Brussels-based author Éléonore Desclée uses Charlotte Brontë and Jane Eyre as the driving force in her novel Charlotte in Love, which sees two teenage students thrown together for a collaborate project that brings discoveries about the book and themselves.
Éléonore discussed her novel and how she came to write it in a discussion with the Brussels Brontë Group on Saturday, Feb. 15.
In coming in for Éléonore’s talk, we were greeted by the unlikely sound of Italian singer Gazebo’s 1983 hit “I Like Chopin,” which was going on a loop on the overhead screens. This track served as an introduction to Éléonore and her book. In the novel, set in 1986, the headmistress at the school the main characters attend uses the Gazebo song instead of a bell to mark lesson times during the course of the scholastic year. In spite of the song being quite an earworm (it was still going round in my head several hours later), this was a fun (and unexpected) touch. We don’t usually listen to 1980s pop music at our literary talks!
Helen MacEwan kicked off the talk by introducing the author and giving a brief overview of the plot of the novel. She noted that despite its English title, the book is actually in French. Éléonore said that as the story is about Charlotte Brontë and love, she and her daughter, who was helping her choose a title, decided to go with Charlotte in Love. They also felt that a title in English would go down well with adolescent readers.
For the benefit of those of us (which is to say most of us) who hadn’t read the book, five passages, translated into English, were read out by two young people representing the novel’s Jeanne and Alec. These passages were presented between interview-style questions which Helen posed to Éléonore, in order to help the audience to understand more about the novel and its author.
We see Jeanne introducing the at-first reluctant Alec to concepts like the usefulness of biography, or “knowing” an author better in order to enhance the reading of their books, the pros and cons of reading the original book versus watching adaptations, how to access information and conduct research, reflections on feminist perspectives in Jane Eyre, ideas of beauty … and it reminded me of when, many moons ago, I had occasion to first reflect on these questions, and how exciting it was to explore these themes with fresh, young eyes.
Éléonore’s novel appears to be an intelligent book for young adults which weaves a story based on literary perspectives, romance, the journey of self-discovery for both protagonists, and of course aspects of what we know about Charlotte Brontë’s life, both literary and personal. As Helen put it – Charlotte in Love is a book about the power of literature and what it can teach us. If her reaction to reading the novel is anything to go by, it would seem that although written for an adolescent audience, it can also be enjoyed and appreciated by readers of any age.
The talk was rounded off by audience members sharing their personal responses to the first time they read a Brontë novel. For some it was Jane Eyre, for others Wuthering Heights. Some enjoyed the Brontës straight away, others had to develop a taste for them. A recurrent comment was how each re-reading was a new experience. We see things we had not seen before, we react differently, we pick up different aspects of the work, and ultimately fall in or out of love with it, perhaps all over again.
Some of the interview questions and answers:
Helen: Why did you set your novel in 1986?
Éléonore: It was an idea of my writing coach. I was very lucky to have a well-known Belgian writer, Francis Dannemark, as my coach while I was writing. Initially, I set the novel in 2019. I changed the period because it was not realistic. Jeanne has never heard about Charlotte’s stay in Brussels. With the internet, now everyone is able to become a specialist in every possible field. So I set the plot in the eighties, when I was myself in the sixth year. Francis told me: write something prehistoric that would amaze teenagers of today – how did we do research at that time ? How difficult was it to have access to information etc.
Helen: How did you first get the idea for Charlotte in Love?
Éléonore: I got the idea of Charlotte in Love, remembering my own school career. I first imagined Mr. Lambermont, then that he forced two pupils to work together on Jane Eyre. At the beginning, I thought that they could discuss the novel, but after three chapters, I realized it was impossible to talk about the novel without giving some information about Charlotte’s life. So, I didn’t get the idea after discovering that the Brontës stayed in Brussels. The whole starting point is the character of Monsieur Lambermont.
Helen: Monsieur Lambermont is a great character. Did you have an inspiring teacher like him? How far is he inspired by Heger?
Éléonore: Not really, even though I had an excellent French teacher. Lambermont is a mixture of different teachers I had. I never thought for one minute of Heger when I was creating him.
Georgette Cutajar
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