Brontë-related things you can do no matter where you are

We recently posted about a site where Paula Rego's work was being carefully studied. Today we report - mainly to those in the Harrogate Area - that the real thing can be seen there at the Mercer Art Gallery.

18 November - 14 January 2007
Flying Children, by Paula Rego
Paula Rego, one of Britain's best-known women artists, shows 200 works in a survey of her lifetime's graphic art.
Exhibition organised by Marlborough Graphic, London, in association with the Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh.

Meanwhile, you can also take a stroll around the Peak District as recommended by The Guardian.

On the limestone and millstone grit and at home, on shale and granite, fields are still green, vivid against late autumn colours. On holiday in Derbyshire, we squeezed through dozens of narrow stiles, walked through frost in shady clefts beneath screes and sunlit crags, and were lucky to hear the warbling song of dippers, bobbing and flitting along swirling streams. It was even warm enough for picnics under sheltering walls. There was no sign of Charlotte Bronte's Mr Rochester by Haddon Hall, as shown in the recent BBC TV adaptation of Jane Eyre, but a herd of deer was clearly visible in Chatsworth's parkland. Below the Cresswell millpond, on the Wye river, Richard Arkwright's austere cotton mill is converted into residential apartments and a notice alongside the Monsal trail reminds us of 18th-century child workers sent there as apprentices from London's poorhouses.

If you are looking for something closer to where you live, you might be interested to know that the Detroit Free Press somehow draws a comparison between the fillm The Fountain and Wuthering Heights.

This commitment is also conveyed through the devotion of the actors, who never once indicate they are taking this anything less than seriously. Not only do Jackman and Weisz channel the love-trumps-place-and-space of classical melodrama like "Wuthering Heights," they are supported here by an equally serious-minded cast that includes "Requiem" star Ellen Burstyn as present-day Tommy's concerned supervisor, and by the florid yet affecting production design of James Chinlund.

But if you simply feel like staying cosily at home, then we still have suggestions for you. The BookBlog has just started a discussion on Wuthering Heights. So far, apart from introducing it, they have already deconstructed it.

But November is also the NaNoWriMo month and the influence of the Brontës has sipped into some stories. Trashionista features one by Iva-Marie Palmer:

This year, I'm writing "Ennui" (working title) -- a young adult book and an update of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" -- about Ennui Jacobs, a comics and classics-reading, school activity-hating sophomore who thought she'd never take an interest in anything, until she meets Cy Rochester. Now she's listening to her Cosmo Girl-toting sister and trying not to daydream about Cy's crooked grin.

But Cy's cocky and arrogant -- not to mention full of secrets, including a mother who disappeared after becoming the biggest soap opera star of her era. Does Ennui want to pull her head out of a book long enough to learn what he's hiding?

Her progress on this novel as well as an excerpt can be found here.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Fiction, Websites