rochester helps Thursday Next to save Jane! It's awesomely weird, and the book I was referencing in my head the WHOLE time I was reading Jane Eyre... I can't wait!