Mai più in oscurità - A Review

We are very grateful to the author for sending us a review copy of this book.

Mai Più in Oscurità
Maddalena De Leo
Editore: Photocity Edizioni
ISBN  978-88-6682-044-4 
(in Italian)

The figure of Maria Branwell, the mother of the Brontës, plays a tangential role in the history of the Brontës themselves. Her early death when Charlotte was five years old (Anne was one year old) marked their lives not exactly because they remembered it much (it is well known that Branwell or Charlotte mourned the death of their eldest sister Maria much more) but because her absence in their lives was in some way canalised through their literature: Jane Eyre, Shirley, Villette, Wuthering Heights... all contain motherless characters.

But the story of how the wealthy daughter of the bourgeoisie of Cornwall became the wife of an Irish parson in Yorkshire and eventually the mother of the most famous sisters in English literature is itself an engaging story. It contains adventure, passionate romance, humour, a shipwreck and a very moving and sad ending. These are the materials on which Hollywood was able to build high melodrama. Imagine what Douglas Sirk could have done with a similar story.

Maddalena De Leo is no Douglas Sirk, as a matter of fact her approach to the story of Maria Branwell is more along the lines of the Ettore Scola of  Le Bal or La Famiglia. Following the story from the perspective not of a ball room or a Roman house, but from Maria's annotations in a personal diary updated once a year (with a few exceptions) since she turned twenty (1803) until her death. In order to immerse the narrative in a wider scope and to have the chance to write an epilogue the author of this novel reconfigures the diary (which in a way can be read as a deconstructed Bildungsroman), as a Charlotte Brontë creation after reading for the first time the love letters that Maria sent to Patrick and which so nicely and eloquently describe the passionate nature of her dead mother. It's an understandable decision but we are not convinced that the diary entries of Maria Brontë are consistent with the style of a Charlotte Brontë who had already published Jane Eyre when the famous six love letters were given to her by her own father⁽¹⁾.

Nevertheless, Maddalena De Leo makes a great job creating a complex character who evolves through the narrative from the youthful, naïve and happy girl in a benign country such as Cornwall to wife and mother-of-six of a quite different world, the hard and demanding Yorkshire. If the first entries seem a bit monotonous or less interesting, that's because they were monotonous and uneventful years. Nevertheless, horror vacui compels the author to introduce all kinds of contextualisations: local descriptions, a bit of local history and superstitions.

Of all the elements in the book, this is the one that works the worst. The use (and abuse) of the superstions and folklore legends of  the Cornish area. This is certainly demonstrative of the huge body of research made by the author but its abuse is a drawback normally associated with debutant writers⁽²⁾, too eager to give too much information. But, at its best (see for instance all the Thornton entries) the book is able to recreate the atmosphere of a particularly happy time in the Brontë family: children laughing, walks, tea time with the Firths or the Morgans, and Patrick working on improving the local church. Maddalena de Leo argues that this was the happiest time in Maria's lifetime, just before the relative seclusion of Haworth and the terrible illness that would eventually take her life⁽³⁾. But the author is also able to give glimpses of Maria complaining about Patrick's scarce involvement in the care of the children or a funny description of her husband being "impetuoso como un toro" when she announces she is pregnant once again.

The book⁽⁴⁾ includes the first complete Italian translation of the six lovely letters between Maria and Patrick that are also the macguffin of this unambitious, nice and ultimately satisfactory attempt to bring light to the life of the mother of the Brontës⁽⁵⁾.

Notes:
(1) The problem might also lie in how Charlotte Brontë could sound in Italian. Italian is not our mother tongue and we may be missing some of the innuendos. We know that the author is preparing an English version of the novel and the question of style will be clearer then.
(2) Maddalena De Leo is also the author of various translations of Brontë juvenilia and poetry and a couple of young adult novels: La Risposta di Afsin and Una'@amica dal passato but this is her fist 'standard' novel.
(3) Professor De Leo doesn't put much of an emphasis on those final months when Maria Brontë suffered so much. Just a brief entry quoting that well-known desperate and deeply moving cry: "Oh, my children. Oh, God, my poor children." which was also the opening line of Jude Morgan's The Taste of Sorrow.
(4) A mention should be made to the (at best) pedestrian Photocity edition. The line spacing is excessive and the back cover blurb and spine use a font so small that they are virtually illegible.
(5) Which complements Angela Crow's Miss Branwell's Companion which followed the life of Maria's sister and eventual 'sucessor' in the Brontë household: Elizabeth Branwell. Apparently, Angela Crow has also a written a novel about Maria Branwell, Mrs Brontë, but it hasn't been released yet, as far as we know.

Escape the gloom and doom: read Wuthering Heights

M & H Online covers the Red House Story and mentions the online petition launched in order to try and save it. As usual: if you haven't signed it yet, please take a moment to do so, wherever you are from.

HitFix's In Contention looks at the Oscar contenders for Best Adapted Screenplay and thinks Jane Eyre should be among them:

Of the plausible nominees, this is a very respectable lot. I was nonetheless disappointed that Moira Buffini‘s adaptation of “Jane Eyre” never got more traction. (Gerard Kennedy)

The Tri-City Herald's Mr. Movie reviews the film giving it 4 stars:

Purists may not love this version. There are flaws. But it’s Jane Eyre and to Jane Eyre is divine. (Gary Wolcott)

Movie City News looks back on Sundance and reviews Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights:

Arnold shifts the perspective of the novel away from Nelly Dean, the storyteller, and Lockwood, the rapt listener, by truncating the tale to focus almost entirely on the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff. This shift of perspective is subtle but important; as a literary device, the entire tale is filtered first through Nelly Dean’s perspective as a storyteller, a gossip, and a lover of stories herself, and then through Lockwood’s own class biases as he listens to the tale; this greatly affects how the events are interpreted. In other words, where the book never attempts objectivity because the tale being told is clearly an embellished one, here there is no observer within the story itself, leaving us to interpret the events as if they are, in fact, objective truths within the world of the story.
For me, this didn’t quite work because without Nelly Dean’s embellishment and romanticizing, Cathy feels even less sympathetic in that she comes across as caring solely about money and security rather than love (true enough), while Heathcliff seems to be always just stomping around glaring angrily, slamming doors, and being generally ungrateful and recalcitrant without the sympathetic glean of Nelly Dean’s interpretation of events adorning them. Without Nelly’s lens to focus the tale, we have two characters who aren’t, in and of themselves, greatly likable; thus this adaptation becomes more an observation of events than a tragedy in which we come to feel significantly invested. [...]
Visually, Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights is stunningly beautiful, with desolate frames of windy moors, and the most realistic depiction of the sanitary conditions of its time since, perhaps, Tom Tywker’s Perfume. You can practically feel the chill, damp wind blowing you nearly sideways, the muck of the mud holding fast to your shoes with every step. Sound, too, is excellently used in augmenting the storytelling and creating a sense of time and place. But when we get to older Cathy and Heathcliff ( Kaya Scoldelario and James Howson), somehow we lose much of the passion that underlies the tale; the fire that smolders in Heathcliff’s breast, this ancient, destructive love, Heathcliff’s unrelenting fierce anger at being denied what he wants even after overcoming a lifetime of servitude and indignities, are played up by Nelly Dean’s sympathetic perspective, and that element is missing here. Arnold’s version of Wuthering Heights is certainly the most visually stunning of the film versions of this tale, but from a literary standpoint, Cathy and Heathcliff need Nelly Dean to soften them up a bit and make them more palatable. (Kim Voynar)

We are not sure whether this columnist from the Gloucestershire Echo has really read/watched Wuthering Heights:

AS the winter nights draw in, programmes such as Downton Abbey, Wuthering Heights and Great Expectations provide great escapism from the doom and gloom of the weather outside.

A Huffington Post columnist reminisces about reading (Jane Eyre and Pride and Prejudice) to an old lady. And as Valentine's Day is approaching, so the 'romantic' recommendations begin: Greensboro Books Examiner suggests Jane Eye and Wuthering Heights.

Very Aware recommends Hitchcock's Rebecca on Blu-ray if you like

Ghost stories like The Inkeepers or are excited for The Woman in Black this Friday, or like the Gothic elements in the newest take on Jane Eyre or like in novels like Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey. (Manny Lozano)

Slant Magazine reviews the film The Woman in Black where

Daniel Radcliffe stars as Arthur Kripps, a lawyer whose namesake and familial distress (his wife died in childbirth and his cherubic son perpetually sketches him wearing a sad face) feels Dickensian, but after the single father travels to a village in order to sort out the very messy affairs of a recently deceased biddy who lived in its outskirts, he finds himself walking through Emily Brontë's foggiest nightmare. (Ed Gonzalez)

Laura's Reviews posts about Emily Brontë's poetry. At the Movies reviews Jane Eyre 2011 in Malay. Michael Peverett discusses Charlotte Brontë's sense of humour. Mystica reviews Justine Picardie's Daphne. Finally, an alert from Gainsborough:

The Gainsborough and District Fine Arts Society

The AGM for members of the Fine Arts Society will take place on February 2nd 2012 at l.15pm at Trinity Arts Centre.
The lecture will follow at 2pm from Mrs Elizabeth Merry on The Young Brontës and Art: visual influences on their creative development.
Drinks will follow at 3.15pm. (Gainsborough Standard)

Brontë Parsonage Re-Opens

A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth re-opens today following a hectic month of activity including maintenance work, cleaning, conservation and development of new displays. The new displays feature several early Bronte manuscripts, including one of the four, tiny editions of the second series of Charlotte Brontë’s Young Men’s magazine, written when she was 13 years old. A fifth edition was sold at Sotheby’s last December for nearly £700,000, with the museum narrowly losing out to the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits, Paris.

Following a surge of renewed interest in the Brontës, with the high profile manuscript sale and two new Brontë movie adaptations in the second half of 2011, the museum is gearing up for another busy year.
Andrew McCarthyDirector, Brontë Parsonage Museum

The next few weeks offers a final chance to see an exhibition dedicated to the Brontës’ remarkable father, Patrick, which will be followed by a new exhibition looking at the fascinating history of the museum’s collection. There will also be an exhibition of costumes from last year’s film adaptation of Jane Eyre, and exhibitions of work by artists Rebecca Chesney and Simon Warner. These will focus on ‘weather’ and its historic and contemporary associations with the Brontës, and the moorland Brontë location, Top Withens. The Top Withens exhibition will include a survey of photographic images of this iconic site, as well as a sketch of Top Withens by the celebrated poet Sylvia Plath. There is also a packed programme of events with visiting authors.

We were delighted to see our visitor numbers rise last year by over 8% and with over 250 bookings for 2012 already, it’s clear that visitors will be coming to Haworth in significant numbers, from within the UK but also from overseas. We have some wonderful exhibitions and events planned that will make their visit here very special.

Disappearing history

BBC News covers the Red House story (don't forget to sign the petition if you haven't yet):

Joan Bellamy, author of a biography of Mary Taylor, said the sale of Red House would be a big loss to the history of the local area.
"It's a disaster. If it was sold then the history of the house would be in danger of disappearing," she said.
"The history of the area - the textiles, the Luddites and Charlotte Brontë's novel - all those elements represented by the house would disappear."
Kirklees Council said in its proposals for 2012 budget consideration that the possible closure of Red House at the end of September 2012 would mean a saving of £116,000 a year.
A council spokesman said: "Councillors have difficult decisions to make as there is a continuing need to achieve efficiencies from across the whole range of services in the three-year budget plan.
"The proposal to close Red House Museum is one of a large number of measures up for consideration which have been proposed to fill a very big gap in the council's budget and reduce expenditure."
The spokesman added that "no decision" had been made on the sale of Red House, and local residents were being invited to make their views known.

And the Yorkshire Evening Post has received a letter from a reader on the subject:

The Red House Museum is an integral part of the literary history of Yorkshire and of England.
Its value to the community and to the country is evidenced by the fact that it had 30,000 visitors from all over the world and is a place of learning and research.
In an age when much of Britain’s literary heritage is being lost, taking away such a valuable resource would be tantamount to permanantly removing a vital component of the literary history and traditions of a great people.
It also seems strange that when we are celebrating the 200th anniversay of Charles Dickens we should be considering closing a site of value to those other great literary giants – the Brontë sisters. It seems to me that Kirklees Council together with the Yorkshire Tourist Authority can make much more of the Museum and help, not only to increase its visitor numbers but to also use it as the Brontë sisters and the people of their times.
Judith Tampoe, by email

The Globe and Mail has a slideshow of the best pictures of the day (January 30th) and slide number 3 is

A curator at the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits in Paris displays the miniature manuscript dated 1830 written by Charlotte Brontë. The museum bought the second issue of Young Men's Magazine, which contains over 4,000 words on 19 pages, written when Brontë was 14 years old.

NTD Television has a video on the arrival and display of the manuscript at the Musée des Lettres et Manuscrits.

The Philadelphia Weekly looks back on the Sundance Film Festival:

I also quite liked Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, which sent many audience members streaming for the exits. Eschewing Masterpiece Theatre period tropes, the Fish Tank director chucks most of Emily Brontë’s dialogue, shooting Heathcliff’s and Catherine’s doomed romance with jagged, visceral immediacy. Arnold can’t quite stick the landing, but the movie’s rawness sticks in your ribs. (Sean Burns)

The London Evening Standard has an article on the local company Angels of Hendon:

Angels of Hendon provided clothes and accessories for four of the five movies up for best costume design at the Academy Awards.
Martin Scorsese's Hugo, the new version of Jane Eyre, Madonna's W.E. and Shakespearean drama Anonymous all feature clothes taken from Angels' huge stock or created by its 120 staff and contractors.
In Madonna's re-telling of the abdication crisis, the costumes were hailed as a hit. "The undisputed star is the wardrobe," You magazine affirmed. Hugo was "beautifully rendered," Anonymous "splendidly decked out" and Jane Eyre "sumptuously costumed" - even if the movie itself was "dry, drab and a little dull," according to critics. (Louise Jury)

Why the need to put the rest of the film down, though? Many critics liked it too. According to indieWire the film has no possibilities of taking the Best Costume Design Oscar home, as they think the battle is between Hugo and The Artist.

DVD Talk reviews The Brontës of Haworth, soon to be released on DVD, and says it is 'highly recommended':

Those hoping for a light dramatization of historical fact will be sorely disappointed, as "The Brontës of Haworth" spends as much time if not more studying the family dynamic as it does the actual literary creations of Patrick Brontës (Alfred Burke) offspring. As the first episode closes, the viewer has a good idea of where the creative spark came from in all the children as well as tragic events (the death of 12-year old Mary Brontë) that likely shaped the tone of a few works to follow in later years. From episode two to five though, the focus is on the older Brontës: Charlotte (Vickery Turner), author of most notably "Jane Eyre"), Anne (Ann Penfold), author of "Agnes Grey" and "The Tenant of Wildfelld Hall"), Emily (Rosemary McHale), author of "Wuthering Heights", and Branwell (a very young Michael Kitchen), artist and poet.
To call it surprising would be an understatement, but the focus on Branwell Brontë is one of the most welcome surprises in all of the series and a perfect summarized statement of why the series is much more than contrived isolated events going on to (truthfully or not) influence the later writings of the Brontë sisters themselves. I honestly had no knowledge of Branwell's life apart from the fact he did once exist. With Michael Kitchen in what ends up being a pivotal role, "The Brontës of Haworth" takes viewers on a harrowing tragic ride that for fans of the sister's at large, does provide subtle hints at future inspiration. That's not to say the series doesn't focus on the writings, it just takes longer than most might expect to get there, and what they do cover is mostly known information. No single well-known element is dwelt on to the point where it robs viewers of the more intimate aspects of the Brontë family dynamic, a key reason why the series is both captivating and exhausting
"The Brontës of Haworth" is a worthwhile viewing experience, but demands close attention. Strong production design allow one to easily get lost in the period setting, while across the board sold performances make each character feel alive and unique; there is no doubt I will re-read at least "Wuthering Heights" in the future and having seen the iconic novel's author's life dramatized before my eyes will add an additional layer to examine. In the end, "The Brontës of Haworth" reveal that the real Brontë family was as every bit complex and fascinating as the lives created within the pages of Anne, Emily and Charlotte's work. [...]
The Extras. The lone extra resides on disc two and is a small text based biography on the Brontë home itself with a few repeated facts about the family.
Final Thoughts. While "The Brontës of Haworth" was far more emotionally draining than I expected, its sharp dialogue and consistent performances make it a delight to experience for fans of the Brontës or the uninitiated. One need not know a single detail of "Jane Eyre" or "Wuthering Heights" to appreciate this carefully crafted study of a brilliant family in a complex time. Highly Recommended. (Nick Hartel)

Fox31 Denver reviews the Blu-ray edition of Rebecca:

Rebecca follows a formula that was extremely popular in films of the time (see Jane Eyre and Dragonwyck for examples as the supplements kindly point out) of a young woman meeting her Prince Charming, being whisked away to his castle only to discover that her dream life is actually a nightmare. 

Actress Emily Watson on why she turned down a role on the French film Le fabuleux destin d'Amélie Poulain, as reported by the Congleton Guardian:

"With Amelie, I don't speak French. Not long ago, I saw Juliette Binoche do Wuthering Heights and making a t** of herself with her English. [...]"

Broadway.com mourns the death of actress and operatic soprano Patricia Neway, who

sang in many productions at the New York City Opera, including [...] Wuthering Heights. . . 

Flickr user chrcoal has uploaded a 'Still Life with Jane Eyre'. Una Locura de Película reviews (in Spanish) Jane Eyre 2011. The Low Countries Blog posts about Wuthering Heights: Restless Souls.

The Brontës in Benalmádena

The Arroyo de la Miel library in Benalmádena, Spain, is organizing a series of readings of the Brontë novels. SalonJaneAusten confirms that each month the reading group will discuss Jane Eyre (in February), Wuthering Heights (in March) and The Professor in April.

La Biblioteca Pública “Arroyo de la Miel” pone en Marcha un nuevo club de lectura denominado “Escribir en Femenino”. Este viene a sustituir al concluido en Diciembre destinado a profundizar en la escritora Jane Austin (sic). “No se trata de leer sólo obras escritas por mujeres sino también otras escritas por hombres pero que tengan como protagonista principal a una mujer”, así lo explicaba Elisa Almarza que se encargará de coordinar las labores de este club. Van comenzar leyendo obras de las tres hermanas Brontë, seguirán con autoras españolas del Siglo XIX y con autoras malagueñas de ese mismo siglo, para terminar revisarán tres obras con mujeres como protagonistas, La Regenta, Anna Karenina y Madame Bovary. El club comenzará su andadura el próximo 31 de Enero y se reunirán todos los últimos Martes de cada mes en las dependencias de la biblioteca a las 19 horas. Las plazas no están limitadas mas allá del aforo de la sala. (Benalmádena Digital) (Translation)

'I think the Brontë sisters are mad'

The Red House story (sign the petition here) continues being featured in local newspapers such as the Yorkshire Post:

The world-renowned Brontë Society says the proposal to close Red House Museum at Gomersal is “an act of vandalism on the local tourist industry”.
The society’s former chairman, Richard Wilcocks, said: “A cut like this would cause irreparable damage, and an important part of the heritage of the Spen Valley and the whole country would be lost.
“Red House is of crucial importance not only for those dismissed in the (council’s) official impact statement as ‘Brontë enthusiasts’, a choice of words which implies that they make up a minor group in the same league as train-spotters, but for anyone who believes that the most fitting memorial to Mary Taylor, a highly significant historical figure, not only because of her lifelong friendship with Charlotte Brontë, is the museum situated in her house.
“Perhaps that should be national memorial – let’s move beyond the parochial.”
Director of the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth, Andrew McCarthy, said Red House attracted about 30,000 visitors a year, “quite good for a museum off the beaten track”.
He urged Brontë enthusiasts to write to Kirklees Council.
Councillors will discuss the budget cuts at a meeting on February 22 but members of the public can have their say at a public meeting tonight (from 7pm) at Cleckheaton Town Hall.
A council spokesman said: “Councillors have difficult decisions to make as there is a continuing need to achieve efficiencies from across the whole range of services in the three-year budget plan.
“The proposal to close Red House Museum is one of a large number of measures up for consideration which have been proposed to fill a very big gap in the council’s budget and reduce expenditure. No decision has been made yet.”
Submit views via communication@kirklees.gov.uk
To date over 100 emails and letters have been received.

This is not a 'difficult decision to make'. It's just a silly, self-damaging decision. Good for the 100 letters an emails, though - keep those coming and get as many people as possible to sign the petition.

The story has also reached a national newspaper: the Guardian.

One of the major shrines to the Brontë family is facing closure and sale because of budget cuts and recession – a combination that almost did for its wealthy owner in the days of Charlotte, Emily and Anne.
The Red House in Gomersal, in West Yorkshire's "heavy woollen district", is targeted in provisional savings drawn up by Kirklees district council, which is having to find savings of £64m in what councillors describe as "the most difficult financial landscape in living memory".
The proposal has triggered uproar led by the Brontë Society which is appealing for supporters to lobby the council to change its mind. The Red House, a handsome early Georgian mansion built of brick in the largely millstone grit area between Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Bradford, played a significant part in Charlotte Brontë's youth. [...]
The director of the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth, Andrew McCarthy, said the proposal had come as a shock, along with other suggested cuts including reduced hours at Oakwell Hall, another Kirklees museum that plays an important part in Shirley.
"We appreciate the challenges faced by local authorities in terms of balancing the budgets at the moment but this does seem a pretty drastic step that can be made in haste and repented at leisure," he said. "There are very few buildings which combine Brontë history and Brontë fiction in the way Red House does. It would be a huge loss."
A petition has also been launched to present to the council, which is not controlled by any one party and has seen cross-party negotiations over the coming budget. Kirklees's wellbeing and communities directorate, whose portfolio includes museums, has to make 19% savings from £129m spent last year to £105m. Councillors will decide the issue on 22 February.
Closure of the Red House in September would make a full-year saving of £116,000 with sale of the site an additional, one-off capital receipt, probably of around £750,000. The museum has won a raft of prizes, from Sandford educational awards to Loo of the Year, but drew only 28,602 visitors last year and fewer than 1,000 children in school parties.
Taylor almost lost the house himself in 1826 when his private bank went under without any hope of a government buyout to help it. He recovered by dint of his own efforts and a reputation, also ascribed to Yorke in Shirley, for helping his own workers find alternatives when his mill was forced into lay-offs during a recession. (Martin Wainwright)

The blog Secluded Charm is appalled by the story.

The Telegraph reports adapter Andrew Davies's thoughts on the Brontës:

He told an audience at the Hay Festival in Cartagena, Colombia: “I’ve declined quite a few – never classics. I’m glad nobody has asked me to adapt Wuthering Heights because I think I would make a mess of it. Everybody makes a mess of it. I think the Brontë sisters are mad. [...]" (Anita Singh)

The writer Ruskin Bond seems to have a more favourable opinion. He says to The Hindu,

“I still like going back to old favourites. I read ‘Wuthering Heights' as a boy and loved it. When I picked it up again, many years later, it kept me up all night! I wanted to be a writer even before I finished school. David Copperfield became a role model. I wanted to, like him, run away from home, but I didn't have much pocket money left to do that!” (Sravasti Datta)

This columnist from TIME Magazine hasn't read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:

It’s dawning on me that the marriage plot, which maps so well onto novels by Austen and the Brontës and George Eliot, is misapplied to Dickens. It is far more productive to think of him as a writer of would-be divorce plots. (Radhika Jones)

The Telegraph also thinks that Jonathan Franzen, despite his battle against ebooks, doesn't know much about them:

I have to admit I don't understand this argument. Does he think that e-publishers will surreptitiously edit classic works? Perhaps sprinkle Beowulf with Starbucks adverts, or weave party political messages subtly into the text of Jane Eyre? In all honesty, I suspect that this is an example of a very clever man using his considerable brainpower to dress up unconscious prejudice in what sounds like reasoned argument. Mr Franzen doesn't like e-books; he prefers reading books. But he can't simply say as much, so he wraps it in a layer of talk about "permanence" and "responsible self-government". There's an analogy somewhere with an octopus squirting out a cloud of ink to cover its escape. (Tom Chivers)

Alt Film Guide comments on tonight's broadcast of Jane Eyre 1944 on TCM (US, see sidebar)

Jane Eyre has been made and remade about a zillion times in the last century or so. Fontaine's version, directed by Robert Stevenson (later of Mary Poppins fame) and co-starring Orson Welles as Rochester, used to be the most famous one. (At least for the time being, Cary Fukunaga's well-received 2011 version starring Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender has become "the most famous" Jane Eyre movie.) Unfortunately, despite veteran George Barnes' moody cinematography, Stevenson's version isn't nearly as involving as Charlotte Brontë's novel.
Fontaine is okay in the title role, but her heart doesn't seem to be totally in the part. Worse yet, Welles' Rochester comes across as more creepy than brooding. It's too bad that Michael Fassbender wasn't around in the mid-'40s; he'd have been a much more adequate Rochester/Fontaine match. Aldous Huxley, by the way, was one of the film's credited screenwriters. (Andre Soares)

A reader of The Telegraph and Argus comments on installing wind turbines in the Bradford area:

Far from being a ‘blot’ (T&A. January 28), wind turbines could regenerate Bradford.
Of course they should not be planted next to the Cow and Calf or the Brontë Parsonage. Turbines should be at a suitable distance, but near, our built-up areas. [...]
John D Anderson, Bramham Drive, Baildon

The Brussels Brontë Blog posts about Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights. Loud and Little and Cicero (in German) discuss Jane Eyre. Where the Moon Sleeps shows pictures of a gorgeous edition of Shirley.

Wuthering Heights. The Entertainment in Austin

An alert from the FronteraFest 2012 (Austin, Texas):

Short Fringe 2012
Hyde Park Theatre

January 31, 20:00 h
"Wuthering Heights, The Entertainment."
Lyrics: Diana Prechter, Music: Kent Cole.
Fall in love. Get mad. See ghosts. Original songs and spoken text recapitulate the famous rock-n-roll narrative of Catherine and Heathcliff.

In 2011, Diana Prechter and husband Kent Cole wrote and began performing their original 25 minute song cycle which tells the story of the famous novel written by Emily Brontë, "Wuthering Heights." Using music from across genres, they sing and tell the story as "Wuthering Heights, The Entertainment."

Video: Let's Go Savages!

The song cycle has been performed before at Full English Cafe (Austin) last December 23.

'Haworth still grips your heart and imagination'

First of all, if you haven't yet signed the Save Red House petition please take a moment to do so. It doesn't mind where you are from, just sign.

The Brontë Parsonage Blog addresses locals on the matter:

A public meeting of the Spen Valley Area Committee of Kirklees Council is scheduled for this Tuesday (31 January) in the Cleckheaton Town Hall, Bradford Road, BD19 3RH at 7pm. As the 'cabinet' meeting of the Council on 7 February is going to be closed to the public, this is one of few chances left to actually speak with councillors in the hope of influencing them to keep the Red House Museum in Gomersal open.
If you can make it, meet at 6.30pm outside the front entrance.

The Daily Mail suggests a trip to 'Emily Bronte's Yorkshire: Dreaming of Heathcliff in the land of fat rascals':

Heathcliff! Heathcliff! I call across the moors but my words are washed away by the wind. I'm halfway up a hill, sitting on a dry-stone wall outside the village of Haworth, reading Wuthering Heights - Emily Brontë's only novel and my favourite book when I was a teenager.
At home, a copy of the famous portrait of the three Brontë sisters, painted by their brother Bramwell [sic], was tacked to the wall above my bed. The book echoed all my typical teenage anxieties - young passion, wild dreams and terrible injustices against me. [...]
With the recent release of a new film version, a whole new generation of youngsters has been introduced to the teenage lovers.
Today Haworth buzzes with bakeries selling curd tarts, Yorkshire parkin and scone-type cakes called fat rascals - and there are tea shops stacked with scrumptious treats (try the ginger cake at No10 Teashop near the Fleece Inn). But it's far quieter than it was in Emily's day.
Johnnie Briggs of Brontë Walks told me there were ten working cotton mills and the air would have been thick with smoke. The trade route from Bradford to Lancashire passed through the village and the noise of the traffic on the single main cobbled street must have been deafening. And then there was the smell: there were 790 homes in Haworth but only 64 toilets.
No wonder Emily liked to wander up the path behind the parsonage and across the moors to Top Withins, the crumbling farmhouse on which she based the remote, forlorn Wuthering Heights. Now a place of pilgrimage, these days signposts point the way, even in Japanese, making sure no one gets lost.
There is nothing much left to see except the hint of a ruin. But the landscape is the same - a patchwork of warm browns and dusty pinks cut by grey stone, the heather billowing like a surfing sea, the wind so strong it lifts your skirt and dries your face.
The Bronte parsonage, now a museum, is furnished as it was when the family lived there and attracts 75,000 visitors a year. The red mahogany dining-room table, where the sisters sat and scribbled in their tiny, cramped handwriting, stands in the middle of the dining room.
Against a wall, there's the green horsehair sofa on which Emily died, and in the bedroom, Charlotte's paisley dress, white leather gloves and thigh-high white stockings are on display in a glass cabinet. There's also a school report stating that the author of Jane Eyre 'writes indifferently'.
In the village, the old post office is now a general stationers run by Margaret Hartley, whose family have been in business in the village for more than 350 years.
'My great-great-great-grandad was the postmaster and served the Brontes,' says Margaret, 74. 'And this is the counter that the girls passed their manuscripts over.'
'The girls' is how the people of Haworth refer to Anne, Charlotte and Emily Brontë, as if they were family. [...]
Despite the teeming tourists - and signs advertising Ye Old Brontë Tearooms and Heathcliff Bed and Breakfast - Haworth still grips your heart and imagination. It certainly reminded me of being a dreamy teenager again, staring up at Emily on my bedroom wall. (Dea Birkett)

And The New York Times reviews the Artemis Theatre production Wuthering Heights: Restless Souls:

An elemental wildness runs through “Wuthering Heights, Restless Souls,” Theater Artemis’s spare but impressively theatrical adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel. Though intended for young audiences (13 and up), this production never condescends. Quite the opposite: it can be ferocious, even scary, as it gives physical shape to the bond between Cathy and Heathcliff (Alejandra Theus and Joris Smit, both feral, both terrific).
That bond, of course, was forged in childhood. And this “Wuthering Heights,” which played over the weekend as part of Zoem! New Dutch Theater at the New Victory Theater, is particularly good at showing Cathy and Heathcliff’s almost-savage childhood world — full of taunting and roughhousing that threatens to turn violent or sexual or both — and the porous way it bleeds into the natural world just outside their door. “This is inside,” she tells him, before leading him just a step. “And this is outside.”
The set, a simple wooden platform with a white curtain and a chair or two, contains no scenery that hints at Brontë’s moors. But the director, Floor Huygen, and the sound designers, Florentijn Boddendijk and Remco de Jong, conjure an active landscape using bird and night sounds, branches and twigs, water and wind. In a wonderfully apt coup de théâtre two giant fans — one in each wing — whip up a storm as Cathy and Heathcliff wander. The wind blows around all sorts of detritus and threatens their home behind the white curtain, which flaps around exposing those inside. But it intoxicates Cathy and Heathcliff, who face its power head on, their hands slowly reaching out to clasp together.
The script has been expertly drawn from Brontë’s novel by Jeroen Olyslaegers, who, with Ms. Huygen, has found clear, dramatic ways to render the story. Long segments have minimal dialogue, but the essential passages from the book are here. The show concentrates on the novel’s first half, with the second part sketched in quickly by Nelly (An Hackselmans), the novel’s servant-narrator, who in this telling seems to have a kind of witchy insight into events past, present and future.
The big complaint to be made about this production, which features excellent ensemble work and top-notch stagecraft, is that its New York run included just four performances. It deserves to be seen by more people. (Rachel Saltz)

The Scotsman looks at the life and works of the writer Andrew Lang:

Old Friends was written in 1890 and has a dazzling premise: if literature really did describe the world rather than invent it, why should characters be restricted to their own books? Lang imagines Catherine Morland, Jane Austen’s gothic-obsessed heroine of Northanger Abbey, turning up at Rochester’s house from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. Inspector Lecoq from Émile Gaboriau’s then famous series of novels arrests the eponymous Pickwick, with the help of Bucket from Bleak House. It is the beginning of crossover literature, which reaches its heights with works such as Alan Moore’s The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Christine Brooke-Rose’s Textermination, and its pulp incarnation in Pride And Prejudice And Zombies and Android Karenina. (Stuart Kelly)

The Yorkshire Post features the local artist Michele Howarth Rashman:

In fact, she’s beginning to acquire the image of a wild woman of the moors. She was recently described as “a charmingly rustic antidote” to the contemporary London art scene (which begs the question what on earth London art critics think goes on in West Yorkshire). But she is enjoying the fun, not least by insisting on drawing parallels between herself and West Yorkshire’s own weird sisters, the Brontës.
There are parallels. Like the talented girls from Haworth Parsonage, Michelle spends her days engaged in meticulous, minute work (“developing long-sight and a dowager’s hump”) and she has a keen eye, which can get her into trouble (“I do use people I know and it can get a bit tricky”). And while she chooses to base herself in Yorkshire, she exhibits with the best of her London contemporaries. In her case Damien Hirst and Tracey Emin rather than William Makepeace Thackeray. And then there is the family connection. On her father’s side she is a Howarth, but on her mother’s side there are Haworths too.
Parish records show her great-great grandmother was christened by none other than Patrick Brontë and her great-great-great-grandmother is buried in the parsonage graveyard. “I’m virtually a tourist attraction,” she insists happily. (Fiona Russell)

The Bangkok Post makes what we consider an obvious statement (though the likes of V.S. Naipaul may not think so):

Women are by no means the second sex when it comes to writing. Lady Murasaki, Madame de Stael, Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, Patricia Cornwell, Pearl Buck are at least as good as their male counterparts. They've penned stories in every genre, from war and peace, love and sex, to murder. (Bernard Trink)

Enduring is reading Jane Eyre and posts basic facts about Charlotte Brontë. Mrs. Jensen's Book Reviews writes about Wuthering Heights.

Brontë Society Gazette. Issue 56

The latest issue of The Brontë Society Gazette is now out (Issue 56. January 2012. ISSN 1344-5940).

ARTICLES
Winter Greetings by Helen Krispien
My Favourite Brontë...  by Sharon Marshall, Val Wiseman and Rachel Lee.
Putting Jane Eyre in context by Emily Waterfield
Letter from the Chairman by Sally McDonald, Chairman of Council
Winning competition entries published
The Brontë Society Conference 2011. Homerton College, Cambridge by Maureen Peeck
Ilkley Literary Festival: The Brontës, Bonnie Greer and Afternoon Tea by Richard Wilcocks
Even in death, is there no certainty? by Bob Duckett
A Modern Brontë rarity by Benjamin L. Clark
Poetry Corner: April at the Parsonage by Dorothy Newsome; Ellis Bell by Adriana Marcorini; Winter by Louise van ProosdijMembership News: NBT's The Brontës by Josephine Smith; News from the Membership Committee by Ruth Battye; New plaque on Anne Brontë's grave by Stephen Whitehead; Noel Christopher Cullington's painting: The Meeting of Waterways; In Memoriam: Thomas Cottam.
Intertextual "telepathy"? by Erik Eriksson.
Parsonage People: Rachel Lee
In defence of Branwell by Judith Bland
Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre by Richard Wilcocks
Post-It:  Booking forms for the June AGM weekend 8-12 June 2012, Haworth; "Mrs. Brontë by Angela Crow; The Daphne Carrick Memorial Scholarship, 2012; London and South East Region News by Val Wiseman; New Brontë Group in the York Area.
The Weather Project by Helen Krispien

Only connect

***Save Red House Petition***

BlogCritics reviews the upcoming The Brontës of Haworth DVD release:

Playwright Christopher Fry's The Brontës of Haworth, a five-episode dramatization of the lives of the 19th century literary sisters and their tortured brother televised in England in 1973 but never shown in the United States will be available in February in a two-disc DVD set from Acorn Media. Beginning with their widowed father's birthday gift to the young Branwell of the set of toy soldiers which became the inspiration for the children's early imaginative efforts as they joined together to create a fictional world modeled on the Byronic romances popular at the time, Fry traces their attempts to make their way in the world, their failures and their success, culminating in the sister's monumental achievement and early deaths. (...)
Clearly it is [Michael] Kitchen and perhaps [Alfred] Burke who are the stars of this production. Perhaps not as oddly as it would seem in a film about the Brontë family, much of the early episodes are concerned with the tragic life of Branwell rather than that of his sisters. He is after all a man haunted by demons beyond his control, the kind of fodder no dramatist can resist.  (...)
The DVD runs approximately 260 minutes. The only bonus material it contains is a short prose essay on the Brontë's home in Haworth. (Jack Goodstein)

The Pittsburgh Stage and Screen Examiner also post about the release.

The Sundance screenings of Wuthering Heights 2011 are reviewed:

The book itself, gives you more of a sense of inherent evilness in both Heathcliff and Cathy.  While their love might be true and intense, there are no other redeeming qualities in either of them. This rendition does do a great job of showing why Heathcliff becomes so embittered, which is a bit of a departure from the book.  I also loved that the director cast unknowns in the lead roles – to me, this is what indie film making should be about. See this movie if you have never been diagnosed with ADD, can sit through three  hours of overwrought, but beautiful cinematography, or are a sucker for an original take on an old story. (David J. Fowlie in Keep-it-Reel)

Heights’ spartan brutality is truly haunting. However, it is doomed to collect decidedly negative online feedback. People who go to Brontë films do not want to see something new and different. They want the “Oh, Heathcliff” scene on the moors. This is not that kind of film. It viscerally expresses a host of tactile sensations, de-emphasizing melodramatic plot turns. Despite a comparatively weaker third act, it is a bold work that really stays with you after viewing – but due to its nature, it is only recommended for adventurous, fully informed audiences. (Joe Bendel in Libertas Film Magazine)

The Daily Mail makes a reference to Wide Sargasso Sea in an article about Salman Rushdie and Indian censorship:

Second, a writer's worth to a literary culture is not decided by how prolific she is. Jean Rhys didn't write much - five slim novels. There was a gap of twenty years between her fourth and fifth novels. As it turned out, her last one, Wide Sargasso Sea, was the one that gave her lasting fam.

The Observer complains about the lack of nominations for women directors this year:

All the women. We Need to Talk About Kevin? Wuthering Heights? Bridesmaids? New director Angelina Jolie's excellent Bosnian war drama In the Land of Blood and Honey? Dee Rees and her brilliant, cool, powerful film about black-American lesbian life, Pariah? Kelly Reichardt's neo-western, Meek's Cutoff? Oh, and guess what, Madonna's W.E. is a thousand times better than royal borefest The King's Snooze, in which a man spends two hours overcoming a speech impediment while Helena Bonham Carter looks on. (Bidisha)

A Younger Theatre talks about Josie Long's The Future is Another Place:

A hard message to sell but a vital one, and one which is thankfully underpinned with a wonderfully original comic voice by Long, taking in imagined feuds between the Brontë sisters, and a meeting between Ringo and the other Beatles in which they call him up on ruining their albums by slipping children’s songs in the middle, which had me in hysterics. (Tristan Pate)

Miami Herald reviews Gemma Hardy's The Flight of Gemma Hardy:

Livesey works some sort of magic in The Flight of Gemma Hardy, which is too entertaining to be superfluous, too wise in its understanding of human nature to be a mere retread. Best of all, you don’t have to know Jane Eyre to enjoy it, though it’s clearly an offspring of and tribute to Bronte’s work. (...)

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/29/2614173/beloved-classic-jane-eyre-gets.html#storylink=cpy (...()

Livesey fills Gemma’s journey — back to her past in mysterious Iceland, ahead to her future with and without Mr. Sinclair — with revelations, betrayals and surprising friendships and realizations. Gemma longs for a home: “I never meant to be a wanderer,” she says. But: “Perhaps being a wife was not the only choice.” Livesey takes a page from E.M. Forster to impart her message: Only connect. Only connect — with friends, with a lover, with family, with your past — and the whole world opens up before you, just like that. (Connie Ogle)

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/01/29/2614173/beloved-classic-jane-eyre-gets.html#storylink=cpy

The Maine Sunday Telegram talks about yet another author with a Brontë past, Sarah Thomson:

Thomson grew up in the Midwest -- in St. Louis and Madison, Wis. Her world was populated by J.R.R. Tolkien, Lloyd Alexander, Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen. (Bob Keyes)

And The Spectator finds a Brontëite in Gloria di Piero (MP for Ashfield):

She has a soft spot for Wuthering Heights and Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. (...)
Wuthering Heights, in my view the greatest love story ever. My mate Lindsey and I read it on hols in Corfu straight after we'd done our A levels. (Fleur MacDonald)

The Calgary Herald reviews the concert of the Calgary Philarmonic Orchestra with Jeans'N'Classics:

[Jean] Meilleur performs his role of frontman cover-band capably, Leah Salomaa’s take on [Kate Bush's ]Wuthering Heights was quite wonderful, the Jeans musicians delivered a steady stream of rock shadings and quality solos, and the CPO, well, even at half speed they’re still an orchestra that can throw down with the best of them. (Mike Bell)

The New York Post announces that Drew Barrymore will be the co-host of TCM's The Essentials which will schedule Wuthering Heights 1939 in the new season. Also in the Post a brief comment about Jane Eyre 1944 (Monday, 8 p.m., TCM):

Joan Fontaine is Jane Eyre, who in 1800s England, goes straight from an abusive, orphans' charity school to a position as a governess to the ward of rich, gloomy Mr. Rochester (Orson Welles). Although he is above her station in 19th-century English society, she begins to fall for him, and he seemingly begins to have feelings for her as well. Did you really think it would be that easy? From the novel by Charlotte Brontë who, along with her sister, Emily, endured similar conditions at their charity boarding school.

The Sag Harbor Express has an intriguing Brontë reference:

As some of you might remember, I asked for chickens for Christmas, and the universe, not my husband, brought them to me. (...) Needless to say, I now have six fluffy chicks in the basement in a pet shop rabbit cage covered with a packing blanket. Very Jane Eyre. (Paige Patterson)

Raizononline Portal posts about the Brontës (in Portuguese); Jane Eyre 2011 is reviewed on 30diary (in Italian), videosöndag (in Swedish) and Oscar Completist.

LipService's new tour

The LipService theatre company is touring again the UK with their spoof, Withering Looks:

The Radlett Centre
Withering Looks
28th January

The Curve, Leicester
Withering Looks
7th February

Bedford Corn Exchange
http://www.bedfordcornexchange.co.uk/
Withering Looks
8th February

The Donut Chesterfield
Withering Looks
8th March
International Women's day event

Leeds City Varieties
Withering Looks
9th March


Square Chapel, Halifax
Withering Looks
10th March

Georgian Theatre, RichmondWithering Looks
16th March

Kendal Brewery Arts Centre
Withering Looks
17th March
breweryarts.co.uk

Red House: combining Brontë history and Brontë fiction

The Red House story is beginning to reach local papers. The Spenborough Guardian reports many locals are against the closure:

Red House – ‘a cultural and educational gem’ – could be lost forever under council plans to sell it off.
Kirklees says closing the award-winning Gomersal museum and moving its exhibits to other museums would save £116,000 over two years.
However the plans have caused anger with critics saying it is yet another example of north Kirklees making the biggest sacrifices.
MP Mike Wood said: “We knew Kirklees was considering reducing the opening hours, and that was bad enough, but to hear they want to close it altogether was a bombshell.
“Red House is a credit to our area, and we cannot sacrifice it in a forlorn attempt to save money at all costs. Once it’s gone, it’s gone. [...]”
Gomersal councillor Lisa Holmes, said she and her Tory ward colleagues would do their utmost to fight the plans.
“It’s an absolute shame,” she said. “I have spoken to the staff who are devastated, not just for their jobs but because they know the vital service it provides. We realise we have massive savings to make, but we will do whatever we can to find an alternative to closure. There is a big challenge ahead of us but we must protect our heritage.”
Vice-chairman of Spen Valley Civic Society Gordon North said: “People cherish Red House and I am sure they will be as disgusted as we are that the one museum in the Spen Valley could go.
“It attracts local, national and international visitors, and it’s not just because of its Brontë links. The Taylor family was incredibly important in the story of the Spen Valley – Mr Taylor was one of the first woollen manufacturers and opened the Bank of Gomersal, while his daughter Mary Taylor was at the forefront of the feminist and equality movements – and you might think that a Labour council might recognise that.”
Red House was bought by the old Spenborough Council in 1969 to be opened as a museum telling the story of the Spen Valley.
Former Spenborough councillor Michael McGowan, who went on to become an MEP, said only last year he had taken a group of visitors from New Zealand to Red House, because of Mary Taylor’s links with their country.
“It’s a fantastic resource, a cultural and educational gem, and we mustn’t lose it,” he said.
The move has also been condemned by Carol Brontë, who first visited Red House as curator of the Brontë Museum in Northern Ireland. Her husband, James Wallace Brontë, is the great-great-grandson of the Rev Patrick Brontë’s youngest brother.
“I’m absolutely devastated,” she said. “Why close this famous tourist destination? It’s a very special place and I would urge Kirklees to think again.”
Brontë Society trustee Stephen Whitehead said: “The Taylor family was so important to Charlotte that she featured them as the Yorkes in Shirley and Briarmains is an exact description of Red House. It is an irreplaceable asset and this is not the way to manage your heritage.”
President of Cleckheaton Rotary Club Bill Stevenson said they had great concerns about the length of time for objections – February 7 – and urged the public to attend Tuesday’s Spen Valley area committee meeting to air their views.
The meeting is at 7pm at the town hall, Cleckheaton.
A spokeswoman for Kirklees said difficult decisions had to be made.
“The proposal to close Red House Museum is one of a large number of measures up for consideration which have been proposed to fill a very big gap in the council’s budget and reduce expenditure,” she said.
No decision has been made yet and people are invited to make their views know by contacting communication@kirklees.gov.uk or Communities and Leisure, Museums and Galleries, The Stables, Ravensknowle Park, Wakefield Road, Dalton, Huddersfield, HD5 8DJ. (Margaret Heward)

The Telegraph and Argus looks at it from a Brontë point of view:

The director of the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth has condemned proposals to close a popular museum with strong connections to the famous literary family.
The future of Red House Museum, Gomersal, will be discussed at Kirklees Council’s Cabinet meeting on February 7 as part of budget talks.
But parsonage director Andrew McCarthy said: “We appreciate the challenges faced by local authorities in terms of balancing the budgets at the moment but it does seem a pretty drastic step that can be made in haste and repented at leisure.” [...]
It is said ‘Briarmains’ – the house Charlotte wrote about in her second novel, Shirley – was based on Red House and some of the characters were thought to have been inspired by the Taylor family.
Mr McCarthy said: “The Taylor family as merchants, bankers and mill-owners did a huge amount to shape that part of the West Riding and they are a great part of the heritage of the area and there is this very strong link with the Brontës, particularly Charlotte.
“She stayed there on many occasions in the 1830s as a guest of her close friends Mary and Martha Taylor.
“There are very few buildings which combine Brontë history and Brontë fiction in the way Red House does. It would be a huge loss.” (Sally Clifford)

Please keep letters/email coming to local authorities (see list in this post) and if you haven't yet, do sign this online petition. And spread the word too!

Another fighting front is the repairs of the Haworth Parish Church. The news of the many initiatives that have been done (and have to be done) to raise the money have crossed borders and are mentioned in quite a good article in El País (Spain):

El organismo público English Heritage se comprometió a donar 120.000 euros para la primera parte del trabajo si la iglesia conseguía recaudar 75.000 euros. El plazo acababa el viernes 20, después de ser prorrogado en un par de ocasiones. "En las últimas horas hemos conseguido el último céntimo del dinero que necesitábamos, hemos conocido que English Heritage nos dará su donación pero también nos han dicho que la obra nos costará 50.000 libras más, una auténtica patada en la boca" explica Peter Mayo - Smith, el párroco anglicano de Haworth. El dinero ha tardado tanto en llegar que el precio de la obra se ha elevado. "English Heritage nos ha dado permiso para comenzar la obra de la parte sur del tejado en primavera pero es nuestra responsabilidad lograr la diferencia con el precio actual y, teniendo en cuenta que hemos tardado más de un año en recolectar 75.000 euros, no las tenemos todas con nosotros. Sin embargo, tengo esperanza y transmito a la comunidad, que tanto ha ayudado. Esto es como una carrera de triatlón. Ya hemos superado la prueba de la natación pero nos quedan el ciclismo y la carrera a pie para dar por concluida la obra". (Maruxa Ruiz del Árbol) (Translation)

Anyway, some things never change, and one is John Mullan's Brontë mentions on his '10 of the best' for the Guardian. Today he looks at nightmares:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.  Poor Lockwood gets snowed in on a visit to Wuthering Heights and has to stay the night. He dreams that he puts his hand through the bedroom window and has it seized by "the fingers of a little, ice-cold hand". There is a sobbing voice and suddenly a terrifying child's face. It is Cathy, and the rest of the novel is an explanation of this dream.

Strange, though, that he has left out Jane's in Jane Eyre.

This columnist from The Hindu should read the books he mentions before he preaches about their 'social purpose':

Realism and romanticism can be either passive or active. Passive realism usually aims to depict reality truthfully, without preaching anything. The novels of Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Brontë Sisters are examples. In this sense, they are socially neutral. However, sometimes passive realism preaches fatalism, passivity, non-resistance to evil, suffering and humility. (Markandey Katju)

Sure, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall to name but one novel is as 'socially neutral' as a book can get.

TIME Magazine wonders,

But why were Victorian writers so into orphans? Oliver set the trend (the novel was eight chapters into its serial run when Victoria was crowned queen, in June of 1837),  and then there’s Jane Eyre and Heathcliff and Daniel Deronda and Dickens’ own Pip and Estella, in Great Expectations, to name just a few. (Radhika Jones)

Mainly because there were many of them in real life too.

The Guardian comments on the bookishness of this year's Oscars:

It's not classic novels that attract movie-makers. Of the books turned into nominated films this time, only Michael Morpurgo's War Horse (1982) was not published in the noughties. The others are Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret (filmed as Hugo), Jonathan Safran Foer's 9/11 novel Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close, Moneyball by Michael Lewis (the second non-fiction sports title by him in three years to generate a Best Picture nominee, as he also wrote the source of Blind Side), and two debuts, Kaui Hart Hemmings's The Descendants and Kathryn Stockett's The Help. It's the first time for quite a while – conceivably since 1940, when Gone with the Wind won and Wuthering Heights was among the nominees – that versions of two novels by women have been listed for the most coveted Oscar. (John Dugdale)

Too bad Jane Eyre (and Wuthering Heights too, why not) haven't been featured more prominently.

Connect Savannah is fascinated by Michael Fassbender's versatility:

As part of his four-score from 2011, Michael Fassbender turns up in A Dangerous Method as Carl Jung, the Swiss doctor often deemed the father of modern psychology. Watching him tackle Jung as a cautious, conflicted man, it's hard to see the same person who was so brooding in Jane Eyre, so, uh, magnetic in X-Men: First Class, and so raw in Shame. Yes, there's a reason so many of us think Academy Award nominee Michael Fassbender sounds a helluva lot better than, say, Academy Award nominee Jonah Hill. (Matt Brunson)

Film School Rejects on Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights at Sundance:

To see Andrea Arnold’s Wuthering Heights, one of my most anticipated films of the festival. A gorgeous visual feast, it’s a sumptuous and sensual film, just heaven on the eyes. Emotionally, though, it’s a toughie – for the sole reason that the characters of Cathy and Heathcliff are awful, selfish, wretched people. Their love story is one of destruction of all kinds, and Arnold rendered it in a way that is true to its source material. (Kate Erbland)

And de Volkskrant (Netherlands) talks about the premiere of the film at the Rotterdam Film Festival (IFFR).

The Chicago Tribune discusses fictionalised biographies:

Or "Charlotte & Emily" (2010) by Jude Morgan, if your curiosity runs to the famous scribbling sisters who turned out"Jane Eyre" and"Wuthering Heights" in between bouts of melancholy. (Julia Keller)

And Margot Livesey's The Flight of Gemma Hardy makes it to The New York Times' Editors' Choice.

THE FLIGHT OF GEMMA HARDY, by Margot Livesey (Harper/HarperCollins, $26.99.) An appealing novel about a young girl that recasts “Jane Eyre.”

The New Zealand Listener sums up a Midsomer Murders episode:

Midsomer Murders (Prime, 8.30pm). Midsomer sticks it the the actors: in A Tale of Two Hamlets, an arrogant actor (Charlie Beall) is killed in a summerhouse explosion, and then the director of one of his movies is electrocuted. It seems there’s a feud going in in Upper and Lower Warden over the works of a Victorian male writer called Ellis Bell – which, literary geeks, was the pseudonym of Emily Brontë. (Fiona Rae)

EFE covers the Spanish premiere of Albert Nobbs and lists several films where women are dressed like men. Including Les Soeurs Brontë 1979:

Otros ejemplos destacables los encontramos en "Las hermanas Brontë" (1979), con Isabelle Huppert como una de las célebres escritoras[.] (Carlos Palencia) (Translation)

Las Provincias (Spain) revisits the zombies and mentions a mashup that cannot be other than Wuthering Heights and a Werewolf...and a Zombie Too:

Los zombis, los muertos vivientes, los caminantes putrefactos, demarran a principios de los años 30 con 'La Legión de los hombres sin Alma', de Victor Halpernin. Desde entonces no han parado de crecer y ahora la zombificación es total, completa, rotunda, exitosa, con lo cual sospechamos que están aquí para quedarse pues el género no sólo se ha consolidado en el cine y en la pequeña pantalla ('Walking Dead'), sino que ha saltado al comic y a la literatura, revisionando clásicos como 'Cumbres Borrascosas' o avanzando al galope gracias a norteamericanos como el hijo de Mel Brooks, Max Brooks (véase su 'Guerra mundial Zombi', o a paisanos nuestros como Juan Miguel Aguilera y Javier Negrete. (Translation)

Ginger Generation talks about the Valentino collection in the Paris Fashion Week (in Italian):

La moda italiana chiude in bellezza la settimana della moda parigina. Impalpabile, leggera, sognante: la moda Valentino è tutta un tulle. Abiti dal sapore vittoriano, che sembrano usciti da un romanzo delle sorelle Brontë: colli alti con fiocco, maniche a sbuffo e gonne ampie.  (Francesca Parravicini) (Translation)

Michel Vivoux remembers first loves in La Depeche (France):

Soudain, la petite fille se rue sur moi, me serre dans ses bras, me fait un énorme bisou sur la bouche, et me dit un de ces « je t'aime » comme on peut en entendre dans « Les Hauts de Hurlevent » ou autre « Autant en emporte le vent ». (Translation) 

Good reviews for the theatre play The  Sisters Three: das Leben der Schwestern Brontë performed at the Linzer Posthof theatre:

Die einengende Welt der „Three Sisters“ wurde auch durch die Videoprojektionen (Renate Schuler) und atmosphärische Musik (Willy Hackl) heraufbeschworen. Joachim Rathke hätte in seiner Inszenierung allerdings durchaus mehr auf die Kraft der Literatur vertrauen können. Das erfreulich zahlreich erschienene Publikum war bei der Premiere am Donnerstagabend trotzdem großteils sehr angetan.Vorstellungen. (Birgit Thek in Neues Volskblatt) (Translation)

Eingebettet in zahlreiche Originalzitate aus Briefen, Tagebüchern, Romanen vermischen sich Wirklichkeit und Fiktion, Tragik, aber auch Komik zu einer intensiven Stunde, die in der Regie von Joachim Rathke darstellerisch aus dem Vollen schöpft, manchmal nahe an der Grenze zu Theatralik und Parodie. Das Bühnenbild ersetzen, bis auf Tisch und Stühle, Renate Schulers atmosphärische Videoprojektionen: als Fenster in die Öde, als in den Gedichten viel zitiertes Meer der Seele.
Willy Hackls Klangkulisse unterstreicht die Emotionen, wobei ihm oft ein hartes Pochen genügt, um Beklemmung spürbar zu machen. Langer Applaus für einen fast schon zu intensiven Abend.
Neu und gut also discusses this production. (Karin Schütze in Nachrichten) (Translation)

The Frankfurter Allgemeine (Germany) talks about the 250th Anniversary Catalogue of Henry Sotheran Booksellers:

Auch die literarischen Klassiker sind vertreten. Der erste Gedichtband der Brontë-Schwestern, schlicht „Poems“, veröffentlicht noch unter den männlichen Pseudonymen Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell, war 1848 ein Misserfolg - und ist heute eine Rarität, die man für 2250 Pfund erhält. (Mareike Hennig) (Translation)

The MocArty RMF Classic (Poland) nominations have been announced. Dario Marianelli's Jane Eyre soundtrack has been nominated for Best Film Music.

Sydsvenskan (Sweden) interviews the author Ingrid Elam:

Vilka mer eller mindre väl dolda fiktioner vill jag lyfta fram? Nyfiket skärskådar hon Charlotte Brontë i ”Jane Eyre” och konstaterar: (Katarina Tornberg) (Translation)

The Times looks at the price of literary manuscript, remarking on the £690,000 recently fetched by Charlotte Brontë's unpublished juvenilia manuscript. Pete Medway posts about an old edition of Wuthering Heights. And the Brontë Sisters shares a picture of a man baptised by Patrick Brontë; Dilettabrizzi reviews Jane Eyre on Paperblog.

Jane Eyre 2.0 in Atlanta

After being performed in Tokyo and Houston, the revised version of Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre (or Jane Eyre 2.0 as it is sometimes called) opens this weekend in Atlanta:

Jane Eyre. The Musical

Music & Lyrics by Paul Gordon
Book & Additonal Lyrics by John Caird
Legacy Theatre, Atlanta

January 27th - February 19th, 2012
With: 

Katie Mitchell, Stephen Mitchell Brown, Jill Bergeron, Anna Bridgeman, Amy Bridges, Erin Burnett, Alexandra Duncan, Ben Isabel, Erin Lamb, Ed Richardson, Preston Watson, Amanda Wilborn and Hannah Wilkinson.

Romance. Secrets. Haunting. These are the words that might come to mind while taking a walk through the ethereal English moors of the 5-time Tony nominated Broadway musical, Jane Eyre. This musical adaptation of the 19th century novel by Charlotte Brontë features the work of composer lyricist Paul Gordon (Emma) and book-writer/lyricist John Caird (Les Miserables; Children of Eden), whom have granted the Legacy the regional premier of their new version of the show. This is one you will not want to miss. 

Broadway World adds:

Mr. Gordon states that “Jane Eyre 2.0 is a leaner and more concise version of the show that played. Broadway in 2001. We have tuned the story and made the production more acceptable for regional theaters around the country to produce. We are very proud of the improvements and changes we have made and hope that audiences will enjoy Charlotte Brontë's moving story of love and forgiveness.” (...)
This version boasts a reduced orchestra from the original New York production as well as new and rewritten music and lyrics. The book has been cut extensively throughout in order to bring focus to the emotional love story between Jane and Rochester. The cast has been reduced to thirteen, with most actors doubling or tripling roles.

The Citizen has further information:

Mark Smith, Artistic Director of the Legacy and Jane Eyre’s director, first approached Gordon and Caird in the Fall of 2010 after having read the article on Playbill.com.
“The musical’s soundtrack has always been one of my favorites.  The haunting and memorable melodies, combined with the story’s timeless and enduring themes, made a considerable impression on me.  After reading the article, I knew that the Legacy with its intimate, yet grand auditorium could be the perfect place to stage this new version of the show.  Mr. Caird and Mr. Gordon were incredibly gracious and excited about the possibility of bringing this version to Atlanta and to the Legacy for its regional premiere.”

A nearly 100 years old sensational story

First of all, we have set up an online petition to try and save Red House from being closed down and sold. Please do take a moment to sign it here.

A couple of headlines today have made us think that we had gone back in time to 1913 when Charlotte's letters to Constantin Heger were first published. The Telegraph writes 'Charlotte Brontë's lost love letters revealed':

The letters were sent by the Jane Eyre novelist to Professor Constantin Heger, an older man with a wife and children.
Heger tore them up in shock, but they were retrieved from a rubbish bin by his wife who sewed them back together and preserved them.
One, composed in French, reads: "If my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall be absolutely without hope."
Another, with a postscript written in English, reads: "I must say one word to you in English - I wish I would write to you more cheerful letters, for when I read this over, I find it to be somewhat gloomy - but forgive me my dear master - do not be irritated at my sadness - according to the words of the Bible: 'Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh', and truly I find it difficult to be cheerful so long as I think I shall never see you more." [...]
By the time Heger was shown the letters by his daughter on his death bed, Bronte had died age 38 and was a recognised writer. The family decided to keep the correspondence, but the writer's love for Heger was tactfully omited from a biography written by her friend, Elizabeth Gaskell.
Rachel Floss, of the British Library, said: "Having been burnt, sold, cut up and destroyed, it is remarkable that these letters have survived.
"Seeing the torn-up letters with the careful stitches holding them together is remarkably evocative and moving. You get a really vivid sense that they have a story to tell."
Love Letters: 2000 Years of Romance, is published by the British Library and features correspondence from Oscar Wilde, Henry VIII, Rupert Brooke and Lord Nelson.

And the Daily Mail: 'Charlotte Brontë’s lost love letters to married professor were preserved by his wife'

It was a tale of unrequited love that could have been plucked straight from one of her novels.
Charlotte Brontë’s infatuation with her Belgian professor might never have come to light if it were not for the salvaging of her secret love letters.
The papers, written in 1844 when the author was 28, were torn up in shock by the older man, who was married and had children. But perversely, they were later found by his wife in a rubbish bin and sewn back together – possibly to preserve evidence of an indiscretion.
Three of the letters, addressed to Professor Constantin Heger, were composed entirely in French, one saying: ‘If my master withdraws his friendship from me entirely, I shall be absolutely without hope.’
One further letter had a postscript written in English, which is now to be published by the British Library in an anthology of love letters written by historical figures.
It reads: ‘I must say one word to you in English – I wish I would write to you more cheerful letters, for when I read this over, I find it to be somewhat gloomy – but forgive me my dear master – do not be irritated at my sadness – according to the words of the Bible: “Out of the fullness of the heart, the mouth speaketh” and truly I find it difficult to be cheerful so long as I think I shall never see you more.’ [...]
The letters still have the marks where their horrified recipient tore them up or tried to burn them.
Even after his wife had rescued them, Professor Heger tried to dispose of them again when his daughter showed them to him as he lay on his death bed in 1896.
But by this time, Miss Brontë – who had died aged 38 in 1855 – was already seen as an important writer and it was decided they should be preserved.  [...]
After Brontë’s death, her friend Elizabeth Gaskell wrote her biography, attempting to bury the story of unrequited love to preserve her honour. The young woman’s reputation would have been ruined had it been well-known that she pursued a man so aggressively.
Love Letters: 2000 Years of Romance, is the first ever anthology to reproduce original love letters in each of the writers’ own hand. (Eleanor Harding)

Just a remark here: the letters were once 'lost' (not exactly lost, just privately owned by the Hegers) but have been in the British Library and widely known since 1913. And anyway we thought the book had been released back in November.

Another book, The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey, continues gathering reviews and being deemed Jane Eyre-inspired. Macleans looks at the connection:

In 1958, at the age of 10, Gemma Hardy is the unwanted ward of her late uncle’s wife. She is sent off to boarding school, where she earns her keep by cooking and cleaning and where she must fend off the abuse of other students. Clever and hard-working, Gemma is not quite 18 when she goes to work as the au pair of an unruly little girl who lives with her uncle, the mysterious Mr. Sinclair, in the Orkneys in Scotland. Despite the differences between Gemma and Sinclair—he is more than twice her age, educated and of means—a strong connection sparks between them. Then Gemma discovers a secret from his past which she cannot abide.
Sound familiar? It should—the story is based quite closely on Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë’s tale of the feisty, wise-beyond-her-years orphan, still widely read more than 150 years after publication. So why reinvent one of the great classics of English literature? Part of Jane Eyre’s brilliance lies in its portrayal of children as both sophisticated and vulnerable emotionally—they “can feel,” Brontë wrote, “but they cannot analyze their feelings.” Livesey’s adaptation brings those feelings into closer relief, granting readers greater intimacy with the beloved character.
While Gemma, like Jane, is remarkably resilient, she is not immune to the confusion and contradictions that live in all young people. When her aunt puts on a rare show of tenderness, Gemma unwittingly melts—“It was so long since anyone had touched me with a semblance of affection.” When her cry for help lands a teacher in trouble, she atones with fervour. Desperate to discover her roots, she betrays a couple to whom she has become close. And on the romance front—this is, above all, a love story—Gemma is idealistic but also red-blooded. Livesey does not shy away from the inherent discomfort in the story’s liaison between a teenager and much-older man, but Jane Eyre fans will not be disappointed—not one ounce of passion is sacrificed. (Dafna Izenberg)

The Christian Science Monitor comments on it as well:

Lonely and having lost her mother, nine-year-old Margot Livesy “fell in love” with “Jane Eyre.” Now, the award-winning Scottish writer transports Charlotte Brontë's classic to 1950s and '60s Scotland in her new novel, The Flight of Gemma Hardy.
While living some 140 years in the future, fierce, justice-demanding Gemma will be instantly recognizable to Brontë's readers. (In this case, she comes with an affinity for birds and an Icelandic back story, having been brought to Scotland by her vicar uncle after her parents die.) The first chapters hew closely to the original: the selfish aunt, the spoiled cousins, the horrible boarding school – check, check, check.
Like Brontë, Livesy attended a Lowood-like establishment, where she “prayed nightly for the school to burn down.” [...]
But if the Orkneys are a satisfying stand-in for Thornfield Hall, occasionally grumpy banker Hugh Sinclair is no Mr. Rochester. Their love affair feels perfunctory – almost a whim on his part. And while a rich 41-year-old male being attracted to a penniless 18-year-old isn't exactly improbable, it's not the stuff that epic romances are made of. It's also really tough to come up with an obstacle to true love that can top a madwoman in the attic. Reader, I didn't want her to marry him.
In a contrast with “Jane Eyre,” where a reader can't wait to get back to Thornfield, the last third of “The Flight of Gemma Hardy” gets even stronger. Livesy deviates a bit more from Brontë's playbook as Gemma makes a place for herself in the world. And while Jane never sat for her O levels, you just know she would have aced them. (Yvonne Zipp)

Hispanic Business reports that Michael Thomas Ford is releasing a new Zombie Austen novel next month:

In Jane Vows Vengeance by Michael Thomas Ford (Ballantine, Feb. 28), our erstwhile gothic gal needs to let her fiancé know that she's not just dead, but undead. She also needs to get away from Lord Byron and Charlotte Brontë -- and who could blame her?

The Star carries a story about three literary sisters... which are not the Brontë sisters:

Sheffield-born siblings Danuta Reah and Penny Grubb are both acclaimed crime authors - with their older sister Sue Knight a published poet - and they each focus on the dark world of crime in their novels.
Now the family are being described as a contemporary version of the ultimate literary dynasty - Yorkshire’s Bronte sisters – as Danuta and Penny prepare for their first joint book signing in Sheffield.
Danuta, of Endcliffe Vale Road, Endcliffe, said: “I wouldn’t want to compare myself with Charlotte Bronte or one of her sisters, these are classic writers, but in a way we’re doing a similar thing.
“Crime fiction looks at darkness in society, the awful things people do to each other, that reaches out to a wide audience like the Brontës did.”
Like the Brontes, the family love the wild moors of their home county and are all talented, with younger brother John Kot an astrophysicist.
Penny, 56, who now lives near Hull, said: “It is a flattering comparison. When we were little we used to play games and write reams. Unfortunately, unlike the Brontë family we didn’t keep that.”

HitFix's In Contention thinks Jane Eyre 2011 deserved a Best Cinematography Oscar nomination:

On balance, it's a sightly enough group of films, though I can't help wishing the branch had shown a little more ingenuity in their choices: this would have been a lovely place to recognize some visually astonishing arthouse items too modest or too tricky to get a foothold in major categories: "Jane Eyre," "Melancholia," "Meek's Cutoff"... take your pick. (Guy Lodge)

The Philadelphia Inquirer also thinks that Jane Eyre deserved more:

Oh well, in the eyes of Oscar, it's the year of the domestic. "Albert Nobbs," "The Help." Which makes it even harder to explain why "Jane Eyre" was overlooked. (Gary Thompson)

A couple of reviews of the film Albert Nobbs mention Mia Wasikowska's Jane. The Sacramento Bee says,

Wasikowska is its lyrical heart. The actress was excellent going through her own stages of repression and rebirth as Jane Eyre earlier this year. . . (Betsy Sharkey)

And according to Times Union,

and Wasikowska proves that the deer in the headlights thing she did in "Jane Eyre" was a performance, not a mannerism. (Mick LaSalle)

The Jerusalem Post has an article on the British Film Festival (February 4-12 at Haifa, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv venues).

The opening movie is Andrea Arnold’s new version of Wuthering Heights. It’s a reworking of the beloved Emily Brontë classic, which is meant to shock its audiences as the original book scandalized readers.
Heathcliff is not a Gypsy but a runaway slave from the Caribbean, who uses profanity and fights back when he is called by a racial slur.
Viewers who remember earlier screen versions, notably the Merle Oberon- Laurence Olivier 1939 film directed by William Wyler, should be warned – this isn’t your grandmother’s Wuthering Heights. Arnold is known for her gritty, realistic films Fish Tank and Red Road. (Hannah Brown)

The film The Grey is reviewed by Toro Magazine:

And while we may wish to applaud the filmmaker’s attempt to add some social relevance and substance to an otherwise traditional yarn about the tenacity of the human spirit, there is little to gain by grinding down the action to give each death scene a soulful soliloquy more in keeping with the writings of Emily Brontë than those of Jack London. (Thom Ernst)

The Telegraph and Argus makes a pun on Bradford City's football player Andy Haworth:

With a name like Haworth, City’s “other” on-loan winger should fit in fine in West Yorkshire.
Andy Haworth would certainly love to hit the ‘Wuthering Heights’ as he looks to put a frustrating time at Bury behind him. (Simon Parker)

The Indiana Statesman recommends Wuthering Heights. And Liz Lochhead Scotland's poet laureate would seem inclined to agree with that, judging by this interview in The Herald:

What is your favourite book? Too Much Happiness by Alice Munro, because I'd felt she was being valedictory in her previous one, The View from Castle Rock, but, no, there it was, yet another collection of dazzling short stories, as great as ever. Oh, and Wuthering Heights. Of course.

The New York Times suggests Wuthering Heights: Restless Souls.

The Huffington Post wonders whether you can be addicted to love:

From Romeo and Juliet (underage bride, double suicide) to Wuthering Heights (animal torture, violent death) and Jane Eyre (insane hidden wife, arson), every great love story had two things in common: A healthy dose of suffering and a body count. (Catherine Townsend)

This blogger's favourite novel is Jane Eyre and Pop/Media Explosion looks into what is to be learned about friendship from Jane Eyre. Al borde de un ataque de cine (in Spanish) and Close Caption (in Turkish) review the 2011 film adaptation. Livros e vagalumes is giving away a copy of Wuthering Heights in Portuguese while Queenie and the Dew posts pictures of a 1950s edition of the novel. Subtle Melodrama reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. And Laura's Reviews posts about The Brontës: A Beginner's Guide by Steve Eddy.