I discovered this in one of my favorite secondhand bookshops which was sadly soon to close down, and it renewed my interest in all things Bronte related.
MY THOUGHTS:
This biographical novel from 1973 about the brilliant siblings from Haworth is an intense and mind-blowing read. Lynne Reid Banks thoroughly did her homework. Her forays into the inner lives of these four seem (mostly) consistent with what has been confirmed about them from the reams of correspondence they've left behind. Leaving room for poetic license, the book is sensitively written, with threshed out trajectories all round. Its title is well chosen, for their true lives were surely as Gothic and harrowing as anything they ever wrote.
It's hard to decide where to jump in and discuss something with so broad and deep a canvas, so I'll tackle each of the four main subjects according to birth order.
The book delves into Charlotte's intense, private guilt, for feeling more passionate about her own secret world than she does about the conventional Anglican Christianity that is preached all around her. Yet she cannot change a thing, spurred on by the physical excitement she generates inside herself by her characters' elicit passions. (Whoa!) Even the poet laureate, Robert Southey, writes Charlotte a stern warning, to the effect that young ladies shouldn't let their imaginations run away with them. But any resolutions to guard her thoughts are feeble, since the fantasy world she's created is all-consuming. According to her aunt's and father's Calvinistic tinged strictures, Charlotte can't help fearing she must be damned.
Branwell comes across as witty, highly-strung, ever on the verge of breakdown, and in all likelihood a pain in the neck. He's not a fraction as confident as he tries to appear. Rather, he's a tortured soul who fears he'll always be a fall-short, unable to muster what it must take to satisfy the high hopes his family have pinned on him. He's undisciplined and reactive, allowing himself to be tossed about by any wind blowing. His petit mal seizures, commonly known as absence seizures today, alarm his family. (I know other biographers throughout the years conjecture that it was epilepsy.) And he seems to be allergic to actually finishing anything.
I find Banks' dour dramatic version of Emily hard to like but easy to admire. Blunt and reclusive, she's also a nature mystic, but specifically for one spot; her beloved Yorkshire Moors. This goes hand in hand with a weird astral travel ability. (Did she really experience these out-of-body journeys? I can't find any factual backup.) A great admirer of strength and determination, she scorns herself as a weakling for retreating from Roe Head school with intense homesickness, but directs her self-criticism into shaping her writing to be the finest it possibly can.
Anne, perhaps the least 'dark' of the quartet, takes upon herself the earnest anxiety of a youngest child to see everyone happy and content around her; an impossible task with her complex siblings and vulnerable father. (I still think she should have quit her position with the Ingham family, rather than gritting her teeth and toughing it out because she had something to prove. Hence she ends up being fired, which I can't help thinking was partly her own fault. See my review of Agnes Grey, her biographical novel.)
It's all such interesting fodder, including Emily's hero worship of her employer, Miss Elizabeth Patchett, who resembles a favorite heroine Emily has created; and the formally written marriage proposal Charlotte receives from Henry Nussey, which may have influenced that abysmal proposal made by St. John Rivers to Jane Eyre. We meet the sunny natured curate, Willy Weightman, such a contrast to the dark quartet that all four can't help basking under his refreshing influence. There's a plausible reason why Branwell, in a fit of gloom, scrubs himself out of the famous pillar painting. And I love Charlotte's brush with the Catholic priest who tells her, 'Those who suffer as you are suffering often have a vocation to ease the anguish of others.'
Of course Banks introduces the two married people who Charlotte and Branwell fall for. Monsieur Heger is depicted as a principled and decent (albeit overbearing) guy whose powerful sway over Charlotte occurs despite himself, but Mrs Lydia Robinson is portrayed as a heartless and duplicitous cougar.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that when Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her 1857 biography of Charlotte, Mrs Robinson attempted to sue her for defamation over claims that she seduced Charlotte's younger brother. However, Dark Quartet was written well into the twentieth century so Banks didn't have the same problem. She paints Branwell's temptress with a thoroughly black brush. I wonder if Mrs Robinson's descendants remember her as the villain who ruined his life, and if so, whether the passage of time has made it more of a cool detail to include in their lineage than a source of shame.
I took my time over this book. It wasn't one I could possibly rush through, and it wasn't easy to take all the harsh blows on board, but the effort was well worth it. However, the heavy emotion lingers. The world was robbed of whatever novel Emily was working on at the time of her death, and it might've been astounding, coming on the heels of Wuthering Heights. And I find the rift between Charlotte and Branwell, lasting until the day of his death, is heart-rending. Close to the end, Banks has him say, 'Charlotte, who was once closer to my heart than my own left lung, now withholds herself from me as if she fears to become a drunkard and wastrel herself just by looking at me.'
And I won't even get started on the early chapters which dealt with the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth. They were almost too much for me at the outset.
My fascination for the Brontes has been well and truly re-ignited by this book. I visited Haworth Parsonage once, aged 20, and I'd swear you really could feel their creative, brooding energy still caught between those walls.
I guess I'd better warn you to expect more Bronte posts down the track.
🌟🌟🌟🌟½
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