Jane Eyre

[Boleyn]

OK who is going to watch it at 9pm?

I'm with you on Heathcliff Expat, a vile and abusive man, completely unlovable. However I enjoy Wuthering Heights as a book more than Jane Eyre even though the olnly likable character is Hareton.

I don't think Rochester is a very likable man either, he plays too loose and wild with other peoples emotions. My romantic hero was always Darcy but now I even question that. Oh dear...

are we all going to be watching wide sargasso sea?

Yeah, booge, I'd have been so pissed if w/him once I found out he was playing that Ingram bitch just to make me jealous.

Bastard.

where do i know Rochester from. i keep missing the credits so can't google him

(ooh now googling Mr Rochester doesn't sound half bad )

Hmm - continuity needed a bit of work - leaves off the trees, then on, then off - all in the space of a day ! And the church wobbled violently at one point.

Increasingly impressed with the actress playing Jane, though.

Mr Rochester was a baddie in a bond film (though substantially less attractive there). I think he's Maggie Smith's son.

TwoIf ... there's a version with CIARAN HINDS AND SAMANTHA MORTON?!?!

How have I never heard of this?!

Ciaran Hinds and Amanda Root in Persuasion - my favourite classic tv adaptation ever

Was it just me or was the kissing a bit odd? I know that Ruth Wilson (who is brill in this) has rather long lips but Rochester seemed to be missing completely!
In the book I like him but tonight I thought he was a bit of a git.

Heathcliff is meant (if you go along with the authorial fallacy and all that) to be vile. Bronte (Emily)( deliberately exposes, and demolishes, the idea of the rough diamond: Cathy tells her sister in law Isabella 'he's a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man' (that's a direct quote). Bronte (Emily) is taking the Gothic/romantic idea right to its unpalatable limit.

I wrote my MA thesis partly on the way Jane Eyre is a rewrite of Wuthering Heights which then splits on Bronte (Charlotte)'s involvement both with realism and feminism. Which makes JE a very great novel, just as WH is.

Well I'm just loving this Jane Eyre after being uncertain at the start. I think the chemistry between the two of them is terrific, & I love Toby Stephens anyway.
I noticed the bad seasonal continuity though... such a shame!

I thought it was great last night. Especially the part where dastardly Rochester squeezes Jane into admitting her feelings! That was very close to the book, no?

MI
Did Emily Bronte - if this is known at all - intend for the reader to have any sympathetic feelings for Heathcliff, though?

Or was he just to be utterly despised?

I can't see this, b/c then the very idea of his all-consuming love for Catherine is patently unbelievable, for how can a heartless, unfeeling, one-dimensional creature nurture love?

If he's that utterly vile, it doesn't go to follow that he'd be capable of such love, and it lends the reader NO sympathy for Catherine's predicament.

She just comes across as a stupid, weak, pathetic character.

mummm interesting though how many people think of Heathcliff as a romantic hero although that is perhaps due to film versions and not the book. If her aim though is to deliberately expose, and demolish, the idea of the rough diamond then it seems odd that she should recreate that idea again in Hareton at the end.

I found Toby Stephens' Hugh Grant-esque mugging increasingly hard to take.

And the first Mrs Rochester not all that convincing as the kind of crazed she-devil she is in the novel.

am really getting in to the actress playing Jane though - she is fab at all the contained passion.

re Hareton, isn't it that he's a decent bloke finding it hard to escape from Heathcliff's terrible shadow? So there's a tiny spark of the boy Nellie knew hiding under the brutish exterior?

There's something of that in Heathcliff too - that he's been twisted by his early experiences and his love for Cathy is pretty much the only redeeming part of him left.

Linton is the only truly nasty character imho.

I would agree that the actress playing Jane is superb - apart from some unconvincing kissing - but an not sold on Toby Stevens. I've posted before on the adaptation I thought was best which was with Ciaran Hinds, but I think I should really read the book and get to know Rochester, it's so much easier to get a sense of who Jane was. Heathcliff never did it for me - thats a book I've reread many times - and still have no sympathy for him.

When I first got a glimpse of the first Mrs Rochester I thought "OMG - they have got Catherine Zeta Jones in for a bit part!!" but then she "uncontorted" her face and I realised my error
Agree about the Hugh Grant thing - my DH thought it was him throughout the first episode. In fac twe argued about it righ tup until the credits. Poor Dh, he hates getting it wrong
Will be a shame when this mini series is over, despite the odd tricky bit such as the kissing, I have really enjoyed it. I love the way they have protrayed the little french girl with that uncomfortable marriage of innocence and vulgarity.

Did anyone see Wide Sargasso Sea think it was Monday? So a younger Mr Rochester....not as pretty as Toby Stevens, but better somehow. More brooding and bad tempered. Am liking Jane Eyre but Mr Rochester is too likeable, but maybe need to re-read.

I found Rochester in the book surprisingly likeable up to the wedding tbh. He's brooding and jaded, but pretty nice to Jane considering she's his ward's governess and really quite tender underneath it all.

multitasker, you have to read it, it's fab .

I thought Wide Sargasso Sea was excellent. Ages since I've read it (like 20 years!) but I thought the actress playing Antoinette was amazing. Such naturalistic acting - brilliant.

Carolinahowl I am in the middle of The Night Watch and have a Joanne Harris out from library at mo so after all that I feel I should be ready for some serious literature! Must check Easons as they usually have penguin classics for £2-3.

Oh sh*t. It seems I fancy a man with hair extensions.

Very distressing.

How are they going to fit the rest of the book into 58 mins btw? Surely not!

heheh

The Rivers section of the book is a pretty good candidate for chopping out of a TV miniseries isn't it?

I suspect so, but a shame to lose it. Why oh why didn't they adapt it in 6 parts?

I bought the Timothy Dalton version in Tesco this week for £12.97. Blubbed my eyes out through most of it . I had it on video but haven't watched it for ages. Also got 'North and South', 'Middlemarch' and 'The Lake House' (Keanu - yum).

Is the Dalton version any good? Better?