Old topics again

Several recent news talk about topics that have been widely discussed on this blog. First, we find a new review of Edward Mendelson's The Things that Matter:

It's an enlightening -- even liberating -- frame of reference, and it frees Mendelson to make some rather bracing judgments, as in his appraisal of Emily Brontë who "believed as strongly as did the Marquis de Sade that cruelty is inherent in nature, that it was one of the aspects of nature that human beings shared."

The essays on Charlotte Brontë and on Eliot's "Middlemarch" are similarly fine. The former contains what might be the only non-pedantic discussion of Neoplatonism you'll ever read..

If you want to listen to Edward Mendelson himself talking about his book, you can try this link where he is interviewed for the NPR.

Siku and Strickson's Wuthering Heights graphical novel is the object of a new article. This time in The Telegraph (more information in all these posts, with samples):

Its "author", Adam Strickson, 48, a Huddersfield-based poet and playwright, said: "She wanted to tell the whole story — not just the romance between Heathcliff and Cathy which Hollywood has always concentrated on.

"It's targeted at young people, obviously, but also people who haven't read Wuthering Heights. This might take them to the original and it could also interest people who read graphic novels and, I hope, Brontë fans who want another look at the story.

"I don't think I'm upsetting them. Although it's a radical form, it's not a radical take on the story. I have been fairly true to the book, although, compared with the original, there are very few words."

He continued: "I've tried to keep the language of the book and the original plot. What's gone is the narration. It gains in pace, but a certain amount of the psychological depth was lost simply because of the medium.

What this does have, which the films don't, is much more of the darkness and the violence of the original. I didn't need to add it."

He created script like a film story-board and reduced the plot to 50 pages with between two and eight images on each.

Strickson sent his script to the London studio of a Nigerian-born graphic artist, Siku, best known for his drawings of fantasy heroes.

"There is lots of black — it's a very moody story, so it suits my style perfectly," said Siku. "Gothic fiction is very similar to graphic fiction, so it was not really such a big leap from Judge Dredd.

"I always thought Heathcliff should have been shown much darker, not just in his character, but physically, too, and the story is wackier than Hollywood has made it.

"I had to do a lot of research, including reading the original. I sifted though hundreds of images, websites, pictures of the moors and movies. It took three months to finish."

Richard Wilcocks, the chairman of the 2,000-member Brontë Society, has yet to see the book, but believes "imitation is the sincerest form of flattery".

He said: "I can't disagree with the notion that its gothic obsessions, and the backdrop of the Haworth moors, make it a classic subject for a comic-book treatment.

"If Shakespeare can be retold in graphic versions many times and survive, I can see no reason why the Brontës can't either.

"If you are famous and you are worth it, why shouldn't somebody try to interpret it? I welcome any imaginative and original treatment. It might fall flat on its face, but on the other hand it might attract new readers and visitors to the wellspring."

Categories: Books, In_the_News, Wuthering_Heights, Comics