RHYS THOUGHTS ON ISOLATION

RHYS BOWEN : How many weeks of isolation is it now? Since March 10 for us. Two and a half months. I expect you are getting as tired of it as I am. I really miss the freedom to go out when I feel like it, even if it’s just into Walgreens for a new lipstick. I really miss meeting friends for lunch. Actually I really miss eating out. I’m in Arizona that has now opened up again (unwisely in my opinion) but I don’t intend to eat in a restaurant until my doctor friends tell me that they are doing so!

The weather has now become uncomfortably hot so that outdoor activities have to be limited to early morning or late evening, unless I’m invited to swim in my daughter’s pool—which is a welcome break a couple of times a week. We’ve even dared to eat dinner at her house, sitting outside at a separate table at suitable distance. It felt wonderful.

I know I have little to whine about. I am in a really nice house in beautiful surroundings. We are in a little private community surrounded by mountains. There are palm trees and flowering shrubs everywhere. But I find that life is a constant battle against boredom. I’ve finished and sent off my latest book. I’ve sent out my newsletter. I’ve done endless interviews, podcasts, Zoom bookclub meetings. But the days seem awfully long. We have to take our morning walk before eight or it is unbearably hot. And it’s also too hot to walk before about eight thirty at night. By day I clean the kitchen at least three times.  I answer emails, plot future books, read, play my new keyboard, do some drawing and challenge the computer to Scrabble.

This latter has become a source of pride. I’ve dubbed my computer opponent Ivan since he’s terrible and I’m sure he’s Russian AND he cheats (and yes, I’m sure he’s male too). He seems to give himself the X, Q and Z all too often and if he gives me the Q it’s at the end of the game with no U to go with it!  And he comes up with words that I’m sure are not part of any English dictionary. Yesterday he had grrrl. Now that is not a word! And things like enigbo or swazoodle. (I’m making those up but some are equally ridiculous) But then he denies me perfectly good words that I’m sure must be in any dictionary. He wouldn’t let me have Zen or mitt or even fart the other day. Or even Jew. And yet he had opa and longer, unpronounceable words. I should have written some down except they annoyed me so much. But he doesn’t care if I shout at him. Or accuse him of cheating. He has become my nemesis (and I bet he wouldn’t allow me that word either!). 

However, recently I have begun to beat him. At least once a day. I can’t tell you what satisfaction that gives me. He retaliates, of course. He gives me IIIIEET for my opening letters and himself VOXESTY. I tell him I know he cheats. But it’s all the sweeter when I beat him!

Do you think I’ve finally become unhinged? Have I turned into the equivalent of those prisoners who befriend cockroaches? Or the birdman of Alcatraz? Or inmates of an asylum who chat with Napoleon?

On a more serious note, I find myself thinking about those who have endured real separation and loneliness. Nelson Mandela, for example. Twenty seven years in an island prison and yet he emerged without bitterness, not desiring revenge. That is true greatness.

And what about those women who were part of the Westward movement? Who marched behind covered wagons until they built lonely sod houses. For months on end their world was husband, children and endless prairie. No shops. No TV, probably not even any books except the Bible. And the awful knowledge that if their husband or children injured themselves there was no doctor within reach. That took real strength of character, didn’t it?  And even my mother, saying goodbye to a new husband when she was pregnant with me as he was sent off to North Africa and wouldn’t return for three years. Those women in WWII had to be tough too. They had rationing and the threat of bombing every night and yet they got through it.

So I won’t complain about boredom or not seeing friends. We have the luxury of TV and the internet and the phone. I can Zoom with family and friends. I can binge my way through Britbox. I have one job at the moment and it is to survive. I can get through it. So can we all.

Reader, I got it wrong.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I was describing a book to someone the other day, and realized I was actually describing the movie. It might have been To Kill A Mockingbird. Or Silence of the Lambs. Anyway, the reality of the book vanished, replaced by the easier-to-remember movie. And I was so surprised, reading Mockingbird again, that the movie is only a tiny bit of the book.

I was reassured, then, to hear from the amazing Michelle Gagnon that I’m not the only victim of misremembering.

ooh, Orson Welles!

Her new book, by the way, is a newly imagined version of Jane Eyre. Brilliant.

Misremembering Jane Eyre

By Michelle Gagnon

 

“Little girl, a memory without blot or contamination must be an exquisite treasure—an inexhaustible source of pure refreshment; is it not?”

                    Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre

I first read Jane Eyre in high school, and dove into it again after college. Since it’s one of the few books that I’ve ever re-read, when I decided to write a modernized, deconstructed version, I was confident that I remembered the story.

And then I read it again.

Memory is a funny thing, I quickly realized. It turns out that I mainly recalled about the romance between Jane and the tempestuous Mr. Rochester (I chalk that up to being a teen when I first encountered it). Although in truth, I hadn’t even remembered their relationship entirely correctly.

There’s a phenomenon called “The Mandela Effect,” a situation where you might think something happened in a particular way, but it turns out you’re mistaken. According to Buzzfeed, “The name of the theory comes from many people feeling certain they could remember Nelson Mandela dying while he was still in prison back in the ’80s. Contrary to what many thought, Mandela’s actual death was on Dec. 5, 2013, despite some people claiming to remember seeing clips of his funeral on TV.”

Bizarre, right? And yet it applied directly to my mistaken memory of the plot of Jane Eyre. For example:

·      I remembered Jane’s time at Thornfield Hall taking up the bulk of the book, while in fact the lengthy outset of the novel relates her childhood and time at the Lowood Institution; and then there’s an equally long chunk at the end where she becomes acquainted with the Rivers (who turn out to be long lost relatives, a coincidence I’ve always had trouble forgiving Bronte for).

·      Rochester. In retrospect, not as great a guy as I thought. He quickly becomes weirdly possessive. Re-reading the book twenty years later, I couldn’t help but think, “Stalker much?” as he rattled off lines like, “But listen-whisper-it is your time, now, little tyrant but it will be mine presently; and when once I have fairly seized you, to have and to hold, I’ll just-figuratively speaking-attach you to a chain like this,” touching his watch guard. “Yes, bonny wee thing, I’ll wear you in my bosom, lest my jewel I should tyne.”

I mean, dude. Simmer down. Part of what I loved about Jane Eyre was how revolutionary a strong, independent heroine was for that time period. Yet in the chapters leading up to their aborted marriage, it turns out that Rochester doesn’t really seem to get her at all. Mind you, I’m still Team Rochester, but his character wasn’t exactly how I’d remembered (although maybe I just found his full-throttle courtship more romantic as a fourteen-year-old).

·      Elements of the supernatural. Because of the pervasive Gothic atmosphere, I’d thought that Jane Eyre incorporated many supernatural elements. In fact, there are only two truly strange occurrences in the entire novel. The first is when, as a child, Jane sees a glowing light glide across the room; as she puts it, “I thought the swift darting beam was a herald of some coming vision from another world.” 

       Reflecting as an adult, however, she chalks it up to a childish fit of nerves. (Mind you, the light never returns, which was a bit disappointing; why introduce a fantastic McGuffin like that if doesn’t factor into the story later? Unless it was meant to be a foreshadowing of future fires…) 

     The second supernatural occurrence (and, at least according to Jane, only true one) is when Jane hears Rochester calling for her at a pivotal decision making moment, despite the fact that in actuality, he’s miles away. Tres romantic, yes? But that’s the only truly unexplained supernatural element in the story.

·      >The fire. Perhaps because Wide Sargasso Sea is another favorite of mine, I mistakenly thought that we actually saw Thornfield Hall burn in Jane Eyre: alas, not so much. The reader only finds out about the tragic fire afterward, when Jane returns to discover nothing but blackened ruins. So my vivid recollection of those events must be due to Jean Rhys’s fine work.

So I’m curious: Did any of you suffer from the same “Mandela Effect” in your memory of Jane Eyre? Or perhaps with another book?

(My favorite non-literary example, by the way, is this: in the film version of Silence of the Lambs, one of the top quoted lines is “Hello, Clarice.” But guess what—Hannibal Lecter never said that. Here’s a link to more if you’re curious) 

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: And politicos, Woodward and Bernstein have said no one ever admonished them to “follow the money.” That’s only in the movie. 

But hey.  I remember the fire too.  Definitely. 

So let’s do a giveaway.  When did you read Jane Eyre?  Or did you? Did you just see the movie?  What do you remember? And are there other books you get mixed up with the movie? Or where the movie got it wrong?
Every comment is entered to win Michelle’s Unearthly Things.

 

UNEARTHLY THINGS 

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre retold against the backdrop of San Francisco's most fabulous—and dangerous—elites.

After losing her parents in a tragic accident, surfer girl Janie Mason trades the sunny beaches of Hawaii for the cold fog of San Francisco and new guardians—the Rochesters—she’s never even met. Janie feels hopelessly out of place in their world of Napa weekends, fancy cotillions, and chauffeurs. The only person she can relate to is Daniel, a fellow surfer. Meeting him makes Janie feel like things might be looking up.

Still, something isn’t right in the Rochester mansion. There are noises—screams—coming from the attic that everyone else claims they can’t hear. Then John, the black sheep of the family, returns after getting kicked out of yet another boarding school. Soon Janie finds herself torn between devil-may-care John and fiercely loyal Daniel. Just when she thinks her life can’t get any more complicated, she learns the truth about why the Rochesters took her in. They want something from Janie, and she’s about to see just how far they’ll go to get it.

"Effortlessly paced, full of heart, humor and horror, Gagnon revives the spirit of a classic while putting her own unique spin on the story…addictive, fast-paced and haunting."
—Madeleine Roux, New York Times bestselling author of the Asylum series

Michelle Gagnon (www.michellegagnon.com) is the bestselling author of thrillers for teens and adults. Her young adult PERSEF0NE trilogy (Don’t Turn Around, Don’t Look Now, Don’t Let Go) was nominated for a Thriller Award, and was selected as a top read by Entertainment Weekly, Kirkus, Voya, and YALSA. Her standalone thriller Strangelets was a Junior Library Guild pick. She lives in Los Angeles with her family.

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Independence Day

ROSEMARY: It's hard to think about anything today other than the events in Egypt . I've been riveted to the television since yesterday and all the silly irritations and issues I whined about earlier in the week evaporated as I watched people jubilantly celebrating the freedom they had risked their lives for.

None of us knows (not even Jim Lehrer - whom we all love) what the future holds for the people of Egypt but it was undeniably one of the most historic moments in recent memory - and as much as pundits are pointing to facebook as a catalyst - or at least an accelerant - it was the retro medium of television that made the event real for millions of people all over the world.

I was nowhere near a television for Hurricane Katrina or the tsunami and I've seen the Kennedy assassination so many times on video...but I don't remember seeing it firsthand.

These are my most memorable television moments (I wish more of them were as joyous as yesterday's.)

In no order -

-Mubarak's resignation

-Nixon's resignation

-The attack on the World Trade Center

-Nelson Mandela's release

-The fall of the Berlin Wall

-Princess Diana's funeral

-Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon

-The Challenger explosion

-The Munich Olympics

-The Beatles on Ed Sullivan

What have I forgotten?