A Victorianist and a choreographer

We heard about the Jane Eyre-connection in the film Definitely, Maybe a few days ago, but today a few other newspapers relay it.

From The Orange County Register, with extra blunder for free:

Finally, there's "April" ("Wedding Crashers" fruit-loop Isla Fisher), a bright but aimless Clinton volunteer who collects copies of "Jane Eyre" as a sentimental homage to her dead father.
Brooks – the "Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason" screenwriter, here directing for the first time since "The Invisible Circus" (2001) – doesn't mean to compare April to the Emily Bronte heroine; in fact, it's Will who has the years-long, Jane-like journey of self. Reynolds, in his most appealing performance to date, has pitch-perfect rapport with each of his female co-stars. (Craig Outhier)

We'll never get why it is so difficult to check who wrote what, thus avoiding making a fool of yourself.

From the Contra Costa Times:

Instead, Will and "April" become "friends," which is to say she tells him an amazingly tender story about how her dead father gave her an inscribed first edition of "Jane Eyre" (apparently not her real name either!), which "April" has been scouring used bookstores for ever since.
I'm sure there must be something significant about the fact that it's "Jane Eyre," even though "April" isn't a homely Victorian governess, she's smokin' hot, ready or not. Trust me, people, you don't get to tell a story like that in a movie like this unless you're somebody special. (Bruce Newman)

From The New York Observer:

Then April (Isla Fisher), the exasperating, apolitical and always confrontational redhead who runs the copy machine, plays Kurt Cobain and haunts second-hand book stores for the lost copy of Jane Eyre her father bought and inscribed for her 13th birthday, a few weeks before he died. (Rex Reed)

Changing topics now. You know the Brontës have a long history in the news with both fashion and politics. Indeed, this is actually not the first time Hilary Clinton is linked to them. From The Huffington Post:

The couple has just heard the Ms. Lee speak in passing about her endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Now they want to know the reasons for her support. But Congresswoman Lee can't let go of the spouse issue. He's had his "disappointments," he's had his "troubles," she says, in mitigation of Bill Clinton's behavior. What exactly does she mean? This is unclear, for Ms. Lee, perhaps channeling a nineteenth-century novelist, is characterizing more of a mad spouse from Bronte than a politician from Trollope. (Mayhill Fowler)

A new Brontëite discovered via Musings of a Bookish Kitty, who reviews the forthcoming The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari.

The author is a reader! One of his favorite books is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.

In brief: Suburban Journals has what looks like a short story where Charlotte Brontë's name is mentioned in passing. And マダム アンドレ のジュエルな日々writes about Wuthering Heights 1939 in Japanese.

Finally an original alert for later today from the Time Out Chicago blog:

The constant veil of light snow has me thinking "Currier & Ives." If you, too, are feeling your inner Victorian stirring, perhaps you’ll want to hook up the horse and buggy and head out to the Newberry Library for an evening of cultivated conversation. This announcement from the Chicago Seminar on Dance and Performance came too late for our listings, but it’s well worth attending:
Choreographer Margi Cole and Victorianist scholar Ken Daley discuss the Bronte sisters (who wrote such anguished romances as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights) and the development of Cole’s piece based on their lives, Written on the Body, which will go up at the Dance Center of Columbia College next week.
The free event takes place tonight, Februrary 12 from 6pm to 7:30pm at the Newberry Library, 60 W Walton St

More information about Written on the Body can be found on these previous posts of ours.

Categories: Alert, Brontëites, Dance, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Talks, Weirdo