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Original poster

Bronte or Austen ?

64 replies

herethereeverywhere · 04/12/2012 12:37

Just that really. Just had a debate with my sister regarding them both (all Brontes vs Jane Austen ). I said that although I do love P&P and Persuasion for me it's the Brontes every time. DSis thinks you can't beat Austen for escapism though. Apologies if this has been done on here before but DSis and I have decided to bow down to the mumsnet vote Grin

OP posts:
mummytime · 04/12/2012 16:58

Austin as she has a dry wit, and if you think she is chick lit you really haven't got the irony.

I like Charlotte on the whole, really like Anne, but Emily is so dreadful she drags the Brontes as a whole down to real chick-lit/mills and boon for me.

Whitershadeofpale · 04/12/2012 16:54

Bronte's for me. I think Austen is too chick-lity for me.

GrimmaTheNome · 04/12/2012 16:41

I hated the ending of Villette. Give me a happy ending for preference, or a sad one if you must but that was just a let-down. (trying to avoid spoiler)

StiffyByng · 04/12/2012 16:29

Austen, Austen, Austen. I like to laugh at books. Bronte is also too teenage angst for me. Even as a teenager myself it irritated me. I had to do Wuthering Heights for A level and loathed every minute of it.

DuchessofMalfi · 04/12/2012 16:24

Well I think I'd rather have a Darcy or a Wentworth than a Rochester for a husband :). I'd be forever worrying in case I upset him and he started clearing a space in the attic :o

MrsBovary · 04/12/2012 13:09

I liked Bronte best when I was a teenager. I love both still, but prefer Austen nowadays. Favourites being, Northanger Abbey (nostalgic, being the first Austen book I read, and introduced me to Radcliffe), and Sense and Sensibility.

HoratiaLovesBabyJesus · 04/12/2012 13:06

Austen is more rose-tinted. Even those in desperate straits come out ok in the end.

The Brontes are more realistic perhaps, and certainly more gritty.

LadyPeterWimsey · 04/12/2012 12:52

He's brilliant, isn't he? And I'm pretty sure, as famously level-headed as he is, that he's an Austen fan... Grin

GrimmaTheNome · 04/12/2012 12:52

Brontes are for when you're feeling grown up and serious.
Austens are for when you're not.

I don't know about that - I didn't get Austen at all when I was an early teen, too subtle maybe, whereas Bronte (Jane Eyre anyway) was exactly right.

Lumping all the Brontes together doesn't really work - even just Charlotte's books are disparate.

ImperialSantaKnickers · 04/12/2012 12:48

Hi LadyPeter I'm a tremendous fan of your husband BTW...

Jane Austen isn't shallow of course, its me... Grin

Her work is more accessible though, and I find I can believe in her characters emotionally more than the various Bronte girls.

LadyPeterWimsey · 04/12/2012 12:44

Austen not shallow!! Shock

LadyPeterWimsey · 04/12/2012 12:42

Obviously Austen.

I have a theory that you see the world either in Austen or Bronte terms and you therefore can't equally love both.

I can't be doing with all that Bronte melodrama; her heroines make me want to shake them and tell them to stop over-reacting like hormonal teenagers.

Poledra · 04/12/2012 12:42

Austen - your sis is right Xmas Wink

ImperialSantaKnickers · 04/12/2012 12:40

Brontes are for when you're feeling grown up and serious.

Austens are for when you're not.

I've only managed each Bronte once, but the Austens are all on at least their third trip round the bedtime book. Xmas Grin