Brontës Housepartying

Los Angeles Times reviews Margot Livesey's The House of Fortune Street and highlights the Jane Eyre influence (both the author and the novel has been associated with the Brontës before):

"The House on Fortune Street" is not all psychology, though. It is, in the best sense of the term, a literary novel: Livesey invokes particular writers and even particular works to add resonance to her characters and their situations. Each of the novel's four sections has its own leitmotif: the poems of the great English Romantic John Keats, the life of Lewis Carroll, Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" and Dickens' "Great Expectations." Here again, Livesey is supple in her approach. Even if a reader is unfamiliar with those texts, their significance is made perfectly clear. And for the vast majority of her readers, who will indeed know them well, they add a great deal -- all the more so in the hands of a writer as skilled as Livesey. (Martin Rubin)

The Wheeling Countryside carries a funny article, Lame Eyre, about Rochester-inspired romantic fantasies:

My husband walks into the bedroom. I'm sniffling, dabbing at my eyes, watching "Jane Eyre" on Masterpiece Theater.
Hearing the piano notes and seeing the green pastoral hills, he knows he won't be staying. No gadgets, explosions nor cops snarling from a ledge.
As he observes 19th century characters carrying candles in dark hallways, his lips twist into a smile. "Looks like Mr. Rochester didn't pay his electric bill."
We foolish romantics are on a collision course with reality. Imagine Jane Austen stumbling on the bean scene in "Blazing Saddles."
Now if I had been born in the 19th century, I would have groped stone walls to get around the estate, for I'm nearsighted. My teeth would have been crooked because I wore braces. Oh, and because of my addiction to hasty pudding, I would have joined "Corset Watchers."
My poor spouse. I want to transform him into husband Rochester, to be gallant, talk in an English accent and be fitted with a frilly white shirt.
He tugs on the sleeves. "This is humiliating." (Read more)

The Windsor Star, among others, reviews the film Made of Honor. This is how the character played by Michelle Monaghan is described:

He's now a wealthy bachelor who likes to play the field, while she enjoys name-dropping Modigliani and Bronte and wants to settle down, but we know they're truly meant for each other because they both like cake and have bad taste in tableware. (Vanessa Farquharson)

EDIT: Cinema Confidential insists:

Hannah speaks in full sentences, she has good taste in antiques, and can quote the literature of Emily Brontë. (Sean Chavel)

We read on Media-Newswire how

The Women's Studies Program has named Brittany Autumn Swihart and Mingde Mark Chia this year's Henry Jameson Prize winner and runner-up. The award, a recognition of the best undergraduate papers addressing women's lives and roles, was presented April 30 at the annual women's studies spring luncheon. (...)
Chia was chosen as runner-up for “Navigating Difference in the Wide Sargasso Sea,” which explores author Jean Rhys’ approach to gender difference and racial difference in her 1966 “prequel” to Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre.

From the College of Liberal Arts (Texas A&M University) web:

“Wide Sargasso Sea is unique in that it forces one to examine one's gendered identity in more complex terms, [such as] race, ethnicity, class, sexuality [and] culture, without necessarily privileging one over the other or assuming that all categories are equal,” said Chia, who studied at A&M last spring as an exchange student from the National University of Singapore. “This is something women’s studies must always return to.” (Jackie Upshaw)

Now, some Brontës in a college houseparty. Check this article in The Daily Princetonian:

And remember, because Houseparties is a classy affair, every effort should be made to maintain high standards of sparkling, cultured repartee this weekend. This unspoken rule is exemplified by the following conversation.

BRO 1: Bro, Emily Bronte is def. the hottest Bronte sister.

BRO 2: Dude, no way is Charlotte Bronte hotter than the E-Surance girl!

BRO 3: Bro! Totally! Bro!

BRO 1: [woots]

BROS 1, 2, and 3: [exchange high fives, begin singing chorus of “Cherry Pie”] (Ryan Truchelut)

On the blogosphere today:

Les roses de décembre continues posting lots of pictures, videos and accounts of her recent trip to Haworth: rare books on the Brontës, Haworth Church, the moors, more on the moors, Haworth Main Street and The Parsonage.

Hoerbuch-fans.de reviews a Jane Eyre audiobook read by Eva Mattes in German. (Incidentally, the winner of the copy of the Jane Eyre audiobook read by Juliet Mills has already been sent an e-mail.)

Chris from Book-a-rama has brought this mini-challenge organised by Becky's book reviews to our attention.

Renata Cordeiro continues translating poems by Emily Brontë into Portuguese: Hope.

And finally, the most gruesome and bad-taste Brontë mention that we have read in all BrontëBlog history. Concerning the infamous Fritzl case in Austria, this is what Mr. James Hannaham writes in Salon:

[H]er neighbors could have remained ignorant of the Jane Eyre-meets-John McCain situation going on right under their feet.

Categories: Audio-Radio, Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry, Scholar, Translations, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea