The Strange Life of ‘erbert GabbleBlotchit

My mind was again full of really interesting stuff last night. I even thought about going to get the notebook to write some of it down and here we are as usual with a big space somewhere behind the eyes. Typical! Some of it was about Jane Eyre and how the style of the text relates to modern narrative. Aha! That was it! I was thinking about how recently I have been able to trawl through things which I would have jettisoned very early on. I am not sure whether this is just maturity which makes one stick with something for longer or an increase in intellect which means that longer stuff sticks. Jane Eyre could of course be written with a lot less extraneous words but it wouldn’t have been right. This was of course the root of the discussion I had with my wife about the latest film version of Pride and Prejudice. I honestly enjoyed this film but as I think I mentioned, my wife bemoaned the lack of authentic dialogue which is the real draw for most Austen fans.

I have to say that from reading Jane Eyre I think that most of the adaptations over do the environment – suggesting some sort of gothic backdrop when what Charlotte Bronte wanted to suggest was something altogether more homely. Another thought that came to me was that there is no way we will ever know what was meant. As we get further and further away from the year of the book, we must inevitably lose our ability to determine the style with any accuracy. Shakespeare looks vaguely accurate to us if the costumes worn are anything from 1500 to 1630 – a drama about Romans could probably get away with anything worn between Romulus and Remus waving goodbye to the she-wolf and the day the Vandals, Goths and Visigoths woke up with a hankering for some energetic sacking. All a Greek drama needs is a pile of sheets (and a bucket of blood along with the ‘humour’). And of course hands up all those who believed that Raquel Welch was authentically dressed in One million years B.C. Mmmmmmm! That’s me in that film that is!