A Review of
Red Room: New Short Stories
Inspired by the Brontës
By Elisa Fierro
“Reader,
I did not marry him.” This is the arresting beginning of Vanessa Gebbie’s Chapter XXXVIII – Conclusion (and a little
bit of added cookery) with abject apologies to Charlotte Brontë, one of the short stories in the new
collection Red Room: New Short
Stories Inspired by the Brontës (ISBN 978-0-9572897-3-4).
Red Room, edited by A. J. Ashworth and
published in paperback by Unthank Books in 2013, is comprised of twelve short
stories and a poem, written by some of Britain’s best contemporary writers to
celebrate the Brontë sisters and their unexhausted modernism. According to the editor, part
of the profits of the book will be donated to the Brontë
Birthplace Trust to help spread awareness of both the village and the building
where the three sisters and their brother, Branwell, were born.
The Brontë
Birthplace, located at 72/74 Market
Street, Thornton, England (West Yorkshire) and was a museum until 2007 thanks
to the passion of the late novelist Barbara Whitehead. After being sold, it has
recently become a café. At the time of the sale, the Brontë
Birthplace Trust was raising the necessary funds to acquire the building, and their
mission now to try to secure it at a future date for Brontë lovers
worldwide.
This
collection of short stories, Red Room
shows, is a continued commitment of Unthank Books towards contemporary short
fiction and classic literature. The contributors – all writers of remarkable
standing in contemporary British literature and winners of prestigious awards such
as the BBC National Short Story Award
- have all waived their fees. Their generosity is shared by Unthank Books, as
mentioned earlier, to help the Trust give the Brontë birthplace
its deserved position among the most important literary locations in the world.
The Brontës
and their work inspire all of the carefully crafted stories in Red Room, but a previous knowledge of
the sisters’ novels, although certainly auspicious, is not absolutely necessary
in order to enjoy the book. Everybody
can find something to his or her taste. The authors deal with a variety of
themes (from child abuse to the loss of a parent), write in different styles,
and set their stories in the past as well as in the present, showing how human
traits and situations described by the three Brontë sisters transcend time and
place.
The
previously mentioned Chapter
XXXVIII – Conclusion (and a little bit of added cookery) with abject apologies
to Charlotte Brontë, by
Vanessa Gebbie, offers a humorously alternative ending to Jane Eyre where Jane and Rochester do not marry but live as
companions while Rochester develops an interest in cooking with a penchant for
oddly mixed ingredients (after all, he is blind!). The author’s (never random) good
humor, through Jane’s first person narrative, does not spare any character of
the novel, including St. John Rivers, whose fate is described in a way highly
appropriate for him: “St. John is unmarried: he never will marry now (Who would
marry him, reader? Look at the verbiage up with which one would have to put)”.
Modern
values are the theme of Rowena Macdonald’s short story A Child of Pleasure. Inspired by the relationship between Lucy Snow
and Ginevra Fanshawe in Villette, the
story is about Liza Frost, a teacher giving private lessons, and Jemima
Fenchurch, her student. Jemima is not in the least interested in passing her exam
and often tries to demean Liza by pointing out her plain appearance, her
solitary life, and her lack of wealth. Jemima is “about as sensitive as a brick”,
has been indulged all her life, is self-centered, and only believes in beauty
and money. However, at the end of the story, Liz and the reader are left
wondering if, after all, Jemima was right. “I had been wrong: she was nobody’s
appendage” – don’t we all want to be a celebrity like her, without a care in
this world and sure that we will “suffer as little as any human being I have
ever known”?
Heart-rending
is the atmosphere of Carys Davies’ story Bonnet. The headwear of the title is one that Charlotte,
on her way to meet her publisher George Smith in London, has embellished with a
new lining, “a lustrous, pearly pink like the interior of a shell”. Smith has
written Charlotte a letter telling her about his recent engagement, a letter
that she had not yet received when she embarked on her trip. In reality, the
trip never took place, because at the time Charlotte had stopped going to
London to see her publisher. However, there has always been much speculation
about the feelings that Charlotte might have entertained for the young,
charming George. They were certainly friends and it is possible that she, bereft
and alone after the death of all her siblings, might have hoped to have him as a
life companion. Throughout the story, Charlotte is acutely aware of her plain
appearance and clothing, especially during the meeting: “… it is the worst imaginable thing for her to
sit and feel the bright new silk around her face, like a shout, and see how
embarrassed he is, how he can’t look at it.” In Victorian England, like today
in our modern, multicultural, open-minded society (sarcasm intended), there is
an incredible amount of pressure for women to be physically attractive. It
takes a lot of self-esteem not to feel, as Charlotte did, “always, always acutely and painfully conscious”
of the way we look as opposed to the way we are expected to look. I am sure that
many women can relate to that, I for one certainly do.
I have
chosen to use these three stories to illustrate how varied and multifaceted the
collection Red Room actually is and the
fact that it is a totally subjective choice. I do not doubt that every reader
will find his or her favorites, as the rest of the stories combine elements of
fiction, realism, fantasy, even fairy-tale, and are filled with characters whom,
while based on the Brontë works, are strong in their own right.
In My Dear Miss … Zoë King imagines an
epistolary exchange between Jane Eyre and Emma Woodhouse, where the latter,
faithful to her character, tries to set Jane up with “a certain young
clergyman, Mr. Elton, a handsome and intelligent addition to our circle.”
Contrasting
with the playfulness of that work are Sarah Dobbs’ Behind all the Closed Doors, dealing with the loss of a parent at a
very early age, and Alison Moore’s Stonecrop,
where an abusive stepfather gets what he deserves from his young victim.
On the
other hand, stories like The Curate’s
Wife, by Felicity Skelton, will appeal to lovers of historical fiction and
romance, for its depiction of a fortuitous meeting between Charlotte and a well-known
historical character, with very interesting consequences.
Subsequently,
Ashton and Elaine, by David
Constantine, is a fairy-tale version of Heathcliff and Catherine’s story in
which an adopted child finds a loving family and a supportive teacher in order
that we can all be hopeful for him and his future.
Although
the stories show a variety of subjects, one element ties them all together:
their authors’ captivating imaginations and their desire to bring the Brontë sisters
to a wide modern audience, an audience who might or might not have a good
literary background knowledge. At the end of the book, actually, the reader
with less familiarity with the Brontës will find help with understanding the
context of each story in the final section entitled Inspirations, where every author explains how he or she came to
write their particular piece of short fiction.
Being a Brontë lover
myself, I am always an avid reader of anything related to the sisters and am
sometimes disappointed by what is published, but this collection did not
disappoint! The works in this book show how modern the Brontës will
always be, how they can still inspire good literature, how the characters they
created can and shall hook a contemporary reader, and make him or her reflect
on the human condition. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne are alive and well and they
are waiting for you in the Red Room.
Key Words: Elisa Fierro, Elisa, Fierro, Bronte, Brontë, sisters, Charlotte Brontë, Ann Brontë, Emily Brontë, writer, author, book, England, UK, United Kingdom, parsonage, BBC, Thornton, Yorkshire, CombatCritic, TravelValue
