Suckers for the Brontës

Michael Morpurgo selects in The Telegraph the 100 books every child should read. The selection is sometimes a little bizarre. Wuthering Heights and not Jane Eyre?

Part 3: Early teens
Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte
A novel that embeds itself in the memory, and set feminism back 150 years. The human genome has yet to produce a teenage girl who isn't a sucker for Heathcliff.

Coutorture covers the new Bill Blass Spring 2008 collection:

We kind of love that the Bill Blass S/S 08 presentation had an atmosphere reminiscent of Wuthering Heights so cold and eerie, that it made your skin crawl. It definitely adds something to dresses that, though beautiful, stand among the dozens of other 'pretty', neutral dresses we saw for the season.

If you say so.

The Huffington Post is somewhat confused about the cause of Charlotte Brontë's death. Nowadays it is believed that morning sickness related to pregnancy (Hypemeresis Gravidarum) is probably the reason. But the author of the article seems to suggest that Charlotte died in childbirth (!):

Many women died of infection--like Charlotte Bronte--or nearly died like Mary Shelley. (Erica Jong)

The student newspaper The Breeze revisits again one of those recurrent topics in literature discussions:

However, if you’ve ever taken a “great works” class at JMU or any other university you may note one thing—most of the literature you read is by male authors. The Bronte sisters are thrown in most times for good measure, and if a professor is really daring he or she may even use Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar. Despite the fact that more than 90 percent of the reading in the class is produced by males, we call this class “great works” when a more appropriate title would be: Great Works by Men and a Couple Thrown in by Women. (Sarah Delia)

Another usual suspect among Brontë references in the press is Gordon Brown. Today in Associated Press:

[Alison] Jackson thinks part of the problem is that Brown appears more like a brooding figure from an 19th century novel like "Wuthering Heights" than a modern politician. (Gregory Katz)

Let's not leave the UK, because the government - according to The Guardian - urges to protect Britain's heathland habitat, including the Yorkshire moors, of course:

Lowland heath has partly missed out on a sense of national emergency because of the abundance of upland heather moors - which have a secure place in the national psyche through literary classics such as Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. (Martin Wainwright)

Girlebooks reviews Villette (*):

I will definitely put this one the “to re-read” shelf and look forward to new odd experiences Lucy Snowe will inflict next time. (Laura McDonald)

Maddalena De Leo posts in the Brontë Parsonage Blog an enthusiastic review of Wuthering Heights 1978:

I’ve just finished watching the 1978 BBC dramatization of Wuthering Heights on two DVDs which I bought last summer in the Parsonage shop and now I really consider it to be the best among the various screen adaptations of Emily Brontë’s novel ever realized.

The blog of the Peruvian radio programme Mi Novela Favorita announces the re-airing (next weekend, see sidebar) of Alonso Cueto's adaptation of Wuthering Heights (more information in this previous post). annamlewis recommends The Writer's Brush Paintings, Drawings, and Sculpture by Writers by Donald Friedman, a book that we presented some time ago. 'Jaynekicks' Book Reviews briefly comments Emma Brown by Claire Boylan. We are three is thrilled with Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights.

(*) Thanks to Christina from Chris-o-rama for this link.

Categories: Audio-Radio, Books, Charlotte Brontë, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Villette, Wuthering Heights