Leave it to the Brontës

The Boston Globe asks three writers to name their influential books. Margot Livesey - an old member of the Brontëites' club - talks passionately about Jane Eyre.

"I'd have to say 'Jane Eyre' was a crucial book for me. I first read it when I was about the same age that Jane is in the opening chapter -10 years old - and I felt immediately less alone in the world. Here was someone who was having an even harder time than I was; the food was terrible at my school, but at least we didn't have a typhus epidemic.
"And then of course Jane grows up and meets Rochester. The scene of her sitting on the stile at dusk and him riding over the frozen ground and falling at her feet is more vivid to me than many things that have happened in my own life. I knew almost nothing about sex at the time that I first read the novel, but I knew a great deal about passion. And I understood at once how Jane feels recognized by Rochester. Just as, later in the novel I understood, instinctively, why Jane shouldn't marry St. John.
"As an adult I have reread the novel a number of times - most recently last spring - and while I now hugely appreciate the artistry with which Bronte shaped the novel, and see many things in it that I entirely missed when I was 10, the main experience of reading it is still an utter immersion in Jane's life and sensibility, and a passionate desire to see her triumph over adversity."

Lovely words.

St. Louis Today has an article on technology reaching opera venues, and they use Michael Berkeley's Jane Eyre as an example.

For Michael Berkeley's "Jane Eyre" in 2006, Ryan said, "with a computer and video projector, if they didn't like the color of leaves on a tree, we could take it into Photoshop and change it until they said, 'We like it, save it.'" (Sarah Bryan Miller) (Picture source)

Now for some reviews. The Baltimore Sun reviews the recently-released Brontë Collection.

There is a rampant sexual energy in the writings of those two unruly Victorian sisters, Charlotte and Emily Bronte, that runs through the made-for-television versions of their two greatest works, respectively Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.
Leave it to the Brontes to unearth the sexual magnetism of ugly, powerful men. Rochester and Heathcliff are Byronic heroes: dark, deformed, wild and surly. They were not meant to have chiseled jaws and artfully mussed hair.
Both Toby Stephens (Rochester) and Robert Cavanah (Heathcliff) are fine actors, and it cannot be denied that film is a visual medium. Still, I found myself longing for less romance and more authenticity. The novels aren't remotely picturesque or pastoral, but are as profoundly unsettling as an earthquake. In a similar way, the films made from these books should rattle our bones.
Special features include deleted scenes, audio commentaries, and interviews with the cast and crew. (Mary McCauley)

The same version of Jane Eyre is briefly reviewed in The Wichita Eagle, in their 'guide to films for proper young ladies'.

"Jane Eyre" 2007: OK, so I've only seen the first half of this two-part Masterpiece Theater series, based on Charlotte Bronte's novel. (Forgot to record the other half when it aired earlier this year on PBS -- oops.) And even though it's full of suffering and sadness, I love it all the same. Hey, there is a party scene, even though poor Jane isn't invited to partake.

By the way, the series is being aired in Estonia by Eesti Television each Friday (starting last October 5)

A film version of Little Women is suggested as well. This is interesting because St Louis Today (again) reviews Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father by John Matteson.

Matteson goes on to sketch [Louisa May Alcott's] admiration for "Jane Eyre" and "Pilgrim's Progress," as well as Dickens, Thackeray and Carlyle, but I do wish (it's about my only complaint) that he had made an effort to unearth other literary inspirations. (Jamie Spencer)

Indeed, we have always considered that the Brontës' lives and Louisa May Alcott's were not so different after all.

Incidentally, JellyBeanie87 has uploaded lots of icons from several 'films for proper young ladies' which are worth a look. Among many others, there are some from the above-mentioned Jane Eyre 2006.

The Salt Lake Tribune reviews Valerie Martin's novel Trespass, with the usual reference to the character Chloe's occupation.

Upstairs Girl in the Big City Library has posted a very funny review of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. And Loésh publishes a souvenir de lecture de Wuthering Heights in French.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Opera, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights