Jane Eyre, the movie

Recently I had the pleasure of seeing the latest Jane Eyre movie adaptation, starring Mia Wasikowska in the title role. I knew going in that my love for the novel would likely prompt me to be critical, and sure enough, all throughout the film, I was making a mental checklist of everything in the novel that the film left out.

Overall, however, this one is nonetheless well-acted and beautifully done. Instead of striving for accurate representations of the events of the novel, it strives to capture its tone, essence and atmosphere, by way of haunting cinematography and the evocative piano score, composed by the likes of Mozart and Beethoven.

Charlotte Brontë’s novel was the semi-autobiographical story of the orphaned Jane Eyre, who survives a bleak childhood to become a governess at the house of the cold and acerbic Mr. Rochester. Jane is a passionate yet dignified individual who struggles with the class and gender roles of the era and her own sense of integrity versus her growing love for Mr. Rochester.

I must admit I had my doubts when I heard that Mia Wasikowska was cast as Jane. Jane is described in the novel as being “poor, obscure, plain and little;” in other words, an utterly ordinary and relatable character whose strengths lie in her personality rather than her appearance. My impression of Wasikowska was that she was too beautiful to play my beloved Jane, but on the contrary, Jane was placed in good hands. Through means of makeup and wardrobe, Wasikowska displays a modest, unadorned appearance, while her eyes subtly hint at the energy and fervor lying beneath the surface of pale skin, pinned hair and humble governess clothing.

Although Mr. Rochester is described as being a homely man in his late 30s to early 40s, most film versions I have seen have cast an attractive younger actor in the role—in this case, Michael Fassbender—and the reason is understandable. Few films would buck time constraints to include Brontë’s pages upon pages of dialogue between Jane and Rochester that illustrates the depth of their connection; movie audiences would wonder just what it is that Jane sees in this unpleasant, unattractive man. Despite these cutbacks in their meaningful interaction, the love story is acted out well enough to please both romantic movie-goers and fans of the novel, with Fassbender effectively portraying Rochester’s growing passion for Jane, while Wasikowska plays on the reticence of Jane with quiet dignity and understated devotion to the man who is her employer and superior as well as her love interest.

Indeed, Jane Eyre is a film that relies less on dialogue and more on atmosphere as a means of storytelling. The cinematography successfully captures the gothic ambiance of the novel, at times with overcast weather and washed-out colors, other times with sweeping mountainous landscapes with castles and farmhouses in the distance. One especially effective scene is Jane’s hike through forested terrain, where she meets a mysterious stranger on a black horse who turns out to be Mr. Rochester. The setting is reminiscent of just about every film adaptation of Washington Irving’s Sleepy Hollow.


While Brontë sought to connect with her audience on an intellectual level, director Cary Fukunaga’s intentions clearly lie on a visceral level, and despite the liberties taken with the story, the film succeeds where it counts. It may have left out key elements of the novel—scenes, characters, dialogue, subplots—but in a sense, it was necessary in order to get to the heart of the matter, without being bogged down by scenes that would slow the story down. Films and novels are certainly different crafts, and while I’ll always love Brontë’s novel more, I consider this an acceptable adaptation and an exceptionally well-done piece of work.

Grace Hammer by Sara Stockbridge

I had the privilege of attending a reading with the lovely Sara Stockbridge of her new book, Grace Hammer, while in a London bar the summer of last year. It was only when I Googled her after returning to the States did I discover how famous she is. Turns out she was a famed actress and fashion model, as well as the muse of fashion designer Vivienne Westwood, and now she has “acclaimed author” to add to her resume.

Personally, though, I found Grace Hammer to be an entertaining but less than substantial read. While the mystery and suspense keep the pages turning, it lacks meat on its bones, as well as depth and dimension.

Grace Hammer takes place in the cutthroat underground of Victorian England, populated by bandits, harlots and conspirators. The title character and her four children make a living as thieves, picking the pockets of rich strangers. Grace is a plucky woman who is likened to a magpie, a bird with a fancy for shiny items that it robs from humans to store in its nest. While we’re expected to believe she is a seasoned and cunning thief, she has an implausible weakness for worthless men (hence her four children of different fathers), and despite the fact that she has a vengeful thug on her tail, makes no effort to conceal her identity around town, thereby making herself vulnerable. After one too many less than sensible endeavors, I gave up believing she was the female Sherlock Holmes.

If there’s one thing Grace’s children inherited for her, it’s their lack of dimension. Charlie is the eldest brother who dotes on his younger siblings. Billy and Jake are street-smart looters who know their way around London’s underground. Daisy is the innocent little blonde, blue-eyed girl who loves stuffed animals and pretty dresses. Incredibly, despite being lower-class and lacking education, they are healthy, handsome and well-read; in short, they are ideal, thereby as bland and soulless as Twilight vampires.

One can easily tell from Stockbridge’s writing style that she is a Charles Dickens fan, and she has his strengths as well as his weaknesses. While Dickens is an eloquent writer who never fails to entertain, his books are populated by stock characters, such as Oliver Twist, the quintessential innocent child, not unlike Daisy Hammer; and Fagin, the villainous thief who embodies a child’s nightmare, not unlike Stockbridge’s villains, the greedy Mr. Blunt and the witchlike Emmeline Spragg, who, judging from the descriptions, seems to bear a striking resemblance to Snow White’s evil stepmother in disguise.


Well, there you have her.

The most compelling thing about Grace Hammer is the writing style, which fluidly carries the web of deceit and betrayal woven around our vapid but nonetheless enjoyable heroine. The entertainment factor is not lacking, so I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a fun period piece, though ye be warned of an anticlimactic ending.

My Guantanamo Diary by Mahvish Rukhsana Khan

I have read many a news article about Guantanamo Bay and its human rights violations, but it is common knowledge that reading about something pales in comparison to truly experiencing it. Lawyer and journalist Mahvish Rukhsana Khan provides an inside look within the walls of the notorious prison with My Guantanamo Diary, a harrowing, tragic and at times darkly comic account of the appalling injustices she witnessed as a young law student.

Khan, who was born and raised by her Pashtun immigrant parents in Michigan, was a student at the University of Miami when she applied to work as an interpreter for lawyers travelling to Guantanamo Bay to represent detainees. In developing a sense of loyalty towards the inmates she meets, Khan embarks on a personal journey that involves coming to terms with the double culture of her upbringing: the American culture she grew up in and the country she is descended from.

Among the detainees she meets are Ali Shah Mousovi—also known as No. 1164—an Iranian pediatrician who had been setting up a clinic in Afghanistan at the time of his detainment; Haji Nusrat—No. 1009—an Afghan elder barred from receiving medical care for his various ailments that leave him bedridden; and Jumah al-Dossary, a severely abused Bahraini prisoner with a staggering number of suicide attempts on his record. They are few among the many detainees accused of terrorism by people wanting to collect monetary rewards offered by the US. Whether they are guilty or innocent, they have been deprived of the most basic of human rights, including the right to a fair trial, not to mention the severe beatings and sexual assaults they endure at the hands of the prison guards.

Khan is a remarkable writer, balancing her empathy for the detainees with unbiased, journalistic fluency. She does not go out of her way to elicit sympathy for the detainees; instead she lets her records of the interviews she conducted, as well as the information she gathered, speak for themselves. Nor does she shy away from the harsh realities she confronted at Guantanamo; she is candid and at times explicit, creating visceral images of the atrocities committed within the prison that virtually functions as a torture chamber for the accused.

At times I had to set this book aside and take a breather, not only from the graphic descriptions of prisoner abuse but from the anger that these injustices stirred in me. Indeed, My Guantanamo Diary is a provocative book, one that will sear itself into readers’ memories like a branding iron; a bleak, heartbreaking and unforgettable portrait of human misery and the triumph of spirit in the face of adversity. Ultimately there is insight and even inspiration to be gained from reading this book, regardless of one’s political affiliations.

The Girl Who Played With Fire by Stieg Larsson

It was quite a pleasure to get re-acquainted with my beloved Lisbeth Salander in The Girl Who Played With Fire, which far exceeds The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo in pulse-pounding suspense, page-turning intrigue and absorbing character study. Ever the social activist, author Stieg Larsson also provides a good share of social commentary on the sex trafficking trade, which is an integral part of the novel’s plot.

The staff of Mikael Blomkvist’s political magazine, Millennium, plans an exposé on the underground trade of sex trafficking, which will reveal a number of inside jobs involving corrupt authority figures, such as policemen and detectives. When the two primary journalists working on the project are found shot to death in their home, Lisbeth’s fingerprints are found on the murder weapon, and she becomes the prime suspect. Throughout the journey to prove her innocence, both Lisbeth and Blomkvist track down and interrogate a number of men that the story had sought to expose, and Lisbeth’s search for truth and exoneration leads her to a larger conspiracy in which she confronts the demons of her past.

The Girl Who Played With Fire provides more insight on the enigma that is Lisbeth’s character than the previous book did, with details of her harrowing upbringing adding dimension to her antisocial personality and trust issues with authority, as well as her motives for taking the law into her own hands. In this volume she reprises her role as a vigilante, tracking down men guilty of sex crimes and subjecting them to physical and psychological torture until they admit to their wrongdoings and provide her with answers. It is later revealed that this drive to avenge abused women stems from Lisbeth’s devotion to her mother, who she witnessed being abused at a young age. Indeed, though Lisbeth’s endeavors are illegal, and some might say immoral, she remains a sympathetic and relatable character, and the most captivating heroine I have come across in recent memory.

However, as within the first installment, Larsson fails to provide depth and dimension to Blomkvist’s character, whose actions are meant to move the story along rather than to develop his personality. This means of plot advancement is nonetheless successful, as the suspense builds up with every bold leap he takes in his self-appointed mission to clear Lisbeth’s name. One notable improvement is his development is that, this time around, his overriding drive to uncover the culprit has tangible motives, as he is in Lisbeth’s debt for saving his life in the previous novel; plus he is determined to avenge his murdered friends.

The novel also introduces an interesting cast of cops and detectives who face the challenge of tracking down the elusive Lisbeth. Among these is the veteran policeman Officer Bublanski, who is initially convinced of Lisbeth’s guilt but then realizes that the case is larger and more complex than previously thought, as he is torn between what he’s told and what to believe.

Although The Girl Who Played With Fire is categorized as a murder mystery, the struggles of these characters are internal and at once profoundly human, and it is Lisbeth’s personal journey that is even more riveting than her external mission to right the wrongs committed against her. Once again, Lisbeth shines as the integral driving force that provides a deeper human element to the twists and turns of Larsson’s narration.

Whether you’re a thrill-seeker looking for a fun read or a reader that analyzes characters and deeper themes, I can’t recommend The Girl Who Played With Fire highly enough. You’ll find that it delivers above and beyond your expectations.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd

Call me a cynic, but I am usually one to avoid anything with “Secret Life” in the title, because that just screams “Lifetime movie” to me. In the case of The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, I should have trusted my judgment.

The story is narrated by Lily Owens, a bookish teenage girl living with her abusive father, T. Ray, and her black nanny, Rosaleen, in South Carolina in 1964. Lily is haunted by the memory of accidentally shooting her mother as a small child during a violent scuffle between her parents. All that Lily has left of her mother is a wooden Black Madonna ornament with an unknown address on the back. One day, she accompanies Rosaleen when she goes into town to register to vote, and the two are harassed by three racist men. The ensuing altercation leads to Lily and Rosaleen fleeing town, and Lily heads to the address on the ornament, hoping it can provide her shelter and lead her to some answers about her mother.

All this seemed very promising, and I was intrigued and wanted to read on. Sadly, as soon as Lily and Rosaleen arrive at the Pepto-Bismol-pink house of the black Calendar sisters—August, June and May—the plot veers into sheer contrivance.

August is the wise eldest sister who dishes out sage-like advice at the plot’s convenience. June is a bitter woman scorned in love who keeps turning down marriage proposals from her ex, Neil. May, the youngest, is mentally ill and emotionally fragile, so her sisters have to take care of her. These three are little more than one-dimensional stereotypes, and it’s impossible to take them seriously.

These women fill the void of a maternal figure in Lily’s life, and she soon finds her place within the black community and begins to worship the Black Madonna. She forges a spiritual connection with the bees that August, a beekeeper, cares for. She also befriends Zach, a black boy in the neighborhood, who becomes her love interest. During this time, Lily struggles with her feelings of resentment towards her father and her own low self-image. However, this new world of hers never attains depth, and its whimsical quality becomes almost cartoonish, with its attempts at meaning turning up superficial.

All things considered, The Secret Life of Bees had the potential to be a good novel. Instead it is populated by stock characters, slathered with mawkish sentiment and eventually culminates in a contrived ending that reeks of deus ex machina. I say skip this one if you’re looking for a substantial coming-of-age novel, unless its saccharine quality is your guilty pleasure.