Like most Charlotte Bronte lovers, I was more than skeptical when I first heard about Margot Livesey's latest novel, a modern retelling of "Jane Eyre" that was released this month. In writing "The Flight of Gemma Hardy," Livesey took an enormous risk, creating a modern-day adaptation of one of the must beloved Victorian classics.
Although its early reviews were favorable, I imagined Livesey's novel would be akin to the other bad spin-offs of Bronte's treasured tale perhaps not as grim as the vampire version "Jane Slayre" or the sci-fi rendering "Jenna Starborn," but still a sub-par attempt at retelling an untouchable story. As I purchased my copy, I sighed, grumbling about how contemporary authors should just leave the classics alone and come up with new plotlines.
I rolled my eyes at the first line, "We did not go for a walk on the first day of the year," which echoes Bronte's first line, "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day." Overall, however, Livesey's novel was far from a trashy rehashing of the untouchable, timeless classic. Unlike many hokey adaptations of great classics, "The Flight of Gemma Hardy" is strikingly smart. Her references to other 19th-century authors, including Rudyard Kipling and Robert Louis Stevenson, show the range of her literary influences.
Set in Livesey's native Scotland in the 1960s, "The Flight of Gemma Hardy" is a thoughtful and creative modernization of "Jane Eyre." The setting Livesey gorgeously illustrates, the Orkney Islands of Scotland, provides a refreshing relocation from Bronte's English countryside. Her affinity for her homeland adds a new angle to Bronte's classic, transporting it not only to another century, but to another location.
Through the lens of the protagonist Gemma, a daydreaming orphan who yearns for a family, Livesey works with many of the same original themes religion, social class and, of course, love that pervaded Bronte's original. Like Jane, Gemma is preoccupied with books about birds, attends an oppressive boarding school and works as an au pair at a large manor with a handsome, older, brooding master. Hugh Sinclair, the master at Livesey's Blackbird Hall, described as having dark hair and square shoulders, is almost identical to Jane's Rochester at Thornfield Manor.
Livesey's novel becomes particularly interesting when she updates and enhances the original storyline. At the beginning of the novel, for example, Livesey includes a much more heart-wrenching description of the tragic deaths of Gemma's parents and her lonely childhood. Livesey spices up Gemma's life at the boarding school by including a ghost that haunts the library, and at Blackbird Hall she introduces luxuries absent in Thornfield such as lavender baths and double beds.
Livesey is also careful to note the social conditions that surround her 1960s-era protagonist. References to actual events, such as the election of the Labour Party, give her story some more recent historical flavor. She is also aware that her female characters are no longer steeped in Victorian gender oppression, and she thus instills a feminist edge in them.
In one scene, Gemma's kind boarding school teacher Miss Seftain tells her, "I hope you'll fend off suitors until after university." Miss Seftain also later refers to a magazine called "The Lady," which she says "has advertisements for au pairs and nannies, even the odd governess, though they're out of fashion. Isn't that a crow?"
Gemma is also spunkier than her Victorian counterpart. She cleverly makes a pro-con list when deciding whether or not to marry Sinclair, and she agrees to marry him only on the condition that she gets to go to college.
The true strength of "The Flight of Gemma Hardy" lies in the fact that Livesey does not attempt to recreate or outshine "Jane Eyre," but rather uses its plotlines to craft a beautiful story of her own. Livesey's affinity for her homeland seeps through in her vivid depictions of the Scottish coast, paralleling Bronte's own proclivity for the English moors, and Livesey's love of Bronte's classic is evident in her careful treatment of its characters and plot.
