Atmospheric Tumults deriving into floods

The Times expresses its concerns with the situation of the books collections at the National Library of Scotland after suffering its second flood in 18 months. Fortunately, the John Murray Archive which contains several letters by Ellen Nussey, Patrick Brontë, Arthur Bell Nichols or Elizabeth Gaskell addressed to Smith, Elder & Co. concerning Charlotte Brontë (although as far as we know no letter by Charlotte herself), has not been affected:

Experts in rare books and manuscripts expressed relief that none of the most treasured possessions appeared to be damaged. These include thousands of items in the recently acquired John Murray Archive, which contains more than 1,200 hand-written pieces by Lord Byron, and works by Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë and Jane Austen, and a manuscript of Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species. (Mike Wade)

Peter Wise considers that the northern region of Portugal is very similar to Brontë country. In Financial Times:

Emily Brontë would have felt at home in the Alto Minho. The wuthering heights of Portugal’s northernmost region are as wild and exhilarating as the Yorkshire moors, a landscape of “intractable mountains, dark woods, deep valleys and dangerous ravines”, according to a monk who reached the area in the 17th century. The weather rarely strays from what Brontë called “atmospheric tumult” and the people, like her tempestuous characters, see themselves as fearless, headstrong and rebellious

Lucy Mangon confesses her lack of Dickens literary background in this article in The Guardian. Fortunately her Brontës are strong:

When I was 13, we all had to do a school project on the Brontës, and once you've given teenage girls a taste of their alienated, agonised, windswept history ("God, they're just like me but without central heating!") the mental and temporal distances between you telescope nicely and the hitherto imposing books on the shelf suddenly transform from menacing to manageable.
So, I think a project on Dickens might have saved me. But even in the relatively halcyon days (can you believe it?) of the 1980s curriculum, there was only time to get to grips with one literary colossus per state school career - I don't know if you've ever tried reading Jane Eyre three to a book: it takes a while - so Dickens sat, fatly, frighteningly on the bookcase at home and in the library, undisturbed by me.

More Dickens. Los Angeles Times discusses a couple of Dickens sequels ('Drood' by Dan Simmons and 'The Last Dickens' by Matthew Pearl) and mentions a couple of Brontë ones:

The timing seems right for someone to take Dickens on again. Prequels and sequels have long been part of the publishing landscape. Do you remember "H."? Lin Haire-Sargeant's 1992 novel imagined Heathcliff's life before his return in "Wuthering Heights." At the time, people admired her ingenuity (did they forget about Jean Rhys' "Wide Sargasso Sea"?) in filling the gaps of a classic work of fiction -- now, the novelty has become a motley genre with a diverse membership. (Nick Owchar)

Talking about Dickens: we would like to welcome to the literary corner of the blogosphere a new blog devoted to Charles Dickens: Dickensblog.

The autumn/winter collection of Christopher Bailey's Burberry Prorsum, presented this week at the Milan Fashion Week, is described as follows in The Telegraph:

You could not help but be swayed by the romantic, almost Bronte-ian vision of beautiful young girls, their faces seemingly transfixed by tragedy, peeping out from beneath the small brims of black felt hats, as they swayed past in taupe suede trenches over white cotton, Victorian-style, simple dresses; white 'governess' shirts allied to floating, below-the-knee, black chiffon skirts; and almost-homely, beige, long-line sweaters and black-and-white, tweed skirts with raised seam details. (Hilary Alexander)

The Wesleyan Argus, the student newspaper of the Wesleyan University, talks to Professor Susanne Fusso, professor of Russian language and literature and chair of the Russian department who considers Charlotte Brontë:

I suppose my favorite non-Russian writer of all after Jane Austen is Charlotte Bronte, especially “Villette”. (Liz Wojnar)

Chelsea Phipps in The Seattle Literary Examiner poses the following question:

If you had to recommend five books to someone who had just learned how to speak English, five books to introduce this person to the greatest of what English Literature has to offer, which would you choose? Answer this question in your mind, your own five favorites. What is on your list? Now make a list of the five books an English teacher or professor would make. Is Jane Eyre on that list? (...) As a recent graduate of the University of Washington’s English Department, I have definitely read all of these novels. In fact, I read all of these novels more than once while attempting to earn my English degree. Along with the usual suspects: Dickens, the Brontë sisters, and Austen, I also read James Joyce’s The Dubliners, and Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein multiple times throughout my collegiate career. (The worst offenders being Great Expectations and Jane Eyre, both of which I read four times during college).

The Chicago Tribune has a Brontë-related reason for the closing of a Borders bookshop in the city:

It's not my favorite bookstore. Ever since they moved the fiction section into the dungeon—that may be a tad melodramatic, born of too many feverish readings of the Bronte sisters, but you do have to ride the down escalator to get there—I've been a little disgruntled with the Borders at 830 N. Michigan Ave. (Julia Keller)

As we have reported before the Northern Ballet Theatre will celebrate its 40th birthday recovering their Wuthering Heights production (David Nixon & Claude-Michel Schönberg). The Yorkshire Post interviews David Nixon:

Then I wanted to show the company today so we're doing a scene from Bayadere and finally Angels in the Architecture, a contemporary piece which I've always loved. Later this year we'll revive Wuthering Heights, the first work I created for the company. Then the two signature works Romeo and Juliet and A Christmas Carol and we've decided to revive Peter Pan to improve the Christmas season. (Nick Ahad)

Michale Bannister, president of the Yorkshire Agricultural Society, is also interviewed by The Yorkshire Post:

If you had to name your Yorkshire hidden gem, what would it be?
We've been very lucky because we have some moorland in what is known as Brontë country, and there's a place called Top Withens which is actually said to be the location of Wuthering Heights. We have a barn up there, which is now converted into a little lodge. It's truly idyllic with beautiful views, heather all around and grouse calling in the background. There's a certain Brontë romance about the place with its wildness and ruggedness.

Cinco Días (Spain) talks about houses which have been turned into museums. A mention to the Parsonage is mandatory:

Hay parajes inolvidables, como la rectoría de Yorkshire, en cuya cocina la silenciosa Emily Brontë cocía pan mientras memorizaba sus lecciones de alemán. (Marta Matute) (Google translation)

ABC (Spain) publishes an article about Ernest Hemingway and recalls an anecdote of the author tangentially related to Emily Brontë. Specifically with this copy of Wuthering Heights:

Hemingway cubrió con los signos de su estilográfica una parte considerable de un ejemplar de Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë, publicado en Londres en 1935. Son tres columnas de cifras que aparecen en la cubierta, solapas, primeras páginas e incluso sobre el título de la obra clásica inglesa. Hemingway se preocupa por la marcha de su salud. La primera columna señala la hora; la segunda, la temperatura; la tercera, las pulsaciones.
0745 35.9 60
1200 37 66
1600 36,7 66
1800 36,6 54
Las observaciones abarcan desde el 25 de noviembre hasta el 6 de diciembre. El año no está consignado. Tiene explicaciones breves de los movimientos que pueden influir en el comportamiento de su organismo. «Up to dinner», levantarse para comer, escribe en una ocasión. «Up to telephone», levantarse a por el teléfono, en otra. Pero se registran pocas afectaciones. La temperatura y el pulso se mantienen en su nivel.
Hemingway, hipertenso, y también impaciente, tomaba su pulso sólo durante medio minuto.
Hay otra inscripción, de índole diferente, en la última página de Cumbres borrascosas. Es la anotación inicial del libro de remembranzas parisinas de Hemingway, que tiene el título aquí de The Lean and Lovely Years. Se convertiría años después en París era una fiesta. (Norberto Fuentes) (Google translation)

Die Herzogin (Germany) reviews the film The Duchess and describes it as a bad Brontë lookalike:

Liest sich die Inhaltsangabe des Films wie die Zusammenfassung einer schlechten Verfilmung des Werke Jane Austens oder der Geschwister Brontë, so merkt der Zuschauer doch recht schnell, dass hinter Der Herzogin mehr steckt als bloß ein weiteres pompös aufgeblasenes Kostümspiel. (Tobias Haupts) (Google translation)

Tidningen Kulturen (Sweden) talks to the Swedish writer and illustrator Amanda Hellberg, who seems to be a Brontëite

Det heter ju också att man kan bli slav under sina drifter och begär. Jag är ingen expert på beroenden, men ämnet fascinerar mig uppenbarligen eftersom min D-uppsats i litteraturvetenskap till viss del rörde vid liknande tankegångar (den handlade om självsvältsmotivet i Brontêsystrarnas verk Jane Eyre och Svindlande höjder). Ofta tror jag att ett beroende kan komma till som en plåsterfunktion, en form av bedövning på en värkande längtan efter något annat. Eller som ett slags trots, ett långfinger mitt i ansiktet på livet, en "devil-may-care"-attityd. Men jag vet faktiskt inte om man kan ta sig ur ett beroende eller en beroendeställning helt orispad. (Bo Jörgen Sandberg) (Google translation)

Anything and Everything posts about Jane Eyre, Textualities posts a review of Janet Gezari's Last Things:

Her useful and highly readable study charts the development of Emily Brontë’s work in poetry, providing analyses of individual poems and discussing her writing practice. The book devotes chapters to the ‘Fragments’ and, as one would hope and expect, to the theme of death that pervades the poems. The chapter entitled ‘Posthumous Brontë’ is particularly fascinating, detailing Charlotte Brontë’s ‘aggressive editing’ of her sister’s poems for publication in the 1850 edition; her self-appointed role as keeper of her sisters’ reputations; and Charlotte Brontë ‘writing as her sister and then attributing what she had written to her.’ (Michael Lister)

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Dance, Haworth, Jane Eyre, References, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry, Sequels, Wuthering Heights