A bottle of wine, Britney Spears and Carrie Bradshaw coughing

The Daily Mail announces the next Ilkley Literary Festival where, as has been reported before, Branwell Brontë will, more or less, feature:

Meanwhile, if you're feeling inspired by Justine Picardie's talk on Daphne Du Maurier's fascination with Branwell Brontë and want to learn more about the area's most famous literary family, you could head over the moors to visit the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth. You might even bump into your very own Heathcliff. (Amber Pearson)

More Branwell references. Also in The Daily Mail we found a review of Captivated: J. M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers And The Dark Side Of Neverland by Piers Dudgeon:

Conspiracy theories don't come much loopier than this. (...)
Piers Dudgeon's big theory is that J.M. Barrie, the melancholic creator of Peter Pan, was 'an interloper, a psychological controller, a perpetrator of evil' whose diabolic hypnotic powers continued to ruin other people's lives way beyond his own death. Barrie, he contends, not only killed his own brother but was responsible for the deaths of half the boys who helped him write Peter Pan and even for the death of Scott of the Antarctic. As if this were not enough, 'he brought many of the du Mauriers to destruction' too. (...)
Yet in Margaret Forster's definitive biography of Daphne [du Maurier], J.M. Barrie is mentioned on just eight pages out of 425. So in the absence of proof connecting the two, Dudgeon sifts through all Daphne's fiction, only to find that - hey presto! - every villain is in fact J. M. Barrie in disguise.
Of a book of her short stories, he explains that 'every one ... is about disillusionment and treachery, Barrie's treachery'. How odd that her actual biographer failed to spot Barrie in a single one of them! He even sees Daphne's biography of Branwell Bronte as a coded attack on Barrie: 'Go to The Infernal World Of Branwell Bronte for a biography of Branwell and you may be disappointed, but go to it knowing that Daphne had just come out of a major breakdown over J. M. Barrie's destruction of her family, and you will be enthralled.' Like all seasoned conspiracy-theorists, Dudgeon can spot his villain around every corner, his fingerprint on every corpse. (Craig Brown)

Excuse the long quote, but the Branwell mention needed a bit of context.

DVD Verdict reviews Wide Sargasso Sea 2006. It's a positive and well-argued review:

As good as the 1993 theatrical version was, it disappointed me on several levels. The Jamaican scenery was breathtaking and the acting was adequate enough; still, it seemed to me the director depended more on sex instead of the powerful themes in Rhys' novel. She touches upon racism, colonialism, and (most importantly) identity, while also carefully crafting two complex characters struggling with a union doomed from the start. Antoinette is an outcast, receiving prejudice not only from the white European settlers but also the black Jamaicans who label her as a "white cockroach." This 2006 adaptation puts complete faith in the narrative and surpasses the 1993 version in practically every way.

Screenwriter Stephen Greenhorn has condensed the original text in meticulous fashion, making it flow naturally, with nothing feeling forced. Sure, he largely ignores Parts I (summarizing Antoinette's childhood) and III (Bertha's burning of Thornton Hall) to focus on the marriage gone sour due to outside forces. While there are allusions to voodoo and black magic, Greenhorn is more concerned with the patriarchal, racist society and how it destroys Antoinette's growing happiness and fuels Edward's suspicions—the dramatic crux which drives Rhys' story. He and director Brendan Maher (both veterans of British TV) craft an eloquent adaptation which beautifully mixes faithfulness and dramatization, with neither element compromising the other.

Beyond that, this version of Wide Sargasso Sea is worth watching for the rich performances alone. Rafe (son of Timothy) Spall makes an excellent Rochester, a man without emotion or remorse, who feels the need to take control of his supposedly sick wife. He smiles rarely, giving the character an intense arc, motivated by male power and misplaced musings. Also matching him are the minor—but no less crucial—contributions by Sosanya and Burroughs as the Jamaican housekeepers. Sosanya, especially, gives Christophine just the right amount of concern and empathy, pushing Antoinette to dodge Edward's psychological clutches.

The film's real revelation is Rebecca Hall, however. First off, she eclipses Karina Lombard's somewhat stiff interpretation of Antoinette in the John Duigan version, which failed to exhibit the character's lost innocence and mental deterioration in a satisfying way. Secondly, Hall not only looks the part but lives it, resulting in a devastating performance which pulls out all the emotional stops. You understand her, empathize with her, and ultimately root for her; Hall's final moments solidify a genuine talent which demands attention. High profile directors Christopher Nolan and Woody Allen have already taken notice; in fact, she will play the one of the two title roles in the latter's Vicky Cristina Barcelona, coming out later this year.

This BBC version of Wide Sargasso Sea is given the digital treatment by Acorn Media. Sporting a 1.85 anamorphic print, the picture looks fine for the most part. The director occasionally misuses the lighting, making some scenes darker than necessary; still, the film is easy on the eyes, with some lush colors scattered throughout. Audio-wise, we are treated to a DD 2.0 track. Dialogue is easily heard and Nina Humphrey's score is appropriately pulse-pounding. Subtitles are provided in English only. Special features are unfortunately-if expectedly-minimal, with a biography of Jean Rhys and some cast filmographies as the only goodies. (Christopher Kulik)

Charlotte Stretch from The Guardian's Book Blog uses the page 69 test (although we actually thought it was the page 99 test) with Wuthering Heights:

Heathcliff, returning after three years' absence, visits Catherine and Edgar.
There's no doubt about it: the cracks in the page 69 theory are definitely beginning to show. It's partly down to my own lack of foresight - by choosing a Wordsworth edition (known for cramming as many words as possible on to a page, thus keeping the whole thing short and, more importantly, cheap to produce), I've actually opened the book at what appears to be quite a crucial point in the story. My earlier - slightly rash - assertion that this wouldn't matter seems to have been rather premature. Still, without actually having read the novel, it's amazing how closely I can detect the sexual tension between Cathy and Heathcliff. Edgar, clearly a particularly unwelcome third wheel, makes the whole thing even more compellingly unbearable. All in all I'm feeling quite privileged to be present at such an important moment, although a small part of me does wish I'd turned up a bit earlier.
I can't deny having detected a couple of major holes in McLuhan's hypothesis. For one thing, it seems that choosing the right edition does, after all, make a difference - sometimes. Furthermore, it's not always easy to feel an instant connection with a book if you weren't around for the first 68 pages. But despite these flaws, I've decided to stick with my page 69s; as tasters of things to come, I think they've served their purpose pretty well.
Of course, if you're still not convinced, I suggest you carry out a similar experiment. In fact, I'd like to throw this open to the floor: I want everyone reading this to go away, examine a page 69, and come back to report your findings...

Let's begin now with some weird comparisons. First, iVillage thinks that the couple of characters from Swingtown are the new Cathy and Heathcliff:

Ah, Susan and Roger. Not since Heathcliff and whats-her-face out on the moors has there been such a dithering, fate-tossed non-couple.

Another TV review with a lovely Brontë reference comes from The Guardian's TV blog:

There is some elementary Latin ("Regina mea!") and contemporary Italian ("So! You call me because the fire in your loins is lit once more!") and, as the catacomb fills with gas, a lot of coughing as if we were in for another adaptation of the Brontës. (Nancy Banks-Smith)

But things can get worse, as we read in The Chicago Tribune about Girls of Riyadh by Rajaa Alsanea:

It's not clear if Rajaa Alsanea's first novel, "Girls of Riyadh," was banned in Saudi Arabia because it became a Middle East best seller or if it became a best seller because it was banned. (...)
In this country [US], the book has been promoted as a kind of "Sex and the City," Saudi-style. It isn't, unless you consider the Bronte sisters to be "Sex and the City" Victorian-style. (Tom Hundley)

If comparing the Brontë Sisters with Carrie Bradshaw and Co. was not perturbing enough, take a deep breath and check out this news item about Britney Spears's possible comeback. From ABC News:

She wants a good time
No need to rewind
She needs to really really find what she wants
She lands on both feet
Won't take a back seat
There's a brave new girl
And she's comin' out tonight

It's no Fiona Apple or Emily Bronte. But the lyrics to Britney Spears' "Brave New Girl," a song she put out in 2003, years before her life spiraled out of control, may finally be coming true now. (Sheila Marikar)

We are speechless. Maybe some alcohol will help us forget. But then again maybe not:

When I take a sip of our Wine of the Week, La Crema 2006 Anderson Valley Pinot Noir ($34), a single image comes to mind.
There's a tall thin well-dressed man with dark hair. He's sitting on a rock on the edge of the sea at twilight, his right elbow resting on his knee, his chin nestled in his hand. There's a band of pale gold stretching along the horizon, and as you shift your gaze upwards, the sky darkens in beautiful degrees of blue. A breeze lifts his hair and as it does, you can suddenly hear his thoughts: Brooding memories of distant love, now out of reach.
He's more Heathcliff than, say, Mr. Darcy, more Bryan Ferry than David Bowie, more Gary Cooper than Cary Grant. My inclination is to get to know him, and so I take another sip. (Michele Anna Jordan in The Santa Rosa Press-Democrat)

Surely the best thing to do is read the book (like Gypsyscarlett has done), but not always. Via Bookninja, we have found this article in The Telegraph with a video asking several writers at the Ways with Words Festival which classic they are ashamed of not having read. Check Simon Sebag Montefiore's statement where he admits having written his O levels on Wuthering Heights without even having read the book, just based on his parents' passion for the book. He scored his school's best marks, by the way.

Anyway, even if you don't want to read the book, you can check its cover. Book Covers Anonymous posts several wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg for a 1943 boxed set edition of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Books, Illustrations, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Talks, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights