Ever since I started reading Sarah Waters, I have been partial to a good Sapphic romance (especially a historical one), and I never miss any opportunity to read one. I don’t know why it is, it just seems that a love story involving two women just seems more passionate, and emotional, and just all the feels. Much more so than any of the man-woman romances I have read recently.
Anyway, when I saw Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue in the library and read the blurb, I knew this was a book I wanted to read.
About Learned by Heart
In 1805, fourteen-year-old Eliza Raine was a schoolgirl at the Manor School for Young Ladies in York. The daughter of an Indian mother and a British father, Eliza was banished to this unfamiliar country as a little girl. When she first stepped off the King George in Kent, Eliza was accompanied by her older sister, Jane, but now she boards alone at the Manor, with no one left to claim her. She spends her days avoiding the attention of her fellow pupils until, one day, a fearless and charismatic new student arrives at the school. The two girls are immediately thrown together, and this strange and curious young woman soon turns Eliza’s life inside out.
~ Synopsis from goodreads
My Review
When I borrowed the book, I had no idea it was based on a real-life love story. Eliza Raine’s love interest is Anne Lister, who became known as the first modern lesbian and Gentleman Jack. A show based on her life is currently available on Jio Cinema.
This intrigued me, and I started reading this book with great gusto. Sadly, though, it was a fairly limp book. I have never really enjoyed Donaghue’s writing in the past. It’s probably just me, as her books are well-reviewed and enjoyed by others. However, I didn’t like Room much, and I also found her prose pedestrian in Learned by Heart.
Eliza Raine and Anne Lister should have been passionate, well-rounded characters. Lister comes through fine, but Eliza is more of an enigma. Apart from her exotic beauty (which no one seems to notice but Anne), there’s nothing much there. She doesn’t seem to have any interests or thoughts apart from her love for Anne. Now, I know she’s a young girl and still coming into her own, personality-wise, but it was hard for me to understand what drew these girls to each other.
In her later life, she writes to Anne. It made me sad to see how she made her entire life and existence revolve around Anne without bothering to develop herself.
You won’t be surprised that I so treasure these old haunts. It was in York that I received my education; where I was stamped like warm wax by a seal, formed once and for all. I know you’ll recall the song—where all the joy and mirth, made this town heaven on earth. At the Manor School, I tasted heaven on earth even as I toiled to pack my poor skull with the knowledge and wisdom I was told I’d need for life. The joke is, Lister, the only lesson I learned, or at least the only lesson I remember, was you.
It was easier for me to understand the breakup. I’m sure she bored Anne as much as or more than she bored me. That sounds very harsh, I know 😬.
The atmosphere of the school was also very claustrophobic. I know Victorian schools were not very pleasant places, but she could have given the surrounding girls some wit and personality. They all seemed like wooden stock characters.
The romance is fine but ends too soon, and the lovers part. I was very curious about the later fate of both these characters, and the book touches on it a bit, but the focus is on the school romance, which is a bit of a disservice.
Spoiler alert: Eliza ends up in a mental asylum, almost forgotten by the world, while Anne becomes a renowned diarist. I would have loved it if the book had touched on how their paths diverged so much. I would have also liked to hear from Anne directly. How did it feel to be loved and obsessed over this much? To me, reading this book felt very suffocating. Eliza was such a clingy lover, and it was hard to sympathize or connect with her obsession.
This was a good book, but it could have been so much more. Donoghue focused on just a brief moment in their lives and then struggled to connect it to their larger story.
