Jane Eyre: A Cure For All Ills

I’m back to posting on my sadly neglected blog. Yay! Do people still read it?

I was supposed to post about Kristin’s visit to California before I did anything else, but I haven’t got words for how awesome that was yet. I’d give details, but I find when I try to write about it, my vocabulary becomes restricted to the superlatives-only section of the dictionary. Awesome. Fantastic. Life-changing, even. Hyperbole, you say? Hello! She came all the way to California, from Norway, to visit me (and my sister, but me is the part of it that I’m focused on), someone who’s always been told she was second-rate and further, had “friends” that would not bother to drive two miles to see her all through childhood and university (seriously, I always had to go to them, never them to me, ever. No one even asked if they could come over). It’s quite reasonable for me to be without words to describe the event of someone travelling 5,300 miles to see me.

So I’m writing about other things for which I have got the words. Jane Eyre!

A few days ago, I watched the 2006 BBC production of Jayne Eyre. This being the first time I watched it I was on the edge of my seat. I always am with films I haven’t seen before. But this was Jane Eyre, so it was a thousand times worse. Can you tell that I love period films yet? No? Go look at my list of favourite books, realise that there’s films only of the Victorian ones, and come back. I have to say that Jane Eyre didn’t beat out my all-time favourite miniseries, North and South, but it drew level with Pride and Prejudice, which is only a nose behind.

Anyway, I was going to tell you how it went.

I came home that day (which was Thursday, 28 April, 2008, if you wanted to know) feeling quite miserable because I’d just had to substitute for a classroom full of verminous creatures; ceramics was the subject. Every one thought they were making beautiful clay figures, but in fact, they were making ugly clay blobs. Too harsh, I should be more supportive, especially given my own experience? Well, I didn’t tell them their blobs were ugly. (I didn’t say any of them were pretty, either, though, because the last time I did that with this class another student smashed the blob of the student that I complimented on the floor. I told you they were verminous creatures.) And then, in fifth period, they started throwing clay at the walls.

Here’s the embarrassing thing: I didn’t catch them at it. I didn’t even notice the clay on the walls (it was about eight to twelve feet up on the wall) until sixth period students pointed it out to me. I heard fifth period slinging it about, but it was always behind my back, and I never saw anyone moving suspiciously, and no one looked guilty. And they never threw clay when I’ve subbed before, so I didn’t know what the noise was. And you really couldn’t expect me to think of looking for thrown clay because… well, because I would never think of throwing clay in the first place. Why would anyone do that? It’s so much more fun to make it into ugly blobs.

Anyway, as previously mentioned, the clay was stuck to the walls (because clay sticks to walls when it’s thrown hard enough, in case you didn’t know) from the eight foot height to about twelve feet and it took me forever to clean it off after the creatures left. Forever. I was tired and pissed and miserable.

And then I watched Jane Eyre with my sister, Jess. I swear, Jane Eyre could cure a person with cancer. All right, maybe not, but it lifted me right out of my funk.

I was continually squashing my sister. I was equally continually bouncing on my seat after the manner of an insane bus passenger or a small child that needs to use the water closet. The course of the movie went thusly:

It starts. I feel a kinship to the poor kid, punished by being put in the red room she hates. My funk from work gets worse as I see what happens to the child. We move along in the story and then! She comes to Thornfield. Yay! Everything’s looking up and then! Mr Rochester almost runs over her and then! What will happen next?! I probably look like I haven’t peed in a century by this time. Everything happens as it must: Mr Rochester falls in love, and Miss Eyre also. Of course I intrinsically know Mr Rochester will propose to Miss Eyre. I might as well just wait for it to happen. But all the same, I keep rooting for him to tell her he loves her, and he keeps not doing it, and I get this huge “AUGH!” feeling every time he fails to tell her. This happens without pause through the entire first disc and twenty minutes into the second disc, and then we get to the scene where Miss Eyre is in the garden with Mr Rochester.

She says she’ll advertise immediately, he tells her she won’t; he already found her a place. “As his WIFE!” I tell her for him, but she doesn’t hear. She remarks that Ireland is a long way from him. I have to pause the disc so I can make noises. “Heeeeehehehehe! Aaawwww! A long way from hiiiiim! Hmmmmhmmm, awwwwww!” Then he goes on about friends, so I have to remind him that she is really obviously in love with him, and ask him why he has to torture her like that. He doesn’t pay attention, the bastard. Then she says “I love Thornfield!” Like, hello! She’s telling him! Bouncing on the edge of my seat sadly makes no difference in the pace of the film, but soon enough we get to, “You will not leave me, Jane!” This necessitates more pausing so that I can make even more noises: “D’aaaaw! Bloooooobo! Eeeeee!” Finally! Yes! All right! He’s gonna do it!

Mr Rochester proposed to Miss Eyre. That was the point where I started making baby noises. I sounded like an infant. Jess mentioned that she could envision exactly how the conversation where my husband proposes to me will go.
Future Husband: I offer you my hand, my heart, and all my possessions.
Me: GOO!
And then when he kisses me, I’ll walk two fingers along his shoulder and croon, “Wooo-dee-doooo!”

Yes. It is a fact: I’m hopeless when watching these sorts of films. But I enjoy love stories so much that I don’t care!

I just watched it for a second time, by the way, which is why you’re reading this post. Upon this second watching I noticed something that I didn’t particularly note the first time: Mr Rochester is, of people in films that I’ve seen, the man who actually looks the most impassioned when he kisses his girl. He just presses his lips to hers, like he has to touch her, like he has to let her know he was serious that he loves her. His mouth is very nearly closed. It’s not like he’s trying to eat her face off, as I’ve seen other heroes in other films do.

I’m going to digress here to say I’ve always thought face-eating kisses really gross-looking. I have to say ‘gross-looking’ because I’ve never been kissed and thus have no basis to talk about feeling gross-looking—yes, you read that right, ‘never been kissed,’ at 23 years of age. ‘Ye gods! How did that happen?’ I hear you say? Very easily: I never went out with someone I wanted to kiss. I have met a couple, but neither of them showed any signs of wanting to kiss me. So sad. Anyway, back to the original digression… Perhaps I find face-eating kisses to be gross-looking because I associate them with pubescent creatures in high school hallways, but in any case, I just think they’re nasty. Maybe they’re absolutely fabulous things to experience, but when you see a fourteen year old drooling on a thirteen year old, it kind of puts you off your food, never mind that kind of kissing.

Any rate, Mr Rochester kisses very romantically, to my way of thinking. I’ll nominate him for MTV’s Best Kiss any day.

And now that I’ve blogged your attention span away, I’ll quite raving about Jane Eyre. Except to say that you must watch it. Even you types that find such things boring. Rochester almost gets burnt up twice! That’s gotta be enough excitement for you. Watch it.