A rare power

Catherine Bush, best known as Kate Bush, was born in a day like today fifty years ago in Bexleyheath, Kent (now part of Greater London) (and 140 years after the birth of the author of the novel on which she based her most famous song). Several webpages celebrate this birthday: BBC News (picture source)and again, Gigwise, The Tripwire, The Homegrown & KBNI Forum...
Moby Dick^TM publishes the most original one linking together the birthday of both girls in an imaginary tête à tête (in German) but probably the weirdest tribute of all can be found on tzuki17.

finding Dulcinea devotes a post to Emily Brontë:

“Emily Brontë wrote so little in her short life that it is difficult to appraise her work ... One point is generally agreed upon: that in both her prose and poetry there is, in spite of minor faults, a rare power,” said British poetry scholar Paul Lieder. Tuberculosis claimed her at age 30, but her sole novel, “Wuthering Heights,” and single volume of poetry made Emily Brontë an integral member of the Western literary canon. (Read more)

The article ends with a recent reference to Justine Picardie's novel Daphne:

Scholarly obsession with the Brontës has continued long after their deaths. In researching a novel about Daphne du Maurier (novelist and author of a biography of Branwell Brontë), author Justine Picardie found evidence to suggest that some of Emily Brontë’s poems were actually written by Branwell. According to an article in The London Times, Picardie discovered that T.J. Wise, deceased president of the Brontë Society, had forged the signatures of Emily and Charlotte on many documents, including some of their brother’s. (Rachel Balik)

Other posts celebrating Emily Brontë's birthday can be found on A Chainless Soul, Chamber of Secrets, Well-Mannered Frivolity, The Bunny Bungalow, The Mindanao Explorer, Milerama (in Croatian), Citatepedia (in Romanian), Biografieonline (in Italian)...

Sky News makes a reference to Heathcliff in an article about domestic violence:

The man I met and married was rational and civilised. All right, he was brooding – you know, the Heathcliff type – but there was not the slightest hint of violence.

Heathcliff is a very complex character. Where some people see broodiness others see magnifcence: Peter Murphy's Blog of Revelations asks author Patrick McGrath about his top five Gothic tales of all times:

1. Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte (1847)

“Last month I re-read Wuthering Heights and was once again overwhelmed by the magnificence that is Heathcliff. There’s the moment where Cathy has just died, and he goes down to the sexton of the church and says, ‘Listen, I’ll pay you well for this, but I want you to take out the side of her coffin, and then when I’m dead, put me down beside her and take out the side of my coffin that’s facing her, and when they dig us up in fifty years they won’t be able to tell one from the other.’ That’s love!”

More praise (or not) for the novel: Book Talk Bournemouth is for it but Once Upon a Book is against it.

Let's now change topics:

PopMatters reviews Wide Sargasso Sea 2006 at length. The review takes no hostages:

That grinding sound I’ve been hearing lately. It was driving me crazy trying to figure out what was causing it. Then I watched the DVD of the new BBC-Wales production of Wide Sargasso Sea, and suddenly I knew. That sound was none other than novelist Jean Rhys spinning in her grave.
Yes, the latest film version of Rhys’ brilliant and pathbreaking novel is that bad. It’s not just bad in terms of its tepid production values, low-budget locations, and strange performances, it’s horrifically bad in its very conception. Like some kind of B-movie horror film, Jean Rhys’ baby has now become an apologia for British imperialism instead of an exorcism of the denial about its lingering tendrils.
For those new to the brilliance of Wide Sargasso Sea, the novel’s plot is a re-imagining of the Jane Eyre classic, this time told from the point of view of the crazy woman in the attic. No longer a neurotic, lying French dancer whom Mr. Rochester has locked in his attic to protect her from herself—as though any of us believed that self-serving hogwash in the first place—the first Mrs. Rochester is now revealed to be a Jamaican Creole heiress and the source of Rochester’s wealth. How she came to be locked into Rochester’s attic is the story’s beating heart. (...)
Unfortunately, in the latest BBC production which was filmed in 2006 but released in the US by Acorn Media only this past June, Rochester is presented as a kind-hearted Englishman misguidedly trying to bring some good English starch into the limp lives of the Jamaicans, including his Creole bride. The film completely eliminates the back story of Antoinette—there is no race riot, no dead brother, no distraught mother just a mad one.
And in an interesting artistic choice indeed, actress Rebecca Hall plays Antoinette as a weeping, neurotic clinging vine (always so attractive to men worldwide), whining about wanting happiness even as her crying makes it absolutely impossible for anyone to be happy. Worse, the black characters have been reduced to spineless, tragic shadows, morosely wandering the landscape, and the actor playing Antoinette’s mixed-race half-brother must face the added indignity of wearing the world’s worst wig—and it’s orange to boot. Oh, my.are inferior cultures doomed to unhappiness? Antoinette sobs in this new version, “I am Creole, but I’m not English like you.” Boo hoo hoo. White skin notwithstanding, she is, of course, the ultimate Tragic Mulatto, that convenient historical trope that was meant to erase the dignity of mixed-race peoples because they rather inconveniently for the ruling—and white—classes mixed up the notions of racial purity, us v. them, and the Otherness that lay at the very heart of the justification of Empire.
When Rochester sails back to England with his mentally ill wife in this film, who wouldn’t sigh with relief?
It’s hard to imagine in this day and age, what the filmmakers hoped to achieve with this version of Wide Sargasso Sea. Perhaps it’s part of a generational spasm of fear, the collective, subconscious recognition that ‘Oh my god, we’ve entered the 21st century’ and the old order of things just won’t work anymore. (...)
For a much more complex cinematic experience, watch the 1993 film directed by
What can be said of a film that subscribes so heartily to the notion that mixed cultures John Duigan and starring Karina Lombard as Antoinette. In Lombard’s fiercely intelligent performance, Antoinette is a heroine for all ages. You can almost smell the smoke the moment she appears on screen. Burn Thornfield Hall down, Antoinette! Burn it for Jean!
Or better yet, let’s all read the novel, which is still in print and as fresh and vibrant today as when it was when first published – way back in 1966. (May-lee Chai)

The Brussels Brontë Blog publishes some pictures and more information about Maddalena De Leo's recent meeting with some members of the Brussels Brontë Group in Amsterdam.

Kelly Clarkson is interviewed on the Kelly Clarkson FanClub Germany. Is she a Brontëite? Reading her reply we would almost rather she wasn't:

7. Which three things would you take with you on a lonesome island?
Kelly: A HOT MAN WITH A SEXY ACCENT
ONE OF MY FAVORITE BOOKS ('JANE EYRE' ....OR 'PERSUASION')
AND A BOAT, HAHA :)

Finally, Flailing Idiots gives us the perfect ending for an Emily Brontë birthday. What could be better than Emily Brontë Drawer Fragrance?

Categories: Brontëites, Emily Brontë, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights