Charlotte and Emily: A Novel of the Brontës (edition 2010)

I'm a big fan of Jude Morgan's historical novels, and I also love the Brontes, so I expected to be borne away by A Taste of Sorrow. Sadly, not so. I found the book extremely slow going. At first I thought this was simply because I was occupied with end-of-semester tasks that inevitably kept my reading sessions short. Once the semester ended, I figured I would whirl through to the end in a few days, but my reading plodded on at a snail's pace. I just did not find the story very compelling. Perhaps that is not entirely the author's fault: I found myself wondering if the Brontes lives could really have been that dull, and, if they were, well, no wonder they lived such exciting imaginary lives through their characters. The plot pretty much boils down to someone gets sick and either dies or gets better--only to get sick again and die shortly thereafter. In between, Branwell gets drunk, acts like a spoiled brat and a boor, and gets fired from a series of jobs that decline in status. Everyone but Emily hates being at home, but they also hate wherever they are sent away to. The highlights, of course, are Charlotte falling in love with a married man, and the eventual publication and popularity of Anne's, Emily's, and Charlotte's novels. Morgan does a decent job of portraying the complex, ambiguous relationships among the siblings and their overbearing father, but that wasn't enough to keep me engrossed in A Taste of Sorrow. ( )

In this novel Mr.Morgan does it again, he achieves sublime precision to what the Brontë sisters' lives might have been, mastering the art of combining fiction with reality. The result: this achingly real tale of sorrow.
Although not a biographical work, it's incredibly easy to believe his version of the facts. Fiction? Maybe. I think some events described must have been invented, but still, Morgan shows his deep understanding of the time, the place and the people which crossed the path of these three unconventional sisters, making the story astonishingly believable.
The book begins with the death of Maria Branwell, mother of the Brontë children, who leaves her severe husband, Patrick Brontë, with 5 girls and an only boy to rise. At first, the story focuses on the surroundings of the famous girls: Charlotte, Emily and Anne, especially in their horrible experience in Cowan Bridge boarding school, where their elder sisters get mortally sick.
After they leave the school for good, we observe little by little the way their strikingly different characters start to develop, even more when their paths are separated by their own experiences working as governesses or teachers.
It's through effort and patience that the sisters manage adulthood, always sacrificing their only passion, writing, for the greater good; which is always in advantage of their brother, Branwell. A man who lives embittered by envy and a coward to face his flaws, he drags all his family down with him.
What I most enjoyed about this book is the possibility it brings to understand what kind of lives lead the Brontë sisters to become what they were and to write the way they did.
Charlotte, the eldest sister, always carrying her responsibility, serious, sharp minded, afraid of showing her thoughts, but daring when she needs to. I was proud of her when she confronts her father about her need to write, although she is dismissed like a kid.
Emily, unearthly, almost inhuman. She needs nothing, she lives through her imaginary worlds, although she understands everything that goes around her and she is the one to give the good advice without expecting gratitude back. She doesn't have expectations, she only needs the moors and quietness to write to feel complete.
Anne, dear, sweet Anne. The little sister, the one left aside, but the one who bears the burdens, the one who sacrifices without complain, the one who makes them a whole being, who keeps them together.
Oh, and the bliss of reading about their creative process, how they come up with the poems with the pseudonym masculine names, how Charlotte finds in her real experiences the Jane Eyre she has been nurturing all along inside her, how she gets inspiration in her apparent dull life. Their father, their brother, the curates...everybody is captured in essence in some of their books.
I was awkwardly moved until the last page, sublime description of the last years of the sisters, magnificent description of Charlotte's feelings. A lesson to be learnt.
Having visited Haworth Parsonage a year ago, and after reading this book, I feel as if the Brontë sisters have become alive, I believe I get the picture, and I understand it. These poor and smart sisters, pitiful and unsocial creatures who seemed to have been born only to suffer, they made their dreams come true, they left their footprint in English Literature.
I only wish they could know what their books have become to lots of us, like me, so that their short lives wouldn't seem wasted.
I have to thank Mr. Morgan for this new feeling, the urge to talk to the authors, Charlotte, Emiliy and Anne, not to the characters, Jane, Cathy or Mrs Graham.
This is his achievement after all.
Will be reading anything written by him! ( )

Charlotte and Emily by Jude Morgan tells the story of the Bronte family and was one of the saddest books I have read this year. The six Bronte children lost their mother at a young age, were raised by a distant father with the help of an Aunt who cared more about duty and correctness than love and warmth. The two elder sisters, Maria and Elizabeth, died of consumption after being sent to Cowan Bridge School, a school for poorer children of the clergy. That the three remaining sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, became writers of such talent is extraordinary. Prolific though they were, I can only imagine what they would have accomplished had they lived longer. Among their work are the classics of Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.

The sad times weren’t over for the Bronte family as the only brother Bramwell dies of a combination of consumption, alcoholism and addiction to laudanum, and then, around the same time first Emily, then Ann also succumb to consumption, leaving Charlotte as the only surviving sibling. She eventually marries her father‘s curate in her late thirties. The book ends with her marriage but a author’s note explains that unfortunately, she died at the age of 39 of what was thought to have been complications from a pregnancy.

I thought the author did an excellent job of presenting the facts of their lives and giving them substance and shape. Although his writing could get a little “prosy” and hard to absorb at times, I still found this an interesting story, and perhaps, because I really knew so little of these sisters beforehand, I was fascinated. Charlotte and Emily gives the reader a real appreciation of the sisters’ work, the horrible school in Jane Eyre has direct roots in Charlottes’ experience at the Cowan Bridge School. The Yorkshire moors of Wuthering Heights are a place that Emily knew very well, and, certain experiences that Anne describes in Agnes Grey, she experienced herself as a governess. The book is known in England as The Taste of Sorrow which I think is a far better title as this book is really about the whole family and the hard lives they endured. ( )

I hardly know where to begin talking about Charlotte and Emily except to say that its English title, The Taste of Sorrow, is so much more appropriate. The book really is about all of the Brontës, not just Charlotte and Emily.
Though the story of their lives is well known, Jude Morgan has really concentrated on making them flesh-and-blood here. Their Irish temperment is captured so well. They rail and snipe at each other like real siblings do and they love each other so fiercely.
I think that's what I enjoyed the most about the novel, experiencing their relationships with each other. More than any other book this year, this one brought me right into the rooms at Haworth parsonage. I savored it, only reading a few pages at a time to make the experience last longer.
I've always had a difficult time embracing Charlotte, but by the end of this novel I had found some affection for her at last, so again I say 'well done!'. ( )

This novel breathes life the lives of the three Bronte sisters whose masterpieces have stood the test of time. Emily, observant, who turned away from the world to live out her imagination; Anne, gentle who suffered the harshest perception life threw upon her and Charlotte, steadfast, brilliant and independent she longed for love and fame the hardest and had to learn about their prices.
Ever since finishing Jane Eyre for the first time I have become obsessed with the lives of the Bronte sisters and devour books on them whether they are fiction or non-fiction. I did really enjoy this book because even though it centers the most on Charlotte, because the most is known about her through the wonderful biography by Elizabeth Gaskell, I thought this book included the lives of all of the sisters and I was glad to read about Emily and Anne. Even though the title can be a bit misleading Anne is included. It seems there is never as much recognition with Anne as there is with the other sisters and I always enjoy it when a book includes her.
On the other hand, the only problem I had with this book was at times the transitions between the sisters and Branwell could be hard to follow and I never felt like I got a clear enough character description of any of the sisters. It is so hard for any author to really capture the lives of these elusive sisters the only real way to get an accurate picture of them is to read their masterpieces. Out of all of the fiction novels I have read about the lives of the Bronte sisters I have to admit that this is one of the better ones because I felt like the author really tried to create the bleakness and desperate atmosphere the sisters must have felt in their lives. ( )