My friends K—and A— went to see Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of Jane Eyre. I really wanted to go, but had my Battlestar Gallactica duties to attend to. However, it reminded me of my first-ever book review. Written in my diary when I was 11. Transcribed here, verbatim:
April 20, 1974. Oh gosh I read a great book. My first (I think, I’m not sure) novel. It’s “Jane Eyre.” By Charlotte Bronte. It was about this girl who lived with her late uncle’s wife. Her uncle when he was on his deathbed made her aunt promise to look after Jane even though the aunt hated her. When he died she sent her off to a school. After six years Jane was a governess for Mr. Rochester, a wealthy, middle aged, single man. He fell in love but on their wedding day she finds out he’s married to a maniac who is locked in a room in the mansion. Jane leaves (though she doesn’t want to), starves (she had no money), and in the end goes back to her lover only to find that he is stone blind. The house is burned down (that’s how he gets blind) and the maniac is killed in it. They marry and (after some time) he is able to see pretty good though he can’t read or nothing. It’s really great!
K— said that although Rochester was probably too handsome, she greatly enjoyed the film. But I don’t know if any movie can offer anything that beats the experience of reading a novel for the first time. Getting through every chapter to the end, and then having the whole story, the whole world, in your head, printed symbols into full-blown memories.
But of course, you can only have that experience once. And you can experience a new Jane Eyre about once every five years. And the way they handle those six years at Lowell means a lot to how I feel about the adaptation. So I guess I do need to see this film. In 42 more episodes.