The Brontë Battle: Anti-Brontëites

First, a book. We read in The Toronto Star, in a review of the last novel of C.S. Richardson, The End of the Alphabet, how one of the characters hates Wuthering Heights:

One method Richardson uses of building character is listing certain traits the character possesses. He hates Wuthering Heights, she loves it. She likes most beards, hates all moustaches, and reads everything. He doesn't even read the newspaper, and happens to own a collection of watches in a "range of silly colours and eccentric shapes." (Philip Marchand)

The Sunday Times introduces a new band, Los Campesinos! It seems that they don't appreciate Jane Eyre too much (Check EDIT, below):

Their music has a for-the-love-of-it manic energy, scatter-gun lyricism and a hint of bedsit feyness that should ensnare fans of Belle and Sebastian, the Magic Numbers, Jamie T, Kate Nash and Arctic Monkeys. Their debut 7in, We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives/Don’t Tell Me to Do the Math(s), captures exactly why their fans are so mad for them: on the latter track, glockenspiel, violin and banjo give way to a first verse that pines, “If only you could give your life to literature”, before the boys barge in with “Just don’t read Jane Eyre”. Strangely sublime. (Dan Cairns)

You can listen to them here, but just don't take them very seriously and read Jane Eyre :P

And finally, The Beacon News suggests that

in today's fast-paced world where everything has to be now, Bronte's classic, Wuthering Heights , wouldn't even find an agent, let alone be published.

EDIT: Gareth, a member of Los Campesinos!, has left a comment in another entry, contextualizing the reference:

I'm in that band Los Campesinos! that you mentioned above. I thought I should justify my apparent Bronte-bashing. Basically the song in question is partly about my favourite book 'Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit'. If you've read it I'm sure you're aware of the role that Jane Eyre takes in the story. Of course, in Jane Eyre, the protagonist cops off with Mr Rochester. As a child, Jane Eyre was the only non religious book Jeanette was ever read by her controlling mother, and in the version that her mother told her she changes the story so that Jane flees to do missionary work in India with the priest and lives a celibate life, in a very similar way to Jeanette's parents. When Jeanette grows old enough to read herself, she re-reads Jane Eyre and is horrified at the true ending and it hits her pretty hard.

The song is about the keeping of secrets, primarily other peoples, and so hopefully that helps explain the use of the lyric.

Please don't think we dislike Jane Eyre or any of Brontë's works at all. we count three english literature students in our number and so wouldn't dream of slagging off such an important novel.

I hope that's okay and that nobody takes the lyric too literally.

Categories: Books, In the News, Music, References