I want to write about Anne Carson's 'The Glass Essay', and I will, but I want time to do it properly (which means I'll probably never do it), so I'm going to write, shortly, about another book for now.
It's Charlotte Brontë's Villette. I haven't finished it yet but almost, and as it is so long, I have quite a few pages to muse on. How fitting, to read Charlotte Brontë's rather autobiographical work shortly after reading 'The Glass Essay', about Emily Brontë. It makes me compare the two and realise that both wrote heavily on things like loneliness and freedom, but very differently.
After visiting the Brontë house and reading some diary entries and letters of Charlotte's there, as well as reading some quotes of her in 'The Glass Essay', I have been keeping a slightly negative, or less admiring, view of Charlotte lately. But that view have been reassessed again. Charlotte was so modern? She was so business-like and ambitious and pragmatic and I say this having read very little on her biography. But from what I gather about her - her publishing hers and her sister's writing, creating their public personas, writing and thinking and maintaining - she seems much that way. I think she would fit well today, in a way (perhaps she would feel it too crowded; not that loneliness is lacking today). Emily Brontë on the other hand feels like a creature stuck in time, or rather place, and how could she be anything anywhere but on the moors in the 19th century? When Emily writes about freedom, she writes about freedom of the soul, a wild sort, freedom from self and the material world. (It's so attractive, Emily's freedom, but difficult to find and pinpoint; somehow tied to a mood or an environment.)
Charlotte's idea of freedom is something more like independence. All her heroines are obsessed with being independent (and surely herself as well). Jane Eyre had do everything on her terms; she had to be free to make the choice and to make the right choice. She would go with her uncle - cousin? - to be a missionary but not as a wife; she must maintain her independence of heart and self. Lucy Snowe is even more stoic about her independence. It's a point of pride for her. Lucy Snowe would rather suffer anything than lose her independence, be it poverty, loneliness, boredom, restlessness, hunger, cold, death. She keeps her lowly job as a teacher in the cold empty school house, rather than be at someone else's will as a lady's companion. In her quiet and loneliness and unhappiness (because, independent and lonely, she is always desperately unhappy; also, seemingly by choice). she decided the way out is to start her own school (I know not yet if she succeeds). She cannot even entertain the thought of being someone's friend or lover before having that for herself. That quest for being an own and living for herself makes her feel so modern. That being despite this ridiculously lonely, stern, dogmatic, morally superior character she is. I love Lucy Snowe, I do, but her self-sacrifice is actually ridiculous.
As with most period literature (can you call it that?) I rather drown in it and start thinking and behaving the same way as the protagonist (especially when it is in first person). Villette is inspiring. The pleasure Lucy takes in being lonely - and yes - independent, despite being miserable. The pride taken in not giving in to hopes and dreams or to other's pity, but to know what's best for yourself and living by that despite it all. Yes, despite the loss of love. Lucy Snowe knows that hope is the most dangerous emotion; that it bites.
I really love Villette, despite it being slow to read and nothing at all happens. It clarifies something about freedom and pride, but I am not entirely sure what exactly. Only I am now back to admiring Charlotte Brontë and her freedom-seeking, brave, honest heroines. I wish I was more like them, I guess.
At some point, soon hopefully, will I read Anne Brontë and see what she has to say about independence and loneliness. I think, though, that she does not really write about that? But what do I know. She is a Brontë after all, and lives as much on the moors and on writing as Charlotte and Emily did.
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hope. Show all posts
Monday, 25 August 2014
Friday, 18 July 2014
Leeds Elaborated
There are two moments - a day, a night - I will cherish from my time in Leeds (I cherish and miss and barely believe in it any more). For their magic and their promise and their beauty.
The first, the easiest, was only my second to last weekend in Leeds. Perhaps I remember it so clearly because it was recent. But more than that, I think it was the height of one particular aspect of my life in Leeds that I adored. It was the nature of Yorkshire; the moors; the lay of land, so to speak.
I wanted to say goodbye to the moors and views so I took the train and the bus to Haworth - with the usual anxiety and worry - and visited the Brontë Museum again and then I went west, out on the moors. I followed a trail, the Brontë Way, and at first it was populated by tourists and walkers like myself. But after I passed the Brontë Waterfall the number of hikers thinned out. The path was thin and less well-trodden. It travelled up and down the moors, along the little brook that led to the waterfall. The view showed Haworth and Keighley in the distance, and green-and-brown hills in every other direction.
And. It. Was. Breathless.
The extraordinary feeling, the one I will cherish, was walking straight away from civilisation (Haworth in my back, nothing in front of me). Even though I knew I wasn't alone (ridiculous bikers left by the previous wall, a few meetings in the form of fellow hikers), it felt a if I was leaving the populated world behind. It felt as if I could walk until I dropped without seeing another human being. And all the time in that gorgeous environment.
It was the feeling of freedom. A feeling I so strive for, adore and yearn for. Am addicted of.
The second was the night in March when I went to my second poetry reading and was blown away by Helen Mort and made casual conversation with a girl also in my module 'Fictions of Fallen Women' and saw someone I was almost-interested in and he noticed me and I realised (that very night) that I was being ridiculous and also was having a crush. Stupid of me, naturally. All of this was important and I can't tell what mattered the most which is why I love that night so much. I spent the ride on the bus home SO HAPPY, my heart beating unevenly and I could taste hope and beauty and life and it was unbelievable.
The wonderful part is that reading Helen Mort's poems brings me back. Not it back to me; me back to then. I'm there. I hear the cadence and warmth and melancholy in her voice when she says
(That horrible hope.)
It was what I brought with me from Leeds. A land where I want to be buried. Where I feel at home. And the fragile, flickering hope that there might be somewhere I could feel content and alive; a room with kindred souls and poetry and red wine.
The first, the easiest, was only my second to last weekend in Leeds. Perhaps I remember it so clearly because it was recent. But more than that, I think it was the height of one particular aspect of my life in Leeds that I adored. It was the nature of Yorkshire; the moors; the lay of land, so to speak.
I wanted to say goodbye to the moors and views so I took the train and the bus to Haworth - with the usual anxiety and worry - and visited the Brontë Museum again and then I went west, out on the moors. I followed a trail, the Brontë Way, and at first it was populated by tourists and walkers like myself. But after I passed the Brontë Waterfall the number of hikers thinned out. The path was thin and less well-trodden. It travelled up and down the moors, along the little brook that led to the waterfall. The view showed Haworth and Keighley in the distance, and green-and-brown hills in every other direction.
And. It. Was. Breathless.
The extraordinary feeling, the one I will cherish, was walking straight away from civilisation (Haworth in my back, nothing in front of me). Even though I knew I wasn't alone (ridiculous bikers left by the previous wall, a few meetings in the form of fellow hikers), it felt a if I was leaving the populated world behind. It felt as if I could walk until I dropped without seeing another human being. And all the time in that gorgeous environment.
It was the feeling of freedom. A feeling I so strive for, adore and yearn for. Am addicted of.
The second was the night in March when I went to my second poetry reading and was blown away by Helen Mort and made casual conversation with a girl also in my module 'Fictions of Fallen Women' and saw someone I was almost-interested in and he noticed me and I realised (that very night) that I was being ridiculous and also was having a crush. Stupid of me, naturally. All of this was important and I can't tell what mattered the most which is why I love that night so much. I spent the ride on the bus home SO HAPPY, my heart beating unevenly and I could taste hope and beauty and life and it was unbelievable.
The wonderful part is that reading Helen Mort's poems brings me back. Not it back to me; me back to then. I'm there. I hear the cadence and warmth and melancholy in her voice when she says
So forgive me if I looked upand like hearing a song once sung at a concert, I'm there, alive and feeling everything at once; the hope and the disappointment and the acceptance of the ways of life.
past your face, to see those nearly-silver drops
make rivers in the dark, and, for a moment,
almost thought there might be stars named after us.
(That horrible hope.)
It was what I brought with me from Leeds. A land where I want to be buried. Where I feel at home. And the fragile, flickering hope that there might be somewhere I could feel content and alive; a room with kindred souls and poetry and red wine.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)