Broeder en zuster, or the story of Acton Currer Bell

Ten years ago, in an old library catalog I stumbled on a novel, translated in Dutch and published in 1853, by Acton Currer Bell, called Broeder en zuster. Acton Currer Bell? A Brontë novel called ‘Brother and sister’?

First page from the Leiden library catalog
(collection of Leiden Regional Archive)

Page from the catalog with the works of Currer Bell

The pictures are from a catalog of one of the 19th century ‘reading libraries’ (“leesbibliotheek”) in Leiden, my hometown. At some point then there were about a dozen or so at the same time, usually established by booksellers. People could borrow books, to read them at home. This 1850s catalog gives an idea of the popularity of the Brontës in The Netherlands. As the obviously fake Acton Currer Bell novel does especially. A novel under that name would sell. But it also shows the confusion in the early 1850s about the identity of Currer, Acton and Ellis Bell.

2016 – Charlotte Brontë and David Bowie

David Bowie is dead! For all his many fans in the music world, across several generations, the news this week has come as a great shock. We thought he would be around forever, like an undying god, but no – he is gone. The passing of Bowie, the beloved Thin White Duke, is a huge happening in this early new year 2016.

2016 of course, is also Charlotte Brontë's big year, the bicentenary of her birth, and events are already taking place around the world to celebrate her life and legacy. Thus, while sadly we bid farewell to one huge figure in the world of popular music, we are also remembering one of the great icons of literary culture.

Out of homage to these two great artists, David Bowie and Charlotte Brontë, I would like to approach here some common themes and parallels found in their lives and works. I would like to show how they were kindred artistic spirits in many ways – however strange the idea might at first seem!

Solitude and despair

One the major themes Bowie and Charlotte share, one informing constantly their artistic projects, is that of solitude. Both artists are obsessed and haunted by black ideas of solitude, by despair and social isolation. From an early age, they both felt different, unwanted and alone. Reading Charlotte's letters collection, it's clear how she so often feels to be an alien, an outsider adrift in a hostile world. In 1836, at the age of twenty, she wrote to Ellen Nussey: "Ellen, I have some qualities that make me very miserable, some feelings that you can have no participation in – that very few people in the world can at all understand –".

It's in her novels too, and in all her heroines – the loneliness of Jane Eyre, Lucy Snowe, Frances Henri, and Shirley's Caroline Helstone. Charlotte’s writing deals much with the solitude of young orphaned women, women floating uncomfortably on the margins of society – loveless, homeless and desperate women, who are looking for a place to live, a little friendship, and some crumbs of love. In Shirley and Villette, the two novels she wrote (or finished) after the deaths of her siblings, the atmosphere of gloomy solitude and despair is oppressive. In Villette, Chapter 15, Lucy Snowe experiences a sort of nervous breakdown, having been left alone in her school during the long summer holidays. It is difficult to ignore the searing pain in her words:

"Even to look forward was not to hope: the dumb future spoke no comfort, offered no promise, gave no inducement to bear present evil in reliance on future good. A sorrowful indifference to existence often pressed on me – a despairing resignation to reach betimes the end of all things earthly."

Now this bereft, solitary territory was the very space that David Bowie knew all too well, a landscape he travelled through and inhabited for much of his life. He outlines it in his interviews and in his song lyrics, where he tells how he felt like a space oddity, or, as he puts it in another song, a cracked actor. He was a man who was so often afraid, who did not like himself, and who, beneath all his façades and smiles, felt lonely, cut-off from common human living, so mentally unwell.  Bowie's interviews, easily found on the internet, offer many quotes on the themes of emotional pain and solitude, such as: "what I do is I write mainly about very personal and lonely feelings, and I explore them in a different way each time". Bowie endured many painful psychologic extremes, just like his Major Tom in Ashes to Ashes, who was "strung out in heaven's high, hitting an all time low".
 Bowie and Charlotte never tired of writing about their stark emotional suffering; perhaps it was the only way they found to exorcise the dark demons tormenting them.

Identity crisis

For much of their lives, both artists were also very troubled by problems of Identity. They were never really sure of themselves as persons – who or what they should be, or what role they should play, or how they should fit into the various identities their respective epochs offered them –identities of self, society, class, gender. In their art, they deal extensively with identity questions – so much more so than many of their fellow artists.

Brussels Brontë Christmas Lunch and Entertainment 2015

The Annual Brontë Christmas lunch took place on Saturday 6 December. As usual Jones Hayden acted as Master of Ceremonies. This year 35 people enjoyed the festive meal, in which the courses alternated with the various items of entertainment.

Jones, Master of Ceremonies

Paul Gretton

After the initial welcome speeches by Helen and Jones, Paul Gretton entertained us with a reading of Thomas Hardy’s poem ‘The Oxen’. This was followed by Graham Andrews’ choice samples from ‘One Hundred Great Books in Haikus’.

Graham Andres

This year the skit was not just performed but also partly composed by some of our talented members. Tracie Ryan was the guide and Brian Holland, Kate Healy and Robynn Colwell the family being shown round the Parsonage in an adaptation of Victoria Wood’s monologue ‘The Haworth Parsonage Tour Guide’, with additions by Jones Hayden and the performers. A highly entertaining piece which generated a lot of laughs and was very well performed.

The talented actors!

Myriam Campinaire gave a hilarious reading of a biography of the Brontës that deviated in almost every point from Claire Harman’s, written by Derek Roberts, a humorist who has now moved from Brussels but was formerly well known in expat circles here. He also composed the lyrics for ‘Belgian Commune Blues’ (listen to it on youtube!).

Myriam Campinaire reading a
humorous piece

Members acquitted themselves well in Jones’s annual Brontë Quiz, which was as full of tricky questions as usual. The raffle prizes this year included some of the year’s best-selling books about the Brontës: Claire Harman’s biography of Charlotte Brontë, Deborah Lutz’s ‘The Brontë Cabinet’, and Sheila Kohler’s ‘Becoming Jane Eyre’.
...

One of the lucky winners in the lottery!

We ended with ‘The Sans Day Carol’ led by Paul Gretton.

It was another enjoyable end-of-year lunch with Brontë enthusiasts. I think most of us are already looking forward to next year’s.

Next year will see some extra activities due to the bicentenary of Charlotte Brontë’s birth. Keep tuned in to our web-site, blog and Facebook page for coming events.

Two launches of Brontë books by Helen MacEwan

‘Les Soeurs Brontë à Bruxelles’

On 3 December ‘Les Soeurs Brontë à Bruxelles’, the French edition of Helen MacEwan’s ‘The Brontës in Brussels’, was launched at Librairie Quartiers Latins in Place des Martyrs.

It was translated by long-standing Brussels Brontë Group members Myriam Campinaire and Daniel Mangano and published by CFC-Éditions, who run the Quartiers Latins bookshop.

‘Les Sœurs Brontë à Bruxelles’

This publisher’s catalogue contains lovingly-produced, richly-illustrated books about Brussels. ‘Les Soeurs Brontë à Bruxelles’, an illustrated guide to Charlotte and Emily’s time in the city, forms part of the collection ‘La Ville Écrite’; in the same collection is ‘Les Écrivains dans la Ville’, a guide to the literary plaques and statues in the city.

Helen MacEwan introduced the book in conversation with Frédérique Bianchi, who specialises in nineteenth-century literature and organises literary walks in Brussels, and Claire Billen, a retired ULB lecturer specialising in the history of Brussels.

Helen MacEwan (centre) introduces the book with
Claire Billen (left) and Frédérique Bianchi (right)

‘The Brontës in Brussels’ is the first book dedicated exclusively to Charlotte and Emily Brontë’s time in Brussels. The French translation introduces readers to a little-known literary connection of Brussels and also to a historical period in the city (the 1840s, shortly after the Belgian Revolution) less thoroughly chronicled than the later 19th century, which saw its expansion and transformation under Leopold II. Numerous additional images have been included in this lavishly-illustrated French edition.

It is always a pleasure to spend time in Quartiers Latins, a marvellous place a little off the beaten track and located in one of the most beautiful squares of Brussels. The genuine love of books that motivates the publishers and booksellers who work in this tranquil spot is almost palpable in the air.


‘Winifred Gérin: Biographer of the Brontës’

On 29 November 2015, Waterstones Brussels hosted the launch of a book about a Brontë biographer with Belgian links.

Winifred Gérin, who moved to Haworth in the 1950s to research her biographies of the four Brontë siblings, was the best-known Brontë biographer after Mrs Gaskell and before the historian Juliet Barker became the definitive chronicler of the family in the 1990s. Helen MacEwan’s life of Gérin draws on her unpublished memoir and on hundreds of letters to the family of her first husband, a Belgian cellist called Eugène Gérin. Helen met members of the family when researching the book, one of whom (a great-nephew of Eugène Gérin) attended the launch.

Winifred Gérin’s colourful life took her to Paris, where she lived with her musician husband in the 1930s; to Brussels, where the couple were living at the time of the German invasion in May 1940; and to southern France where they found themselves trapped for the first two years of the War and became involved in helping Jews to escape arrest under the Vichy government. Having escaped back to England themselves, they worked for Political Intelligence near Bletchley Park.

Eugène Gérin died in 1945. Ten years after his death, Winifred’s life changed direction after a first visit to Haworth on which she met her second husband, a Brontë enthusiast. Once her Brontë biographies were completed she went on to write lives of other nineteenth-century women writers including Elizabeth Gaskell and Anne Thackeray Ritchie.

Around 30 members of the Brussels Brontë Group attended the launch and heard the story of the research for the book that uncovered the story of Gérin’s hitherto unknown life.

Previously, on 21 November, a launch was organised at Waterstones Piccadilly, London. It was attended by the publisher of the book, members of the Brontë and Gaskell Societies and people who helped with research.

Helen MacEwan with members of the Brussels Brontë Group
at the launch at Waterstones Brussels

‘Winifred Gérin: Biographer of the Brontës’ is available in Waterstones Brussels. Read about the book here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Winifred-Gerin-Biographer-Helen-MacEwan/dp/1845197437/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

Of pioneers and creative followers – Tessa Hadley on Jane Eyre through a novelist’s eyes - Ola Podstawka reports on the talk by Tessa Hadley on 17 October – see also the report dated 26 October

One couldn’t help but hang on to every word. The silence was complete, as if everyone was holding their breath in a strange state of benevolent enchantment. It was a talk like we haven’t experienced before: personal, meandering and deliberate, a beautifully written audiobook more than a lecture we might have been expecting. Tessa Hadley started with a confession that it was somewhat intimidating to speak to a group of Bronte lovers not being an expert on the topic, but I think after she breathed the last full stop, we were all convinced we needed more of such talks in the program.

Admittedly, the uneasiness about being original and offering a unique take  is somethingfamiliar to anyone tackling the mythical literary family. In fact, a hundred and fifty years after publication, dozens of adaptations, several biographies and thousands of discussions later, is it still possible to say something new about Charlotte Bronte and Jane Eyre? Is there a fresh approach waiting to be discovered and presented to our group? As Tessa Hadley argued (and demonstrated by her own example), one of the main charms of Charlotte’s writing lies in its inherent personal character. Highly subjective and yet relatable, it can evoke a myriad of meanings and represent as many things as there are readers. Of course everyone loves their witty Austen, but the Bronte stories are not written from a standpoint of detached irony, with deliberate judgement and a half-amused wink towards the audience; they are carved out of raw emotion, in isolation and darkness, solemn and organic in their oblivion. The Bronte’s wouldn’t have written with such power had they been self-conscious or auto-ironic as artists. But with both kinds, with both Jane and Charlotte, thankfully, we can read and re-read them and be captivated time and time again.

In the course of her lecture, Tessa Hadley touched many important topics, especially relevant if one feels even a remote affinity towards writing and creativity, and as I was too engrossed in listening, relating, remembering and appreciating the linguistic richness, I am able to recount only a few of them from memory. But probably the most powerful point was that made about the difference between contemporary authors and their predecessors from two hundred years ago, the pioneers of the genre and their creative followers who live now. Thinking about writing as a process, one needs to keep in mind that Charlotte’s circumstances were diametrically different than those of contemporary writers. She was coming into a literary scene dominated by poetry -  the noble, respected kind of writing. The novel had barely reached its adolescence at that time, and with its relatively short history was considered a largely inferior genre, destined chiefly for undignified audiences of women (gasp!) and the bourgeoisie (double gasp!). And she wrote a masterpiece of its kind, a milestone in its development. If we think of writers today, how different their situation is, how rich the background, how long the list of references for their work. If the land of novels if a map, there would be no white spots left to discover, no landmark left to be named by an aspiring pathfinder. Or, following Henry James’s metaphor, if it’s a house from which each author adopts a different point of view on the same world visible outside, there would be no new windows to look out of. But even if new writers are to tread in the footsteps of old ones, their creative task ought not to be more difficult. On the contrary, they should be more aware and consequently more sophisticated in their writing, having all these stellar precedents at their disposal in the collective imagination. In the 200 years of its existence, the novel went through a full growing cycle, and in this lifetime it created its own myths, sacred texts and stalwart figures. And like any other myths, these stories can be re-read and reenacted with no expiration date, always with a new meaning. Much like discovering new things in Jane Eyre with every new talk or book club meeting.

With the privilege of the real trailblazer Charlotte, back in the early days of the novel, was able to map her own territory on her own terms (speaking artistically, not socially of course). And trailblaze she did, making the most of her instincts and setting foot first in literary devices we may take for granted nowadays. For example, her opening sentence is now a classic of the genre. There was no possibility of taking a walk that day drops us right in the middle of the situation, with no safety net of explanations or background. It’s short and unadorned but bursting with possibility. Who, where, why, and what is this sense of impersonal constraint? Such suspenseful openings abound in “new” novels, but in her time, Jane Eyre was one of a kind.Going further, as suggested by the enigmatic first sentence, the novel goes on to juxtapose subjugation and repression with passionate affirmation of the self. And throughout the printed pages, these two grind and press against each other making it, in Tessa Hadley’s interpretation, “a novel fueled by outrage”. Young Jane is an outsider, the odd one out destined to be crushed and broken to fit the mold. But she bends and twists around, anything but damaged, to emerge victorious, with all life’s gifts at her feet: independence, belonging, affection and happiness. It is also a peculiar “moral fable”, where all the crushing and bending is not protested as social injustice, but rather accepted as the impersonal status quo. In this relatively straightforward narrative, some are born luckier than others, but moral justice prevails. The Blanche Ingrams of this world will have their share of frivolity and haughty airs, but the St John Rivers will still ensure the noble advancement of England.

And so, in many ways Jane Eyre is a pioneering work of the genre, unique in every way. Living in the 21st century, a writer cannot replicate the same achievement: being the first to tell the story, inventing an in medias res opening sentence, or driving an entire novel with sheer outrage (not in most countries, anyway). What they can do, successfully, is internalize the lessons Charlotte Bronte gives through her writing and treasure the tropes she gives us. They are all part of our shared heritage, a word in novel’s own private language. And while its vocabulary may be limited, one can always create new landscapes assembling and disassembling the existing elements. A contemporary writer doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel, just spin it differently.

Aleksandra Podstawka