Why I’m Reading the Classics (The Classics Club October Meme)

This month, the Classics Club has posed the following question to its members: “Why are you reading the classics?”  I was determined that I would answer the monthly meme this month, as I’ve skipped out on the last two months and I really do want to be an active member of the Classics Club community.

Well, it’s nearing the end of the month, and I’m just now getting around to the question.  Why am I reading the classics?

I’ve always enjoying reading.  In high school, I was the strange kid who liked most of the classics novels we had to read for English class.  After graduation and as the years went on, I found myself not reading classics books as much as I would have wanted.  In fact, I wasn’t reading for pleasure all that much, except for during the summer.  I was frustrated by the trend, but I always never seemed to have enough time to read.

One summer, I decided that I needed to fix this, and I haven’t looked back since.

The literary canon has formed the foundations of modern popular culture.  In order to really understand any work, you have to understand what came before it.  The classics of literature form the foundation for modern literature and theater – but knowing them well can even increase one’s knowledge of film and television.

I’m slowly realizing exactly how many great stories I’ve been missing out on.  I can’t believe I’ve only just read Anna Karenina and Jane Eyre, for example – those are two works that have really become a part of our shared culture.  Now that I am finally getting around to reading these great books, I’m discovering more and more powerful stories and some very fascinating people: Jane Eyre, Heathcliff, Victor Frankenstein, the second Mrs. De Winter, Catherine Sloper, Paul Atreides, Anna Karenina, Guy Montag, Sherlock Holmes – the list could go on.

Through reading classic books, I’m hearing William Shakespeare, Leo Tolstoy, John Steinbeck, Ernest Hemingway, Henry James, Daphne du Maurier, Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, and many others speak to me.  Their words resonate through the decades – through the centuries, in some cases.  I’m not going to stop listening any time soon.

The Classics Club: Agnes Grey

I admit that when I first started Agnes Grey, I was a bit disappointed by its simplicity.  I had just come off reading Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and was expecting that Anne Brontë’s Agnes Grey would be just as intense.  Alas, it is not – and the way Anne Brontë ends the book confirms the idea:

“And now I think I have said sufficient.”

But Agnes Grey, I think, is deceptively simple.  It’s a short book – under 200 pages – that zips along from scene to scene.  There’s no true plot and no rising action; rather, Agnes Grey is like a slice of life.

The story revolves around Agnes Grey, a deeply Christian young woman whose father loses most of his money after a bad business decision.  In order to help the family, Agnes decides to work as a governess and gain some independence along the way.  Little does she know that working as a governess is no easy job.  Although there’s a dash of romance along the way, Agnes Grey focuses less on this melodrama, choosing instead to act as social commentary.

Agnes Grey is known as a book that realistically explores what it was like to be a governess in the Victorian Era.  By comparison, Jane Eyre makes working a governess sound interesting: the governess is higher than the other servants, educated, and treated fairly well.  Agnes Grey flips this picture; in it, the governess is distinct from (but not above) the other servants and is treated poorly by both her employers and her wards.  The children of Agnes’s first job are disrespectful and mischievous, while the teenagers of her second job are haughty.

Thus, Agnes finds herself an outsider: neither truly a servant, nor one of the family.  Agnes deals with her situation with virtue and empathy – and a dose of sarcasm.  For example, when one of the servants alerts her urgently that the ladies are awaiting her, Agnes sidenotes:

“Climax of horror! actually waiting for their governess!!!”

Nevertheless, after learning the hard way with her first position, Agnes deals with her treatment quietly and maturely, saving her cheeky observations for herself.  As such, there isn’t much action in Agnes Grey, but something simmers just below the surface.

While reading Agnes Grey, I could see why it didn’t cause much stir when it was published – compared with the hubbub surrounding Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, in which the plots explode with drama.  Unlike the latter two, which both operate in a world heightened Gothic melodrama, Agnes Grey feels like real life.  Anne Brontë’s writing style in Agnes Grey isn’t as artsy as her sisters’; rather, it reflects the story she tells in her novel: straightforward, ironic, and, most importantly, real.  In fact, Agnes Grey begins as such:

“‘All true histories contain instruction; though, in some, the treasure may be hard to find, and when found, so trivial in quantity that the dry, shrivelled kernel scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut.’”

After finishing Agnes Grey, the question for me is as follows: what did the book teach me?  It is something monumental or a “dry, shrivelled kernel”?  At this point, I almost feel as though I’m still processing Agnes Grey and its feigned simplicity.  Agnes Grey deals with a lot more than meets the eye: issues of faith, morality, isolation, family, etc.  But perhaps what I found most intriguing about it is its portrait of rich Victorian families for whom Agnes works  having similar problems to many rich families of today.  If we take Agnes Grey as a generally accurate portrait of these families, clearly, modernity hasn’t brought about these problems.  And that’s more than a “dry, shrivelled kernel” to chew on.

If you’ve read Agnes Grey, did you also find it deceptively simple?  How does it compare to other Brontë novels you’ve read?

This was the Book #7 off my Classics Club list.  To see the rest of it, click here.

The Classics Club: Jane Eyre

This post contains minor spoilers for Jane Eyre.

I don’t know what took me so long to read Jane Eyre.  It was never required reading when I was in high school, though it always appeared on recommended reading lists.  Once I started making an effort to research classic literature more, I found its name thrown around in several circles, and I decided that it was a book I needed to read.

When I first started Jane Eyre, I had finished Wuthering Heights just a few days earlier, and I expected that it would not quite shock or move me as much as that one did.  The opening chapter, featuring Jane as the victim of child abuse, shattered said expectations immediately.  From then on, I knew that this was going to be quite a book.  And it was.

My biggest takeaway from Jane Eyre is the character of Jane.  One of the most independent and self-respecting heroines I’ve encountered in literature, Jane Eyre undoubtedly deserves a spot on my list of Fascinating Female Characters, though whom she’d boot off remains uncertain.  My admiration of Jane Eyre can be boiled down into three basic concepts:

1. She knows herself.
2. She trusts her own judgment.
3. She doesn’t back down for anyone, not even the man she loves.

Jane Eyre is truly a character a lot of people admire.  What I found especially intriguing about her is that she’s a strong female character who nevertheless upholds traditional moral values and women’s roles.  Though this may seem paradoxical, it is the essence of what makes Jane unique.  In fact, Jane is strong because she upholds these values.

HERE BEGIN THE SPOILERS. 

Take the scene in which Jane refuses to be Rochester’s mistress, for example.  He wants her to break tradition and live with him without being wed since he cannot legally marry.  But Jane knows herself too well – knows that if she acquiesces to his request, she’d no longer be her own person: she’d be under his mercy, and she wouldn’t be upholding the values in which she believes.  No matter how much she wants to, she simply cannot sacrifice her morality for Rochester.  In rejecting Rochester’s request, Jane chooses her moral values over her own happiness.  As she explains:

“‘Laws and principles are not for times when there is no temptation; they are for such moments as this, when body and soul rise in mutiny against their rigor; stringent are they; inviolate they shall be.  If at my individual convenience I might break them, what would be their worth?’”

With those words, Jane asserts that her principles mean more than her passions, and you have to admire her for that.

HERE END THE SPOILERS.

Having now gotten my feet wet in the Brontës’ work with Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, I will most certainly be reading more the rest of their work.  I’ll be making some changes to my Classics Club list soon, so you can safely assume that those other titles will be included.

If you’ve read Jane Eyre, what was your biggest takeaway?

This was the Book #6 off my Classics Club list.  To see the rest of it, click here.