The French Dancer's Bastard by Emma Tennant (2002)

Book review: The French Dancer's Bastard a.k.a. Thornfield Hall a.k.a. Adèle by Emma Tennant (The Maia Press, 2006 [2002])

Adèle Varens is only eight when she comes to Thornfield Hall to live with the forbidding Mr. Rochester who may or may not be her father. She longs to return to the glitter of Paris and to the mother who has been lost to her. Her loneliness would be complete were it not for the young governess who arrives to care for her, although Adèle at first regards her with suspicion and dislike.

But there is another shadow hanging over their lives: the dark secret locked away in a high garret. Adèle's curiosity will imperil them all, shatter their happiness and finally send her fleeing, frightened and alone, back to Paris.

Emma Tennant is the author of more than twenty books including memoirs, novels, comic fantasies and revisionary versions of classic texts. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and lives in London.

SPOILERS AHOY!

First published as Adèle in 2002, this is version 2 of the story, Thornfield Hall is the third. Or possibly it's just an American title. It's the same book, either way you look at it. Had it been a particularly good book, it might not have mattered that it has three different titles, but as it happens, it has some problems that cannot be duly overcome.

I've mentioned before that I've read another Emma Tennant book: Pemberley, which is a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride & Prejudice. I quite enjoyed that book, as it happened. This one ... not so much. I've heard that people take a fairly harsh view on her books, and now I know why. Good grief.

Before I even go into what it's about, I'd say the book is very confused and incoherent. Most of the chapters are from Adèles point of view, like you would expect - it's supposed to be about her, after all. But then some chapters are instead from Rochester's perspective, or even Grace Poole's! What is the point of this?!

The back of the book (quoted above) makes it sound like it's a coherent story, but it isn't. It keeps jumping in time and first, Adèle is in Paris. Then she's at Thornfield. Then she gets chummy with Bertha. Then Jane arrives. Then a few years skip past. And so on, and so on. Things which are major in the original novel just gets brushed over. And that's where we start to encounter the problems this book has. In fact, they start with the introduction, believe it or not. Has Emma Tennant actually read Jane Eyre? At all? She could've at least had the courtesy to check with the original to make sure she got some basic facts of it right!

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966/1968)

Book review: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (Penguin Books, Film and TV Tie-in edition, 1993 [1966/1968])

'Without the instinct, the passion might so easily be either sentimental or sensational; without the passion, the instinct might lead to only formal beauty; together they result in original art, at the same time exquisite and deeply disturbing' - Frances Wyndham

Antoinette Cosway is a Creole heiress, the product of an inbred, decadent, expatriate community, a sensitive girl at once beguiled and repelled by the lush Jamaican landscape.

Soon after her marriage to Rochester rumours of madness in the Cosway family poison his mind against her; Antoinette's beautiful face turns 'blank hating moonstruck' ... and the action narrows, as inexorably as Greek tragedy, towards the attic in Thornfield Hall, the grim Grace Poole and the suicidal holocaust of leaping flames.

After twenty-seven years' silence Jean Rhys made a sensational literary reappearance with Wide Sargasso Sea, her story of the first Mrs Rochester, the mad wife in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. It took her nine years to write it, and in its tragic power, psychological truth and magnificent poetic vision it stands out as one of the great novels of our time.

The book is split into three parts. The first one is the childhood of future Mad Wife in the Attic from her perspective, the second is from the perspective of a newly-wed Edward Rochester and, in a short and confusing part, by Bertha, and the third one is by Bertha at Thornfield. Why is part two confusing? Because  it's all told by Rochester, and then it jumps and you don't immediately realise that the perspective has shifted, and once you're used to it, it switches back to Rochester.

I was going to base this review on the first reading of this book, but as it's rather short (only ~150 pages), I thought I'd have another go. The first time I read it, I hated it, more or less, and was left with a feeling of being a bit annoyed that the author had completely failed to understand Rochester. I even said (aloud!) "Well, I disagree," after I had finished it.

That's just RUDE!

Some time ago, I ordered two books by Emma Tennant. The first one came pretty much straight away, the second only arrived yesterday, as it had to come all the way from across the pond. And now what? IT'S THE SAME BLOODY BOOK! It just has two different titles! Okay, so a couple of books at £0.01 (+ £2.75 p&p) each isn't a lot, but it still annoys me. I was looking forward to reading two different books, and instead, I have one book with two different titles and two different covers. Only wanted the one. :(

For reference, these are the culprits: The French Dancer's Bastard and Thornfield Hall. The latter has even been published under a third title, Adèle. FFS, pick a title and stick with it!