Kelly's Reviews > Mr. Rochester

Perfectly competent. I’m sorry that that’s the best I can say of it after 400+ pages, but there it is. She did, at least at first, capture the rhythms of 19th century prose in a way that deeply reassured me. She has clearly done research and gotten many historical details right. There is no prose or moment here that is ridiculous or out of left field- but you know how Lizzy tells Darcy when they’re talking about character faults he might have that they can make fun of and he tells her that he’s unforgiving of people- and she responds, “that is a flaw indeed, but I cannot laugh at it”? I feel like that about this book. There are flaws, and many of them, but out of respect for the seriousness with which she clearly took this, and the clear understanding on display, I can’t make a funny review out of it.

But this isn’t the book I wanted at all. After awhile, this read like a reporting out of the facts of his life, a fitting in of puzzle pieces, rather than an explanation of his character. We don’t pause very often to live important moments alongside him, to feel how he must have felt. She just tells us what happens and moves on. And if we do pause there is far, far too much telling on the narrator’s part. There are a few exceptions to this- which are the parts that cover his experiences with Bertha after marriage and his awful encounters with her family- which tells you what she cares about, which is absolving Rochester as much as possible for his sins. I’m on board to a certain extent, but she went way way too far. I started to fight back against it mentally bc it was too much to be believed. And my God, it was slow. I don’t care about plot AT ALL and it was slow because we didn’t get the character moments and interactions to make up for it. I understand she was essentially trying to fit two books into the space one should go so she had to keep moving but I think she overestimated how much she needed to explain every little last thing. That’s not what I wanted. I wanted to spend time with the Rochester who drew me so magnetically in JE, not to hear a list of facts about his life. The person he is presented as at the start of the events of JE has very little connection with the man we see before in terms of personality. For example, he speaks super differently out loud- both in terms of diction and content-between one page and the next one that has actual Bronte dialogue, which is jarring. His behavior around Blanche doesn’t make sense for the sainted person she keeps insisting he is before that. I also wish she had made more of the opportunities to tell a different story in Jamaica, Jean Rhys style or at least giving other voices their own story style. I half hoped that’s what we would get, and there were whispers of it, but only for a few pages here and there. I also wish she had felt comfortable complicating Bertha more than she did- she did take one step in that direction, but then seemed to feel honor had been satisfied and withdrew to justifying Rochester again. Alt-perspectives aren’t just for validating the other person all the time.

So I am sorry but I found this dispiritingly dull, with magic and life and most truth drained of it and a plausible background left there in its place.