Being carried away... Jane Eyre

I love being carried away by a good book!  I just finished reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte!  Oh, my... I am so in love with this book.  I wish I had read it slower because I would love to absorb myself in Jane's world longer.  I tried to take my time with this book and  really savor Charlotte Brontë's beautiful, descriptive language but it has a way of drawing you in.  Savor I did, but I found there were nights where I couldn't go to sleep without reading just one more chapter. 

So much to love about this book, but what I'm left with is an overwhelming sense of God's love and care.  Odd because the book begins with such horror. (I'm sure my spiritual take on it has much to do with where I find myself spiritually.) On the outset of the book I was left wondering if I could continue reading (as Jane is so abused) but my curiosity for her welfare kept me going.  Charlotte Brontë makes you care about this sweet, little child who is left completely unloved.  I felt a motherly sort of hope that she'd find happiness. The religious/ spiritual references throughout the book were very inspiring to me.  Jane Eyre is always concerned with what's morally and spiritually right. Although so many of the characters around her do not treat her right and the religious authority of the time seem quite uncaring and devoid of compassion.  She learns more of true spiritual or Christian love from her young friend at a boarding school for charity cases.  Her continual maltreatment seems to keep her focused on higher forms of love.  And within Bronte's writing there seems to be a clear delineation between religious fervor and a more personal, loving sense of who God is. Interesting, as she was the daughter of a Reverend.  I love this paragraph in Chapter 28.

Worn out with this torture of thought, I rose to my knees. Night was come, and her planets were risen: a safe, still night: too serene for the companionship of fear. We know that God is everywhere; but certainly we feel His presence most when His works are on the grandest scale spread before us; and it is in the unclouded night-sky, where His worlds wheel their silent course, that we read clearest His infinitude, His omnipotence, His omnipresence. I had risen to my knees to pray for Mr. Rochester. Looking up, I, with tear-dimmed eyes, saw the mighty Milky-way. Remembering what it was--what countless systems there swept space like a soft trace of light--I felt the might and strength of God. Sure was I of His efficiency to save what He had made: convinced I grew that neither earth should perish, nor one of the souls it treasured. I turned my prayer to thanksgiving: the Source of Life was also the Saviour of spirits. Mr. Rochester was safe; he was God's, and by God would he be guarded. I again nestled to the breast of the hill; and ere long in sleep forgot sorrow.   

So many other themes within this book to think about.  I haven't mentioned that it's a passionate & suspenseful love story!  But even there I find it fascinating for the tension about whether Eyre's love inclination is morally right and her decision to leave when she learns of her beloved's secret.  I'll be thinking and dreaming about it for weeks I'm sure.  I hope to put it on the shelf, forget about it and at some future point reread and relive it all over again.

As a child I was an avid reader though didn't have much guidance in what would be worthwhile to read.  Consequently I found books that were hit and miss in terms of their quality.  Many of the classics eluded me.  So, now as an adult I'm excited to read Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Jane Austen and Louisa May Alcott.  Also I've read of an interesting book called "Wide Sargasso Sea" told from the perspective of Bertha (the lunatic), from Jane Eyre. That sounds as if it will be a fascinating story! If anyone else has any other authors & books they'd like to recommend, I'd love to hear.

Until my next read I think I have to go find one of the many movies of, Jane Eyre at the library and linger a bit longer in Charlotte Brontë's imaginings.  Until next time...