Product Description

The exciting sequel to the enormously successful Is Heathcliff A Murderer?, John Sutherland's latest collection of literary puzzles, Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? turns up unexpected and brain-teasing aspects of the range of canonical British and American fiction represented in the World's Classics list. With bold imaginative speculation he investigates 32 literary conundrums, ranging from Daniel Defoe to Virginia Woolf: why does Robinson Crusoe find only 'one' footprint? How does Magwitch swim to shore with a great iron on his leg? Where does Fanny Hill keep her contraceptives? Whose side is Hawkeye on? And how does Clarissa Dalloway get home so quickly? As in its universally well received predecessor, the questions and answers are ingenious and convincing, and return the reader with new respect to the great novels that inspire them.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #611624 in Books
• Published on: 2000-04-13
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

Review
Sutherland is not simply a sleuth, but a sympathetic alternative author; less pedant, in fact, than poet The Sunday Times Sutherland has plainly enjoyed pursuing his quarry, and so will any reader with taste for ingenious detective work. John Gross, The Sunday Telegraph Sutherland is an unmatched guide to the detail of 19th-century fiction ... as a polemical jeu d'esprit designed to send you back to Adam Bede and Wuthering Heights, this is the most engagingly boffiny book imaginable The Spectator

John Gross, The Sunday Telegraph
"Sutherland has plainly enjoyed pursuing his quarry, and so will any reader with taste for ingenious detective work."

The Spectator
"Sutherland is an unmatched guide to the detail of 19th-century fiction ... as a polemical jeu d'ésprit designed to send you back to Adam Bede and Wuthering Heights, this is the most engagingly boffiny book imaginable"

Customer Reviews

Don't let your romantic feelings put you off!
I have read the previous review and I admit Jane Eyre is written in a romantic way which makes you feel that the book has a happy ending. However this book does make you think about why we feel this way. After all, anyone who has read The Wide Sargasso Sea can feel nothing but sympathy for Rochesters first wife. If Rochester had had any respect for Jane he would have told her about "Bertha."
As to the rest of the book it makes you want to read the books that you have read again and the ones you haven't..

Yes, she can.
After reading John Sutherland's allegations regarding Edward Fairfax Rochester's degree of corruption, I wished I had never taken an acquaintance's praise for Can Jane Eyre Be Happy? into serious consideration. According to the author, were it not for Mrs Fairfax's summoning Richard Mason, Rochester would have proceeded to marry Blanche Ingram. Reluctant now lest he should cause a scandal but still very much in need of a wife, Rochester declines a part that "has all the physical attributes to which [he] is addicted" in favour of socially invisible Jane whom he initially "must have thought...as a potential future mistress." Am I the only person who feels Charlotte Bronte did not quite intend the above-mentioned interpretation? Are we right to reduce middle-aged Rochester to his adolescent self? More than once has the reader witnessed Rochester's preoccupation with extra-corporal matters (e. g. during his first full length encounter with Jane he wonders of her drawings,~ "Has [that head] other furniture of the same kind within?") It seems highly unlikely that Rochester could have been unaware of the fact that Jane would never agree to become his mistress; not with his insight. Under the pretence of an experienced fortune-teller, he reve future preceding Mason's arrival? Mr Sutherland might feel that "the Ingram courtship [being] a charade to test Jane is unconvincing" but why would Rochester require Jane's presence while seemingly enjoying himself in the company of Miss Ingram? To me, it is very much an attempt to invoke her jealousy. Mr Sutherland believes that "sexual fulfullment eludes him. Only another marriage will answer his needs." Then why commit to Blance yet another case of his usual superficial mistresses? The A-Z to realism instructs readers to trust their narrator. Who can doubt Jane's objectivity as she informs us that Miss Ingram "was not genuine... her mind was poor...she was not good; she was not original?" Our estimation of Rochester is very poor indeed if we are to assume he would willfully spend his remaining days with someone as unequal to him as Miss Ingram. Shouldn't Jane Eyre experience the bliss her biographer was denied? I for one refuse to believe Rochester will not make her happy.