What Has Charlotte Brontë Done Wrong?

Only dared write Jane Eyre, that's what - one of the most famous and significant romance novels of the last two hundred years.

First published in London in 1847, in America in 1848; still in print.

Now it's reported that it has been banned from school libraries in Texas - joining thousands of "banned" titles altogether but not universally around the USA.

I have not read it myself, but cannot imagine it would be a racy "bodice ripper", Jilly Cooper style; so I wonder why it is wrong to read a love story.

(You can't of course ban them entirely. Many of the students affected may even have read the condemned books at home, perhaps copies bought by their parents.)

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ninalanyon · 70-79, T

Jane Eyre was my set book in O-level Eng. Lit. I was very annoyed because the school was big enough to have two classes per year and the other class got Brighton Rock which was a much easier read as far as I was concerned.

Jane Eyre is quite definitely not a bodice ripper but it does involve discussion of mental health, infidelity, and power relations between the sexes. Any one of those three of themes could be enough for some right wing women belong in the home nutter to demand it be removed from the school library in the US as far as I can tell.

Can't remember much about it, must be fifty years since I last read it.

As for the students reading it of their own volition because a parent bought it, I very much doubt it,

YouGov asked Americans whether they owned books, and found that the vast majority do: 85% say they owned at least one physical book.

That doesn't mean many of these private libraries are especially large. One in five Americans (20%) say they own between one and 10 physical books, while 14% own between 11 and 25 books, and 13% between 26 and 50.

https://yougov.com/en-us/articles/47712-how-many-books-americans-own-and-how-they-organize-them

Of course they could borrow it from the local public library.

Close to 100% of the U.S. population lives within 5 miles of at least 1 of almost 17,000 library branches located nationwide, and 73% of the population lives within 1 mile.

https://www.gc.cuny.edu/center-urban-research/research-projects/census-2020/public-libraries-and-2020-census

ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ninalanyon I take your point about students not necessarily reading this, or any, book just because it's in the home, but that's their choice. They have the opportunity the (self-appointed?) censors wish to remove.

It's not just Jane Eyre either. It seems to vary in scale and choice from State to State, but around their entire country totals a sizeable library by American and foreign novellists banned from schools merely to please obscure local committees.

SunshineGirl · 41-45, F

@ninalanyon I would imagine Brighton Rock will find its way onto the banned list as well!

ninalanyon · 70-79, T

@SunshineGirl The 1948 film with the young Richard Attenborough playing Pinky was banned in New South Wales.

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/18077432

But I think that was simply because it was rather violent in comparison with other films of the time.
[media=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJzSJHUx1wQ&list=PLFDaLm3zjU2u8cG--vEODhgjf7APRwVoC]

FreddieUK · 70-79, M

Political book banning was once considered a sign of a seriously dangerous ideology. I can see no reason to believe that has changed.

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ArishMell · 70-79, M

@ninalanyon I've not read it either but novellists will exaggerate to make a point.

The sort of closed society he was criticising is one in which Nature applies very selectively, with reproduction only seen happening to animals not humans.

(Yes, I know we are animals too. That sort of rigid, mysoginist society doen't. It believes we are not animals, but are beings somehow superior to Nature.)

FreddieUK · 70-79, M

@ArishMell @ninalanyon Novelists, like other artists, sometimes exaggerate to make a point. It's a while since I last read this one, but in this novel Orwell's social observation as seen in his 'documentary' writing seems to be interwoven with his literary imagination.

SunshineGirl · 41-45, F

@FreddieUK Banning books is lazy and pathetic. If you truly disagree with something commited to paper, repudiate it with your own book, don't destroy it for others!

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