From Violent Drunks to Writing Inspirations

Let's begin this post with a reminder of the 170th anniversary of the tragic death of Branwell Brontë. Yellow Advertiser does not forget it:

1848: Branwell Brontë, brother of the Brontë sisters, died. He was the inspiration for the violent drunk, Hindley Earnshaw, in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights (1847).

The Japan Times carries an article about the My-Year-In-Japan type of books:

In “On the Bullet Train with Emily Brontë,” Judith Pascoe fills her year in Japan with interviews and sleuthing to gauge the effect of English author Emily Brontë on Japanese culture. Her exploits delve into Japan’s eccentricity, absurdity and its flair for pastiche, while exposing the literary side of a country deep into anime and “boys love” manga. (Amy Chavez)

The Weekly Standard reviews the film A Simple Favor:

Director Paul Feig is telling us at the outset that his movie is a jape and that we’re not to take what happens all that seriously—even though there are disappearances and corpses and fires at Gothic manses straight out of Jane Eyre. (John Podhoretz). 

(Brontë) words and music in Skipton. The Telegraph & Argus informs of an upcoming event in October:

The event, focusing on the legendary literary sisters from Haworth, takes place as part of the national Family Learning Festival.
The evening, at Skipton Library on October 12, starts at 7pm. It is one of a series of events being held at libraries across North Yorkshire throughout the month. (Alistair Shand)

Richmond Times-Dispatch covers Virginia's 7th congressional district elections:

“My experience teaching Shakespeare and Brontë in Northern Virginia to a bunch of embassy kids is really not relevant to my run for Congress,” she [Abigail Spanberger, the Democrat candidate] said. (Patrick Wilson)

Dewezet (Germany) reviews  Die Geschwister Brontë as seen in Hämelschenburg, Germany, a few days ago:

Ihre frühen Lebensjahre waren nicht das, was heute unter einer schönen Kindheit verstanden wird. Mehr ertragend als erlebend wachsen sie im viktorianischen England, auf den unwirtlichen Höhen des Yorkshire Moors und in der räumlichen wie finanziellen Enge bei Reverend Brontë in Harworth auf. (...)
Es war der vorletzte Abend der Reihe „Beziehungen“ im Rahmen des diesjährigen Literaturfestes Niedersachsen. Unter dem Titel „Die Geschwister Brontë – eine lebenslange Beziehung“ erzählten die Schauspielerinnen Sonja Beißwenger, Johanna Krumstroh, Katharina Spierung und ihr männlicher Kollege Henning Nöhren aus dem Leben der Vier, lasen Passagen aus der Brontë-Biografie von Elsemarie Maletzke ebenso vor wie aus den Werken selbst. Sie taten es in Mimik und stimmlicher Modulation einfühlsam und höchst überzeugend. Nebenher sorgten sie auch für die vergnügliche Facette der – übrigens ausverkauften – Veranstaltung, zum Beispiel als Katharina Spiering und Henning Nöhren ihr Publikum mit dem szenisch vorgetragenen „Der Poetaster“, ergötzten. (Burkhard Reimer) (Translation)

Trendencias (in Spanish) is all for Victorian fashion:

Protagonistas de una novela de Emily Brontë.
La moda rescata tendencias del pasado y esta vez echa la vista hacia atrás para presentar (de nuevo) el estilo victoriano. Las Semanas de la Moda han sido el mejor escenario para mostrar cómo llevar blusas cerradas, con volumen y volantes que te van a convertir en una de las protagonistas de Emily Brontë. (Charlie) (Translation)

Well, as the number of female characters in Emily Brontë's novel is rather limited (nor are they particularly well-dressed) this claim seems a bit odd. Unless you don't know what you are talking about which, of course, is not what is going on at all.

UOL (Brazil) recalls Cary Fukunaga directing Jane Eyre 2011:

Paradoxalmente, o próximo projeto de Fukunaga foi "Jane Eyre", adaptação do livro de Charlotte Brontë sobre uma jovem governanta (Mia Wasikowska) que acaba se apaixonando pelo patrão (Michael Fassbender) na Inglaterra do século XIX. Mais uma vez, o diretor brigou com o estúdio para filmar tudo em locação.
Fukunaga queria rodar o filme nas colinas e vales do norte da Inglaterra, com suas árvores retorcidas pelo vento e seus casarões empoeirados. Tudo para destacar uma parte "sombria" do livro de Brontë que não havia sido abordada em outras adaptações. "Os diretores sempre trataram 'Jane Eyre' como um romance de época, mas ele não é só isso", comentou ao "Movieline". (Caio Coletti) (Translation)

Basler Zeitung (Switzerland) interviews the author Jennifer Clement:

Bücher, die gesellschaftlich etwas bewegt haben: «Oliver Twist» führte dazu, dass Gesetze zur Kinderarbeit geändert wurden. Die Bücher von Jane Austen und Charlotte Brontë änderten die Eigentumsrechte zugunsten von Frauen – ich habe gerade ein kleines Haus in Mexiko gekauft und heimlich Austen und Brontë dafür gedankt, dass mir das möglich ist. In Frankreich hat Victor Hugos «Les Misérables» dazu geführt, das man Armut mit anderen Augen angesehen hat...  (Markus Wüest) (Translation)

Awesome Gang interviews the writer Maria Johnson:

What authors, or books have influenced you?
My favourite author & book is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. It was probably reading Jane Eyre several times when I was growing up that inspired me to want to take writing more seriously.

Excelsior (México) vindicates Julio Castillo, who directed the TV telenovela Encadenados in 1988 (180 episodes loosely based on Wuthering Heights). Melissa Joulwan's Well Fed visits Leeds and takes the KWVR train up to Haworth. Recenzje zwykłej czytelniczki (in Polish) reviews My Plain Jane. Anne Brontë.org posts on Maria Brontë and her manuscript  The Advantages of Poverty in Religious Concerns.

Emily Brontë A Recital of Her Poetry and Her Music

A recital of  poetry and music in a couple of weeks at Ponden Hall:

Emily Brontë
A Recital of Her Poetry and Her Music
Ponden Hall
Monday 8th October 2018
11.30am
Tickets £12.50
Advance booking is essential – Telephone 01535 648608 – with payment at the door

Presented by John Hennessy

Charissa Hutchens (Soprano)
Alexandra Lesley (Speaker)
Gordon Balmforth (Piano)

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Changing the Rules

The Argus announces one of the panels at the upcoming Small Wonder Festival at Charleston:

Heathcliff, the brooding anti-hero of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, has gone down in history as the epitome of romantic love – thanks in part to cinema and theatre .
Yet that is so far from what his creator intended, and is in fact a misreading of the book, as the foreword by author Kate Mosse to a new collection of short stories, explains.
I am Heathcliff, the opening event at this year’s Small Wonder festival, dissects the influence Heathcliff and Brontë’s novel has had on literature. This collection of specially commissioned stories inspired by Wuthering Heights and curated by Kate Mosse celebrates the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth. It is a collection which takes a long hard look at the reality which was Heathcliff through a range of mostly contemporary stories.
Kate Mosse, author of six novels including the multi-million selling Languedoc trilogy, in her foreword to the collection, describes how her own reading of Heathcliff through the decades has changed her perception of him and his relationship with Cathy. From what began as a romantic love story – albeit one of violence and anger – she sees now the monumental nature of the writing .
That it is no domestic story of romance but is about the nature of life, love and the universe.
“Not only did she change the rules of what was acceptable for a woman to write,” Mosse says, “ but there is a total absence of any explicit condemnation of Heathcliff’s conduct.”
Two contributors to the collection of stories, Louise Doughty and Juno Dawson, will read from their work and discuss how the anthology came about.
Louise Doughty, author of eight novels including the number one bestseller Apple Tree Yard, sets her story Terminus in a bleak and wintery Brighton where Maria has fled from a violent partner.
The comparisons with Heathcliff are there of course, but when her partner Matthew tracks Maria down, I wondered whether she had actually wanted to be found.
“No” says Louise “She’s terrified of Matthew and when he finds her she feels an overwhelming sense of inevitability. She is so broken down by circumstance that it is hard for her to resist.”
Did Maria feel somehow responsible for the way Matthew had treated her? I ask.
“A lot of people in difficult relationships get into the habit of self blame and believe they can redeem a difficult man if they love him enough,” she says.
And what of the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy? I wonder.
“She was every bit as wild as he was, “ she says. “Emily Brontë is quite clear on that.”
And like Kate Mosse she believes that to romanticise their love is a misreading of the book.
To hear more about the enigma of Heathcliff, book a ticket for this event through Charleston.org.uk/smallwonder or telephone 01323 815150. 

Books about the ocean on Star2:

Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys (1966)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is one of my favourite Gothic novels, and Rhys’ counterpoint to it is brilliant, telling the story of Mr Rochester’s marriage from the POV of his mad wife locked up in the attic. Rhys brings an anti-colonial and feminist lens to Jane Eyre, while telling a story that is dark, complex and tragic. (Sharmilla Ganesan)

Rodrigo Fresán on Página 12 (Argentina) replies to a recent article by Alex Clark, Why have novelists stopped making things up?:

Semanas atrás, en un artículo en The Guardian, Alan (sic) Clark se preguntaba ya desde el titular “¿Por qué los novelistas han dejado de inventar cosas?” Y, a continuación, muchas líneas para intentar responder paseándose por los ejemplos claros de aquello que ahora se conoce como Auto-Ficción o Literatura del Yo. Y que, por prepotencia de lo supuestamente novedoso, opta por ignorar antecedentes clarísimos como —por quedarnos sólo en lo anglosajón— los de Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Roth, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac & Co., Henry Roth, Thomas Wolfe, Jean Rhys, Marcel Proust para no irse demasiado lejos rumbo a las hermanas Brontë, Charles Dickens y buena parte de la novelística del siglo XIX, para concentrarse en el aquí nomás y en el ahora mismo. (Translation)

Okezone (in Malay) recommends romantic novels:

Jane Eyre.  Novel karya Charlotte Brontë ini mengisahkan tentang seorang anak yatim piatu yang jatuh cinta dengan gurunya sendiri. Para pembaca akan dibuat penasaran tentang rahasia yang disembunyikan di Thornfield Hall, dan apa yang dilakukan Jane saat ia mengungkap masa lalu Rochester yang kelam. (Dimas Andhika Fikri) (Translation)

Adevarul (Romania) has a quiz with a Brontë question; a local Brontëite on the Parry Sound North Star.

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Post-genetic queerness

A couple of recent Brontë-related dissertations:

Study of the “post genetic”: Emily Brontë’s “EJB” notebook, 1844 to the present
Author: Ayrton, Patricia Anne
University of Edinburgh

Emily Brontë began transcription of two poetry notebooks in February 1844. The title of one, ‘Gondal Poems’ is self-explanatory in its content and focus. But the  purpose of the second, simply headed ‘EJB. Transcribed Febuary [sic] 1844’ has never been fully explored. It has not been recognised as a discrete piece of work,  nor has it been printed in a complete edition of Emily’s work with the exact text, and in the sequence in which she created it. In this thesis I ask what Emily’s composition of her EJB notebook reveals about her as a writer and thinker, and why readers have never had the opportunity to read the poems in the context that she created for them. Chapter One examines the critical history of the poems, and here I describe  the ‘lexicon’ created by Charlotte Brontë, Emily’s first posthumous editor, through  which much of Emily’s work is still interpreted. I propose that the continued use of  elements of this ‘lexicon’ impedes a recognition of Emily as a rigorous intellectual  and thinker. In Chapter Two I show how a sequential reading of the EJB poems places her within her contemporary intellectual world. I propose that her purposeful creation of the notebook provides evidence of an engagement with the philosophies and literature of early nineteenth-century Europe, and reveals not only a profound understanding of the thought-systems of the time, but also a capacity to use those systems to develop a unique philosophy through poetry, a philosophy which she then employed in her creation of Wuthering Heights. The EJB holograph is not currently available for examination but this investigation is supported by my own transcription of the notebook which is based on a set of photographs taken over eighty years ago. Chapters Three, Four and Five are supported by a series of ‘post genetic’ diagrams which describe the textual development of the poems from the first publication of fifteen of them in 1846, to the most recent collected edition published in 1995. These chapters elucidate the effects of the activities and decisions of the editors, collectors and scholars who have influenced the texts and the presentations of the poems since the beginnings of transcription in 1844. This thesis proposes that in creating her EJB notebook Emily constructed a discrete piece of work which should stand alone as evidence of her distinctive philosophical engagement with her contemporary intellectual world. It demands a new vocabulary through which to interpret Emily and her work, and it requires an end to the ‘lexicon’ which has shaped Emily Brontë scholarship since her death in 1848. The evidence presented in this thesis supports the need for a new and definitive edition of Emily’s poems, and particularly for a contextual presentation of the EJB notebook. This will enable a new conception of her as a systematic, methodical and abstract thinker, a philosopher-poet who has engaged with some of the foremost ideas of the early nineteenth-century.

“A poet, a solitary”: Emily Brontë — Queerness, quietness, and solitude
O'Callaghan, Claire
2018
The Ohio State University Press

Emily Brontë is often remembered for her extreme reserve and was clearly an atypical woman for her time. Although she was a figure who struggled within the conventional social fabric, rarely does empathy find a place in writings about her. This paper revisits some of the popular and dominant conceptions of Emily’s reserve and seeks to find a more productive—even compassionate—way of understanding her preference for solitude. Emily’s writings—especially her poems, provide such an opportunity to do so. While recognizing the negative and undoubtedly painful expressions of emotion in Emily’s oeuvre, the analysis argues that more positive insights into Emily’s desire for solitude can equally be found in her writing. Accordingly, drawing on queer theoretical sources, the paper posits a revised reading of this “difficult” Brontë that seeks to open alternative possibilities for understanding Emily’s introverted nature.

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Like a Brontë struggling with an iPhone

Several news outlets talk about the new TV series Maniac, directed by the ubiquitous Cary Fukunaga:

“If you take [my first film] ‘Sin Nombre’ and [2011 film] ‘Jane Eyre,’ they’re quite similar actually, even though one was written by Charlotte Brontë in the 1840s and one is a contemporary story taking place now,” he says. “Really it’s about being an orphan in the world and composite families, that’s the line there. I wasn’t an orphan, but exploring this idea of composite families was interesting to me at that time period.” (Lauren Sarner in The New York Post)

In addition to evidence against Fukunaga’s alleged tendency not to play well with others, the marvelous, dizzy Maniac serves as a reminder that the director—who intentionally chose to follow the raw and gritty world of immigration and gang violence in Sin Nombre with the high-collared period romance of Jane Eyre—really can do anything. (Joanna Robinson in Vanity Fair)

And as directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga, the genius (and newly minted James Bond director) behind everything from the wonderful 2011 Jane Eyre to the visuals of the first season of True Detective, those moments really land. (Todd VanDerWerff in Vox)

Cinéaste prometteur, avec son premier film Sin Nombre qui avait fait forte impression au Festival du cinéma américain de Deauville et sa délicate et gothique adaptation de Jane Eyre, le réalisateur américain au port de mannequin a explosé sur le petit écran avec le poisseux True Detective de HBO. (Constance Jamet in Le Figaro) (Translation)

GeekDad is ecstatic about Bibliophile. An Illustrated Miscellany:

If you’re looking to revisit some old favorites or are looking for future reading recommendations, Bibliophile is a fun book to have. It includes plenty of inspiring book stacks organized by theme, a special look at different editions of Pride and Prejudice, profiles of dozens of independent bookstores, book recommendations from writers and other book-related folks, and plenty of information about libraries. Here are some of my personal takeaways from the recommended reading stacks:
(...)
Do you inhale everything British from the 1800s including Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre? Have you given George Eliot’s Middlemarch a try? (Jenny Bristol)

Just think about it. On The Lincolnite:

It’s often said that ‘everyone has a book in them’ but, for a variety of reasons, those initial sparks of inspiration sometimes never make it beyond a hastily jotted note. It’s easy to forget that those initial ideas form the foundations of great writing. Just think how different the landscape of literature would look if the Brontës had kept their ideas to themselves. (Jason Whittaker)

An insider chronicle of the Cheltenham Literature Festival by Caitlin Moran in The Times:

Therefore, when you suddenly see, say, Hanif Kureishi, walking around the Port Eliot Festival, with his legs, eating a stuffed courgette flower, and banging his head on a dangling sign that reads “Home Made Fudge”, it’s like seeing a Brontë struggling with an iPhone.

 The literary preferences of the Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon on iNews:

She also listed many other books that had influenced her, from classics such as Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice to more contemporary works. (Chris Green)

Rebecca Lenkiewicz, the screenwriter of Colette, reminisces about her childhood books in Talkhouse:

Among the other literary facts I garnered at the time were that George Eliot was, in fact, a woman – I wanted to draw a mustache on her portrait. And that the Brontë sisters also pretended to be men; Currer, Bell and Co., they sounded like a bank. And this was all to help them publish their books. I must have been around 10 when I found out these things, and I thought the swapping of sexes was some sort of cavalier game. Now in my forties, I look back to that time when I had scant idea of the battles these women had fought to be recognized as writers, their utter bravery to sit down and make work.

The Daily Mail quotes Yoko Ono on John Lennon and herself:

After nearly five years of being together, night and day, the myth of perfect love the couple had woven around themselves — ‘like Cathy and Heathcliff’ as Yoko liked to say in reference to Wuthering Heights — had been shattered. (Ray Connolly)

The Washington Times reviews Behemoth by Joshua B. Freeman:

Charles Dickens spent an entire day visiting America’s biggest cotton manufacturer in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1842. One of the main characters in Charlotte Brontë’s “Shirley” (1849) is Robert Moore, a mill owner who treats his machinery better than his employees. William Blake used the term “dark Satanic Mills” in 1804 in the preface to his famous poem, “Milton.” Friedrich Engels “provided some of the most graphic descriptions we have of the miserable living conditions of English factory workers” before he wrote “The Communist Manifesto” (1848) with Karl Marx. (Michael Taube)

Publishers Weekly reviews the English translation of Les Gouvernantes, The Governesses, by Anne Serre:

Serre’s first work to be translated into English is a hypnotic tale of three governesses and the sensuous education they provide. Roaming the country estate of a staid married couple, Monsieur and Madame Austeur, Inès, Laura, and Eléonore are not exactly Jane Eyre types.

NME interviews Matty Healy from The 1975s, who talks about the recording of their new album:

The process of making ‘A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships’ began, in earnest, in Northampton, in a studio Matty had scoped out on a now-abandoned attempt to work with Skepta, a collaboration first mooted when they met at the NME Awards in 2016. Northampton, bringing to mind shoe factories and motorway service stations, feels a world away from this LA idyll, but the band settled in there for six months and Matty found the beauty in the place.
“It’s near where all the Spice Girls live and shit like that, it’s well nice, proper countryside, dogs everywhere, horses,” he says. “Very, very kind of Heathcliff vibes.” (Dan Stubbs)

NRC Handelsblad (Netherlands) complains about the treatment of Dutch classics as compared to how the English take care of their classics:

Het Verenigd Koninkrijk is misschien wel het land met de meeste open schrijvershuizen, en die worden druk bezocht. De vijf voormalige woonhuizen van Shakespeare trekken 750.000 bezoekers per jaar, het Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth bijna 80.000. Het hele dorp daar staat in het teken van de zusters Brontë en het is bijna onmogelijk er weg te komen zonder Brontë-sjaaltje, -pen, -waaier of -paraplu. (Maritha Mathijsen) (Translation)

A participant in a Spanish reality show turns to be an unlikely Brontëite, Isa Pantoja. On Telecinco:

Isa nos desvela que su libro favorito es Cumbres borrascosas y le encanta la obra de Jane Austen o Emily Brontë, y que en general le gusta la literatura inglesa, que ha estudiado desde los 10 años. (José Luis Viruete) (Translation)

Bilan (France) loves Balthus's Wuthering Heights-inspired paintings:

Magnifiques du reste, comme «La toilette de Cathy» inspirée des «Hauts du Hurlevent». Antoinette y fait sa première apparition en muse dénudée. (Etienne Dumont) (Translation)

Bridget Whelan, writer interviews the poet Ann Perrin:

I love autobiographies and am also reading Take Courage Anne Brontë and the Art of Life by Samantha Ellis.

The Loewe Classics Wuthering Heights edition featured on Vogue (Spain); Your Tango lists a Jane Eyre quote among 'beautiful i love you quotes'. Gazzetta di Parma (in Italian) celebrates the 40th anniversary of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. Bookblurbs posts about Jane Eyre and The Eyre Affair. Zatracona w słowach (in Polish) reviews My Plain Jane.

Finally you can listen to Selene Chillia and Serena di Battista (aka The Sisters' Room) and authors of E Sognai di Cime Tempestose on RAI Radio 2, Ovunque6:

Due ragazze italiane e la passione per un capolavoro della letteratura: andiamo a zonzo nella brughiera di Cime tempestose con un libro che è anche una guida di viaggio.

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The Brontës at a German Castle

An alert for today, September 22, at the Hämelschenburg Castle in Emmerthal, Germany:

EDIT: Picture source: Dewezet (BR)

Literaturfest Niedersachsen
Die Geschwister Brontë – eine lebenslange Beziehung
Schloss Hämelschenburg, Zehntscheune, Schlossstr. 1, 31860 Emmerthal
Samstag 22.09.2018, 18:00 Uhr – 22:00 Uhr
Texts by Elsemarie Maletzke
With Sonja Beißwanger, Johanna Krumstroh, Katharina Spiering and Henning Nöhren.

„Sie lebten in einer von ihnen erschaffenen, unabhängigen Welt, in die wir eintreten dürfen“, schrieb Virginia Woolf über die Geschwister Brontë. Mit Werken wie „Sturmhöhe“, „Jane Eyre“ und „Die Herrin von Wildfell Hall“ eroberten Charlotte, Branwell, Emily und Anne Brontë den viktorianischen Kulturbetrieb. Doch der Weg dorthin war steinig und ihr geliebter Bruder Branwell scheiterte mit seinen Ambitionen.

Die Autorin Elsemarie Maletzke erzählt in einer einfühlsamen Collage aus dem Leben der Geschwister Brontë, die sich nach dem Tod der Mutter in ihr eigenes Land der Gedanken flüchteten. Charlotte und Branwell herrschten über das Traumreich Angria, Emily und Anne über Gondal.
Sich gegenseitig inspirierend, rezensierend und vergnügt verspottend schufen Sie in diesem frühreifen Gedankenspiel ein phantastisches literarisches Werk und bereiteten die Schwestern die Grundlagen für ihre späteren Romane und Gedichte.

Die Schauspieler Sonja Beißwenger, Henning Nöhren, Johanna Krumstroh und Katharina Spiering geben den vier Geschwistern eine Stimme und ergründen ihre besondere Beziehung zueinander. In einer langen Nacht auf dem märchenhaften Renaissanceschloss Hämelschenburg können Sie das historische Ambiente genießen und bei englischen Speisen in das viktorianische Zeitalter eintauchen. Bei Teatime und Gebäck erfahren Sie Biografisches aus dem Leben der Geschwister. Anschließend erhalten Sie in kurzen Lesungen Einblicke in das umfangreiche Werk der Brontës. Mit englischen Spezialitäten können Sie sich dann stilvoll stärken, und zum Abschluss zur Musik des 19. Jahrhunderts tanzen. Es spielt das Orchester im Treppenhaus.

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Comtemporary Women's Writing Festival 2018

This weekend at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Contemporary Women's Writing Festival

Turning to Crime: Writing Workshop with Frances Brody
September 22nd 2018 10:00am

Join writer Frances Brody to explore the different approaches to writing a crime novel, with practical advice on creating characters, shaping plots and finding the right setting. There will be writing exercises to stretch your imagination and sharpen your approach to rewriting. Useful tips range from developing your idea to finding an agent. Frances Brody is the award-winning author of three historical novels. Her popular murder mystery series, set in 1920s Yorkshire, features Kate Shackleton, First World War widow turned detective. Frances has written stories and plays for radio and scripts for theatre and television.

Write Online with Marisa Bate
September 22nd 2018 02:00pm - 04:30pm

Based on skills learned from building and shaping The Pool, the award-winning online platform dedicated to creating inspiring and original content for busy women, this workshop will give advice on writing opinion and comment on current affairs online. Marisa will guide participants through the differences between writing online and print content, finding the right tone and style and engaging with readers, and share her knowledge of the landscape of online journalism and how to formulate an original opinion in a sea of loud and ran ty views. Marisa Bate is a journalist, author and speaker with a particular focus on women’s issues. After starting her career at InStyle and Red magazines, she moved to The Guardian before becoming the first employee of the award-winning website for women, The Pool. She has hosted events at literary festivals including Cheltenham and Hay and has appeared on BBC Radio 4’s Late Night Woman’s Hour and The World Tonight. In 2018, she published her first book, The Periodic Table of Feminism.

Patience Agbabi performs her new Emily-inspired work
September 22nd 2018 07:30pm - 09:00pm

The Brontë Society’s 2018 writer in residence, Patience Agbabi, will be reading from the work she has created during her residency at the museum. Patience Agbabi is one of Britain’s most prominent spoken word poets and her electric performances mean that this will be a very special evening not to be missed!

Make Your Story: Self-Editing Workskop with Emma Darwin
September 23rd 2018 10:00am - 12:30pm

Everyone knows that the most important part of writing well is re-writing, but how do you do that? This practical workshop, led by Emma Darwin, will think about structure and scene-building, then close in stage by stage to think about characterisation, voice, and finally the close-up focus that makes every word count. Participants will develop a clearer idea of how to tackle that crucial second draft, and a bagful of tools to work with.

Writing Historical Fiction: Writing Workshp with Emma Darwin
September 23rd 2018 01:30pm - 04:00pm

How do you root your fiction in history without getting stuck in the mud? How do you tell a compelling story when you have to look everything up? In this practical workshop, Emma Darwin will explore the business of finding, imagining and writing stories set in the past, and offer a sense of the riches and challenges of this exciting genre, along with some tools and strategies for making the most of them.

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Just doing what the Brontës did

Lots and lots of news outlets report that Cary Fukunaga will be directing the new James Bond movie. Many of those sites comment on his past work, including Jane Eyre 2011.

Fukunaga has never shown interest in telling stories that rely on comfortable presentation or a lack of risks. Take his adaptation of Jane Eyre (2011) for example, which despite the numerous adaptations of Charlotte Brontë's novel, managed to bring out the inherent horror of the story, the madness that tinged Victorian civility. (Richard Newby in The Hollywood Reporter)

Jane Eyre was Fukunaga’s interesting and perhaps underrated adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, in which he shepherded excellent performances from Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. (Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian)

His first feature, “Sin Nombre,” took the best director prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival. He followed that up with his innovative “Jane Eyre,” and then the volatile, unblinking, hard-hitting “Beasts of No Nation,” (Owen Gleiberman in Variety)

And plenty more.

Kathryn Hughes reviews Nell Stevens's The Victorian and the Romantic for The New York Times.

After a few false starts, Stevens decides to concentrate on the three months in early 1857 that Gaskell spent in Rome living among a colony of expatriate British artists and writers. The 46-year-old author had timed her flight from her home in rainy Manchester in terrified anticipation of reaction to her new book, a biography of her late friend Charlotte Brontë. Already Gaskell had received several intimations of legal action from people who believed that “The Life of Charlotte Brontë” had libeled them, including the family of the Rev. William Carus Wilson, founder of the criminally negligent boarding school for clergy daughters that appears in the opening chapters of “Jane Eyre” as the hellish Lowood.
Those who are familiar with Gaskell’s work — and she continues to inspire loving devotion around the world — may fret about the way Stevens has ruthlessly filleted the novelist’s life and reoriented it for her own purposes. Then again, this is exactly what Gaskell did to Charlotte Brontë in her revisionist (for which read “borderline-fictionalized”) biography, so one could argue that there is a neat symmetry in play. Certainly, there can be no doubt about the genuine affection that drives Stevens’s project. She draws her book to a close by furnishing Gaskell with a make-believe finale in which her heroine takes the longed-for trip to America and finds Norton waiting for her on the dock. By this point, it would take a stonyhearted reader to begrudge Elizabeth Gaskell her happy ending. 

And The New Yorker recommends it too.

KWBU's Likely Stories has a podcast on Villette.

Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece, Villette is an absorbing excursion through the middle of the 19th century.  Her stories of love and heartbreak are every bit as real today as they were a century and a half ago. 5 stars! (Jim McKeown)

The imaginary worlds of children (aka 'paracosms') are discussed by The Wall Street Journal.

In 19th-century England, the Brontë children created Gondal, an imaginary kingdom full of melodrama and intrigue. Emily and Charlotte Brontë grew up to write the great novels “Wuthering Heights” and “Jane Eyre.” [...]
Prof. Taylor asked 169 children, ages eight to 12, whether they had an imaginary world and what it was like. They found that about 17 percent of the children had created their own complicated universe. Often a group of children would jointly create a world and maintain it, sometimes for years, like the Brontë sisters or the Lewis brothers. And grown-ups were not invited in. (Alison Gopnik)

The Brontës' imaginary worlds are also mentioned in an article on Australian author Gerald Murnane in The Guardian.

“I became obsessed with things that happened nowhere in a purely imaginary place,” he said. This would be “sufficient to sustain me in all the years when I was no longer writing fiction”.
He suspects that the audience might laugh at this, too, but we don’t. He reminds us that the Brontë sisters created an imaginary world, Gondal, with kingdoms, adventures and romance.
“If it was good enough for the Brontës, for a middle-aged guy in Australia there’s no reason to think badly of what I’m doing. I’m just doing what the Brontës did.” (Gay Alcorn)

And another Brontë mention in The Guardian. The Pillar portrait seems to have been the inspiration behind the 1950 book Personas en la sala by Argentinian author Norah Lange, now translated into English for the first time as People in the Room.

Born in 1905 in Buenos Aires, Norah Lange entered the Argentinian literary scene early, first as a poet; later, her novels and a childhood memoir became part of the Spanish-language canon. As César Aira says in his introduction to this first English translation of her work, she once told an interviewer that People in the Room had been inspired by the portrait of the three Brontë sisters painted by their brother, his own image erased from the canvas. Combining painterly qualities with poetic imagery, Lange’s prose is rich in metaphor, self-absorbed and, at its best, darkly irresistible. (Anna Aslanyan)

India Blooms interviews writer Lopamudra Sen.

What kind of books have acted as inspiration for the book? I am a bibliophile. I can't stay without books. My inspiration are The Notebook , A Walk to Remember and Dear John by Nicholas Sparks. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Me Before You by Jojo Moyes.

BAE Negocios (in Spanish) interviews Laura Ramos about her book on the Brontë family, Infernales.

—¿Qué fue encontrando de cada una de ellas? —En el curso de la investigación fui descubriendo, estupefacta, que Emile [sic] Brontë era un ser parecido a esa construcción artística infernal llamada Heathcliff, el héroe (malvado y despiadado) de Cumbres borrascosas. Cuando Catherine Earnshaw, la heroína, dice “yo soy Heathcliff”, está hablando Emily, ella es Heathcliff. Sus escasas cartas y sus seis diarios (poquísimos, porque la mayoría de sus papeles desaparecieron, probablemente quemados por ella misma) la revelan como feroz, despiadada, de un temperamento fuerte como una roca. Mi idea sobre ella cambió absolutamente, porque creía que era una joven tuberculosa débil, frágil y tímida.
—¿Qué impresión le queda de Emily?—Creo que Emily era una artista exquisita, la más genial de la cofradía, sin dudas, que desfallecía si no podía escribir, como de hecho le pasó mientras estuvo en Roe Head, una escuela para niñas donde Charlotte era maestra.
Emily era la más poderosa en el campo de batalla de la relación entre los hermanos. Se reía de Branwell, como demuestran escritos encontrados en el margen de unos textos de Branwell que anticipan la saga de Games of Thrones. Emily aconsejó a su padre, siendo niña, que si no podía razonar con Branwell, lo azotara. Charlotte era la más pasional. Como Jane Eyre, la heroína de su obra maestra, es pura pasión (eso dijo Virginia Woolf). Charlotte se enamoró violentamente más de una vez, y sus cartas de amor son casi demenciales. También era una refinada seductora, como lo muestra la colección de cartas que le mandaba a su editor, un joven soltero, hermoso y sofisticado que llegó a un punto de enamoramiento de ella, que no era menos fea que su heroína Jane Eyre, la primera heroína fea de la literatura (y la más adorable). “Una mujer que no es hermosa, ni rica también tiene sentimientos, y puede ser heroína de una novela”, desafió a sus hermanas cuando creó Jane Eyre. (Maria Ripetta) (Translation)

The Brussels Times lists 'The 10 most famous émigrés to call Brussels home' and of course Charlotte and Emily Brontë are among them.

4) The Brontës
When we think of the Brontës, the first image that springs to mind is that of the wild and windswept Yorkshire moors. Yet Charlotte and Emily Brontë spent a number of their formative years in Brussels at the Pensionnat Heger on Rue d'Isabelle. The boarding school where the sisters both studied and taught is also where Charlotte met Constantin Heger, the dark haired, cigar-smoking tutor she quickly became infatuated with. Heger later became the prototype for many of Charlotte's male love interests, including Monsieur Paul Emanuel in Villette and Mr Rochester himself. The site where the Pensionnat Heger once stood is now Brussels' Palais des Beaux Arts. The Brussels Brontë Group organises talks and guided tours about the sisters' time in Brussels. (Marianna Hunt)

The New York Public Library has selected the best covers of Wuthering Heights. Pleno.News (in Portuguese) recommends Wuthering Heights among other classic novels. TodayTix has picked '9 adventurous adaptations of Jane Eyre'.

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The Moors in Iowa and West Virginia

A couple of amateur productions of Jen Silverman's The Moors open today, September 21:

The Moors by Jen Silverman
Sept. 21 - 22 and 25-29 at 7:30 p.m.
Sept. 23 and 30 at 2 p.m.
Gladys G. Davis Theatre
WV School of Theatre & Dance
Morgantown, West Virginia

The Moors by Jen Silverman and directed by Lee Blair is a dark comedy about love, power, desperation and visibility; think Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and the Brontë
Sisters. Two sisters and their dog live their lives on the bleak English moors, but the arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set them all on a strange and dangerous path.

More information on The Garrett County Republican.

The Moors
A Gothic Mystery by Jen Silverman
​
September 21, 22, 28 & 29, 10 at 7:30 pm & September 23 at 2 pm, 2018
Bijou Room, Five Flags Center, 405 Main St, Dubuque, IA 52001

Two sisters, a maid, and a dog live out their lives on the bleak English moors, dreaming of love and power. The arrival of a hapless governess and a moor-hen set all four on a strange and dangerous path. A Brontë-esque dark tragi-comedy about love, desperation, and the desire for human connection.

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Career-sinking Brontës

The New York Times reviews the book Meg, Jo, Beth, Amy. The Story of “Little Women” and Why It Still Matters by Anne Boyd Rioux. We don't quite agree with this:

Like Charlotte Brontë, Alcott was obliged to support a household. Her father, Bronson Alcott, a friend of Emerson and Thoreau and the founder of Fruitlands, a short-lived utopian community, was so focused on leading “a spotless spiritual life” that he’d forget he had a family. (Francine Prose)

Patrick Brontë earned his modest salary until the end of his life and stretched it to support his family to the best of his ability. While, before becoming a published author, Charlotte did work and earned her own money, there were also periods (1845 onwards mainly) when none of the siblings worked at all outside the parsonage and all depended on Patrick's income and their aunt's inheritance.

Lancashire Evening Post recommends several new children's books, including

She is Fierce: Brave, Bold and Beautiful Poems by Women by Ana Sampson
In the year that celebrates the centenary of women’s suffrage, anthologist Ana Sampson brings us a breathtaking collection of poetry which is guaranteed to inspire a new generation of budding feminists. Cleverly collated and brimming with the resonant voices of women poets from the past and present, and from all corners of the globe, these 150 powerful and impressively diverse poems are yet more proof that female poets speak loudly and eloquently, and are at the heart of literary life. At a time when women’s equality is by no means done and dusted, Sampson highlights not just the beauty of women’s poetry but the fierce, brave and bold flame that burns brightly in their words as they take their rightful place in what for too long was regarded as the ‘male’ arena of literature. Over the centuries, many women have written poems but didn’t dare publish them, and others, like George Eliot and the Brontë sisters, published their work under male pseudonyms. It was also felt that women should stick to certain subjects like family, friendship, dutiful religion, and the prettier corners of nature but in the poems gathered here by Sampson, we find meditations on every possible subject, including science, the universe, politics, protest, body image, myths, mental health, war and displacement. From classic, well-loved poets like Emily Dickinson, Dorothy Parker and Maya Angelou to innovative and the bold modern voices of poets like Hollie McNish, Jackie Kay and Emergency Poet Deborah Alma, this stunning gift book is packed full of women who deserve to be heard time and time again. Immerse yourself in poems from British-Indian writer Nikita Gill, Wendy Cope, Ysra Daley-Ward, Emily Brontë, Carol Ann Duffy, Fleur Adcock, Liz Berry, Imtiaz Dharker, Helen Dunmore, Mary Oliver, Christina Rossetti and Margaret Atwood, and hear the words of suffragettes, schoolgirls, superstars, civil rights activists, aristocratic ladies and kitchen maids. (Pam Norfolk)

Apparently teaching the Brontës can sink your political career. As seen on USA Today:

How did a former undercover CIA operative who spent more than eight years fighting terrorism get branded as a teacher at “Terror High?"
The strange ordeal for Abigail Spanberger, now a Democratic House candidate, began when U.S. Postal Service employees wrongly delivered her confidential personnel file to Republican operatives.
Those operatives seized on Spanberger’s stint teaching Brontë and Shakespeare as one way to sink her campaign against GOP Rep. Dave Brat in Virginia. (Nicole Gaudiano)

You can read the full article to see that the Brontës don't have much to do with it.

The Daily Athenaeum reviews a local production of The Moors.

The School of Theatre and Dance is putting on a production of “The Moors” at the Gladys G. Davis Theatre through the end of September.
The play is set in 1840 on the barren moors of England.
“'The Moors' is about two spinster sisters,” said Leland Blair, associate professor of acting and theatre and director of the show. “They have hired a governess to come to take care of a child, and there’s some mystery about the child. Over the course of the play, we learn what the family history is.”
Blair described the story as “melodramatic and macabre.”
Although set in the 1800s, the show gives the era of “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” a contemporary twist.
“It takes that world, but it has sort of an anachronistic aspect to it that really shows most problems are universal,” Blair said.
Additionally, the dark tale keeps the familiar vocabulary and dialect of modern times rather than using the foreign language of the era. Blair feels that this, too, enforces the theme of contemporary struggles represented in a different time period. (Olivia Gianettino)

The Eyre Guide reviews Jane Stubbs's Thornfield Hall. Brontë Babe Blog has a post on The Duke of Zamorna.

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Top Withens paintings

Robin Grover-Jacques is a York-based painter with a thing for Yorkshire moorlands, including Haworth's. Among his recent work we find two Top Withens landscapes:

Distant Light - Top Withens (Brontë Country) Acrylic & Graphite on Canvas (50 x 81cm)

Top Withens - Brontë Country Acrylic on canvas 203 x 76cm (double canvas)

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The Brontës' own rockumentary

Evening Standard gives 4 out of 5 stars to Wasted.

The inspired idea of Christopher Ash (music) and Carl Miller (book and lyrics) is to have the Brontës star in their own “rise and fall”-style rockumentary. On they come to a bare platform to plug in microphones and start talking to an invisible interviewer, before launching into bracing blasts of song. Unfortunately, everyone has a tiresome habit of holding the microphones too close and thus distorting some of the lyrics.
Twenty-seven songs is too many when a number are unmemorable, yet when the music is good, it’s very good. No One to Marry for Miles is a country-type lament from Anne (Molly Lynch), who is nearly as heavy on the eyeliner as Siobhan Athwal’s marvellously lugubrious and melodramatic Emily.
Adam Lenson’s vivid production taps perceptively into the untamed energy of this moor-roaming clan, the “nobodies from nowhere” who revolutionised English literature.
The family, and this Brontë-soaring show, is anchored by Natasha Barnes as the pragmatic, forceful Charlotte, the only sibling who married. But, the piece asks perceptively, was this a dreadful waste of her talent? (Fiona Mountford)

The Seattle Public Library Blog has a few recommendations to read beyond Book-It's production of Jane Eyre.

The Secret History of Jane Eyre. by John Pfordresher
Why did Charlotte insist on hiding her authorship of Jane Eyre from everyone but her sisters? Pfordresher lays bare the painful parallels between Charlotte’s life and her novel.
Governess by Ruth Brandon
What was life actually like as a governess in the 19th century? “Not part of the family, not servants, yet not equals.” Brandon explores the economy, psychology, and sociology of governesses and the families they served.
Texts From Jane Eyre, by Daniel Mallory Ortberg
Ortberg, the voice behind Slate’s popular Dear Prudence advice column, created this hilarious collection of imagined text message conversations between famous literary characters. According to Ortberg, “If Mr. Rochester could text Jane Eyre, his ardent missives would obviously be in all-caps.”
The Brontë Sisters – Streaming Video
Heather Saycell’s 2008 film is an engaging examination of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne’s lives and their extraordinary insights into the human heart.
For additional Jane Eyre-inspired titles, check out this list created by librarians at The Seattle Public Library. (Elizabeth W)

And more on Seattle and Jane Eyre on The Stranger.

58. On Book
This unique book club invites you to read through the plays of the current season—Jane Eyre, M. Butterfly, John, and Office Hour—with facilitation by Makaela Pollock.

The Hindu features the Nilgiris Library.

Some of the books retain their original binding with the library’s insignia. There are treasures there and thrills as one takes out The Life of Charlotte Brontë written by Mrs Gaskell. A black and white illustration of the Haworth Parsonage where the Brontës lived is guaranteed to give goose bumps. (Pankaja Srinivasan)

The Sisters' Room talks about the Martin Heron's Literary Landscapes installation on the Haworth moors, just in the way to Top Withins.

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Jane Eyre, French and abridged

A new abridged French translation of Jane Eyre:

Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Traduction de Mme Lesbazeilles-Souvestre, révisée et abrégée par Marie-Hélène Sabard
L'École des Loisirs
ISBN : 9782211238281
2018

Une jeune femme entre comme préceptrice dans un manoir dont le maître est aussi fascinant qu’inquiétant… Hurlements dans la nuit, château hanté par une présence menaçante, amour maudit, fuites éperdues dans la lande ont assuré à Jane Eyre un succès immédiat et durable.

Further information on Onirik.

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M. Paul Emanuel's addiction to online gaming

More reviews of Wasted. What's On Stage gives it 4 stars out of 5.

Adam Lenson's playful production astonishes on many levels. Front and centre: the dazzlingly committed cast. Natasha Barnes carries the lioness's share of the script as Charlotte, who outlived her siblings and achieved a conventional marriage despite her literary leanings. Barnes brilliantly reconfirms herself as an actress of outstanding depth, investing the sensible but passionate young woman with a self-deprecating wryness and bright-eyed kindness that splits wide open when she sings: then she unleashes a wild but sweet torrent of formidably controlled frustration and anarchic abandon. She is movingly impressive as the family's increasingly sad trajectory plays out, and gets the biggest laugh of the evening with the throwaway line "f**k off, I'm writing Jane Eyre".
Molly Lynch's doe-eyed, self-effacing Anne is a vocally stunning heartbreaker, going from rocked-out emotionalism to impressive classical soprano with jaw-dropping ease. Matthew Jacobs Morgan gives drug-addled, deluded brother Branwell a fine voice and an irresistible charm that almost expiates his bizarre behaviour.
Siobhan Athwal's quirky, bitterly funny Emily is pitched at the junction between lunacy and rapture. She's a physical manifestation of an unsound mind, suggesting Emily might have been an inspiration for Jane Eyre's Mrs Rochester. At first I feared the feral physicality and face-pulling might be too much, but ultimately I found her profoundly touching, her dream-like yet ferocious vocals reminiscent of a young Kate Bush.
These Brontës wear mid-1800s garb but when they let rip musically, it's to punk, emo, progressive rock, thrash metal, even ska, spirituals and country and western, belted into omnipresent hand-held mics while roving spotlights dazzle onlookers. The raucous, ecstatic power of rock music as metaphor for the hardships of unfulfilled artistic endeavour and strife-beset lives is persuasive.
Ash commands a profligacy of musical styles with panache. Nothing sounds like a traditional showtune, but it is a haunting score full of passion, invention and often thunderous excitement. Charlotte's second act cri de cœur "(Extra)ordinary Woman" could have come off a Janis Joplin album, while Anne's twistedly lovely "The Story Of Mrs Collins" is a knockout piece of musical storytelling. This will be a cast album to savour, not least to appreciate Miller's frequently witty lyrics, which sometimes get lost in the muddy sound design. [...]
Anything as iconoclastic as this can't be perfect, and is likely to get up a lot of people's noses, to be honest. The storytelling is sketchy at times and there's a belligerent but inventive weirdness that not everyone will embrace. My advice though is to look at it as music theatre rather than a musical: buckle up and enjoy the thrill ride. As ambitious a step forward in the genre as anything for years, this grittily exhilarating show is essential viewing if you're interested in the future of the British musical. (Alun Hood)

Jonathan Baz Reviews... gives it 4 stars too.

Still on stage, Stratford-upon-Avon Herald reviews the local production of Jane Eyre.

Impressive has to be an understatement when describing Tread the Boards’ adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, currently playing at Stratford’s Attic Theatre.
Having just written hundreds of thousands of words worth of PhD thesis on Brontë and failed miserably in condensing it I admit I was curious, even slightly sceptical, as to how this Victorian door-stopper could be squeezed into a two-and-a-half-hour production without losing the plot. [...]
Oh me of little faith. Not only did this small but beautifully formed company blow away any reservations I might have had, this fantastic production actually blew me away. It is sophisticated, captivating and ingeniously done.
One major revelation was that never could so few props convey so much information. This visual shorthand was used so cleverly and imaginatively, in much the same vein as Brontë does herself in written form. [...]
Director Andrew Smith admits it was a big ask to bring together seven versatile actors who could sing, play, dance and double up on roles. But his mission is most certainly accomplished, they do, indeed, do each of these things impeccably. They even play most of the live sound effects and compose the songs themselves and, much like the props, these sound elements capture the spirit and storms of Brontë’s atmospheric novel with the slightest touch that is nevertheless loaded with significance.
In short, go and see it. (Sarah Halford)

Quills and Quire features a series of classical novels designed by Ingrid Paulson.

Their plots are as taut as Gillian Flynn’s and their social takes as pointed as Zadie Smith’s. Yet for all their contemporary relevance, classic novels by authors such as Edith Wharton and Emily Brontë too frequently come packaged behind oil-portrait covers with swooping antique fonts.
That disconnect is what inspired Toronto graphic designer Ingrid Paulson to publish such classics in brilliant colours and with spare design elements, channelling a modern European aesthetic. Paulson, whose cover designs include André Alexis’s Fifteen Dogs and Tamara Faith Berger’s Queen Solomon, launched her own Gladstone Press with an ultramodern redesign of Brontë’s Wuthering Heights on July 30, Brontë’s birthday. [...]
The colours are offset by a small bar that showcases the book’s title and gives a glimpse of an etching. The full sketch is revealed as the reader opens the book to the title page. For Wuthering Heights, Paulson found an image of the English moors. [...]
While reissues will be Gladstone Press’s immediate focus, Paulson hopes to one day discover and publish her own contemporary Brontë. “This is the first step in what I hope is not just an experiment,” she says. “I want this to be a full publishing press.” (Ryan Porter)

The Times quotes from Villette in a leading article on how 'online gaming is being cited in divorce petitions as a cause of marital breakdown'.

Lucy Snowe, the protagonist of Charlotte Brontë’s novel Villette, says of her beloved when he is lost at sea: “I thought I loved him when he went away; I love him now in another degree; he is more my own.” The deprivation suffered by people married to online gaming addicts is arguably even greater, since their partners may be physically present but psychologically lost. There is no universal remedy but there is a salutary lesson in the nature of human relationships. It might help to spend less time on the console, and more in bed.

Buried Under Books posts about Lyndsay Faye's Jane Steele. Jane Eyre's Library (in Spanish) features a Chinese/English bilingual edition of Jane Eyre.

Finally, an alert for later today in London as seen on This Is Local London.

Michel Legrand and Royal Philharmonic Orchestra '60 years of music and movies' 
Royal Festival Hall, South Bank London, London, SE1 8XX
18 September
7:30pm to 9:30pm
Legrand's impact on 20th century music cannot be overstated and this once-in-a-lifetime concert celebrates the unforgettable scores from The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, Yentl, Summer of 42, and Wuthering Heights.

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A course and a film

Two alerts for today. September 18:

Tuesday Afternoon at the Bijou: Movies Inspired by the Great American Read
Tuesday, September 18, 2018 (1:00PM – 2:45PM)
Clark County Library
1401 E. Flamingo Rd.
Las Vegas NV 89119

Wuthering Heights (1939, 104 min, NR)
Emily Brontë's classic novel of doomed love in 19th-century England is brought to the screen in a production that stars Laurence Olivier as the brooding Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Catherine.

The WEA Norwich has a Brontës course beginning today:

The Brontës
The Brontë sisters and their work have captured the imagination for over 155 years. This course will consider the plots of these well-loved books as well as the personal, historical and cultural backgrounds of the early nineteenth century, against which they were written.
(NB Problems with room availability mean there will be no class on Tuesday 9 October. The final class will be on Tuesday 4 December)

Tutor: Elizabeth MacDonald
Dates: 10 weeks starting Tuesday 18 September
Times: 10.00 am - 12 noon
Venue: about our venues Kings Centre, King Street, Norwich NR1 1PH

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The world's best loo book

Broadway World Seattle reviews Book-It's take on Jane Eyre.

Well, Dear Readers, this is a first for me. It seems the first Mrs. Rochester got a little over excited and jumped the gun as we had a fire alarm about 20 minutes into opening night of Book-It's "Jane Eyre" and we all were treated to an early intermission and a breath of fresh air. Luckily it quickly resolved itself and we were let back in for the show to pick up where we left off, ironically with Jane discussing the fires of hell with Mr. Brocklehurst. And while Jane does get quite keyed up in that conversation and her subsequent one telling off Mrs. Reed, unfortunately that's about as passionate as our Jane got. [...]
The first person telling of the novel lends itself well to the adaptation from Julie Beckman, who also directed the piece, as Jane is able to lead us through her own story. The problem with that is, while I felt Kang was a good narrator, in that I wanted to listen to the story she was telling, her delivery rarely moved beyond that narration and into passion and Jane is supposed to be all about passion. She just didn't bring in the levels needed to separate the telling of the story with the living of it. And that sapped much of the heart for me.
The rest of the cast seems to not have that issue as even when they're narrating small bits, they have the good fortune of doing so in character and their characters are rich and alive. Destiche manages well the broken man still yearning for love but trapped and you desperately want him to find happiness. And I have to give extra kudos to Ian Bond and Ayo Tushinde who brought in multiple characters, each one more individual and engaging than the last. And I must mention Keiko Green who one moment was a stuck-up society debutant and the next was the creepiest, craziest incarnation of a first wife we could ask for, and I still blame her for the fire alarm.
All told I still enjoyed the play but more for the characters revolving around Jane than anything. And so, with my three-letter rating system, I give Book-It's production of "Jane Eyre" a conflicted YAY-. I'm just glad that first fire didn't get us all. (Jay Irwin)

The Week asks Emma Thompson to pick her 6 favourite funny books by women and one of them is

Texts From Jane Eyre by Mallory Ortberg (Holt, $23). This is the world's best loo book. It appears simple and, like all simple and excellent things, is based on extreme skill and profound understanding.

Leeds List recommends '25 Things to Do in West Yorkshire ASAP' and there was an obvious one:

19. Follow in the footsteps of three of the world’s greatest novelists
Ever wanted to see the moors that inspired Wuthering Heights or the place where the famous Brontë sisters grew up? You can do it all in one day with a trip to Haworth. First, head over to the Haworth Parsonage – it’s been turned into a museum and it’s filled with a treasure trove of letters, papers and early edition novels that will give you a unique glimpse into the sisters’ lives. Afterwards, take a walk to Brontë Falls, Brontë Bridge and the Brontë Stone Chair. (Ali Turner)

Coincidentally, A Lady in London also suggests Yorkshire as one of '9 Places to Find Travel Inspiration from Britain’s Greatest Writers'.

1. The Brontë Sisters – Yorkshire
Given Jane Eyre was one of the first British novels I read as a child, I’ll start with the Brontë sisters. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne lived and wrote in 19th-century Yorkshire and produced some of the most enduring titles in British literature. They’ve long been associated with Haworth in West Yorkshire, where there’s a dedicated Brontë Parsonage Museum in their former family home.
But visiting Haworth on a literary tour of England is just the beginning. The sisters’ novels were set across Yorkshire, not least in the moors that cover much of the region. When I think of Wuthering Heights, images of the moody landscape always fill my mind. A visit to Brontë Country wouldn’t be complete without a circuit of the area.

Herald Sun has a podcast discussing the love for Heathcliff.

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The Brontë Family in Thirlby

An alert for today, September 17:

Thirlby Local History Group
Talk and film show with Isobel Stirk on ‘The Brontë Family’.

It takes place on Monday, September 17 at Thirlby Village Hall at 7.30pm and entry is £3.

(Via Darlington & Stockton Times) 

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Heathcliff Being Emo

Hereford Times announces upcoming performances of We Are Brontë:

Drama comes from Publick Transport with We are Brontë in which Morecambe and Wise meet David Lynch in a madcap reimagining of the Brontë myth. Taking the real and fictitious worlds of Yorkshire's literary siblings as their inspiration, two performers combine rigorous physical theatre with anarchic comedy to deconstruct not only gothic themes of love, madness and revenge, but also themselves.
We Are Brontë can be seen on October 4 at the Conquest Theatre in Bromyard and at Curzon Herrick Hall in Eardisley on October 6. (Philippa May)

Theatre.com and Rewrite This Story review the performances of Wasted in London:

‘Wasted’ is infused with Rock n’ Roll which is the perfect fit with the underlying themes it carries. The stage is a small, raised set of wooden slats into which the characters plug wired microphones which later, cleverly, become props. Writing desks are instrument carry cases, an amplification system becomes the pet dog, and the sisters are seen erratically showering the stage with sheet music which represent the pages of their books. Libby Todd’s authentic 19th Century garb is joined in a satisfying oxymoronic marriage with contemporary hairstyles and chipped nail varnish. The design as a whole has, at times, an essence of Spring Awakening to it and, with the characters interacting and head banging with the band (Kat Bax, Isabel Torres, Nathan Gregory and Joe Bunker) it almost feels as if you are at a rock concert.
There are times when the music feels seamless and disjointed. Even though Ash and Miller have produced a handful of beautiful songs (White Violets, In Five Years Time and (Extra) Ordinary Woman in particular being personal favourites) others seem unnecessary. With a soundtrack clocking up 27 numbers, there is room for ruthless cutting. Having said that, ‘Wasted’ is an exciting and challenging project for a vocalist and it certainly puts the spotlight on Molly Lynch’s versatility as she displays both crisp classical soprano and belted contemporary rock. Natasha Barnes is impeccable casting with a refreshing contemporary vibe and is a striking and utterly believable version of Charlotte Brontë. Siobhan Athwal’s Emily is a body-popping, eye-rolling emo which is, for me, a little too intense and stereotypical at times, however, she is the product of a lot of the comedy moments. (Alexa Terry)

The entire show has a tonne of potential and with tweaks could certainly be a coherent, enjoyable show. However, in it’s current state it feels somewhat self indulgent and the basic story (the girls struggle, eventually get published but feel they have Wasted their lives) is stretched unnecessarily to fill almost three hours.  (...)
Wasted could easily have been performed as two separate shows. Both act one and act two have good starting and finishing points which would make for solid 90 minute straight-through shows but together just felt too much.
Despite it's flaws, it is wonderful to see such an experimental, new, British musical and the cast do an outstanding job of bringing a mischievous, fresh view of the Brontës. (Olivia Mitchell)

The Jane Eyre reference in the first episode of ITV's Strangers is mentioned in The National and The Sunday Times:

By the end of episode one, Jonah’s only crime had been to not pack his mobile phone charger for the necessary trip to the island – an oversight which was crucial for the cliff-hanger ending – and to have defaced a first edition of Jane Eyre with a smoochy inscription to Megan. This was shown to us in flashback.  (Barry Didcock)

Worse, Jonah had given his wife an (entirely incorrect) “first edition” of Jane Eyre, complete with his own inscription — a scene that was almost historically terrible. “I couldn’t resist,” he said, as if he’d picked it up at the service station. (Victoria Segal)

Literature's great couples on Tinder according to The New York Times:

Catherine and Heathcliff
heathcliff: Less than a mile away, huh? ;-)
catherine: Hehe ;-) What're you up to tonight?
heathcliff: Being emo. You?
catherine: Same. (Irving Ruan)

The Daily Beast recalls the (in)famous story of Harriet Beecher Stowe seeing the ghost of Charlotte Brontë:

Despite a strict Calvinist upbringing, Stowe had some experience with the spiritualism that was so popular at the time. According to Springer, Stowe’s husband wrote a pamphlet describing his frequent visitations from tiny fairies that danced on his windowsill and other supernatural creatures, including the devil. So Stowe was perhaps primed when she saw “a cool headed clear minded woman” contact the spirit of Charlotte Brontë via planchette. She wrote to Eliot all about this extraordinary encounter with the writer they mutually admired, enumerating the specifics that in her mind made it clear it was not hoax. Eliot responded politely but skeptically, noting that it seemed “amazing” but also “enormously improbable.” (Amy Shearn)

The rise of TB is discussed in The Guardian:

TB is caused by a bacterium that destroys the tissue in patients’ lungs. The disease is spread when they cough or sneeze and aerosol droplets containing bacteria are breathed in by others. The disease was a major killer in the UK in the 19th and early 20th century. Victims included DH Lawrence, Emily Brontë, Frédéric Chopin and Robert Louis Stevenson. (Robin McKie)

Society19 and things the New York has taught us:

There isn’t just one kind of ‘good writing’
It’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking that the only kind of writing to be successful is that which is remembered for hundreds of thousands of years. If you aren’t a Woolf or a Brontë, it might seem inevitable that you are always going to be nothing more than an adequate writer.
The reality is that there is far more than one way of writing. That’s why alongside the novel we have the short story, works of journalism and so many more. The New Yorker promotes all of these many forms, showcasing not just one type of good writing but all of its guises. (Charlotte Stevenson)

Le Monde interviews the writer David Foenkinos:

Là, j'ai commencé par les trois livres préférés d'une très bonne amie (dont Martin Eden, de Jack London, et Jane Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë). Puis, je suis devenu boulimique : Dostoïevski, Auster, Kundera, Miller... (Pascale Krémer) (Translation)

If Mermaids Wore Suspenders compares Rubblebucket's song If U C My Enemies with Wuthering Heights. Matt Doyle Media Dot Com interviews the writer Natalina Reis:

Q-Do you like reading and what’s your favorite book?
N- That has to be the worst question to ask a bookworm like me. I’ve lived inside the pages of books my whole life so I couldn’t possibly tell you one title. I’ll give you a classic, a contemporary, and a YA (which I read a lot). Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Distant Hours by Kate Morton, and The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson.

Yours Truly, Shell lists and comments several Jane Eyre quotes.

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Writers' Cribs

The Paris Review Magazine Fall issue includes an excerpt of from Bibliophile: An Illustrated Miscellany, by Jane Mount

Bibliophile
An Illustrated Miscellany
Illustrated by Jane Mount
Chronicle Books
Publication: September 2018
ISBN: 9781452167237

The ultimate gift for book lovers, this volume brims with literary treasures, all delightfully illustrated by beloved artist and founder of Ideal Bookshelf, Jane Mount.
Book lovers, rejoice! In this love letter to all things bookish, Jane Mount brings literary people, places, and things to life through her signature and vibrant illustrations. 

Writers' Cribs: The Brontës

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë moved into the Haworth Parsonage in West Yorkshire when their father, Patrick, a priest and poet, was appointed there in 1820.
When Patrick Brontë died (he outlived all of his children) in 1861, the contents of the family home were auctioned off. Decades later, in 1893, at a librarian’s insistence that the artifacts be collected and preserved, the Brontë Society was founded and began gathering Brontë treasures.
Even though the Brontë sisters grew up seeing their name on book spines at home (Patrick was a published poet), they published their first work together, a collection of poems, under the (male) pseudonyms of Currer (Charlotte), Ellis (Emily), and Acton (Anne) Bell. Three copies of the book were sold.
After being in private collections for more than a century, the mahogany desk Charlotte wrote from was acquired for twenty thousand pounds and donated to the museum in 2011.
In 2015, the large mahogany drop-leaf table all the sisters used was purchased by the museum with a grant of five hundred eighty thousand pounds. In a diary entry from 1837, Emily sketches the table, showing Anne and herself working at it.

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