5. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

By Anne Brontë 

I'm not very knowledgeable about classic literature and had only heard about the existence of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall when I read that it influenced Elizabeth Hand's 2015 novel, Wylding Hall.  

 

But after the crushing disappointment of A Haunting on the Hill (2023), I wasn't all that interested anymore, as the premise of Wylding Hall sounded too much like A Haunting on the Hill. If those theatre types annoyed me to no end, I could only imagine how members of a rock band would be much better.  Since Wylding Hall was written first, there's a chance it's better written.  

Anyway, I still wanted to read the Anne Bronte novel. I got this Arcturus trade paperback from Indigo for only $7.  They had a 3 for $12 classic fiction deal but the ones I wanted were sold out.

 

Surprisingly, my friend, who was visiting from Winnipeg at the time, and who's read a lot more classic fiction than I have, was also not aware of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.  I think its obscurity (at least compared to Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre) was due to its rather scandalous and shocking content - at least, according to Victorian standards.  It was deemed "coarse" and "brutal" for its unflinching depictions of alcoholism, adultery, marital abuse, and a wife leaving her husband—which was apparently illegal at the time.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but I knew to not expect any romance.  In the end, I really enjoyed TToWH.  It was very well-written, a colourful cast of characters and had some keen insights about Victorian society. And there was some romance after all, mainly from the perspective of Gilbert Markham, as the lovesick protagonist.  

 

The novel began with a letter written by Gilbert to a friend, describing the recent arrival of an attractive young widow and her son as the new tenants of Wildfell Hall and how it was drawing much gossip and curiosity amongst the small community.  When Gilbert met Helen, he found her proud and aloof, and they didn't get along very well at first. Over time he became drawn to her honesty, intelligence and depth of character which was very different from the superficial wiles of the local girls.  But Gilbert was still immature in many ways and made the wrong assumption that Helen was having an affair with her landlord Frederick Lawrence.  This forced  Helen to show Gilbert her journal which explained her entire backstory of how she ended up at Wildfell Hall.  The whole story was long and drawn out like a Jane Austen novel, but well worth the wait, for there was a happy ending. Phew!

After the dark cesspool of despair and deviance in Grotesque, it was nice to read something "lighter" in tone.  Although I was expecting a rather violent depiction of domestic discord, I was nevertheless affected by Helen Huntington's plight being married to an irresponsible and alcoholic narcissist. Even though Arthur Huntington was never physically violent, he was very controlling, as well as verbally and emotionally abusive.  He was also unfaithful -- his relationship with his friend's wife was an open secret among his circle of wealthy gentlemen. The depiction of their partying was something to behold.  

Most of the classic lit that I've read were of fairly "respectable" people with the odd character, like George Wickham, who was the black sheep.  In the world of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, we were given a firsthand perspective of what it's like to live in a toxic marriage. Bronte presented all the red flags early on in the courtship between Arthur and Helen.  He would play mind games with the young Helen, who fell for it hook line and sinker through her naivete.  In Victorian times, a woman would be trapped in such a marriage with no hope for divorce.  Even though Arthur Huntington was a fairly wealthy gentlemen, he was a boorish man and indulged in licentious, hedonistic behaviour.  He and his circle of friends often got together to carouse and were basically party animals.  As a wife, you either put up with it, or you joined them, like Lady Lowborough, who becomes Arthur's mistress.

There was a scene where Arthur's friends were staying at his estate, Grassdale Manor, for weeks and weeks.  Not only did Helen have to endure the infidelities of her husband and his mistress, but also the disrespectful behaviour of his awful guests.  Finally, when Lord Lowborough found out about his wife and Arthur, it was a bit of relief as the whole scene was getting quite awful.  Arthur and Helen also had a young son, Arthur Jr, a sweet boy who was becoming wild and out of control under his father’s influence.  With help from her brother, Helen was finally able to escape Grassdale Manor with her son and devoted maid.

I heard that Anne Brontë based a good deal of Arthur Huntington on her own brother, Branwell Brontë. Arthur resembled Branwell in three ways: physical good looks; sexual adventures (before his affair with his employer's wife, Mrs Robinson, Branwell may have fathered an illegitimate child who died at birth) and lastly, his alcoholism. Arthur Huntington was terribly flawed and unlikeable, but he felt very real.

A minor complaint of mine was how Helen Huntington was just a little too perfect.  Her character was imbued with dignity, pureness of heart and an unwavering faith in God.  Her one mistake was marrying Arthur Huntington when she was young and naive. However, I did admire her courage in leaving her awful husband and her ability to use her painting skills to support herself and her son.  The only help she had was from her loyal maid and her brother. I also liked how Gilbert had a good character arc.  He began as a rather immature, cocky young farmer but over the years his love for Helen remained true, and he became someone who was worthy of Helen's love.

I saw the 2022 film Emily, which was loosely based on Emily Bronte. It didn't depict sister Charlotte in a great light, and portrayed Anne as rather meek and passive.  I was never able to finish Wuthering Heights, but I loved Jane Eyre when I read it during my first year at university.  It still remains my favourite of all the books by the Bronte sisters, with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall a close second!

1. The Duke and I (aka Bridgerton)

By Julia Quinn

Since my final book for 2021 was the ultra-masculine Razorblade Tears, I might as well kick off 2022 with the ultra-feminine The Duke and I (better known as Bridgerton). 

Truth be known, I had already watched the popular Netflix series not long after it debuted in December 2020.  Yet I couldn’t bring myself to post the actual Bridgerton cover featuring the two main stars of the show.  That version was unsolicitedly lent to me by a friend who enjoys mainstream fiction because I told her I had watched Bridgerton.  

So let this be known I did not voluntarily seek out a Julia Quinn novel!

If Razorblade Tears was the equivalent of having a bloody rare steak at a roadside diner, The Duke & I was like eating cotton candy at the fair - delightful at first, but you soon tire of its cloying sweetness and end up throwing the rest away.  I’m perfectly fine with reading a romance that's insubstantial as spun sugar, but what galled me was that Jill Barnett blurb on the cover hailing Julia Quinn as “truly our contemporary Jane Austen”.  Jesus bloody Christ on a cross.  If Quinn is truly today’s Jane Austen, the future of fiction is in serious trouble indeed.

But that’s not all.  Towards the end of The Duke and I, Quinn had the nerve to regurgitate the famous Austen quote:  "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.”

Ugh, the hubris!  Not only did Quinn not write nearly as well as Austen, she lacked any keen observation into the fictional world she had created, if you could even call it a creation. That’s what made Austen so appealing to generations of readers, both male and female – it wasn’t just the charming romance or courtship that was enjoyable, but Austen’s ability to find humour in the ritual of finding a suitable marriage partner and the reality of a woman’s place in Napoleonic England. 

Even in Pride and Prejudice, the interactions between Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy were quite limited, as much of the novel was devoted to exploring the society they inhabited and the people they interacted with. 

So I was quite disappointed to see the relationship between Simon and Daphne as not only the main plot line, but the only plot line in the entire book.  Since I had watched the Bridgerton series before reading the book, imagine my complete surprise when I made the realization that the Netflix series actually added additional side characters and subplots that were not found in the source material!  So we shouldn’t be comparing The Duke and I to an Austen novel, but to The King and I, the musical.  The writing contained very little exposition - it was pretty much all dialogue.  Quite stagey and hammy dialogue too, like an American attempting to sound like a witty aristocratic English person, but coming off as something straight out of a Harlequin romance.  Wait a minute... this was exactly like a Harlequin romance!   

Usually, a film or TV adaptation would have to simplify or streamline key elements of the source novel, but in the case of The Duke and I, the roles had been reversed.  Quinn’s narrative was so shallow and the characters so two-dimensional, the Bridgerton writers took liberties by creating a color blind society and adding more supporting characters with their respective arcs and subplots.   Who can blame them?  In Quinn’s novel, there was no attempt to describe the socio-economic aspects of the ton.  Quinn is an American who graduated from Harvard, so it wouldn’t have been very hard for her to create a world that was a little more than bland 18th century pseudo-British society.  I think that was one reason why the Bridgerton writers wanted to create a diverse cast, to help make the world of Bridgerton more appealing and universal, because they realized there wasn’t much that would distinguish it from the more quality stuff coming out of the BBC.

At the end of the book, Quinn writes about growing up on a steady diet of the Sweet Dreams series, which was the teen division of Harlequin. Quinn herself admitted that her dream was to write adult romances in the vein of Harlequin romances, so her work should be appraised in that context.  The Duke and I was pure escapism and a guilty pleasure, and should be enjoyed as such (if you can get over the awfully corny parts) – just don’t make any aspirations to being anything close to a Jane Austen novel!

As a romance, it was decent enough, if very vanilla.  Unsurprisingly, much time was spent making Simon the Duke dark, brooding, well-educated, well-travelled and sophisticated.  He was handsome and arrogant and like Mr Darcy, his arrogance masked a secret, yada yada.  Daphne on the other hand, was the typical heroine.  Functioning as a mere cipher for the reader, she was thus totally BORING.  Even though she had four brothers, she could pack a punch and ride a horse well, she had no interest in math or science.  As a young woman of her time, Daphne was very naïve and simple.  All she wanted in life was to be happily married with many children.  At some point, when she had married the Duke, she committed a morally questionable act on her half-drunk husband.  Great!  Finally, some real conflict!  The heroine should be allowed to make grievous mistakes, yet the disappointing thing was she never really owned up to her actions and nothing was ever seriously at stake.   It was thus all about having earth-shattering marital sex with a hot Duke domesticating the Duke and having him come around to the idea of having lots of kids.

Olman asked me how The Duke and I compared to a Georgette Heyer book.  Based on what I know of Heyer from Olman’s reviews, her books are much more substantial.  So Olman thinks I’d really like Heyer.  After all, he has likened her books to a “delicious box of chocolates”.  

I think I will have to give Georgette Heyer a try.  Or better yet, read more Jane Austen.  I have only read two.  And I have at least two more on my on-deck shelf that I have yet to read.