Jenna Starborn

Jenna Starborn / Sharon Shinn.-- New York : Ace Books, 2002.
381 p. ; 23 cm.
“A brilliant new twist on the classic story of Jane Eyre” – front cover
ISBN: 044100900X (pbk.) :

1. Bildungsromans. 2. Love stories. 3. Science fiction. 4. Young women – Fiction. I. Brontë, Charlotte, 1816-1855. Jane Eyre.

The thought of a science fiction version of Charlotte Brontë’s classic, may strike many potential readers as about as appealing as listening to a Bach fugue played on an electronic synthesizer accompanied by an Electro-Theremin. Others may be intrigued by the novelty (pun intended) of the task, and may give it a try. They will be rewarded. It’s audacious task to attempt a rewrite of Jane Eyre. But Shinn has attempted and succeeded. Keeping close to the plot and characters of the original, she’s produced a novel that retains the emotional power and much of the style of Brontë’s original. At the same time she’s incorporated elements of science fiction that fans of the genre will enjoy, interstellar travel, social criticism, and integrated it into key elements of the plot, so that it is not just background scenery. Part of the fun is seeing what Shinn has kept and changed and how skillfully and wittily she’s integrated the changes into the story. It’s not unlike watching a Shakespeare play done in modern dress, where Hamlet wields a handgun instead of a sword. For example when the eponymous heroine of Jenna Starborn (the stand-in for Brontë’s Jane Eyre) arrives at Thorastone Park (Thornfield), her job is as a generator technician, not as a governess, a position that is already occupied by a character named Janet Ayerson. Brontë’s Jane, often addresses the book’s reader directly, as in the concluding chapter, “Reader, I married him.” Shinn’s Jenna owns “an 865 Reeder Recorder/Player,” into which she records her diary. So Jenna’s climactic line is, “Reeder, I married him.”

Jane Eyre

Jane Eyre / Charlotte Brontë ; read by Susan Ericksen.— Grand Haven: Brilliance Audio, 1997.
16 sound discs (20 hrs.) : digital ; 4 3/4 in.
Unabridged
Compact discs
Directed by J. C. Howe
ISBN: 1596009403

1. Bildungsromans. 2. England – Fiction. 3. Governesses – Fiction. 4. Love stories. 5. Young women – Fiction.

823.8

Plain but spunky Jane remembers growing up unhappily orphaned among three rude cousins and a tyrannical aunt until she is sent away to a Charity School where she finds friends and a kind headmistress, but also some stern teachers and a penny-pinching administration. At age eighteen she sets out to seek, if not her fortune at least a living, as a governess. She’s hired to teach the ward of an eccentric landowner. Mr. Rochester has come into an inheritance of property and land in England that he had not hoped for as a youth. His manners are brusque and his looks are gruff. But he is unexpectedly charmed by the frankness of the new governess, although he does not express that to her immediately. For her part, Jane falls hopelessly in love with her new master, and must wrestle with the insurmountable difference in their social positions. In Jane’s breast passion, ambition, and honesty strive with reason, duty, obedience, and a desire to be accepted.