Gwen,
I too share your distaste, and feel like a feminist betrayer as a result. Additionally, reading Dickens verbose writings makes me want to pop my eyeballs out in boredom. I love to read, but these books make me want to quote some of my slacker friends in high school: "The Sparknotes were better"

While I second Liz's assertion about Dickens, I really love Jane Eyre. Really, though, I have a soft-spot for gothic literature.

My 8-year-old son happened by as I started the video, and he watched it through with me.

"I want that!" he said.
"Why?"
"Because they throw books!"
"Aha!"
"And because of the bronte-saurus. Is it real?"
"I don't think so, but I can try and find out."
"Ok."

Ugh, Tess of the d'Urbervilles. Don't try it. It just killed my brain. I've never cried over a book so much and then been so annoyed after.

If you want something with Jane Eyre that will keep your attention, try The Eyre Affair in the Thursday Next Series by Jasper Fforde. That has a strong, but imperfect lead female character.

Well, what is there to be with this post in terms of critique, I really cannot grasp.

I think that it is certainly true that female authors have had and still do have it much harder in terms of the publishing or relevant social circles all in all. Even today female authors are a magnet for unreasonable critique.

Similar attitude is revealed here when a blog author critiques a female writer for "not being feminist enough". Or at least that is how I understood this post, anyway.

And that is just nonsense. Do we really validate past female writers in terms of their real work or in terms of how their work seems in the light of todays feminist values. Again, pure nonsense.
Sappho was a darn good and ground breaking feminist poet, even though many of her work has not been preserved. And even though they might not fit some misguided ideal that some individuals might have today about of how female writers should be like.

Aaaaaand, try thinking outside of the box for once and reading old literature, people. Or you will turn into dimwits who cannot truly engage into anything that is not present within their limited frame of mind. Or as you could call it "the american mental condition".

I loved the video. :)
I have read most of Brinte's work but they are kind of hard compared to the fastfood literature that's published nowadays.
You have posted a while ago a short movie or commercial in which the credit were extremely long and boring (for today viewers) but have been something quite normal back then. I believe it's the same with books - long, descriptive... descriptions of people, places, thoughts... they bore, something about short attention span, I believe. :)

Last, Tess... I kinda hate that character. :)

I love the BBC adaptations of Jane Eyre, North and South, Pride and Prejudice... all that stuff. The P&P one got me to read the book, which I absolutely adored. And they kind of actually make me want to read Charles Dickens, even though I had to in high school and hated every verbose page.

I liked Jane Eyre okay and hated Wuthering Heights, but the Brontë sister I really fell in love with is Anne. I know she's considered a minor literary figure next to her sisters, but The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is by far my favorite book of any of the Brontës.

Also: anyone who hasn't seen Kate Beaton's comics about the Brontës is seriously missing out.

I posted this video in my blog tonight too, haha.

oh my fucking god that was amazing. I loved Jane Eyre and all it's horrible gothicness and make no apologies for that!

I love 19th century novels. They take patience, and they require an aesthetic sensibility very different from our present prose styles to appreciate (let alone enjoy), but Hardy and Eliot remain two of my favorite novelists in the English language.

This video kind of hits close to my ten-years-ago critique of Jane Austen's work: it needed ninja to make it palatable. (With the recent Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, it seems that I wasn't the only one who felt that a little supernatural schtick would liven her work up a bit.) The experience of reading a 19th century novel requires an initial act of will to immerse oneself in the social world of its characters and setting. They are, at the same time, dull in the terms of our expectations of media experiences--and sublime in the imaginative and moral insights that we can acquire once we surrender ourselves to the novels' pace.

I interpret this video in two ways: first, on the terms of parody that it clearly asks to be taken in; second, as a kind of critique of the juxtaposition between contemporary willingness to immerse ourselves in the imaginative spaces created within those novels apart from the pre-packaged imaginative spaces that we inherit from popular media.

And, for the record, I've read a couple of Lord Bulwer Lytton's novels. For fun. And I loved them. And they're AWFUL. And I love them.

If this sparks your interest, you can find actual Brontë sisters dolls, plus Brontë-themed handmade t-shirts, greeting cards, costumes, jewelry, etc., on Etsy.com -- the search term "Bronte" is sufficient.

This is the greatest thing I have ever seen in my life.

This reminds me of the fact that J K Rowling uses her initials rather than first name because of the perception that boys might not read a book written by a woman. So now it's not so much getting published (although I gather it's still harder for women) but the perceptions of readers about whether a book written by someone of the opposite sex is 'for them'.

Tess D'Ubervilles is actually a feminist work by Thomas Hardy. While it is certainly tragic for Tess, it critiques female dependency on men and points out the limited spaces for women in Victorian England. As a Thomas Hardy lover and a self-identified feminist of color, I am somewhat disappointed that the author of the post unjustifiably levies such a condemning view of the book without exploring the full meaning of Hardy's intent.
Also, as an avid reader of Victorian literature and a studier of racial/queer studies, I do not think we should irreconcilably distance ourselves away from reading those purportedly anti-feminist and white supremacist works of literature (like those 19C brit0. I think we can either read them as historical documents or simply just enjoy them. I get so tired of people telling me I "shouldn't" read them b/c they conflict with my principles. While I read ethnographic/feminist texts, I do enjoy a good Victorian book, and I will continue to read it despite all the naysayers.

Tess of the D'Urbervilles is an extremely great novel. It deals with sexism and various other topics. If you can't "get through" the book, at least watch the bbc movie. geez.

I've read Tess of the D'Urbervilles and in my opinion, Thomas Hardy was writing outdated stories in an outdated style at the latter half of the nineteenth century when there was already a shift into modernism. His novels are sensationalist stories and were considered so; there's not a hint of realism that was present in other latter-half nineteenth century authors who were beginning the shift into a new literary era. I really don't think he was a feminist writer and if anything, his poetry is where he shines.

I would never want to discount genius, but I think that unless you are studying works like these for academic reasons or you love certain periods of history and/or know them well, it is unlikely you will love these books. I mean, why would you? They are dated, irrelevant, and written in language that is essentially different from what we use today. I believe that all stories do exist already in some printed form, but it is the endless variation on those stories that we find fascinating and fun...the novelty of them if you will or the relevance to our lives right now...which is why we do...should I think... enjoy modern authors more. The trouble is that we don't always recognize genius when it is in our midst so we keep going back to what we know is genius and revisiting that.

I read Tess and WH for school and hated them both. Unrelenting depression is just not my cup of tea.

Well, I enjoyed strongly "Jane Air" and "Pride and Prejudice" because it's the same stories we read nowadays, only the way they analyze their body language and the words they choose fascinates me much more than the modern variations on the topic.
Oh, yeah, do you know that Bronte's are sold nowadays as "chicklit" authors?

Tess of the D'Urbervilles was absolutely terrible. It was really, really awful.

I've gotta stick up for Tom Hardy and Tess. Tess is a wonderful, moving, soul-stirring work about what makes us who we are. Are we born into our roles? Or do we fall into our roles through our actions? A question that any feminist should occasionally ask. I could almost cry at so many people panning Tess. So it's not your cup of tea. But it's not 'really really awful'. These works are classics for a reason. Thousands of people LOVE Tom Hardy. Including yours truly. :) Ok, I'm done.

Great post. I love that video! *I* want a Bronte Power Doll with Boomerang Book Throwing Action!

Living quite close to where the Bronte sisters once lived, I "get" their work and enjoy their novels, and 19th century fiction in general, although, as other commenters observed, it requires patience and a different sensibility than that required for today's popular fiction.

If anyone's interested, I've written a blog post on the general theme of women's literature being dismissed out of hand:

http://www.myfriendamysblog.com/2010/04/damned-if-we-do-conundrum-of-womens.html