Hot cider and outlandish bonnets

Sometimes we wonder what kind of associations the Brontë sisters create in some journalists. Look at this description of a Christmas celebration:

April Ragan, the Joneses' theater administrator, plays Christmas carols on a hammered dulcimer near a large Christmas tree. It's as if you've stepped onto the set of a Christmas movie. The room smells like hot cider, and the lights from the Christmas tree are dazzling. You almost feel like you might run into the Bronte sisters. (Tina Firesheets on GoTriad (18-24 December 2008))

Sure you do.

The Westmount Examiner shows another Christmas scene, at the local library:

Paper chains hold more titles for both children and adult, written on the large links, uniting Jane Eyre with cyberpunk author Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver and Leah Wilcox’s illustrated children’s book Falling for Rapunzel. (Matthew Surridge)

The Telegraph & Argus reviews another Christmas (Bradford) tradition, pantomime at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford. This year it's Cinderella with Billy Pierce:

Another highlight was the Ugly Sisters’ hilarious gym workout. Making their entrance in a Tardis, Trinny and Susannah – alias Jay Worthy and David Beckford – were fabulous dames, with a nice touch of Little Britain. Looking like grotesque Bronte sisters with bouncing ringlets and outlandish bonnets, they got the mix of comedy and villainy just right. (Emma Clayton)

The North-West Evening Mail compares the Brighton band The Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster with Heathcliff:

Dark and brooding as Heathcliff, The Eighties are a Brighton five-piece: a jumble of thumping bass lines, tribal drumming, and vocals which would scare The Sisters of Mercy.

Now, a couple of Asian Brontë mentions:

Haaretz traces a biographical profile of Adina Bar-Shalom, the president of the Haredi College of Jerusalem:

The rules of the household were clear. The boys in the family did not do chores. They were destined to become Torah scholars. The girls did housework, but Adina had special privileges: "I read everything - 'Jane Eyre,' 'Uncle Tom's Cabin,' 'Little Women,' even Ayn Rand's books and 'Gone with the Wind' - there were no restrictions put on me," she says. (Tamar Rotem)

The China Daily relativizes the impact of Jane Eyre 1970 in the Chinese market:

Movies produced before the "cultural revolution" (1966-1976) came out in droves for re-release, and that included many imports. The most popular was not Hamlet by Lawrence Olivier, or Jane Eyre, a 1970 version starring George C. Scott, but Awaara, an Indian movie with a theme that struck a chord with Chinese audiences. (Raymond Zhou)

The blogosphere brings some exiciting things:

BrontëBlog reader Esther has uploaded some of the pictures of the Northern Period Productions living history Tour: "The Brontë Homeland – Visit It, Live It, Love It!" on slideroll. More information about the Irish origins of Patrick Brontë can be found on her webpage: Brontë Homeland in Northern Ireland.

A Work in Progress posts a very interesting article on Shirley:

This is a wonderful novel to study actually, to get a good look at the Victorian period from the perspective of a developing writer, a woman writer particularly. There are lots of ideas swimming around in the novel and lots to think about.

Art and Expeditions shows an oil painting (by the author of the blog) inspired by Wuthering Heights, La mia escrivania è un disastro talks about Wuthering Heights in Italian, Kay's Bookshelf reviews with enthusiasm Agnes Grey. Dagensskiva reviews in Swedish the album Temptation (which includes a couple of Wuthering Heights-inspired tracks) by the progressive house act Dinka. And Red Curtain posts several Wuthering Heights 2009 icons with the few pictures that are already available.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Art-Exhibitions, Brontëana, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Wuthering Heights