Ever since late December, I have been spending several mornings a week with another woman. Most wives would be very upset, but Meredith approved of Jane, so all was well. Unfortunately, all things come to an end, and right after my run this morning, Jane had the last word, and the last word was finis. She broke it off!

During the winter months, I try to run for 25 minutes on my treadmill, several times a week. This is not the most mentally stimulating thing to do, so I have been listening to books on iPod. Since last December, I have been immersed in Jane Eyre. It is about 18 hours long, and with Christmas break and spring break, it took me over 3 months to complete the novel.

I recommend it. It is very well written. The prose is fluid, and the vocabulary is large and varied. My only word of caution is that you have to slog through 12 chapters of when Jane was a child. These are still well written, but are very melodramatic by today’s standards. For all I know, Bronte may have invented the type of the suffering orphan, and so it may have been fresh and original at the time. Now, it is necessary background for the rest of the novel. The pace picks up quite a bit once we get to Jane as a young adult. I had more than one morning’s run motivated by the need to see what happened to Jane next. There are still moments of melodrama, but I did not mind them as much with the adult Jane – for one thing, they are spread further apart, and so can be taken in the spirit of the novel.

If you are an avid reader, and/or have much time to read or listen, I recommend the book very much.