Caged like a go-go dancer

The Guardian reviews The Oxford Guide to Literary Britain and Ireland, edited by Daniel Hahn and Nicholas Robins. There's an Emily Brontë reference:

Mining for such nuggets is one of the book's chief pleasures. These range from a surprising account of Emily Brontë's fondness for baking, to a moving description of Robert Graves suffering "an oppression of spirit" while in Godalming (who wouldn't?), via a hilarious report of how Coleridge and the Wordsworths were suspected of spying for France while in Nether Stowey (on account of their habit of taking nocturnal walks, and William's alien north country accent. (Sam Jordison)

The Yorkshire Evening Post gives more information about the next 35th Ilkley Literary Festival next October (3 to 19):

A festival spokeswoman said: "Biographies feature strongly, with other authors and subjects including Patrick French on VS Naipaul; Michael Peppiatt on Francis Bacon and Lyndall Gordon on Charlotte Bronte.
"Journalist Justine Picardie will also be talking about the Brontes and her new novel which tells of Daphne Du Maurier's true-life obsession with the literary family. (Charles Heslett)

The Lumière Reader reviews the New Zealand's Stagecraft performances of Polly Teale's Jane Eyre:

IN THE SPIRIT of full disclosure, I will admit that Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre is my favourite ever book. Stagecraft’s latest production is Jane Eyre, but not as we know it. Polly Teale’s adaptation imagines Bertha Mason, the mad woman in the attic, as Jane’s alter ego, with implications that don’t always work, but Paul Kay’s direction masterfully highlights all the areas he wants us to notice.
When Jane (played by Hannah Banks with strength and maturity) and Bertha (Rebecca Parker) speak together, they do so in harmonious stereo, representing the opposite sides of a woman’s nature. How sad it is that Jane must tame the wild and passionate side in order to succeed in life or secure a man, which amounts to the same thing in this play.
Jane only severs her ties, though and does not kill her beast. The physicality of Rebecca Parker as Bertha Mason is simply fabulous. She looks at times like the mad one out of 80s synth-pop-rock band Shakespeare’s Sister. Incidentally, the video for ‘Stay’ could well have been an inspiration for this play.
Trapped in a locked room, Bertha remains on stage for the entire play, caged like a go-go dancer, swinging from bars, rubbing against poles and occasionally writhing on a podium. Dressed in a scandalous red dress, which is simultaneously wicked and sexual, and Rebecca certainly ‘looks hot’ as overheard in the foyer.
This is Victorian England where women who displayed sensuality were locked away in attics and mental institutions, but it is hard to feel sorry for Mr Rochester (Chris O’Grady) as he whines through his ‘poor me – I married a woman who wanted to go dancing’ speech. His hurling of his wife to the floor has shameful echoes of current events, where things are not black and white, but red and grey. (Read more) (Kate Blackhurst)

The reviewer has also posted about the piece on her own blog.

The Brontë influences in Stephenie Meyer's Twilight series are well known to the readers of BrontëBlog. The Courier Mail interviews the author:

Speaking to me over the phone from her home in rural Arizona, Meyer, 34, revealed that Twilight's vampire Edward Cullen, a literary creation set to rival Harry Potter, is a subconscious combination of her three favourite leading men _ Jane Eyre's Edward Rochester, Pride and Prejudice's Fitzwilliam D'arcy and Anne of Green Gables' Gilbert Blythe. (...)
Meyer says it was only when she finished Twilight that she realised there were similarities with Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. And that Edward Cullen was a combination of her favourite romantic protagonists, especially Jane Eyre's Edward Rochester, because the two Edwards see themselves as ``monsters''. (Fiona Purdon)

L'angolo di Annarita reviews La bambinaia francese by Bianca Pitzorno, the Jane Eyre spin-off which gives voice to Sophie. Non ci sono problemi... talks about Wuthering Heights (both in Italian). Rapport från en luttrad bibliotekarie reminisces about Wuthering Heights 1967 (in Swedish), where Ian McShane played Heathcliff, and which unfortunately hasn't (yet?) been released on DVD.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Talks, Theatre, Wuthering Heights