As a big fan of Charlotte Bronte, including other works of historical fiction inspired by her, for example, "Bedlam" by Laura Joh Rowland, the other novels of Ms. Matthews, and the Victorian Era, I was looking forward to this book being published. I was not disappointed. Ms. Matthews once again showcases her knowledge of the Victorian Era and the works that inspired her. Her prose as always is clean and crisp although, in an unfair comparison, falls short of the poetic and evocative style Charlotte Bronte was able to use so effectively.
Ms. Matthews was very ambitious with this work. I noticed at least three Victorian novels, including the obvious one, that served as inspiration. On top of that, Ms. Matthews combined several narrative styles: the first-person narrative, including switching viewpoints, and the epistolatory form. It is a credit to her ability, Ms. Matthews pulled this off and wrote a turn pager.
The main heroine is very compelling. She is interesting, formidable, if you read the novel using that word was intentional, and multidimensional. She puts on a strong front but at times she almost cracks under the immense weight she is carrying. The heroine is a capable woman trying to make the best of a horrible situation but is not the Mary Sue type who has dominated pop culture content in recent years. I am reminded of one of Charles Dickens’ greatest female characters in Edith Granger from “Dombey and Son”.
Mr. John Eyre himself is a mirror image of the typical male heroine from this genre. Mr. Eyre is an ordinary man trying to make his place in the world. From an external view, there is nothing out of the ordinary about him. He is not the stereotyped muscle bound, titled, charming, and fabulously wealthy aristocrat that seems to populate 99.99% of Regency and Victorian Era historical fiction. Depending on one’s point of view this is disappointing or refreshing.
The character of Mr. Eyre is much more in the spirit of the male characters that populated Victorian literature. The highest rank character from the Dickens’ novel I have read is the baronet Sir Leicester Dedlock. In the three main novels of Charlotte Bronte, Edward Fairfax Rochester is the most prestigious male character but even he is not titled although from a distinguished gentry family; the type that populated the novels of Jane Austen. I do not remember encountering a titled person in the novels of Thomas Hardy; William Boldwood from “Far from the Madding Crowd” being perhaps the highest socioeconomic male.
The most thought-provoking theme in “John Eyre’ is the role of socioeconomic status in romance. The socioeconomic rank difference between the two main characters is about as wide as one could see in Victorian England. During this period, there were cases of a lowly woman marrying a man much higher on the societal greasy pole. Charles Dickens’ in “Bleak House” has a son of a wealthy and successful iron monger fall in love with the lady’s maid serving Lady Dedlock . There were stories about Victorian men marrying governesses and even maids; the couple would tend to be quiet about the mistress of the house was once in service. The case of a woman marrying down were incredibly rare. Perhaps the one case from Victorian Literature was Bathsheba Everdeen marrying Sergeant Troy in “Far from the Madding Crowd” although Hardy uses this marriage as a warning. Only after Gabriel Oak raised himself from a shepherd to a prosperous overseer, he became a suitable husband for Bathsheba.
Victorian society experienced a crisis of conscience about the demographic mismatch between Middle Class single women trying to find an acceptable husband, the Surplus Women problem. A Middle-Class woman was deemed better off being a spinster than marrying a man beneath her rank. In a way, the marriage of Queen Victoria to Prince Albert was the exception that proved the rule. Queen Victoria head of realm where the sun never set proposed to a 2nd son of a family ruling a nondescript small principality in Germany.
Has our so called modern and progressive society progressed much from this view of what constitutes acceptable husbands?
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Reviews with images
A Little of This, A Little of That ... and a Whole Lot of Awesomeness
John Eyre: A Tale of Darkness and Shadow by Mimi Matthews, 2021I’m a huge fan of old gothics -- even the cheesy 1970s ones -- and I’ve always wanted to see the character roles reversed. I’ve devoured hundreds of these bad boys and always thought: What if it was the GUY who moved into the creepy old mansion and fell in love with the aloof, secretive mistress of the manor?With John Eyre, my curiosity has finally been satisfied, and not only does this gender swap work as well as I suspected it might, the author throws in some modern-day twists (as well as some fresh not-so-modern-day twists) that add a whole new texture to the usual gothic themes.As the title suggests, this book follows in the footsteps of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre. Our hero (and I don’t know why we have to say such things as ‘our hero’ when referring to main characters in book reviews, but it’s the rule) the disgraced John Eyre, leaves his job as a school master, and takes a new position at an imposing estate called Thornfield Hall in Yorkshire, England, where he’ll begin work as a personal tutor to two strange (and eerily silent) young brothers, Stephen and Peter.He isn’t there very long before he realizes there’s something strange about Thornfield Hall. Sinister whispers float through the walls into his bedroom in the middle of the night, the fog never seems to lift, and roaming the grounds is a large, dangerous wolf that no one believes is real. But perhaps the strangest thing about Thornfield Hall is its mistress -- the beautiful widow, Bertha Mason Rochester, who is frequently off on mysterious business trips to foreign lands and -- when she IS at home -- keeps John Eyre continually off-balance with secrecy, mixed signals, and mystifying innuendo.As it is with all good books in this genre, the romance between John and Bertha is slow to build and riddled with misdirection, deception, and doubt. As things come to a head, Bertha and John must come together to face an unimaginable horror that has long been locked behind the doors of Thornfield Hall.The author, Mimi Matthews, is clearly well-versed in Victorian-era literature so the old-time gothic flavor here is fully intact throughout, but she turns the tropes inside-out and breathes new life into the genre. And Jane Eyre isn’t her only inspiration. Matthews mixes in ingredients from some other very famous literature -- some of which, I admit, was a little cheesy -- but it was written so well, I didn’t care. If you’re a lover of this genre -- and even if you’re not -- you might really like this book. I couldn't put it down (that’s another thing we have to say when we write positive book reviews -- that’s a rule, too.)
Top reviews from other countries
D&J
Mimi Matthews’ retelling of supernatural gothic classics: a safe bet!
Reviewed in Canada on August 19, 2022
Carole in Canada
Jane Eyre with several twists...
Reviewed in Canada on March 1, 2022
fienix
I like this Author from some previous novels.
Reviewed in Australia on April 24, 2023