Branwell travels to the House of Commons

First of all a couple of reviews of Wuthering Heights. Alice_confetti reviews the 1939 film version, which was recently reviewed elsewhere as well, triggered by a youtube video which 'combines WH footage with the Radiohead song, "Fake Plastic Trees."'. Here's some of it:

The movie does an admirable job of trying to capture all this, but it just can't. For example, how can it deal with that terrible nightmare image that Bronte placed at the start of the book, when Heathcliff's new tenant wanders in to Wuthering Heights from the storm and sleeps in Cathy's bed? In the book (and movie), he dreams that Cathy's spirit begs him to let her into the house. But in the movie, that's all it is, a disembodied voice calling to him. In the book he also dreams that her hand tries to come through the window pane and to stop her, he drags her wrist over and over again on the broken pane - until her wrist bleeds all over his bedclothes. It's horrifying, and even if a movie filmed this scene, it wouldn't be quite as horrifying as it truly is. It wouldn't get that precise measure of self-preservationist, unflinching cruelty - the inability for compassion in a cruel world - that the book hits just right. [...]
But all in all, a good classic film - and a good attempt to adapt the novel. Plus, the cinematography was divine.

A última biblioteca incorporates this film as well into its look into the Wuthering Heights phenomenon. The book, Kate Bush's song, Sylvia Plath... All this in Portuguese, however.

Remember we recently introduced you to the song Jane Eyre in Jeans by David Scott Crawford? The Brontë Parsonage Blog also posts about it. The text is signed by Kim Crawford, and we are left wondering whether she is a relative of the singer.

In “Jane Eyre in Jeans” Crawford weaves Charlotte Brontë’s beloved heroine through a pop/ballad melody of piano, bass, drums, guitar and even mandolin. Lines such as “You swallowed the storybook ending in a Styrofoam cup full of tea” paint a vivid picture of Jane’s world meshed with our own modern-day dilemmas. The result is what Chicago writer and art critic Lucia Mauro calls, “racy, maudlin and romantic.”

Perhaps a modern Jane Eyre in jeans would appeal more to teenagers, since, according to the Kansan it's not a very popular book among this age group.

We both like “Jane Eyre,” a rarity among high school teens. (Bryan Dykman)

Ah, we guess Toby Stephens will help boost the readership ;)

The Guardian reports an event that took place yesterday in the House of Commons.

There's a joke somewhere in Ed Balls, economic secretary to the Treasury, wistfully clasping the 1966 World Cup final football, as he did yesterday when a delegation of museum professionals from the north of England brought some of their treasures to a reception at the House of Commons. They also brought the 8th century York Helmet, Kim Philby's 1933 passport, a manuscript by Branwell Bronte, and an alarm clock which stopped at 8.23 am on December 16 1914, when three German battleships opened fire on Hartlepool. (Maev Kennedy)

We didn't know about that. And we wonder why it was they decided to take a manuscript of Branwell's rather than one by any of his sisters. It's great, though, because Branwell deserves to start being known by something else apart from being the 'drunken brother'.

And last but not least, our good friend and BrontëBlog collaborator Sarah from the Brontë List has asked us to congratulate her Portuguese friend Claudia, who will be having a baby son in July. Claudia's favourite novel is Jane Eyre and she will be naming her son Eduardo after Mr Rochester. We would like to wish Claudia all the best!

Categories: Branwell Brontë, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Wuthering Heights