Lightning Review

Glass Town by Isabel Greenberg

A

Glass Town

by Isabel Greenberg

Glass Town is an enchanting graphic novel that has, in professional terms, “weird but effective art.” That’s the kind of lofty professional assessment that gets me the big bucks, folks. Glass Town is about the imaginary worlds that the Bronte siblings created. While I was initially put off by the art, it grew on me, and the plot enchanted me from the first page.

In real life and as described in Glass Town, young Charlotte and her surviving siblings, Branwell, Emily, and Anne, created an imaginary city called Glass Town. They were joined by Emily and Anne, and proceeded to create a paracosm (my new favorite word – it refers to very elaborate world-building) called the Glasstown Confederacy and the world of Angria. When Charlotte Bronte began teaching in Brussels, she became so consumed with thoughts of Glass Town that she feared she was losing touch with reality. She vowed to spend no more time writing or thinking about Angria.

So – the framing device in this book is that Charles, a character from Glass Town, has come to invite Charlotte to return to Glass Town now that Branwell, Anne, and Emily have died. Charles and Charlotte discuss the whole history of Glass Town, why Charlotte rejected it, and whether or not she should return. Within Glass Town itself, there is MUCH DRAMA and not all of it is of Charlotte’s invention. The characters of Glass Town have existed for so long that, to Charlotte’s dismay, they began to act without her.

I adored this book. Loved it. I wanted it to go on and on. Charlotte’s character fits the way I’ve always imagined her (and the way biographers have described her). It was fascinating to see the evolution of the one-dimensional Glass Town characters into the complex characters of her adult work. I fretted over Charlotte’s real-life problems. I smiled whenever Charles teased her about a certain Arthur Nicholls (who Charlotte, in real life, married). I rooted wildly for Zenobia in Glass Town. I felt immersed in Charlotte’s reality and then, along with her, immersed in her imagination.

I had a hard time getting used to the art, but I have to admit that the art is a big part of what, no pun intended, drew me in. Greenberg uses very stark lines and colors for the real England scenes and she does a great job of conveying movement. The wind sweeps the moors. Pages fly about the room. The classrooms that Charlotte hates feel unbearably confining and cramped. The character’s faces are not always expressive, but their body language is, and everyone has BIG MOODS expressed in wide gestures that feel appropriately dramatic. In Glass Town, the art style remains the same but the colors become rich reds and maroons and purples. It feels expansive and passionate even when it isn’t described as such, because we can see the passion in the color scheme.

Finally, this book stuck in my head. It’s easy to feel empathy towards the characters even when they are acting badly. I felt Charlotte’s temptation to lose herself in Glass Town in a visceral way. The longing for a more colorful imaginary world, one full of exactly the right amount of drama, one that is exciting yet controllable, came across powerfully and I related to it as I’m sure many others will as well. I’ve found it hard to start a new book since closing this one. Like Charlotte, my thoughts remain in Glass Town.

Carrie S

A graphic novel about the Brontë siblings, and the strange and marvelous imaginary worlds they invented during their childhood

Glass Town is an original graphic novel by Isabel Greenberg that encompasses the eccentric childhoods of the four Bront. children—Charlotte, Branwell, Emily, and Anne. The story begins in 1825, with the deaths of Maria and Elizabeth, the eldest siblings. It is in response to this loss that the four remaining Bront. children set pen to paper and created the fictional world that became known as Glass Town. This world and its cast of characters would come to be the Brontës’ escape from the realities of their lives. Within Glass Town the siblings experienced love, friendship, war, triumph, and heartbreak. Through a combination of quotes from the stories originally penned by the Brontës, biographical information about them, and Greenberg’s vivid comic book illustrations, readers will find themselves enraptured by this fascinating imaginary world.

Historical: European, Graphic Novel
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