"Silly Mrs Danvers. I told her not to read Jane Eyre."

The Globe and Mail reviews The Prairie Bridesmaid by Daria Salomon:

This subversive ChickLit title raises some intriguing questions about marriage, friendship, commitment and the modern gal's perpetual quest for independence. Domestic novels are often overlooked due to their sole focus on cloying topics like relationships, shopping and girlfriends. The cutesy pink covers don't help, either. Yet there's no shame in producing great ChickLit. Daria Salamon has written a funny, dark, quirky take on one woman's epic struggle with the harsh realities of adult life: angry boyfriends, dull colleagues and meddling girlfriends. Jane Austen penned some stellar domestic fiction. So did the Brontë sisters, Margaret Drabble, Alice Munro, Anne Beattie and Lorrie Moore. Novels used to be considered the television of their times, and only serious non-fiction was suitable brain fodder. What utter nonsense. (Patricia Robertson)

The San Francisco Chronicle publishes yet another review of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows:

Though the novel's style doesn't break any ground, its familiarity is more an homage than a retreading of old themes. Many of the characters cite Austen and the Brontës. With its sharp-witted heroine and her lineup of potential suitors, "Guernsey's" plot is obviously influenced by those authors' books. Likewise, the structure pays tribute to the earliest novels: epistolary romances, written by women and ignored by some as trivialities. (Margot Kaminski)

Los Angeles Times, which published a positive review of Justine Picardie's Daphne a few days ago includes the novel in its pick of the summer:

Daphne: A Novel by Justine Picardie
The lives of Daphne du Maurier and the Brontës intertwine in a story of literary obsession and deception.

Coincidentally enough, the Guardian's Digested Classic for today is Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier which in John Crace's adaptation finishes with this sentence:

"Oh darling," I said. "I always knew you were only a pretend wife-murderer. And look! Isn't that Manderley on fire? Silly Mrs Danvers. I told her not to read Jane Eyre."

The press is completely unwilling to let go of the Heathcliffgate. Today the Scotsman, in an article presumable about David Cameron giving his MPs a reading list, the following turns up not so surprisingly:

To enjoy the imminent demise of Gordon Brown, there's always Henry James's The Turn of the Screw, which, rather like Labour, lends itself to dozens of different interpretations. Is the governess of the story unbalanced (ie psychologically flawed) and do the ghosts only exist in her imagination? Given that our PM is now comparing himself to Heathcliff, why not reacquaint yourself with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights?

And finally Associated Content has an article entitled 'Integrity and Societal Conditioning in Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, and the Invisible Man' by Alexis Williams.

Categories: Books, Humour, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights