Spicing things up

No chit-chat or small-talk in today's news.

NOW magazine asked several writers a question and one of them, Ryan Knighton, didn't think twice about his not-very-empathic answer (or so it seems):

What literary character do you wish you could sleep with?
Lucy Snowe, from Charlotte Bronte's Villette. Anyone that repressed would go off like a bomb.

Tough chance, we think.

Creative Loafing interviews Lee Smith about her latest novel, On Agate Hill, and this is what she reveals about the writing process and results:

I became aware when I was quite a ways into it that I was really writing a 19th century novel, and I love them. I mean Jane Eyre was one of my all-time favorite novels. And I realized I am just writing Jane Eyre with sex.

The Victorian reviewers of Jane Eyre wouldn't have known how to deal with that!

But there's not just sex in the news. There's passion too, and not always the positive kind. What does the McCartney divorce drama have to do with the Brontës? Well, there's a Brontë connection to nearly everything!

The friend added that Macca's daughter Stella has nicknamed Heather either Mrs Rochester - after the mad first wife of Mr Rochester in Jane Eyre

Witty Stella! It is to be expected, though, that Sir Paul didn't keep his wife locked up in a tower ;)

And more about passion and the original Mrs Rochester. Quantum's After Mrs Rochester has brought to life Braddock library's Music Hall, which is being used for theatre for first time in 45 years. Both events are reviewed in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette:

The play tells the story of the life of Jean Rhys, an author who essentially locked herself away from the world for 15 years before publishing her novel, "Wide Sargasso Sea," at the age of 76.
"People thought she was dead," Ms. Boos said.
The Braddock Carnegie Library and Music Hall had been slated for demolition before being saved.
"This play is a metaphoric match for this library," Ms. Boos said.

It does sound fabulous.

Categories: Villette, Jane_Eyre, Books, Wide_Sargasso_Sea, Theatre