Full Circle

In 2002, I started an aggressive reading program. At the time I did not know where my reading program would lead. I started reading to combat the depression of being sent on yet another overseas tour of duty, away from my family. After nearly 30 years in the US Air Force, I was tired of traveling. I did everything to minimize my traveling but the Air Force found a way to make my life miserable: they gave me a one-way ticket to a remote base in northern England. My orders were open-ended. I did not have a return date.

I was billeted in wonderful quarters on base, but did not have "my things." So, somehow, I started collecting DVDs and books.

I found wonderful discount book stores in Harrogate; the Air Force had a regular bus to Harrogate from  the RAF base.

Within a few weeks, I had a stack of soft cover and hard cover books. To make a point to my visitors that I had found a way to pass the bleak, cool, rainy, dark evenings, I stacked the books on the desk -- one stack, maybe three or feet tall. And I started reading.

Over time, I fell in love with Yorkshire. It became a life-altering experience. Over the span of about four years I spent about twelve months in Yorkshire, two or three months at a time, the longest, but sometimes only a few weeks.

Before it was all over, I was walking every evening in the local area, taking long walks on the weekend, and if not walking, exploring the entire county by automobile with a wonderful traveling companion. It is one thing to read about the moors; it is something entirely different to be able to experience the moors in every season. Yorkshire really is incredible. I find it amazing that its countryside has remained so ... undisturbed over the years.

Near the end, as a reward for all my time in Yorkshire, all my reading, all my sharing, I was rewarded with a special treat. Three of us drove over to Haworth to experience the Brontë Yorkshire. It was an incredible day. I'm sure we only visited Haworth once, but it left such an indelible impression, sometimes I think I have visited it more than once. [I remember finding the exact book I wanted to remind me of Yorkshire, buying a used copy of a book that I thought was rare. Some weeks later, I had to laugh when I learned that this particular book, though old, was so popular, it was still being printed after many years from its original publication. I bought the book for a friend as a gift, only to find that it was not rare at all.]

I am now reading Juliet Barker's The Brontës, c. 2010 with a new edition, 2012. Wow, what memories it brings back. Through Ms Gaskell I know the story fairly well, but it's such a pleasure to read a modern biography. I've barely begun to read this book but her description of Charlotte's first few weeks at Roe Head School, pp. 200 - 203, is priceless.

That day we visited Haworth, we took a long, long walk to Top Withens. Google mapping is incredible. At Google maps, type in: 53.8140,-2.0303 (lat and long) and then zoom in on a roofless structure, Top Withins, and one can see the two trees, that for me, at least, suggest that this is nature's memorial to Heathcliff and Catherine. I don't recall the name of the creek we followed but I assume it was Sladen Beck, running southwest from the Lower Laithe Reservoir.

Maybe more later, as I continue to read The Brontës. I assume it will take me quite awhile to complete the book.

My reading program began with Wuthering Heights, and has gone through much of the British literature to Virginia Woolf, with side trips to American authors, and now I find myself, after a decade of reading, returning to the Brontës.

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Notes for later:

• Frances Richardson Currer, sends money to Patrick; first mention, p. 121
• Sister of headmistress Miss Margaret Wooler at Roe Head School, where Charlotte attended: Catherine Wooler
• Charlotte and Branwell: Angria
• Emily and Anne: Gondal

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"Though nothing remains of the Gondal stories written before 1838, there is no doubt that these had already reached the same levels of complexity and sophistication as Charlotte adn Branwell's Angria."-- p. 273

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Reading Juliet Barker's biography of the Brontës led me to this wonderful blog.

And don’t forget that there is a character named “Northangerland” in the “Angria” tales we find in Charlotte Bronte’s juvenilia! Indeed, Northanger Abbey (which is a ruined ancient structure which, like Thornfield Hall, seems to be haunted by the ghost of a woman who turns out to be the wife of the temperamental master of the residence) is another significant allusive source for Jane Eyre!

See Juliet Barker, p. 238.