When I was in school, we had an English Supplementary reader in addition to the Main Reader. One year, it was an abridged version of Jane Eyre. It was a thin book with a pink cover and a picture; I don’t remember what it was exactly. The insides had large print, and a few colorless illustrations scattered throughout the book.
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| Title Page of the First Jane Eyre Edition from Wikipedia |
The study of that book was split across the months of an entire school year. Every sentence was analyzed; every event was discussed in class till we were ready to puke simply on hearing the ‘J’ of Jane. Studying a novel or a poem always takes the fun out of it, but this one in particular was tortuous.
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| This was how it felt then - Source |
For starters, we were told that it was this great, classic book and we found it terribly underwhelming for that. But the main problem was in the abridging of it. The story was the same, speaking broadly, but Jane Eyre is not just about a plot. It is an intense tale with so much love and hate, a documentary of morality and religion and with such complex characters that it’s unreasonable to expect a schoolgirl to grasp even half of its essence. This probably explains the reason for the abridging, but I still think its nearly criminal.
The part that stood out most for me in that version of Jane Eyre was how she was ill treated as a child. Her budding romance with Rochester
I sort of understood why she left him, but then came the part with St. John St. John
Now that I’ve read the entire novel with the eyes of a grown woman, I am amazed at the depth of the book. Most of all, I admire Jane completely – what a woman!! Ever since that supplementary reader, I had the nagging feeling that there was more to this book; like I said, a lot of it didn’t make sense. Now everything is crystal clear and I am so glad I gave the novel another try. That abridged nonsense nearly ruined Jane Eyre for me!!
It’s really a question with no easy answers – how do you introduce classics to children? The original versions of several classics, like Jane Eyre, are not suitable for kids, so do we wait till they’re adults and then hope they’ll read them? Or do we give them scaled down versions in childhood and expect them to want to read the originals later? I’m on the fence, though I’m more inclined towards letting them in on the originals directly when they’re ready for it. You might have to use tactics like these though:
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There are other ways classics get umm… ‘mutated’:
1. As Movies
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There have been many movies made of Jane Eyre itself, though the frequency seems to be slowing down through the decades. Movie adaptations of classics are usually good, with a lot of research going into the costumes and sets. However the time constraint leads to parts of the book being clipped.
2. As TV Series
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TV Series based on classics aren’t as many as the number of movies, but they are actually truer to the original, especially considering they have the luxury of several episodes to tell the story. However, airing an episode weekly does disrupt the feel and intensity of the original.
3. As Erotic Novels
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A relatively newer concept, writers of this genre use their writing to go behind the closed bedroom doors of our favorite characters. Either they show in detail what was implied in the novel, or they imagine that such events took place. I haven’t read anything from this group and don’t intend to – sacrilege!
4. As (horror of horrors) comic books
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These, in my opinion, are the worst. Please, Jane Eyre is not an Avenger!!! Nothing kills a classic like this!
Now that I know I’ve been fed bad stuff as a kid, I’m on a quest to re-read all the classics in their original form and see what I’ve been missing out on. I’d love to know if any of you have had a similar experience with a book. What do you guys think about classic novels, either abridged or in other forms?
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| Quote from Jane Eyre - Source |
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