Ooops

I forgot; at some point recently I read The Flight of Gemma Hardy, by Margot Livesey. It was fine. A re-telling, more or less, of Jane Eyre, although probably "homage" would be a nicer way to put it.

I ALSO forgot - I had flagged a couple of lines I particularly liked, and just noticed now when I was getting ready to return the book (Lamont wants it back, darn them).

"In the last year Louise, as visitors often remarked, had blossomed. She carried her new breasts around like a pair of deities seeking rightful homage. Privately I called them Lares and Penates, after the Roman household gods" (8).

I just love that that middle sentence. It's succinct, funny, erudite. Generally speaking, now that I think about it more, the book was really rather well-written. It's origins in Bronte are clear: it's about an unloved orphan sent by her cruel aunt to a miserable boarding school, who eventually becomes the governess (more or less) to the ward of semi-brooding older man, flees him after a wedding-morning revelation, is taken up by a kindly family and then spurns the proposal of the brother... Clearly nothing to give away, there.

But it was a good story in its own right, although there's no way you can read it and not have Jane Eyre before your eyes with every page. The characters are better than the plot, but Livesey updates and changes Bronte's well. Probably my biggest concern with the book, such as it was, was the story's rather timeless nature - and I am not sure that was a good thing. I don't mean timeless in that the story and its inhabitants are accessible to readers of any generation or era. Rather, I never knew quite when the events of the story were taking place.

There were not all that many references that could really tie it down to a specific period, so when there were mentions of more identifiable technology, fashion, or trends, I was always taken aback. Part of this was certainly due to the Eyre influence; I think my brain was always stuck in Jane's time period, and not Gemma's. When there was some reference to a the modern (late fifties / early sixties) setting, I was always caught off guard. And it didn't help that the events, particularly the horrid treatment of orphaned children at the boarding school, seem too Dickensian (or Bronte-ian) to have taken place at the same time my mother, for example, was going to school. And then Gemma is coming of age in the sixties, when so much was going on, and her whole world is contained in a few small villages, a few families. Was semi-rural Scotland really so far out of step with the rest of the world? I can't think so, so it must just be how Livesey wrote the book.

It might also be Gemma, though. She's a better character in the beginning, when she is a sharp, observant, quick-witted and funny child. As a young woman, she seems terribly slow at times, and flees her Mr. Rochester sadly, but without much passion. Sometimes it seemed like her spirit was crushed at school, unlike Jane's, so much of whose appeal is her angry defiance of the life there, and the life the school intended for her.

Ultimately, if you're fond of Jane Eyre (as I am, very much), this is a respectful and respectable updating of that book - but it doesn't present any compelling reason why you would want to read an updating, other than as a pleasant pastime. Livesey seems like a strong writer, though, and I would be interested in how her prose expands in a story of her own creation.