28 September 2011

Something in the Eyre (More on Darling English Boys)

In a very early blog posting I posited the idea that the "meeting of minds" is one of the chief pleasures of being involved with a Darling English Boy. Nearly four years on, I still believe this to be true, and recently, I experienced another delightful example.
Last weekend, my DEB and I went to Warwick Arts Centre to see the new film version of Jane Eyre.




Beside the fact that he actually waited to see the film, is the fact that he actually enjoyed the film! And, more importantly, after the film, he had an opinion about it!
We not only had an in-depth discussion about the film, but also about how Jane Eyre, as a novel/story, compares with the works of the other two Brontës: Wuthering Heights and Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
(A friend of mine said on email: "He actually knew that there's more than one Brontë?")
I nearly fell into the road! 
To be sure, my DEB is no slouch, he has a university degree; but, it's in science, not literature! 
He'd read and learned about the Brontës in school (the same school that Shakespeare attended, in fact!), and it has stayed with him. 
There is a great deal of hullabaloo about Education and standards in this country at the moment, with some real crises in basic English and maths. However, it seems to me they were getting it very right not so long ago, if the DEB's generation is anything to go by!


3 comments:

Sweet Lily said...

Vigorously nodding my head in agreement!

jsnb2001 said...

Oh -- that sounds amazing. Happily married in the USA to another American but my DAB would never, never, go to see Jane Eyre unless the life of one of his children was being held hostage:-). Found your blog while searching for something completely unrelated - love it.

Jean | Delightful Repast said...

Lovely post. The latest was not my favorite version of Jane Eyre. I started at the beginning and watched as many versions as I could in anticipation of the newest one's debut. I hope you'll watch some of them and write about them.