Book reviews: Jane Eyre read by Juliet Stevenson is deep and velvety
Bryant and May of the Peculiar Crimes Unit bring out London’s Glory, and A Man of Genius examines how being married to a stereotypical tortured genius is no picnic
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë (read by Juliet Stevenson)
Audible Studios (audiobook)
5/5 stars
Author anniversaries are all the rage – 2016 is, apparently, the year of both Shakespeare and Charlotte Brontë, genuinely great English-language writers separated by a couple of centuries. Brontë’s great book, Jane Eyre, is a staple of literature courses the world over. Frequently marketed as a romance – thanks to the central on-off-off-off-off-on relationship between Jane and Mr Rochester – the story is really anything but. Jane’s history is defined by tenacity and survival: orphaned, she endures an appalling step-family and a punitive school, then works as a governess for a manipulative near-psychopath, meets a cold-hearted evangelical and, Reader, wins out in the end. As befits a classic classic, there are any number of audiobooks. I plumped for Juliet Stevenson, largely because her deep, velvety tones could read the instructions for a flat pack bed and hold my attention. She catches Jane’s suppressed sadness (“dreadful to me was the raw twilight”) effortlessly. The clarity of her narration convinces of the clarity of Jane’s mind within the torment of her life. And yet she is just as good when describing the cruel comedy of Rochester’s inquisition disguised as a gipsy or the dramatic fire started by Bertha Mason on Jane’s wedding day. Listener, I loved every minute of it.
