Wish for wings

Several blogs talk about Haworth and the surrounding area today.

Janne recently visited Haworth and writes about it, in Norwegian, with several pictures.

Idealistic Nymph has just found out that her hotel for her London stay is actually in Leeds (!!) but is thrilled to be able to go to Haworth.

The Pennine Pen lives in the area and recently visited Hebden Bridge, a place which is famous for this:

The village of Heptonstall which sits on the hill overlooking Hebden Bridge is the burial place of American writer Sylvia Plath. The Bronte sisters have also made this area popular for tourists as they lived in nearby Haworth and wrote about this area.

But let's now move onto some other sort of journey: reading. What I think about what I read writes about Wuthering Heights.

I bought Emily Bronte’s novel and began reading it. However, I never made it beyond page 164. The plot intrigued me, the mood scared me, and the writing was beautiful, but I became busy with other schoolwork and with more pressing demands. Time took over. Before I knew it six years had past and I had yet to complete the book. [...]
I am glad that I stuck with it. I found the story rewarding and the characters unforgettable. The narrative structure fascinated me and I appreciated how Nelly, the housekeeper, was able to make the past come alive so a reader could understand the historical and emotional dynamics at work.
Several thoughts struck me after reading the book.
First, I was struck most by how the emotional state of each character affected his or her physical health; I think that is what frightened me the most about the novel. Deteriorating physical health was as much a pervasive theme as the haunting physicality of the moors and the rainy lonely climate of the Heights. Heathcliff as a man is not nearly as frightening as the fact that his emotional state makes him sick with revenge and hatred. Likewise, Hareton verges on frightening because Heathcliff’s emotional state begins to consume him.
Second, I was stuck by the complete absence of religion. Scholars probably would debate the point by noting how Heathcliff discussed, and then refused, a church presence at his funeral. However, most of the works I have read from that time and after (both British and American) included a strong depiction of how religion influenced lifestyles and outlooks.
Last, I was intrigued by how well Bronte construed class in the book. I have read essays in the last year noting that American fiction is dead because of the absence of fictional depictions of class differences. Regardless of the debate of where (or if) class is perceived, there are few better novels in the English language that explore class as well as Wuthering Heights. Class is all-consuming to Bronte’s characters and a transferable identity from one generation to the next, which is equally a frightening thought to an American in 2007.
I am glad that I returned to Wuthering Heights and completed the book. I not only allowed the characters to finish their stories, but I also filled a hole in my life that I found myself frequently stepping into as I scanned by bookshelf.

Interesting. We are glad they finished the book and shared this :)

It's not easy being green embarks on another kind of journey. A review of / tribute to the lastest screen adaptation of Jane Eyre.

Yes, they did take the whole flashback thing too far, and if I had written the screenplay I wouldn't have put it in there, but I do think it captures the essence of Jane's internal conflict. She thought she was going to marry that man. [...]
Yes, in the movie there was a lot of steamy kissing . . . I think it was just Sandy Welch's attempt to convey how much of an ordeal it was for Jane to do what she knew she had to do. And one thing I have to admire is that there was no voice-over! In these beautiful first-person stories, movie makers almost always feel it necessary to stick in random voice-over narration, which interrupts the story and destroys the emotion. I have to admit that I found the movie mesmerizing. I watched the entire thing in one go, and I couldn't stop thinking about it for days afterwards. It may not be perfect (actually, it definitely wasn't), but it's the best one so far--so much better than all the others that I can't take any of them seriously . . . not that I ever did. How can you even argue when you put Toby Stephens up against the likes of Timothy Dalton, William Hurt, Ciaran Hinds, and Orson Welles? All bigger names, to be sure, but they just didn't work. And he definitely worked.

The flashback scenes that were so controversial are more easily understood after the first viewing of the series, in our opinion. They become a visual way of showing just how close Jane and Rochester truly are and to make the separation seem more real and more of an effort by comparison.

Categories: Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Wuthering Heights