Why we should all be reading the Brontës

A brief, varied newsround today.

In an interview, fashion designer Ronit Zilkha shows her true colours as a Brontëite:

Most dog-eared book?
Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre are both old favourites.

We now wonder if she'll be adding / has added touches of the novels here and there in her designs, just like so many other designers did a while back :P

Then, the need to quote Wuthering Heights is expanding. We find a mention in an article entitled "Why we should all be reading the Kama Sutra". But actually, though with several nuances, the reference doesn't miss the point so much (!):

The whole history of the romantic novel is written in those few observations. If you smile at the notion that sexual desire can make someone grow sick and die, you may be correct medically, but millions have wept over the death of Catherine Earnshaw pining for Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, not to mention a thousand knights languishing for love in medieval romances.

Poor Catherine *Linton* had just given birth to her child too, but we are sure those who say the novel is oddly sexless for such a passionate relationship will cheer at the idea!

And finally this from an article in The Advocate:

For example -- another anecdote -- I've always believed the first line of "Jane Eyre" to be one of English lit's most distressing sentences: "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day." Such negativity sets you up for Jane's bleak coming-of-age, but it also applies to drear weather outside the book. Maybe we're reading because we, too, can't go for a walk?

It has been said that the Brontës reproduced the real weather conditions outside when writing their novels so this might be true of Charlotte. They all used weather nearly as one more character. Besides, as Charlotte started working on Jane Eyre when looking after her father in Manchester after his eye operation, it is possible that both the weather was as described in that so-called distressing sentence and Charlotte herself couldn't go out. If the first sentence had been added or modified later on at home the weather conditions might apply too anyway.

Once you have read Jane Eyre and been hooked by it you don't need to blame the weather for staying home reading, don't you know that? :P

Categories: Brontëites, In_the_News, Wuthering_Heights, Jane_Eyre, Weirdo