Pesthuset och andra pjäserSeveral reviews mention the Brontë piece:
Mare Kandre
Edited by Charlott Neuhauser
Publisher: Ellerströms
ISBN 978-91-7247-475-8
Mare Kandre fick efter sin för tidiga död närmast mytisk status. Hennes starka romaner och berättelser fortsätter att inspirera och påverka läsare men som dramatiker är hon tämligen okänd. Genom denna utgåva introduceras Kandre för första gången i bokform som dramatiker. Utgåvan innehåller fem efterlämnade pjäser: den lekfulla Fyra röster, den existentiellt laddade Vilse, den uppsluppet satiriska Poeten och Kritikern, den mardrömslika titel-pjäsen Pesthuset och den klaustrofobiska Tre veckor på jorden som korsar Beckett-stämning med gotisk fantasi.
Hur vågade Mare Kandre ta sig an syskonen Brontë, den engelskspråkiga litteraturens obestridliga genier? Hon gör det i en pjäs, troligen skriven innan den sensationella debuten med ”I ett annat land”, när hon bara var strax över tjugo fyllda. Då hade hon också hunnit ge ut ett par LP-skivor som rocksångerska, samt tecknat serier (utgivna förra året i boken ”Punkserier”).
Pjäsen ”Fyra röster” inleder den bok som nu utges, ”Pesthuset och andra pjäser”, och skiljer sig från de andra. Den följer tätt syskonen Brontë i spåren, främst Emily, och hennes ambivalenta oro för brodern Branwells tilltagande alkoholism och dess följdsjukdomar. Kandre följer var och en av syskonen, ger dem individuella plågor, individuella röster. (Björn Kolström in Jönköpings-Posten) (Translation)
Inledande ”Fyra röster”, där hon blixtbelyser de fyra syskonen Brontës symbiotiska och tröstlösa liv på en vindpiskad hed i 1840-talets Yorkshire strax innan brodern Branwells död, är av allt att döma snarare en skiss än en färdig pjäs. Texten utvecklas aldrig till ett ”drama” utan är fyra mer eller mindre separata monologer, förvillande lika varandra i tonläge och affekt. Den mest berömda systern Charlottes ord – ”Jag skall skriva mig härifrån. Skriva mig ut! Skriva mig bort! Kosta vad det kosta vill!” – har lika mycket bäring på Brontë-systrarna som på Kandre själv. (Martin Lagerholm in Blekinge Läns Tidning) (Translation)
5 Jane EyreExpress & Star reviews Rebecca Vaughan's one-woman adaptation:
It is your very last chance for Sally Cookson’s passionate staging of Charlotte Brontë’s much-loved novel, which has returned to the NT for one last bow. This is an evening full of theatrical invention and one that proves that it is possible to be true to the spirit of a novel without being in the slightest bit literary. It’s also a show that demonstrates that page-to-stage adaptation doesn’t have to be theatre’s poor cousin.
National Theatre: Lyttelton, SE1, to 21 October
Her ‘I will not settle’ attitude that sees her survive a tumultuous childhood and seek her own path should be admired. In an age where women were for the most part expected to shut up and do as they were told she let her spirit guide her.A testament to the novel's success is of course how it's used for metaphors in all sorts of subjects, such as New Zealand politics today as seen on Stuff:
And that is what makes this, a one-woman play acted out by the powerhouse that is Rebecca Vaughan (there is absolutely no way we would remember all those lines), a very intimate yet enlightening tale.
It’s told as if Jane is talking to her diary. Or perhaps in conversation with pals as she often refers to the audience as ‘friends’. We hear her whole life story through her eyes.
Her dalliances with the other characters in the book are played out through a succession of voices.
All the males have the same tone; the females are given one of two – down to earth northern youngster or old crone.
Jane Eyre is one of the best-known books ever put to paper. Charlotte Bronte’s tale of an orphan overcoming various obstacles in childhood and growing into a no-nonsense, independent woman who just wants true love with Mr Rochester has been retold a thousand times.
But very few reincarnations can have been like this. Single-handedly, Rebecca portrays every show of emotion and draws you into Jane’s inner thoughts. Who she loves. Who she loathes.
The scarier moments in her life are commentated in real time which grows the kind of tension seen in an Alfred Hitchcock movie.
And testament to Rebecca is how she holds you. Almost 90 minutes is a long time to hold a group of people’s attention. But she does, and you are still with her at the conclusion of Jane’s story to see if she gets her happy ending.
All the twists and turns of the novel are included, and a few in-jokes while facing the audience pleased fans and brought chuckles.
It was a gripping adaptation of what is a well-trodden path. (Leigh Sanders)
Since the Metiria Turei wrong-footing, Labour has had to keep the Greens in a back room like Grace Poole (Jane Eyre) managing the imprisonment of Mr Rochester's crazy first wife. And we all know how that incarceration turned out, Mrs Rochester eventually breaking free of her shackles to burn down the house, leaving her spouse horribly disfigured and blind.News Advance interviews Liberty University professor and author Karen Swallow Prior.
But the burning question in this crew member's mind was, upon hearing that during coalition talks Shaw took shore leave and went to the movies, what flick did the Green take in? James and the Giant Peach or Anne of Green Gables? (Jane Bowron)
Of course, as an English professor, I think books are always worth thinking and reading about — the good ones, anyway. And a lot of what I write about in my memoir is drawn from what I teach about these classic works such as “Great Expectations,” “Jane Eyre,” “Charlotte’s Web” and “Death of a Salesman,” whether in the classroom or in conversations with my students. People have said that reading “Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me” is like stepping into a literature classroom. That’s because the way I write in the book is the way I teach. I teach these books because I love them. And I want the students, whom I also love, to love them, too. (Casey Gillis)BBC News reports that the daughter of Bradford-born playwright Andrea Dunbar would like to see a memorial of her mother:
Adelle Stripe, the author of the novel Black Teeth and a Brilliant Smile, which was based on Dunbar's life, said: "There is a blue plaque on her house at Brafferton Arbor in Buttershaw but there isn't anything that tells us Andrea was from this city in the city centre.Nick Holland writes about 'Smelling Salts: A Link Between Anne and Maria Brontë' on AnneBrontë.org.
"You see images of David Hockney, Priestley, The Brontës, Delius, Titus Salt, but there is nothing to indicate that [she] came from Bradford and hopefully that's something we can change in the future."
Today, October 16, begins a new chance to listen to the 2004 radio adaptation of Jane Eyre by the recently deceased Sally Marmion:Jane Eyre (15 parts of 15 minutes)This week's episodes are
With Anne-Marie Duff
BBC Radio 4 Extra - Monday to Friday, 14.00 h / 02:00 h
Episode 1Lonely, ignored and ill-treated, the orphaned Jane Eyre is growing up at Gateshead.
When she arrives at Thornfield Hall, it's not only the presence of Mr Rochester that she finds unsettling...
Episode 2Freed from the humiliations inflicted by her aunt, Jane hopes for a new beginning.
Episode 3Her ambitions crushed at the Institute for Orphans, Jane's hopes are restored by friendship.
Episode 4Jane has a new home, Thornfield Hall, and meets her new employer for the first time.
Episode 5Jane learns a little of Mr Rochester's past and comes to his aid for the second time.
It has many of the facilities associated with small or even medium-sized towns and a profile to match, but the Brontë village of Haworth remains just that... a village.We don't really agree with this comment on Bustle:
Nestled in the Worth Valley in the eastern Pennines, Haworth has a population of just over 6,000, but on a sunny day in summer the number is multiplied several fold as tourists swarm into Main Street. (...)
The attractions are the cobbled Main Street itself and the Brontë Parsonage Museum, the perfectly preserved 18th century house in which Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë spent most of their lives. (...)
The village has been gentrified in recent years but retains its period charm. Main Street is a jumble of little cafes and shops, many selling handmade crafts and bric-a-brac and others named after the novels and characters created at the parsonage.
At the peak of the season, the junction by the red telephone box, where Main Street meets West Lane can be as crowded as Piccadilly Circus. And each spring, the village hosts a 1940s-themed “wartime weekend”, which attracts around 25,000, many in period costume.
However, the visitor experience is unlikely to be helped by Bradford Council’s decision to close the village’s two public toilets next year, local councillor Rebecca Poulsen believes.
“It’s absolutely crazy, she said. “The council claims to be fully behind tourism and then it does something like this. They wanted to close the tourist information centre too, but the Brontë Society has agreed to take that over.” (David Behrens)
After all, a lot of our most “pretentious” literature used to be good old fashioned pop culture garbage. Shakespeare was wildly popular with the common folk back in his day, and derided for his lack of education. The Brontë sisters were considered the scandalous authors of trashy romance novels. (Klopa Robin)Pseudonyms in Business Recorder:
A trend reflecting the prevailing sexism of the time saw many accomplished female writers publish their work under masculine names: George Eliot's real name was Mary Ann Evans, George Sand was Aurore Dupin and the Brontë sisters were first published as Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Lately, partly because of female readers becoming more important to the market for new writing, there has been a trend towards gender neutral pen names. (Franck Iovene)The Hans India on sequels:
Was Phineas Fogg content with his routine lifestyle after his round-the-world trip? What was the subsequent life of Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet like? (Dr K Srinivasa Rao)The Telegraph (India) describes like this the novel Elmet by Fiona Mozley:
The landscape is Wuthering Heights, the setting a post-Thatcher How Green Is My Valley, and the climax as bloody as a Jacobean play.In a way, the same topic is discussed by Berner Zeitung (in German) in an interview with Zadie Smith:
Ähnlich war es bei der britischen Autorin Charlotte Brontë. Als diese Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts «Jane Eyre» publizierte, zog das Buch eine Welle von Romanen nach sich, die auf die weibliche Erfahrung fokussierten. «Es ist ein grosses Geschenk, das Schreibende einander geben können.» Ein neuer Blickwinkel tue sich auf. (Anne-Sophie Scholl) (Translation)The Sisters' Room interviews Marianna D'Ezio, Italian translator of Jane Eyre. Les Soeurs Brontë (in French) proposes an alternate possibility for the alleged Landseer portrait of the Brontës, she suggests that it may be it the work of the artist's sister Jessica.
A Brontë reference in the last episode of SEAL Team (S01E03):Boarding Party
Written by Spencer Hudnutt
Directed by Christopher Chulack
Stella: What's this? Villette by Charlotte Bronte. Nice. Actually wrote my...Via TVFanatic:
Clay: Your thesis on it. You're a hell of a writer.
Stella: Is this a first edition?
Clay: No. You know, now-now's actually, probably a good time for me to tell you how little I make.
Post apology, Clay goes on a highly successful date with Stella. Proving that he’s smart enough to be a SEAL, he has read her thesis on Charlotte Brontë’s Villette.
Between this and some strategically delivered flowers, Clay earns SEAL Team’s first love scene, and it’s a doozy. There’s even a hint of chemistry there. I also appreciate that the writers went a little deeper than Jane Eyre for their Brontë reference. (Melissa Marshall)
A Keighley charity which provides much needed support for people with cancer is preparing an important fundraising walk for its activities this autumn.The Newcastle Chronicle reports the return to England of the only known sketchbook of Thomas Bewick:
Keighley and Airedale Cancer Support is based in New Devonshire House and one of its members, Clare Taylor, is organising a "Withens Welly Walk". (...)
The trek takes place on Saturday November 11, with participants meeting at the Old Sun Hotel, 79 West Lane, Haworth.
There will be two route options. The first is a 7.6 mile walk to Top Withens and back and the second a shorter five-mile walk to the Brontë Waterfalls and back. (Miran Rahman)
The only known sketchbook of the celebrated Northumbrian engraver and naturalist Thomas Bewick has come home after surfacing in San Francisco in the United States. (...)The New York Times asks several journalists and authors about 'what they learnt from horror movies':
The event will be the launch of a new book which reproduces the sketches, with a commentary by leading Bewick scholar and author Nigel Tattersfield, who will be attending. Thomas Bewick: The Sketchbook 1792-99, is published by London antiquarian booksellers Jarndyce at £85 in a limited edition of 200 copies, and has been designed by another prominent Bewick authority, Iain Bain.(...)
A History of British Birds came in two volumes, on land birds and water birds, and is repeatedly mentioned in Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre. (Tony Henderson)
I love how often horror-movie monsters can become allegorical stand-ins for what scares us. Back in high school, I came across the 1943 movie “I Walked With a Zombie,” and was floored by how this suspense movie dealt with repression, fear and racism. It caught my attention because my family is from a Caribbean island, and I grew up with stories about Santería.The Australian discusses the current Man Booker Prize Shortlist, including:
Loosely based on “Jane Eyre,” the movie follows a nurse who is hired to care for the catatonic wife of a wealthy sugar plantation owner in the Caribbean. “I Walked With a Zombie” is upfront about the island’s tragic history of slavery and the slave trade, even as some of its white characters would rather minimize their unsavory past to focus on the romantic melodrama. (Mónica Castillo)
Despite the outward differences between the two books, Elmet draws some of its energy from the same questions about national identity and nationhood that animate Autumn, taking its title from the ancient kingdom that was celebrated by Ted Hughes in The Remains of Elmet, as well as invoking the Brontës and others. (James Bradley)Princeton Times links together WalMart Stores, Jane Eyre and Dracula:
Just last week, I trotted out to purchase fabric. I have been commissioned to create capes for a trip to the local Renaissance Fair. The college teen offered my sewing skills to her friends, and now, I am making crushed-velvet capes for several. I can't really remember when a good cape wasn't in style, though. We had Halloween capes growing up. Count von Count, from Sesame Street has a really, cool cape. All the Dracula movies have capes. Heroines from the Jane Eyre movies have capes in which to pine and swoon. (Fawn Musick)The Sunday Times discusses the latest poetry collection by Jackie Kay, Bantam:
There are poems about war, and our memories of war, channelled through memorials and family stories. There are verses about bereavement, the Brontës, about Brexit, and some very funny lines dedicated to Nigel Farage. (Mike Wade)The Irish Times reviews the novel Devil's Day by Andrew Michael Hurley:
In the same way that Emily Brontë allowed the Yorkshire moors to become a character unto themselves in Wuthering Heights, Hurley’s depiction of the hills and grasslands of Lancashire takes on an anthropomorphic quality, representing a place removed from the outside world, a timeless land with its own rules and laws.BroadwayWorld interviews David Armstrong, director of The Secret Garden, now being performed in Houston:
What was your approach for staging a brand new staging of The Secret Garden? (Alan Henry)BT.com lists several of the Gunpowder filming locations, including:
The design team and I were inspired by the gothic aspects of the original novel. Frances Hodgson Burnett was consciously echoing Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and other gothic stories.
Fans of Wuthering Heights may recognise East Riddlesden Hall (below), a Grade I-listed National Trust-owned property in Keighley, West Yorkshire. The hall has foundations dating as far back as 973 and was used in adaptations of Wuthering Heights in both 1992 and again in 2009. The National Trust took over the deeds of the site in 1934. (Chris Laker)Steinbach opens an article about the Mennonite Heritage Village (Manitoba, Canada) with an Anne Brontë quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
“A light wind swept over the corn, and all of nature laughed in the sunshine.” - Anne BrontëLa Verdad (Spain) interviews several local writers on the role of women in literature:
El Día de las Escritoras impulsado por la BNE -se festeja el primer lunes posterior al 15 de octubre, onomástica de Santa Teresa de Jesús-, piensan las autoras murcianas, reunidas por 'La Verdad', es una apuesta importante en la lucha por la visibilidad de aquellas autoras olvidadas, pero no debe ser un acto puntual, sino una constante que hay que convertir, apunta Cerezo, en «cotidianeidad». «Hemos avanzado bastante desde las hermanas Brontë, pero queda todavía mucho por hacer», cree [Dionisia] García. (Rosa Martínez) (Translation)And Enpositivo (in Spanish) lists books written by women that should be read by men:
Jane Eyre (1847) – Charlotte BrontëFrom First Page to Last interviews the writer Carol Lovekin:
Mientras en el siglo XIX la figura de la mujer huérfana, soltera y trabajadora siempre era descrita desde la visión paternalista, Charlotte Brontë desvela otra realidad vivida directamente desde la parte femenina. Se ambienta en la Inglaterra victoriana y muestra cómo esta figura en realidad era luchadora y valiente, y no desvalida y victimista. (Aiste Bereckyte) (Translation)
If you could only read one book for the rest of your life which book would it be?The Doctor Who Companion lists several of Peter Davison's guest appearances, including his Lockwood in Wuthering Heights 1998. Guaripete, needabook and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books review the Aline McKenna & Ramón Pérez's Jane graphic novel. Littlebutfierce7 reviews the National Theatre's performances of Jane Eyre.
Wow! Now that is a question! It’s a choice between Jane Eyre and To Kill a Mockingbird. Ideally it would be something by Virginia Woolf – who I admire beyond rubies – but goodness me, she had a thing about paragraphs (the lack thereof!) I’d go blind if all I had to read for the rest of my life was Mrs Dalloway – marvellous though it is.
Book Club: A Comedy ShowAnd, according to the New York Times, today's show is all about Wuthering Heights:
Conner O'Malley, Catherine Cohen, Alexandra Song, Saurin Choksi, Blythe Roberson, Colin Stokes
Union Hall, Brooklyn NY
Sat · October 14, 2017
Doors: 7:30 pm / Show: 8:00 pm
Book Club is a comedy variety show where hosts Colin Stokes and Blythe Roberson (The New Yorker, The Onion), along with some of NYC's best comedians, read the books so you don't have to.
This regular series has all the fun parts of being in a book club without the work of actually reading a book. This week, Colin Stokes and Blythe Roberson, whose names you may recognize from their work in The Onion and The New Yorker, welcome the comedians Conner O’Malley, Catherine Cohen and Saurin Choksi to discuss the latest selection, “Wuthering Heights.” (Kasia Pilat)
The Brontë Society of Japan annual conference 2017 will be held in Tokyo today, 14 October:★開会の辞 9:50 元川村学園女子大学教授 田 中 淑 子
★研究発表 10:00～12:00
司会 青山学院大学教授 緒 方 孝 文
1. 「なぜヒロインは＜空色＞を選ぶのか」
大阪市立西高等学校教諭 音 部みはる
2. 「Branwell Brontëの2つの伝記」
日本大学准教授 兼 中 裕 美
司会 東北大学名誉教授 鈴 木 美津子
3. 「Villetteにおけるルーシー・スノウの憂鬱――19世紀的女性の身体からの解放としての病」
東京大学大学院博士課程 馬 場 理 絵
4. 「シャーロット・ブロンテの執筆スタイル：『シャーリー』を中心に」
昭和女子大学教授 金 子 弥 生
★講演 14:00～15:00 司会 元近畿大学教授 清 水伊津代
演題 「ブランウェルは第四の小説家になりえたか？――その可能性と不可能性を探る」
京都大学教授 廣 野由美子
★シンポジウム 15:10～17:20 「ブランウェルの人と芸術」
司会・発題者 大阪大谷大学教授 服 部 慶 子
発題者 神戸大学非常勤講師 宮 川 和 子
発題者 神戸親和女子大学非常勤講師 後 中 陽 子
発題者 神戸市看護大学准教授 山 内
理 惠
★閉会の辞 17:20 金沢大学名誉教授 藤 田 繁
・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・・
★懇親会 18:00 ～ 20:00 於 中央大学 1 号館 1410 室 会費 5,000 円
司会 東京芸術大学准教授 侘美真理 (Translation)
The National Theatre are currently presenting Jane Eyre in uniquely acclaimed fashion, with Sally Cookson’s popular adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece set to a wide range of musical arrangements - including a surprising cover version or two.While My Theatre Mates highlights a quote from Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre text:
But what do the cast and band members themselves listen to to get into performance mode? We posed our Playlists challenge to Melanie Marshall, the superb vocalist who plays Bertha in the show, and the band behind the music: Matt, Alex and Dave (who themselves have their own band [called Branwell]).
Based on everything from first public performances to guilty pleasures, their stories, told through music as like Jane Eyre's, are fascinating. (Robin Johnson)
“A drone. The musicians and ensemble enter and take positions around the stage. Jane enters alone, walks along the gantry and down the ramp on to the stage. She makes the cry of a newborn baby.” – Sally Cookson’s Jane EyreLitHub shares part of the introduction to Emily Midorikawa and Emma Sweeney's book A Secret Sisterhood: The Literary Friendships of Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, George Eliot, and Virginia Woolf.
But while these male duos have gone down in history, the world’s most celebrated female authors are mythologized as solitary eccentrics or isolated geniuses. The Jane Austen of popular imagination is a genteel spinster, modestly covering her manuscript with blotting paper when anyone enters the room. Charlotte Brontë is cast as one of three long-suffering sisters, scribbling away in a drafty parsonage on the edge of the windswept moors. George Eliot is remembered as an aloof intellectual who shunned conventional Victorian ladies. And Virginia Woolf haunts the collective memory as a depressive, loading her pockets with stones before stepping into the River Ouse. [...]The Washington Post has a selection of 'Ghastly Halloween gifts for the literary witch or warlock in your life' including
Like her predecessor Jane, Charlotte Brontё is rarely imagined outside her apparently narrow world—in her case, the Yorkshire village where she dwelt with her literary siblings. But we’d learn that she enjoyed a lively friendship with the pioneering feminist writer Mary Taylor, whom she had met at boarding school in 1831. From frictions during these early days, to daring adventures abroad as young women, to a shock announcement from Mary, these two weathered many storms. Their relationship paints a picture of two courageous individuals, groping to find a space for themselves in the rapidly changing Victorian world.
As in the case of Jane Austen and Anne Sharp, surviving correspondence between Charlotte and Mary is similarly limited. Frustratingly, in this case Mary was the one who destroyed almost all missives from her friend “in a fit of caution,”[i] to protect the women’s reputations. But mentions of Mary litter Charlotte’s wider communications, and that of other individuals close to this pair. And when, after the death of Charlotte, another literary friend, Elizabeth Gaskell, was working on the first biography of the famous novelist, Mary sent her pages of recollections. It was Mary’s hope that The Life of Charlotte Brontё could become a vehicle for her own anger at the social restrictions she felt had held Charlotte back throughout her life. But to the forward-thinking Mary’s dismay, Elizabeth, mindful of Victorian notions of propriety, instead portrayed Charlotte as a compliant, saintly figure who suffered her many hardships with acceptance. Stung by the experience, Mary often refused to cooperate with the requests of future biographers. This reticence allowed a more socially acceptable, but less fully-rounded image of Charlotte to emerge. Meanwhile the importance of Mary’s influence on Charlotte’s writing has been allowed to slip away—something that our exploration of their friendship has tried to address.
Literary Witches (Seal, $20). It’s an enchanted anthology of 30 great female writers — from Anais Nin to Zora Neale Hurston. Each one is captured in a folkloric illustration by Katy Horan and then, on the facing page, illuminated with a bewitching description by Taisia Kitaiskaia.The Daily Mail reviews the book on Daphne Du Maurier Manderley Forever by Tatiana de Rosnay.
These mini biographies — “the hexen text” — are more witchopedia than wikipedia. Kitaiskaia boils each writer down to three invocations, weaving historical facts with her own surreal visions. Emily Brontë, for instance, “Watcher of the Moors, Fantasy, and Cruel Romance,” “makes a telescope from ice and twine. Though this tunnel, she stares into her own eye until she sees a galaxy, and through the galaxy until she sees a stranger’s eye.” (Ron Charles)
As soon as Daphne could decipher the alphabet, she read voraciously, from Peter Rabbit to the Romantic poets and the novels of her paternal grandfather, artist, writer and Paris-dweller, George du Maurier. Dickens, Scott, Wilde and the Brontës followed. Then her ultimate writer’s pash — Katherine Mansfield. (Ginny Dougary)There's a new definition of Gothic in The Globe and Mail:
Although many of Mr. Schott's pieces are classically elegant – the dining table is a glass ovoid on a pearly white base – there is another impulse at work: the gothic. Not "gothic" like Wuthering Heights or eighties teen culture, but gothic in our moment, the era of Rick Owens, Kanye West and Blade Runner 2049. Think: macho, grotesque, seductive. (Simon Lewsen)The Los Angeles Review of Books' blog Avidly discusses 'Heathcliff's Amours' and is an article well worth reading. Writergurlny features Linton Heathcliff. Books N Me posts about Jane Eyre.
Saturday 14 October 2017
Room P61, Université Saint-Louis, Rue du Marais 119, 1000 Brussels
11.00: Talk by Professor John Sutherland:
An hour’s worth of Brontë puzzles
Entrance charge: Non-members €10, members €
Sunday, 15 October, 2017
As usual we are organising a guided walk around Brontë-related places.
It starts at 10.00 in the Place Royale area and lasts around two hours.
Hotbuckle Productions, a theatre company renowned for bring great works of fiction to the stage, look to achieve a similar feat when they bring Emily Brontë’s classic novel, Wuthering Heights, to The Ramor stage. (...)The Telegraph & Argus announces some of the events of next year's Bradford Literary Festival:
Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story set on the windswept Yorkshire moors, of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries.
Hotbuckle bringing their special magic to this wonderful tale and spend much of this month touring around Ireland before they return to the UK. If you want to see this unique show then toddle along to The Ramor on October 14. the show starts at 8:00pm.
Next year’s festival will run from June 29 to July 8. Although the programme is still in development, the 2018 festival will see the launch of the highly anticipated Brontë Stones Project, which will see stones carved with poetry celebrating the literary family placed at locations in the district significant to the siblings, starting at their birthplace in Thornton. (Chris Young)A series of talks/events at the Midtown Reader (Tallahassee, FL) bookstore is reported in American Booksellers Association:
Midtown Reader’s “Read to Lead” series, which features important community figures talking about the books that shaped them as people and as leaders, provides the Tallahassee, Florida, bookstore with a unique opportunity to promote and sell a variety of backlist titles. (...)A Slate Dear Prudence story includes this reference to Jane Eyre:
In September, the store invited Diane Roberts, a Florida State University writing professor, NPR commentator, and author of the 2015 book Tribal: College Football and the Secret Heart of America (Harper), to discuss the written word’s power to change lives and the books that shaped her own, including A Wrinkle in Time by Madeline L’Engle (Square Fish), Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison (Vintage Books), Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (Penguin Classics), End Zone by Don DeLillo (Penguin Books), The Crying of Lot 49 by Thomas Pynchon (Harper Perennial), and the 1946 children’s book The Lion’s Paw by Robb White (A.W. Ink). (Liz Button)
He was so drunk at the rehearsal that I had to hold him up as we walked down the aisle, and he made jokes about disrupting the ceremony to object. (This wasn't part of the ceremony, because we're not in a Brontë novel.) (Mallory Ortberg)The Yorkshire Post interviews Gregory Orr, grandson of Jack Warner:
Who remembers Devotion, the story of the Brontë sisters with Olivia De Havilland as Charlotte and Ida Lupino as Emily? Not a foot of film was shot outside Los Angeles. The New York Times review described it as “a ridiculous tax upon reason and an insult to plain intelligence”, which shows that even the omniscient moguls sometimes got it catastrophically wrong.Vogue interviews the actress Daisy Ridler:
Orr laughs when he recalls that the film had no chance of authenticity: it’s resemblance to 19th century Yorkshire was merely accidental and, like 1939’s Wuthering Heights, in which a California ranch stood in for the moors.
“The director [Curtis Bernhardt] fought with Olivia De Havilland. He was rather high-handed. Others said she was obstreperous. There was something not going right and they delayed it by several years. It might not have been a Warner Bros. movie in the sense that the studio executives didn’t understand it enough to make it into a good movie. It was made under the studio system where everything was made on the back lot; my grandfather hated anybody going on location. It didn’t match enough the people making it to make it into a successful movie.”
Maybe the timing was wrong. Perhaps Jack Warner, a septuagenarian sentimentalist who had long passed over the crime dramas of the past in favour of lighter fare, might have made the ultimate Brontë drama had he lived long enough. Orr’s laughter reveals his doubts.
“He was a slow reader. Getting through a novel was difficult for him. He said, ‘If it’s too long to read on the toilet, it’s too long’. I’m sorry to say it, but does that sum it up?” (Tony Earnshow)
She was, and still is, a voracious reader—“I rarely saw her without a book,” says Branagh, who directed her in Murder on the Orient Express—and she recently asked her mother to give her a list of classics, which she’s now making her way through. (Current title: The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, by Anne Brontë.) (Gaby Wood)Keighley News reports the discovery of a body in a car fire in Penistone Hill Country Park, Haworth:
Officers were called to the country park – a popular beauty spot and a scene for filming of last year’s BBC Brontë biopic To Walk Invisible – at 7.28am on Monday. (Miran Rahman)Indie-Zone (in Italian) reviews the Sofia Coppola film The Beguiled:
“The Beguiled” è un film girato con grande classe ed esperienza, non è il lavoro migliore della regista, ma è il suo miglior film dai tempi di “Lost in Translation”. Ispirato all’originale, con aperti richiami a “Ritratto di Signora”, a “Picnic ad Hanging Rock”, ad Hitchcock (“Il sospetto”, “Rebecca la prima moglie”) e con la forza delle sorelle Brontë, è un film da vedere; forse lo amerà di più un pubblico femminile, ma è dedicato a uomini che amano e, soprattutto, che odiano le donne. (Il Demente Colombo) (Translation)ActuaBD (in French) reviews the Trisagion trilogy ( Shiki Mizuchi & Bancha Shibano):
En effet, le manga, achevé en trois tomes, se structure autour de trois grandes histoires, chacune mettant en scène un Nihile particulier, inspiré à chaque fois d’une célèbre œuvre littéraire : Les Hauts de Hurlevent, Sweeney Todd et Le Portrait de Dorian Gray. (Guillaume Bautet) (Translation)Svenska Dagbladet talks about the work of Ebba Witt-Brattström:
Så finns det några motvapen? Jo, "systerskapet som politiskt verktyg" är en metod Witt-Brattström utövar med glädjet. Fran Sapfo via den heliga Birgitta, Charlotte Brontë, Selma Lagerlof och Moa Martinson till Elena Ferrante och Beyoncé är hon fotbollscoach boken igenom, en som jublar och hejar på sina spelare med tillrop som "yes" och "wow". (Clara Bock) (Translation)Neue Westfälische (in German) describes the bookshelves of local people:
Sie mag Fantasy, darunter die „Twilight"-Saga, in der sie Parallelen zu „Jane Eyre" sieht. Sylke Pilk ist sicher, dass ihre Begeisterung für den Film „Tanz der Vampire" in jungen Jahren auch ihren literarischen Geschmack geprägt hat.Zu ihren persönlichen Highlights gehört auch „Jane Eyre" von Charlotte Brontë, „Sturmhöhe" dagegen weniger. „Die Charaktere sind mir zu verdorben", sagt sie. (Translation)The Bluestocking Salon posts about Wuthering Heights. An article by Elena Lago, "Rain, Wind and Sunshine Between the Pages of the Brontë Sisters" in The Sisters' Room.
An alert for today, October 12:Literary Lunch: Jane Eyre Turns 170
Litquake. San Francisco Literary Festival
Thursday, October 12 • 12:30pm - 1:30pm
Mechanics' Institute Library 57 Post St., San Francisco CA 94104
This brown bag lunch features Mallory Ortberg (The Toast, Texts From Jane Eyre), speaking on the continued popularity and relevance of Charlotte Brontë’s classic Gothic-Victorian novel. First published in 1847 under the byline “Currer Bell,” Jane Eyre revolutionized the art of fiction, and although criticized as anti-Christian, was eventually praised for its fearless exploration of the themes of classism, sexuality, religion, an
d feminism. FREE
KinderGuides Early Learning Guide to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre
by Melissa Medina and Fredrik Colting
Illustrations by Madalina Andronic
Age Range: 4 - 8 years
Grade Level: Preschool - 3
Moppet Books (October 1, 2017)
ISBN-13: 978-0998820507
Orphans, attic ghosts and afternoon tea all come together in our illustrated learning guide to Jane Eyre. As we follow our heroine, Jane, from childhood to womanhood, we see her brilliance shine as she learns how to love and be loved. Fantastically illustrated, we also explore the life of author, Charlotte Brontë, and the Victorian era in which this classic love story is set.
More than picture books, our educational learning guides offer an interactive story time for adult literature fans and their children, or as we like to call them – future lit fans.
Britain’s top TV hiker Julia Bradbury stepped into Haworth to film her latest ITV series.Daily O (India) reviews Ruskin Bond's Confessions of a Book Lover:
Staff from the Brontë Parsonage Museum accompanied Julia as she shot an episode of Britain’s Favourite Walks.
They walked together to the Brontë Waterfall, near Stanbury, for a picnic lunch before continuing on to Top Withens with Ben Myers, the author of Heathcliff Adrift.
Rebecca Yorke, head of communications at the museum in Haworth, said: “The walk to Top Withens from Haworth is a very popular route with our visitors and we are delighted that it has made it into Britain’s Favourite Walks.
“The programme will be aired in the spring and will be a great addition to our celebrations for Emily’s bicentenary next year.”
The programme celebrates the UK’s most-loved walking routes.
In 2018 Emily Brontë will become the third Brontë sibling to be the subject of 200th birthday celebrations, following Charlotte and Branwell’s bicentennials in 2016 and 2017. (David Knights)
When we encounter Bond's experience of reading Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights, we can identify with it completely. It gripped him and he read it through a stormy night when he was a youngster. He read it again this year just to see whether it would hold him in thrall the same way. And he discovered that it did! Emily, "the most gifted of the three Brontë sisters, in her brief tenure on this earth, had put everything into this one sizzling novel and left it behind to haunt posterity" he writes.This columnist from The Chronicle of Higher Education tells about finding Wuthering Heights at the right moment:
However, he does not give us an extract from Wuthering Heights: "You have to take it in one large dose, preferably late at night." (Jaskiran Chopra)
When I was in college, I could never finish Wuthering Heights. I knew that Emily Brontë was supposed to be (is!) a great writer, and I liked her sisters’ novels well enough, but could not make my way through this book. It was pretty annoying. Then, at some point, I was at a friend’s place for the weekend, and they had a different edition of Wuthering Heights than the tight, crowded discount paperback I’d been failing to read well. The clouds lifted, I was absorbed, and felt better about the universe and my place in it. (Jason B. Jones)Clearly, though, this other columnist from Medium hasn't yet encountered Jane Eyre at the right time:
I used to blame Charlotte Brontë for my dislike of reading. I thought that being forced to read Jane Eyre and other “literary classics” against my will was what soured me on reading. (Jake Wilder)The Spinoff (New Zealand) features Fiona Mozley’s Elmet and finds a possible Brontë reference:
There are three characters central to the story: Cathy (possibly referencing the one who smashed windows yelling ‘I am Heathcliff’), her brother Daniel (the narrator) and their father who we generally know as Daddy. (Linda Burgess)The New York Times features The Letters of Sylvia Plath and here's how her husband Ted Hughes is described:
The other great, governing hunger in her life was for a leading man, a colossus, which she found in Hughes, the hulking Heathcliff of her dreams. (Parul Sehgal)Fosters makes an interesting point:
Without an education, Hermione may never have met Harry Potter and helped to defeat Lord Voldemort; Matilda would never have discovered her powers; and Jane Eyre would never have escaped a miserable life.Kitaab (Singapore) has a a bone to pick with Dr Usha Bande, author of the book Adventure Stories of Great Writers:
In this pantheon of men, Dr Usha Bande includes only one woman – Gertrude Bell. This is disappointing as there have been many remarkable women writers (Sarojini Naidu, the Brontë sisters, George Eliot or Helen Keller, to name a few) across the world who wrote more books and were better known than Gertrude Bell. (Mitali Chakravarty)
An exhibition in Trento, Italy with a Brontë connection:Sul Set. Fotoromanzi, Genere e Moda Nell'Archivio di Federico Vender
Palazzo de le Albere, Trento
Septeber 8 - December 10
Venticinque anni sono trascorsi da quando Federico Vender (1901-1999), nel suo ritiro di Arco, offrì alla Provincia autonoma di Trento il suo ricco archivio di fotografie e documenti, oggi tra i fondi più preziosi dell’Archivio Fotografico Storico della Soprintendenza per i beni culturali; settanta da quando il maestro di origini trentine, all'apice della sua carriera di raffinato fotoamatore, fu tra i firmatari del manifesto del Gruppo fotografico “La Bussola”, nato a Milano nel 1947 con l’obiettivo di promuovere un profondo rinnovamento della cultura fotografica italiana. (...)Proprio in quegli anni, Vender passava al professionismo, debuttando come direttore della fotografia nel contesto della prima effervescente stagione dei fotoromanzi, diffusi a partire dal 1947 - ancora un settantenario - e destinati a imporsi come il più originale contributo italiano alla cultura di massa. Il fondo Vender ne conserva una suggestiva testimonianza, che include stampe vintage per la maggior parte riconducibili a tre ambiziosi adattamenti di classici - La voce nella tempesta, Anna Karenina e La signora dalle camelie - apparsi nei primi anni Cinquanta sulla rivista della Rizzoli “Luci del luna park”. Sono presenti anche efficaci fotografie di backstage, che documentano la matrice cinematografica della produzione e ne celebrano i ‘divi di carta’.
During last night’s episode of The Strombo Show, we were treated to a Kate Bush special. Undoubtedly due to her making the shortlist for induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, the show was full of clips and songs from the star. One in particular that stood out was Weyes Blood’s cover of her infamous ‘Wuthering Heights’ (Jack Whatley)You can hear it here at the 2h 48m mark.
Then there’s the children’s vocabulary. Bare, peak, deep, butters and long do not mean what you think they do. At school we sniggered at the word “bosom” in Jane Eyre. Now I would not dream of uttering the word “moist” to describe the effect on the eyes of a moving scene in literature. There would be an uproar. And getting to the end of the day without one of those is still my goal.The News (Pakistan) on bookworms:
Although, I had a long list of book titles in my hand, the magnetic pull of many others attracted me. The profound existence of Charlotte Brontë, Ernest Hemingway, Khaled Hosseini, Jeffrey Archer and other esteemed authors lingered in the air. Smiling gleefully, I waltzed between the chocolate brown shelves, perplexed about where to begin my search. (Zainab Khawaja)Deseret News features a local book club now reading Jane Eyre. On Facebook. the Brontë Parsonage Museum announces that they will be adding products to the Christmas section of their shop in the coming days.
The recently published Macmillan Collector's Library contains two novels of the Brontës:Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë
Afterword by Sam Gilpin
Macmillan Collector's Library
Publication date: 23.03.2017
ISBN: 9781509827794
Number of pages: 656
Wuthering Heights
Emily Brontë
Afterword by David Pinching.
Macmillan Collector's Library
Publication date: 23.03.2017
ISBN: 9781509827800
Number of pages: 416
These are a collection of books that are all uniform: real cloth hardcovers, ribbon markers and gold sprayed edges in a beautiful pocket size edition. Three of any of the titles within the collection – from Jane Austen to Charles Dickens – will show your visitors a touch of class and provide hours of discussion, particularly if you refresh the showcase every once in a while.
HeathcliffThis columnist from News24 discusses Wuthering Heights too:
I'd say that Heathcliff and Cathy are just about neck-and-neck in the pantheon of Brontë characters who most people despise (with Mr. Rochester bringing up the rear). But since Cathy dips out of the plot halfway through, and we get a whole lot more of Heathcliff being an abusive ass to all of his family members, Heathcliff takes the title for most hated Brontë creation. Here's a pro tip, Heathcliff and Cathy: if you love each other, please stop actively trying to ruin each other's lives. (Charlotte Ahlin)
When I was at High School I disliked most of the English set works we were forced to read. None more so than Wuthering Heights. In my old age however I am beginning to think that there is a lot more to this book than I first realised. When we begin to read Wuthering Heights, we start to realise that the story is built around love. Heathcliff and Catherine's love was unsurpassed. They are soul mates in every sense of the word. When Hindley begins to abuse Heathcliff and Catherine marries Edgar Linton, Heathcliff vows revenge. In the process he does not care who he hurts while executing it. He wants nothing more than to gain control of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange and to destroy everything Edgar Linton holds dear. In order to exact his revenge, Heathcliff waits seventeen long years. Finally, he forces Cathy to marry his son, Linton. By this time he has control of the Heights and with Edgar's death, he has control of the Grange.The Week (India) wonders about the lives of well-loved characters after their books have ended.
Love does prevail in the novel however because no matter how revengeful Heatcliff is he realises that what he does doesn't affect them because they have love. You see this when the young Catherine and the abused Hareton overcome all obstacles and fall in love. Through all of this, though, the ghost of Catherine haunts Heathcliff. What he truly desires more than anything else is to be reunited with his soul mate. At the end of the novel, Heathcliff and Catherine are united in death, and Hareton and Cathy are going to be united in marriage.
So it seems to me that maybe love and hate are not quite so different after all. This is probably best summed up by that old saying: “There’s a thin line between love and hate.” So what then is the opposite of love if it's not hate? Many would say indifference and they are probably right to say so. One of my favourite quotes is by John Berendt in The City of Falling Angels where he says: “Loneliness is not being alone, it's loving others to no avail.” (Colin Chaplin)
Was Phineas Fogg content with his routine lifestyle after his round-the-world trip? What was the subsequent life of Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet like? What did the Count of Monte Cristo go on to do after his long and elaborate revenge? What other cases did Sam Spade take up after solving the Maltese Falcon matter? (Vikas Datta)The Page 69 Test applies said test to Sarah Shoemaker's Mr Rochester. And more on Wuthering Heights on The Withering. A post on Branwell on AnneBrontë.org.
An alert for today, October 9 in Sheffield:Off the Shelf FestivalMore information on the University of Sheffield website:
Charlotte Brontë’s Face – Dr Amber Regis
Mon 9th October, 7:00pm
Cadman Room, Millennium Gallery, Arundel Gate, S1 2PP
When Charlotte Brontë died in 1855, most of her readers had no idea of what she looked like or even her name. In 1857, Elizabeth Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë made her name and face public. It included the only professional portrait of Charlotte taken from life – a sketch by George Richmond. This illustrated talk looks at how the face of Charlotte Brontë has been adapted across its 167-year history and explores our fascination with her life and work.
Adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s only professional portrait can reveal whether an artist sees her primarily as a writer or a woman, according to new research from the University of Sheffield.
The study, led by Dr Amber Regis from the University of Sheffield’s School of English, has revealed how the only professional portrait of Charlotte Brontë taken from life, a chalk sketch by George Richmond, has been adapted across its 167-year history.
It highlights how modern society and culture is fascinated with Charlotte’s life and work, and reveals how her changing face has been transformed into a cultural icon that persists across many different cultural contexts.
The only professional portrait of Charlotte Brontë was commissioned by her publisher, George Smith, and produced in July 1850.
According to Smith, on first seeing the portrait, Charlotte burst into tears and exclaimed it was more like her sister, Anne, who had died the previous year. Tabby, the Brontë’s servant, also contested the image, saying it looked too old.
Despite her growing celebrity in the 1850s, Charlotte didn’t allow her portrait to circulate in the press, and she continued to publish under her pseudonym, Currer Bell. She clung to anonymity long after revealing her authorship to her publishers in 1848 – “What author would be without the advantage of being able to walk invisible?” – she once remarked.
Charlotte died in 1855. Two years later, her name and portrait were revealed to the public in Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography, The Life of Charlotte Brontë.
Gaskell highlighted the “parallel currents” of Charlotte’s life – her life as Currer Bell, the author, and her life as Charlotte Brontë, the woman.
Now, Dr Amber Regis’ research at the University of Sheffield has charted how these “parallel currents” can be seen in the various adaptations of Charlotte’s original portrait over the past 167 years. Some portraits focus on Charlotte’s womanliness, while others emphasise her identity as an author.
Dr Amber Regis said: “With so few surviving portraits from life, the face of Charlotte Brontë remains a fascinating, persistent mystery. How we see her, how we picture her, speaks volumes about how we employ her image to redefine the role of the woman writer.”
Findings from the research are set to be discussed as part of an illustrated talk at the Off the Shelf Festival of Words on Monday 9 October 2017 – a renowned literature festival held in Sheffield featuring some of the best-known names in literature and the media.
Led by the University of Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam University, the festival features pioneering research into some of the world’s most iconic and celebrated writers by literature experts at the University of Sheffield.
Dr Amber Regis’ research on the legacies and afterlives of Charlotte Brontë is also being fed into the first ever module on The Brontës for third year undergraduates at the University of Sheffield’s School of English.
Reader, I loved it! The best thing about Sally Cookson’s energetic adaptation of Jane Eyre, revived at the National with a new cast, is that it doesn’t obsess over Mr Rochester. The charisma of the sexy bigamist — part Mr Darcy, part Christian Grey — has unbalanced some versions of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, distorting its nature. It’s a life story, not a love story. So, although the bristle-bearded Tim Delap broods splendidly, the night belongs to Nadia Clifford’s honest-to-a-fault Jane. The bits that hit hardest are early scenes in which she defies the cruelty of her aunt (Lynda Rooke), and late ones when she resists the cold courting of a missionary (Evelyn Miller). The real star, though, is the staging. In the boldest flourish, Melanie Marshall croons a chorus-commentary on the action. Numbers include Mad About the Boy and Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy. That they don’t seem out of place is testament to the punch this feminist parable still packs. (ThomasW. Hodgkinson)Also in The Sunday Times a review of the novel Devil's Day by Michael Hurley:
Set within hailing distance of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights not only geographically but imaginatively, the novel spreads a welter of rawly vivid injury and violence through its pages. (Peter Kemp)LaCrosse Tribune finds the Halloween 'spirit' in books:
My personal favorite is “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë. Heathcliff and Cathy’s all-consuming, death-defying love is tragically romantic. The moors they love are eerie and mysterious. It is a wonderful, Gothic read. (Jourdan Vian)Lettera 43 (in Italian) publishes a 'history of pseudonyms':
La discriminazione di genere. Da problemi di gusto e dichiarazioni di identità fino a prudenti scelte di marketing. Cominciamo dalle tre sorelle Brontë, nella prima metà dell'Ottocento. La più grande, Charlotte, pubblicò i suoi romanzi firmandosi con il nome maschile Currer Bell. Stessa strategia adottata da Emily e Anne, sorelle ma 'fratelli di penna' sotto i nomi fittizi di Ellis e Acton Bell. Il cambiamento di genere è motivato dal maggior prestigio associato ad una firma maschile. (Boris Stoinich) (Translation)ABC (in Spanish) interviews the writer Aixa de la Cruz:
¿Cuáles son sus referentes? (Inés Martín Rodrigo)Philip Hamlyn Williams, related to William Smith Williams, is writing a biography of him:
Le he dado muchas vueltas a esta preguntay me he decantado por citar los libros que me hicieron querer escribir. «Cumbres borrascosas» de Emily Brontë, «Cosmos» de Witold Gombrowicz, «La insoportable levedad del ser» de Milan Kundera y «El extranjero» de Albert Camus están entre las lecturas que más me marcaron cuando aún no era escritora. (Translation)
The book I am researching sets out to trace whence he came and whither he went to paint a picture of this incredibly creative time in our history which included the groundbreaking shift in the English novel that was Jane Eyre.Jess Writes reviews Wuthering Heights; Stone Movies Spree posts about the film Abismos de Pasión 1953.
