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A review by booksaremyjam
The Brontës: Wild Genius on the Moors: The Story of Three Sisters by Juliet Barker
4.0
Whew!
Juliet Barker's The Brontes is exhaustive and, as such, could be exhausting for those not thoroughly interested in the history of the Bronte family. I mean, she starts out when patriarch Patrick is a child for cripessakes - clearly this will not be a short-winded affair.
I picked this book up due to my interest in the youngest Bronte, Anne. I find her to be so damn intriguing with her feminism and critical eye on religion and marriage - what sort of woman would stand up in the face of society and spit on it so resolutely??
According to Barker, an exceedingly lonely one.
Barker is not romanticizing the Brontes in her book. She berates Elizabeth Gaskell for her slanted "biography" of Charlotte, and provides the most honest, no matter how brutal, account of each Bronte. Charlotte is angry and bull-headed and selfish and arguably a bully to her younger siblings. Branwell is a love-sick puppy who destroys himself. Emily is the day dreaming, isolating genius. Anne is the tight-lipped loner with a critical eye.
They're not sounding too great, are they?
The Brontes lived a rural life, with each other as their only company. Charlotte and Branwell made friends outside the family; Emily and Anne depended on one another. It's a tragic tale of four incredibly intelligent people dying before their time and fighting the peril of low-middle-class in the 1800s. Barker does an expert job of allowing the Brontes to speak in their own words, using hundreds of pages of their letters and diary entries. She finishes by fleshing out the world around them, allowing for fully-immersive story telling. If you're interested in mid-nineteenth century England and/or the Brontes, you really shouldn't go anywhere else but to Barker.
Though this book made me think Charlotte was kind of a terrible person, I found myself thoroughly engrossed in her story, even after her other siblings had all died. It wasn't until Charlotte's own death that I began to skim the book a little (the last 100 pages or so).
The Brontes isn't for everyone, or really for most people. It is a hefty book, and the attention to detail is so obsessive, you have to wonder if Barker has a spot of OCD. That being said, for someone like me, who got her Masters in English, and has always found the Brontes fascinating? I wouldn't have minded if it had been even longer.
Juliet Barker's The Brontes is exhaustive and, as such, could be exhausting for those not thoroughly interested in the history of the Bronte family. I mean, she starts out when patriarch Patrick is a child for cripessakes - clearly this will not be a short-winded affair.
I picked this book up due to my interest in the youngest Bronte, Anne. I find her to be so damn intriguing with her feminism and critical eye on religion and marriage - what sort of woman would stand up in the face of society and spit on it so resolutely??
According to Barker, an exceedingly lonely one.
Barker is not romanticizing the Brontes in her book. She berates Elizabeth Gaskell for her slanted "biography" of Charlotte, and provides the most honest, no matter how brutal, account of each Bronte. Charlotte is angry and bull-headed and selfish and arguably a bully to her younger siblings. Branwell is a love-sick puppy who destroys himself. Emily is the day dreaming, isolating genius. Anne is the tight-lipped loner with a critical eye.
They're not sounding too great, are they?
The Brontes lived a rural life, with each other as their only company. Charlotte and Branwell made friends outside the family; Emily and Anne depended on one another. It's a tragic tale of four incredibly intelligent people dying before their time and fighting the peril of low-middle-class in the 1800s. Barker does an expert job of allowing the Brontes to speak in their own words, using hundreds of pages of their letters and diary entries. She finishes by fleshing out the world around them, allowing for fully-immersive story telling. If you're interested in mid-nineteenth century England and/or the Brontes, you really shouldn't go anywhere else but to Barker.
Though this book made me think Charlotte was kind of a terrible person, I found myself thoroughly engrossed in her story, even after her other siblings had all died. It wasn't until Charlotte's own death that I began to skim the book a little (the last 100 pages or so).
The Brontes isn't for everyone, or really for most people. It is a hefty book, and the attention to detail is so obsessive, you have to wonder if Barker has a spot of OCD. That being said, for someone like me, who got her Masters in English, and has always found the Brontes fascinating? I wouldn't have minded if it had been even longer.