The Professor

For nine and a half hours (not consecutive), I have been listening to James Wilby read Charlotte Bronte’s first novel, The Professor, and I think I can safely sum it up in one word:

Interminable.

That book could easily be abridged.  It should have been abridged.  It wants for nothing more than a good abridgement.

Well, a good abridgement and a character who was less of an annoying jerk.

At several points during the novel, Wilby’s narration and the fact that it was a CD in my car stereo where the only things stopping me from hurling the book across the room in a fit of annoyance.

For those of you who thought Charlotte Bronte only wrote one novel, the story actually goes like this:

The Bronte sisters, having spent most of their childhood writing poetry and short stories to keep themselves amused, decided to try their hands at writing novels.  They formed their own private writing circle and worked on three novels - which they intended to publish at the same time under the gender-ambiguous pseudonyms of Currer, Acton and Ellis Bell.

Charlotte (Currer) wrote The Professor, Acton (Anne) wrote Agnes Grey and Ellis (Emily) wrote Wuthering Heights.  You may have heard of the last one.

Now, Anne and Emily’s books were both accepted for publication, but The Professor was rejected.  Probably on the grounds it of being, by turns, boring and irritating.

I just want to point something out here – Agnes Grey was accepted for publication, but The Professor wasn’t.  Agnes Grey is a romance novel in which nothing happens.  A governess puts up with children nobody likes while pining after a man who barely looks at her.  The book is roughly three-parts “my goodness, rich people’s children are obnoxious” and five parts “oh, if only he would look at me”.  Right at the end our patience is rewarded with the following exchange:

“So you do love me, then?”

“Yes.”

This book is, it must be said, kind of boring.  It’s still miles better than The Professor.

Charlotte then went on to write Jane Eyre, which you may have heard of.  That book was a roaring success – although, in hindsight, it could be regarded as Agnes Grey on spooky-pants steroids.  She also wrote Shirley (which is interesting) and Villette (which is a brilliant book, even if it has a stupid ending).  Anne went on to write The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (which is less famous than anything her sisters wrote, but more famous than her other novel).  Emily went on to die before writing anything else.

The Professor was never published in Charlotte’s life-time, and I can see why.  It’s terrible.  It was so terrible that she could never convince anyone to publish it, even though her other books made her a well-loved and respected novelist.

Okay, granted, it's not "my goodness, my mental faculties are damaged after reading this book" kind of terrible - and a Bronte completist probably shouldn't avoid it - but it's really Not Very Good.  Anyone who had the misfortune to read this book before any of her others would probably assume she was a pretty rubbish author and never read anything else by her.

It was the first full-length novel she wrote, and it appears someone told her that the trick for writing a novel (as opposed to short stories and novellas) to fill it with pointless drivel.

The first-person narration by William Crimsworth features large sections of the character yammering on endlessly about such subjects as the moon, the misery of old maids, the character of people with big foreheads and the two-facedness of Catholics.

Apart from the fact that he just seems to be talking trash for no reason other than padding out the book, the diatribes are also largely offensive as it becomes quite clear that our Mr Crimsworth is an egotistical bigot.

He is quite unpleasant, and Wilby did well to make him sound like someone not-entirely-terrible.  This is the kind of man you would meet at a party, think was a reasonably nice guy for the first few minutes, but then come to dislike the longer you listened to him talk.  At the end of the party you would probably never voluntarily seek out his company – and may even try to avoid him.

Crimsworth has a low opinion of pretty much everyone who doesn’t fit into his ideal of upper-middle-class English Protestantism.  Are you French?  You are loose of morals.  Are you Catholic?  You are a conniving, inveterate liar.  Are you Flemish?  You’re an idiot.  Are you a woman?  Your faults – whatever they may be, are somehow much, much worse than those of your male brethren.

The man is racist - that's the only way you could describe him.  And to make things weirder, he takes his racism out on Flemish people.  I dread to think what he would have said if he came in contact with a Moor.

I found myself pitying the woman who had the misfortune to be his ideal woman.  The way he spoke about her – the way he talked about how she “grew” under his “stern” tutelage…

It was just a little bit creepy.  I really hoped she would run away with his best friend, but she didn’t.  Instead they lived happily ever after – with his wife continuing to call him “monsieur” for the rest of their married lives (supposedly because she couldn’t pronounce “William” comfortably).

Charlotte, I know you’re dead, so this advice won’t do you any good, but – really, girl, you need to stop idolising Byronic jerks.  And grow a bit of self-esteem, will you?