Readalong: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte (ii)

Contains spoilers

When we left Helen, heroine of Anne Bronte's Tenant of Wildfell Hall, she was stoically enduring an unwise marriage that had turned out not to be as idyllic as she had hoped. The marriage turns from bad to worse as Huntingdon spends more and more time in bad society, making promises he cannot keep, drinking and gambling and eventually having an affair with the wife of a friend. After much agonising, and after many - far too many, the modern reader might say - second chances, Helen leaves her husband and takes her mother's maiden name, Graham, making her living as a reclusive artist in Wildfell Hall.

Tenant was a controversial novel when it was published, with frank depictions of alcoholism, adultery and other debauchery deemed unsuitable for ladies to read - and no doubt for a lady to have written! For a woman - who in those days would have had no independent rights, unable to own property or sue her husband for divorce - to be found to be married but separated from her husband must have been scandalous. The ideal Victorian wife was "the angel in the house," the selfless, submissive wiife devoted to making her husband happy without any thought for herself. Despite marrying against the advice of her relations, Helen is not generally a thoughtless or irresponsible woman. For a large part of her narrative, her attitude seems to be that as she chose to marry Huntingdon, she must take the consequences, and set a bad husband a good example by living a virtuous life. But is it virtuous to remain in a loveless, somewhat abusive marriage? What about when Arthur commits adultery with Lady Lowborough, the wife of a friend? When Helen knows about her husband's dalliances, is it right for her to tell the other wronged spouse, or remain silent in the hope that he will not be hurt by what he doesn't know? Her decision to put up and shut up turns out for the worse, and when the truth comes out, Lord Lowborough is hurt far worse for her silence.

Helen wrestles with her conscience, continuing to live with Huntingdon, though not as husband and wife, for a long time. She comes to realise that being a good person herself is not enough to reform an unrepentant scoundrel, and that being a "good wife" can be more damaging than to outrage society and her conscience by abandoning her husband. The last straw is Huntingdon's influence on their son, only an infant but already encouraged by his father to imitate his foul language and love of drink. Helen realises that the only way to stop little Arthur from turning out like his father is to take him out of Huntingdon's reach, where he cannot be corrupted. Helen's motives can surely not be faulted, and in the modern day this would be the logical course of action,but Anne Bronte must have raised a few eyebrows of her Victorian readership in her presentation of the conflict between being "respectable" and doing the right thing.

Anne Bronte always seems to be the forgotten sister, overlooked in favour of the more famous Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, but Tenant is a brave, groundbreaking novel which deserves to be better known.

Beloved, Toni Morrison

I chose to read Beloved as part of Sarah's Back to the Classics challenge, as it was a regular title to appear on lists of books banned from school libraries. Looking it up on Goodreads, opinions were polarized: reviewers either loved or hated Beloved and could not understand any other point of view. I decided to give the book a 50-page or 3-chapter trial, and decide at that point whether or not it was for me.

Beloved tells the story of Sethe, a former slave who chose to kill her small daughter rather than allow her to be taken back into slavery. After many years of mysterious activity in Sethe's home, a young woman appears at her door who calls herself Beloved - the name on the child's gravestone - and who knows things that only Sethe's children ever knew. Is this girl Sethe's daughter miraculously returned to her, or does Beloved have a more sinister purpose?

When reading Beloved I had no difficulty in understanding why it is a regular banned book. With themes of infanticide, cruelty, rape and torture, Beloved is a dark, disturbing novel, not suitable for young or sensitive readers. However, I found myself wondering if people call for its censorship out of discomfort, not wanting to look closely at a shameful era of history; one which, like Beloved, will not stay dead.

I have to say, I didn't really enjoy Beloved. Beside the obvious, that it covers subjects highly unpleasant to think about, I found the writing style very patchy. Though Morrison's writing can be beautiful and poetic, I found it somewhat dense and at times impenetrable. I tuned in and out of the writing and sometimes found myself reading a few pages without really taking in what was going on. She switches between characters, past and present and first and third person narration with little warning, and if I'd put the book down it took me a little while to be able to tune back in to what was going on at a particular point. At one point, the book took on a stream of consciousness style which, although full of fascinating language and imagery, I confess I couldn't get its meaning. I think my personal preference of storytelling is more traditional.

And yet, when I reached the end, I found myself unable to let Beloved go, feeling that it needs at least a second reading to get everything out of it. Perhaps more. I didn't always enjoy reading it - and yet, I felt the need to do so again. Love it or hate it, or if, like me, you don't quite know what to make of it, ultimately Beloved is an important work of literature which deserves its place as a classic.



Twenty Boy Summer, Sarah Ockler

I probably would not have heard about Twenty Boy Summer if it had not been brought to my attention a couple of weeks ago during the Speak Loudly internet campaign against book censorship in schools, so I have Wesley Scroggins to thank for this recommendation.

Twenty Boy Summer is a thoughtful and original novel about grief, friendship, love and being a teenager. A year after Frankie's brother Matt dies suddenly, she, her family and her best friend Anna take a holiday in California. Trying to put aside all the memories the place holds for them both - although Anna has never been there before she knows all about it from Frankie and Matt - Frankie decides to use the time in order to set Anna up with a boy. Anna is less willing but goes along with Frankie's plan, but she has a secret. Just before Matt died, she had just discovered that her years-old crush on him was reciprocated, and they were just working up to making their relationship official. She had promised not to tell Frankie before he did, but he never had the chance. A year later, Anna is still holding on to that promise, trying to reconcile her loyalties to Frankie and Matt.

The novel is told from Anna's point of view, and superficially she reminded me a little of some of Jacqueline Wilson's narrators: a shy girl who follows her more glamorous best friend into situations that she doesn't really feel comfortable with. The two girls' friendship is more balanced than it seems at first glance, however. Anna is no broken reed, but shows remarkable strength in supporting Frankie in her seemingly superior claim to grief - losing a brother rather than just a "friend" - without betraying her own emotional turmoil. Although we don't see it in the novel, Anna tells how Frankie went to pieces after Matt's death, and a friendship between two very different individuals, which in some books seems unlikely, is given life as Anna expresses relief that Frankie is out of despair, even if she has changed drastically. If the Twenty Boy challenge makes Frankie happy, then Anna will go along with it.

Despite the book's title, which no doubt to Scroggins screamed, "PROMISCUITY!" Frankie and Anna only meet a few boys, and only two are given character. Frankie immediately strikes up a flirtation with Jake, while Anna becomes drawn towards Sam. At first she struggles against her feelings for Sam out of loyalty to Matt:

If I kiss someone else, the spell will be broken, and my memories of Matt and everything I wrapped up in them will be erased. No, thank you.

The novel explores the complexities of moving on from a love cut short unnaturally, and allowing the past, present and future to co-exist, neither one invalidating the other.

But is this book suitable for the teenage market, or should we go to all the high schools and remove every copy from the libraries and classrooms? My answer is of course it is suitable. Yes, sometimes the girls are irresponsible and make wrong decisions, but no more so than in every other young adult book out there. Who would want to read about good little boys and girls who always do the right thing, anyway? Not only would it be deadly dull, but you would learn nothing from it. Even the March girls of Little Women mess up sometimes.

Laurie Halse Anderson, Speak

THE FIRST TEN LIES THEY TELL YOU IN HIGH SCHOOL

1. We are here to help you.

2. You will have enough time to get to your class before the bell rings.

3. The dress code will be enforced.

4. No smoking is allowed on school grounds.

5. Our football team will win the championship this year.

6. We expect more of you here.

7. Guidance counsellors are always available to listen.

8. Your schedule was created with your needs in mind.

9. Your locker combination is private.

10. These are the years you look back on fondly.

Melinda Sordino was an ordinary teenager, happy and popular, until the party the summer before she started high school. Now her grades are slipping, her friends shun her and she skulks through the corridors silently, just trying to get through the day without drawing attention to herself. If only she could tell someone why she really called the police that night.

Speak is a brave, important Young Adult novel that I first read when I was about Melinda's age, and it struck a chord with me. Thankfully I'd never experienced the horrors she had, but I knew how it felt to be the outcast at school, hiding behind my books and trying to persuade everyone I didn't exist. Halse Anderson captures the cliqueyness, injustice and sheer brutality of high school existance. The novel deals with a difficult subject sensitively, and despite her depression, Melinda's narration provides sarcastic humour all the way through with her biting observations about school, her teachers and fellow students, giving the staff names like Mr Neck ("A predator approaches: grey jock buzz cut, whistle around a neck thicker than his head") and Hairwoman. ("My English teacher has no face.")

Melinda finds refuge in a disused supply cupboard that she customises with a poster of Maya Angelou, who she views as a role model. The only other person she feels able to trust is her art teacher, Mr Freeman after spending her lunch times working on her art project to avoid the nightmarish cafeteria. Melinda uses her art project, "Tree" to help her understand and express her emotions through the school year, and it is Mr Freeman she confides in when finally she finds herself able to speak up.

Speak has been made into a film starring a teenage Kristen Stewart of Twilight fame as Melinda. Though it doesn't cover everything in the book, it captures the soul of the story very well and is certainly worth a watch if you can get hold of it.

I was moved to reread and review this novel after discovering that the other side of the pond a wannabe moral guardian with the improbable name of Scroggins has deemed Speak to be inappropriate reading for young people, due to its addressing a difficult subject, namely rape, and is campaigning to have it banned from school libraries. Now, I will give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he wants to protect young people. Nonetheless, it is very worrying that he is more upset about a book in which a girl tries to cope after being raped, and eventually seeks help, than about the heartbreaking number of people across the world, across the USA, in his own state and probably among the same students he is trying to protect, who don't know how to cope or where to turn after rape. While reading people's twitter and blog comments, I discovered that many people who have been in Melinda's situation found Speak gave them the courage to speak up and seek healing for themselves. Scroggins cannot be allowed to get his way as by doing so he would send out quite the opposite message to the book and risks sending victims of sexual crime back into silence and despair. It seems that - like many who call for the banning of books - that he hasn't actually read it, as his argument is that Speak is pornographic. If he has read it, and that is his perception, I fear it speaks more about himself than the novel.