john eyre by mimi matthews
today I finished reading john eyre by mimi matthews. it is, as you might guess from the title, inspired by charlotte bronte's jane eyre, except this one is sort of a genderbent "retelling". narrated by john (not jane) eyre, the story follows his time at thornfield hall, as he encounters and falls in love with the widowed bertha mason (now mrs. rochester). together they contend with the fallout of bertha's marriage to edward rochester, uncovering lots of strange secrets along the way.
as a jane eyre fangirl (of both the book and the character), I was intrigued by the premise behind mimi matthews' version. the source material gives you so much to play with...: the contradiction within jane as she wrestles with piety and desire, the toxic (or redeeming) nature of jane & edward's relationship, the battle between good vs. evil (and maybe the ambiguity that exists therein?), the racialized "other." so much to explore & challenge & rework. of course I was excited to read.
unfortunately, I think a big challenge is that the story is just close enough to the original (with the author including some of the same events and even the same lines) that, as a reader, you're inevitably making comparisons and referring back to charlotte bronte's work as a touchstone. let's see if I can expand...
the redesigned characters
so, mimi matthews has written a story in which bertha regains her agency. as a concept, I like it. but the execution works less well for me. no longer the "mad creole woman," exotic and animalistic – bertha mason is now refined, self-possessed, a wealthy englishwoman. (which is... a choice, but I will refrain from getting into it here because I think my review will be plenty long enough.) the bertha in john eyre defies her parents' will and travels the world – she is now a strong independent woman.
john eyre is a schoolteacher, running away from home after the death of helen burns. he's kind of boring and lacks any of the spark of the original jane. where she was fiery, he is placid. (this might be the biggest miss for me – our ability to empathize and root for jane is what makes the story work – she both deserves the passionate love she wants AND she deserves to make rochester suffer because he sucks! but as a reader, I feel zero connection to john eyre. he's just not an especially well-written character – he's not driven toward something, exactly; nor does he really overcome anything the way jane does. he's just not much to write home about.)
(to that end, I don't feel a strong connection to bertha mason either, because at the end of the day, she and OG mr. rochester still play the same role in the book, which is to say, still leading on john/jane eyre while hiding a villified spouse in the attic. bertha might have more agency now, but there's enough baggage being carried over from the original plot that it's very difficult to fully rally behind her. but more on that later.)
and then, of course, edward rochester. mimi matthews really hits you over the head with her judgment of him – he's less of a gray character, more evil through and through. I kind of like this, because it overtly re-frames him as a predator. given that she wrote this book in response to the #MeToo movement, this makes sense – in many ways, and through a modern-day lens, the original edward totally preyed on jane like an emotional vampire (ha).
and yet – it's a little strange that the new edward rochester is just a straight-up villain while every other character gets to be nuanced. in john eyre, I think bertha is meant to be the righteous feminist champion, the foil to mr. rochester's monster, but where edward is fully "evil," bertha is not fully "good" (no matter how much she keeps saying she's "on the side of God") so the juxtaposition falls a little flat.
on characters you can rally behind
I've been thinking about why it's easy to unequivocally side with jane, but harder to do so with bertha. I think it's two-fold.
one (obvious): we have all of jane's history and context. we know what she's had to endure. things are perpetually done to jane eyre, which is why it's so powerful to see her take back her life, even if it means choosing edward in the end. yes, jane might make questionable choices, but she's upholding her values and fighting for what she believes is right – while also fighting for what she, personally, wants. we see the rise of her agency, so all we can really do is say, "God be with you, girl," even as we anticipate the oncoming crash.
two: with bertha, it feels different because she was already starting to make her own choices before she met edward. she was privileged, rich – and edward was just another decision she made, albeit a bad one. bertha, like the OG mr. rochester, ultimately chose to marry someone she didn't actually know, so now it feels like we're watching her reap the consequences of a choice she made on her own.
the "romance"
"I’m not marrying George Eshton. I never was. I don't love him." Her mouth trembled. "The closest thing I’ve ever felt to love is what I feel for you."
girl, what? there was no romance in this book. the affection between john and bertha wasn't at all believable, because we didn't actually see it develop – we were just told it was happening.
(incidentally, this book does a lot of telling rather than showing. the meat of the plot happens in letters and journal entries in which bertha is literally telling us stuff that happened.)
so, not only does their love NOT feel believable, it's also not particularly compelling. between edward and jane, there was always a complicated web of power inequality due to their class difference and gender roles – and yet she is superior to him in every way, because she is so morally and spiritually good. you lose that tension with bertha and john – yes, there's class difference, but it doesn't really matter because it's not like either one of them is embedded into society – there are no repercussions; and because john is a man, he doesn't get to be the underdog that jane is.
Was there ever a woman so ignorant? So certain she had evaluated a potential mate with a critical eye, only to discover that she’s been as gullible as every other unwitting member of her sex? The least I can say for myself is that, though I may occasionally make mistakes, I rarely make the same one twice.
the last thing I'll say about their relationship is this: bertha marries a man she doesn't actually know, who turns out to be a menace (relatable). the worst part is, she says she's learned from her mistakes, but she's clearly willing to do it again, with john! hasn't she learned anything from her time with edward?! she doesn't know john! they barely spend time together! yet both of them delude themselves into thinking they're in love? this is the real horror. it felt so very much like watching your friend enter into yet another toxic relationship with some mediocre man. girl, don't do it.
mirroring jane eyre
as I say at the top, this is a refresh of the original jane eyre, but the storyline of john eyre still follows the basic storyline of the original, with a few creative twists, and without some of the emotional depth and resonance.
what this means is that, if you've read the original, you have high expectations that aren't exactly met. its characters are less sympathetic; the plot is predictable (even with the twists that mimi matthews introduces)... I had a vague sense of foreboding as I made my way through the book – but it was vague, dulled by my knowing, more or less, what was about to happen next.
part of me wonders if I would've had a better time with the book if I had never read jane eyre... but another part thinks that jane eyre fandom is what makes mimi matthews' version interesting in the first place? like maybe it does a lot of heavy lifting because you're creating connections that the author doesn't always sufficiently or explicitly thread? dunno...
everything else
there's probably more I could say, about the value of seeing a miserable person in power (OG mr. rochester) humbled by love – and whether & how the genderbent story reimagines those dynamics; or the "twist" in the story (some of the foreshadowing reminded me of that scene in twilight with bella & edward in the forest – you're impossibly fast and strong. your skin is pale white and ice cold. your eyes change color, and sometimes you speak like you're from a different time). also, let's not forget bertha's two traumatized wards (she adopts them and then just, like, leaves them in her haunted house for extended periods of time?)? I mean, so much more to say, but I'm running out of steam!
I'll leave it here: I was (clearly) disappointed by this book. underwhelmed by john eyre and bertha mason, both as characters and their romance. underwhelmed by the plot twist (I guessed it way too early in the book). underwhelmed by the writing (at times it felt corny, and then melodramatic, and then silly). in my head, everyone was bella swan and I was reading jigsaw puzzle twilight. I just didn't care for the execution at all.