Revenge theme is strong

Another review of the upcoming Wuthering Heights TV miniseries has appeared in the Wichita Falls Times Record:

I never was the “Wuthering Heights” type. I’m more the “Pride & Prejudice” type. I need just a little more sunlight and happiness in my love stories.
But if it’s soul-smothering revenge that moves you, PBS will tackle the ultimate revenge love story with a new two-part presentation of the Emile Bronte classic, airing at 8 p.m. Jan. 18 and then again on Jan. 25. It is co-produced by Mammoth Screen and WGBH/Boston.
It’s the second presentation of this season’s PBS’ Masterpiece Classic, introduced by host Laura Linney.
Unfortunately, this new version doesn’t add any sparkle to this otherwise woeful love story.
Perhaps it’s because this version focuses, instead, on the second generation of Bronte’s love-revenge epic — the generation following Cathy and Heathcliff — when it’s really Cathy and Heathcliff who are the source of all this multi-generational heartbreak.
Perhaps, too, it’s because Tom Hardy’s Heathcliff is so brooding and hard to connect with — even in his happiest days with Cathy — that when he makes a change from a boy with hopes of happiness to the black-hearted man unwavering in his desire for revenge, it’s just too hard to sympathize with his character at all. Without translating to viewers that Heathcliff has any humanity at all, it’s hard to like him enough to understand why he needs revenge so desperately. (...)
This version of “Wuthering Heights” captures the setting of Bronte’s novel perfectly, placing its late 18th century/early 19th century characters precariously on the Yorkshire Moors.
And, yes, the revenge theme is strong in this presentation.
But, this version leaves out so much of the novel, too, particularly Cathy’s ghost wandering the Moors searching for Heathcliff after her death. The series loses that haunting mood that really defines this almost unearthly novel.
While this version, adapted by Peter Browker and directed by Coky Giedroyc, never really quite takes off — I don’t know if the casting was quite right either for Heathcliff or Cathy — it’s still true to the novel’s main themes of defiant, passionate, eternal love and, of course, soul-smothering revenge. (Lana Sweeten-Shults)

Incidentally, the Masterpiece-PBS website is giving away ten pairs of the books Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Wuthering Heights, you can win one just by subscribing to the Masterpiece e-Newsletter.

DVD Talk reviews another Wuthering Heights, the 1950 version included on the Studio One Anthology DVD box set: (Picture source)

Adapted by Lois Jacoby from the novel by Emily Bronte, and directed by Studio One veteran, Paul Nickell, this version is best noted for the appearance of Charlton Heston, who appeared on dozens of live television shows during this early period of his stage career. Commanding the ridiculous small sets like a veteran film actor, Heston may be unsteady at times with the more intimate moments of the play, but he has the fire and brimstone moments down pat, and he effortlessly dominates the proceedings. The staging is a little clunky, but some moments do effectively come across despite the limitations of the cameras (Mary Sinclair's close-up clawing of Heston's face during her death scene, is nicely done). (Paul Mavis)

The Süddeutsche Zeitung website publishes a very interesting article (in English) about Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and the topics of the romantic novels . We select just two paragraphs but the article well deserves a reading:

At first sight the development of Rochester and Jane’s relationship seems to fit the description. Jane and Rochester cannot become a couple before Rochester is turned from rich, haughty alpha-male into impoverished humble cripple, needing Jane to take him by her hand because of his blindness. On closer inspection however it turns out that Jane Eyre is actually a subversion of the trope. Jane may have to take care of Rochester now that he is blind and support him financially, but on another – for my reading of the novel more important - level, Rochester is less dependent on her after his accident than he was before. He no longer needs Jane to redeem him, because he has redeemed himself by his noble and self-sacrificing attempt to safe his mad wife. (...)
Wuthering Heights is frightfully consistent because it fully embraces the ambivalence of love instead of merely flirting with it. It too shows that love is not about salvation: (Absolute) Love is what haunts, not what saves you. Heathcliff’s love for Catherine is absolute: he loves her so much that he does not care if people have to suffer for it – even if these people are Heathcliff or Catherine themselves. Emily Brontë’s dangerous lovers are therefore truly dangerous to each other – not only in the sexy, glamorous and superficial sense, but in the real, unsettling, life-threatening one too. Sure, their love is great – but it is also ultimately destructive. Modern mass market romances with their obligatory happy ending shy away from fully exploring this second aspect, thus invariably hollowing out the concept. They may play with the fascination of ambivalence, but they only scratch its surface. (EtwasdasmanmaggibtmankeinenoriginellenNamen)

The National Post writes about the release in Australia of the new retro covers of Penguin paperbacks:

Penguin's Australian division has cashed in on their cost-cut line of reissues called Popular Penguins.
The series of 50 books - 25 fiction and 25 non-fiction were redesigned to recall Penguin's first paperbacks, published in the 30s. Then, the softcovers were colour coded - orange books were fiction, blue for non-fiction. The new retro Penguins all carry the same orange cover.
The series is a mix of old and new, with Alex Garland's novel The Beach and Niall Ferguson's Empire mixed in with The Great Gatsby and Jane Eyre. Each title costs AU$9.95. (Brad Frenette)

Thriller author Laura Benedict is interviewed for the Flipside magazine and confesses she is a Brontëite:

Our attitudes and ideas may change, but that doesn't change the quality of the writing. I go back and reread things. 'Jane Eyre' I've probably read 15 times." (Becky Malkovich)

The Daily Mail talks about the nominations to the Orange Rising Star Award. One of the contenders is Michael Fassbender:

Born in Germany, he was seen in the TV series Band of Brothers and is now set to play Heathcliff in a film version of Wuthering Heights. (Louise Jury)

Maggie O'Farrell has written the introduction of the reissue of Charlotte Perkins Gilman's The Yellow Wallpaper and The Guardian quotes from it:

The mad woman has been used as a trope for centuries by writers, but more often as a walk-on part: we are allowed short, horrifying glimpses of the mad Ophelia and the hallucinating Lady Macbeth before they are hurried to their deaths; Bertha Rochester escapes her attic prison to cause fires and havoc, and is then put back before she, too, is sent to her death. What The Yellow Wallpaper does is give the mad woman pen and paper, and ultimately a voice of her own. We hear from her, directly and in detail.
The Yellow Wallpaper is a cry, not so much of defiance, but of demand. A demand to be heard, a demand to be under-stood, a demand to be acknowledged. You hear echoes of this cry in later books: in Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, in Janet Frame's An Angel at My Table - in particular at that moment when a writing prize saves her from an impending lobotomy. You can hear it in Sylvia Plath, in Antonia White, in Jennifer Dawson, in Susanna Kaysen. All we can do is listen.

An alert for today from the Bettendorf Library (Bettendorf, Iowa):

Visiting With the Brontes Book Discussion Group
Start Time: 3:30 PM
End Time: 5:00 PM
Description:
Third of four Bronte book discussions, led by Dr. Ann Boaden and Dr. Laura Greene of Augustana College. Wuthering Heights will be discussed. Registration begins at the Information Desk on November 7.
Location: Junior League Program Room

On the blogosphere: The 999 Challenge devotes a brief review to Classical Comics' Jane Eyre, Sarah Says is reading Jennifer Vandever's The Brontë Project. Two blogs have posts on Wuthering Heights: Laura's Book and Movie Reviews and The Garver Family.

Categories: Alert, Books, Brontëites, Comics, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Talks, Wuthering Heights