Isolated and inexperienced

Slow news day today. And no mention of it being the 155th anniversary of the publication of Villette. Oh well, now you know.

The South Town Star reviews When Madeline Was Young, a novel by Jane Hamilton. Apparently part of it is reminiscent of Jane Eyre.

Moreover, Hamilton is an engaging writer and is quite literary. Mac compares his family situation with that of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, the plain governess who married Mr. Rochester without knowing of his incapacitated first wife - the mad woman in the attic, as feminist scholars Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar named her in their groundbreaking book of the same name. (Suzanne Sanders)

Also, the Ledbury Reporter summarises Polly Teale's Brontë, seeing as the company Perfect Circle will soon be touring the area: from February 15-26 with performances in Worcester, Bromyard, Ledbury and Kidderminster.

The tragic and talented Bronte sisters are the subject of an imaginative play being performed next month by Perfect Circle, the Malvern-based theatre group.
Bronte, by Polly Teale, looks at the lives of the three sisters, Victorian spinsters living in Haworth near the Yorkshire moors, who wrote some of the most memorable and passionate fiction of all time.
This unusual play evokes the real and imagined world of the Brontes in the Haworth parsonage and in it their famous fictional characters come to haunt them. It examines how the sisters with their isolated and inexperienced lives could have written such passionate and emotionally charged novels.
Bronte is the second production by Perfect Circle, a drama group formed a year ago to produce modern and contemporary theatre and workshops. (Sue Vickers)

'Isolated and inexperienced lives' is a tad too 'legendary' but we'll overlook it. Sadly BrontëBlog is only acquainted with the play on paper but it should make for a great evening at the theatre.

Komiklopedia delights us with this hilarious cover of an issue (no. 21) of Famous Classics Illustrated (1973) (Writer: Rio O. Oreta, Illustrator: Romy Villacampa). Isn't it priceless? The chestnut tree entangled with Jane's hair is quite scary too.

I Want to Suck Your Blood continues writing about Wuthering Heights and the supposed evidence of Heathcliff being a... vampire! Chick Book Geek writes a rather more conventional post on the novel. And - in case you've misplaced your copy and would like to check the evidence for Heathcliff actually being a vampire - Mommy of Three is giving away a copy. Meanwhile Cfc lists the different on-screen Rochesters along with their virtues and defects (in French). Ayse Zeynep reviews - in Turkish - Jane Eyre 2006.

Categories: Books, Comics, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Villette, Wuthering Heights