Fifteen Wild Decembers by Karen Powell, presented by Pat
Present Beth, Betsy Caroline, Denise, Katharine J., Mariannick, Pat, Peggy R., Sealia, Wendy
Excused: Katharine C, Jennifer J, and Rosie
Pat began by reading the poem that prefaces the novel and provides the title. Wendy interrupted to say she was perplexed by the Harvey’s choice of the title. We agreed to discuss this later, but actually we didn’t get to it. There was so much else to say.
Pat dispensed with biographical details about the Brontës because of the very helpful video that Mariannick found for us.
Pat had three quick questions for the group.
Who has not read Wuthering Heights?
Who has not read Jane Eyre?
Who has read any of the others?
Most people had read the first two books mentioned, only Sealia could say that she had read (or rather listened to) all the others. Our familiarity with the Brontë legacy turned out to be important in regard to our appreciation of the book.
Karen Powell has written one other novel, The River Within, which won the Northern writers award. The prize helped her with her career. She works at the York Minster Fund. Though she is a novelist and not a historian, she did a lot of research on Haworth and moors. There are the facts of the Brontës’ lives and there are the gaps which allow the author to use her imagination. Charlotte’s letters have survived but Emily left little beyond her poems and her single novel. There’s a description of Emily by Mrs Gaskell and a description that Charlotte wrote in the preface to a posthumous edition of Wuthering Heights. She’s portrayed as quiet country mouse. The family read all the time, and much of the girls’ experience would come from books, since their father was tolerant and encouraging, and gave them a lot of liberty in their reading. Anne’s novel is about alcoholism and probably is based on her experience of Branwell. His outbursts in the novel rhyme with those of the alcoholic husband in Ann’s novel. Also the incident when he sets fire to bed shows up in a different form in Jane Eyre.
For Sealia the book could be called “fan fiction.” The facts are there but the author’s feelings are projected onto the characters. Someone asked whether the novel would be good if it wasn’t about the famous sisters? Betsy was curious about what the British felt about the novel, since she felt it was a very English subject. It turns out that the British members of the group appreciated the novel more than the non-Brits.
Perhaps British readers are more sensitive to the class problem in the novel, to the precariousness of sisters’ position. They live on the edge of poverty. And they see poverty. They know it. Caroline had read that father chose to have his mission in the upcoming industrial region. And Pat mentioned the Factory Acts that were passed in England around this time, when child labor helped keep the factories running. Denise pointed out that children were seen as little adults.
PAT read Katharine C’s comments on the novel from her email:
“I found the imagery in the book very vivid. I barely know Yorkshire, but have seen it represented in various Bronte and Wuthering Heights programs on television. Most of which register the austerity of the land. In the book, the austerity (physical and personal) under which people (most especially women) lived in the 19th century is well represented. The opportunities for unmarried women of sparse means were meagre - mostly being a governess, and subject to the tyranny of a married woman and her children. We have become accustomed to Jane Austen's Bennett sisters as exuberant/demanding/beautiful, but above all not downtrodden from our beloved Pride and Prejudice television series. This book paints an altogether picture of life at that time.
…
A major takeout from the book was the behaviour of brother Bramwell, his high sense of expectation (which is annoying to a 21st female eye but probably quite normal at the time), included using Emily as his maid and nurse, plus her having
to heave him upstairs. I suppose she never felt like she could say no?
The fact that Wuthering Heights was born out of this domestic melancholy is extraordinary.”
Pat remarked that the Brontë’s are a bit later than Austen. Marriage is the main goal of Austen’s characters. However in Pride and Prejudice a girl has to imagine being a governess.
Denise felt that Emily is portrayed in the book as part of her environment, wild like the moors. Mariannick wondered if she was afflicted with autism. Wendy appreciated how the author didn’t put any modern labels on her characters. The narrator speaks of melancholy, which is a Victorian diagnosis. We might be tempted to speak of Branwell as bi-polar or schizophrenic but that would be a modern projection. Someone mentioned Professor Ajé’s comment that Emily should have been a man. We spoke about the repression of women at the time. For girls of the sisters’ social class, prospects were narrow—they could expect to be a governess, a wife, or a housekeeper, but not a writer as the poet laureate Mr. Southey points out to Charlotte. Besides the repression based on gender, there was the weight of religion. This is especially problematic for Anne Brontë in the novel.
The family was very much tied together, almost anti-social in that they didn’t need anyone else to be happy. They do have contact with local people, but those are mainly people of a lower social class. The death of the elder sisters may have prompted Emily’s reluctance to venture beyond Haworth. The outside world was dangerous. Charlotte was more ambitious. She is the eldest remaining sister, and she became the driving force.
Pat asked whether we felt that the portrayal of Emily works. She thought it did. Beth pointed out that the author was trying to do Emily’s voice by imitating Emily’s writing. However, she wasn’t convinced by the voice because in the chapters relating the time at the English boarding school, she was only six years old. Wendy thought that those passages were retrospective, since the novel begins with the girls’ boat trip to Belgium.
Wendy liked the fact that Powell invented a Heathcliff figure for Emily. The farmer that was a focus of her passion gave readers the pleasure of imagining a source for Emily’s novel. The same is true of the boarding school which gives rise to Jane Eyre. The attraction to someone of a lower social class is a feature of some English novels. (Lady Chatterly’s Lover is probably the most famous.) The novel draws on the erotic possibilities of a taboo relationship, though some group members felt that Powell goes too far in hinting at voyeurism and masturbation.
The episode about the dog bite is true and is an example of Emily’s strength of character. We discussed the masculine pen name. It’s not so much an example of gender fluidity as an understandable mask given Victorian attitudes to women writers. Why did Emily not want to be named in her lifetime as the author of her work? Was it her shyness? It might also be to protect her father’s reputation, since her novel was seen as a scandalous book.
Pat looked for Powell’s book at Waterstones in 2024 and didn’t see it. Members with links to US libraries said that it wasn’t there either. Why? Caroline thought that it may be too difficult to be popular. You to have literary background to appreciate it. She was bored by the beginning. If it wasn’t about Bronte sisters would it have been interesting?
The proposition was raised that the sisters may have written as an escape from living with Branwell and his addictions. No, said Sealia. They wrote in spite of his addictions, which got in the way of their work; Branwell was an interruption. However, he inspires their work. Caroline also felt he was inspiration to writing: which was an escape from him as well as a way to make a living when the male member of the family failed.
Was Branwell a spoiled brat? Caroline reminded everyone that Branwell very much attached to women who died. Family life was a succession of traumas.
Also he was under great pressure to take care of his sisters. He probably suffered greatly from the realisation that he was not to be a great artist. He aspired to genius but fell short. Caroline pointed out that Daphne DuMaurier wrote about Branwell and his failure. If he had succeeded the sisters may not have published. If the school project had succeeded, they would not have had time.
Pat asked: Is God important in the novel? Religion is more like a social event for the girls, although Anne has a more intense religious experience and also suffers from doubts. Branwell’s refuses to believe in God but joins in the father’s prayer on his death bed. Emily doesn’t speak much about God.
Wendy was intrigued by the novel’s ending. First of all Powell took on the challenge of having the narrator relate her own death. Emily’s last moments are ambiguous. There is talk of angels and of a reunion with the other dead Brontës. There is a suggestion of her merging with the land in the evocation of the wind and the moors. At the end we are reminded of her pantheistic idea of heaven—the moors. The difficult passage from a voice to silence at the death of the narrator was managed well.
Pat asked a final question. Does this novel inspire anyone to read more of the Brontës? Yes, said Mariannick, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Other people agreed, since Anne’s work is less well known and she’s a likeable character in the book.
