Bluffing on World Book Day

Happy World Book Day, everyone! Several news sites celebrate the day with interesting articles, particularly focusing on what people say they read and what they actually do read. From The Telegraph:

Under the cover of an anonymous questionnaire, two-thirds of people admitted to fibbing about having read a book.
Surprisingly, given its brevity and pace, 1984 heads the top 10 list of books we falsely claim to have read.
The rest of the list is largely predictable, stuffed full of weighty volumes most have seen dramatised on television but not read line by endless line.
Besides War and Peace and Ulysses – which can both exceed 1,000 pages depending on edition – other unread works include the Bible, Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert and A Brief History of Time, by Professor Stephen Hawking.
Many also bluffed about reading classics by the likes of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens and the Brontë sisters.
In reality most people would rather pick up a JK Rowling, John Grisham or a Mills and Boon, the poll found. (Stephen Adams)

The Telegraph has an opinion column on the matter as well, which states that,

Thanks to Kate Bush there is no great difficulty in pretending to have read Wuthering Heights; with The Tenant of Wildfell Hall it is more uphill work, even after exposure to Tara Fitzgerald on television. What was the heroine's name, again?

Both the Guardian and the Daily Mail also echo the news.

Anyway, as we genuinely like the Brontës and (some of) the Classics, we may now proceed with our daily newsround.

The Telegraph and Argus (and Keighley News) has an article and a video on the new plan to restore Haworth's Main Street:

A plan to restore one of the most famous cobbled streets in the country is to have local input.
Haworth people are to be invited to have their say about a project to preserve and enhance the town’s historic Main Street.
Bradford Council, which is spearheading the project, has been praised for starting a study and hiring experts to investigate how the setts were originally laid.
No date has been set for the work but in the meantime people will be given a chance to feed into the study.
Bronte Parsonage Museum director Andrew McCarthy welcomed the project. He said: “This is fantastic news because the setts are not in a good state and there are probably health and safety issues involved.
“The cobbles are quintessentially Haworth. They are just as intimately associated with Haworth as the Brontes – they absolutely identify the village.”
They were significant in the 19th century when Mrs Gaskell wrote her biography of Charlotte Bronte, he said.
“She refers to them and talks about the setts being laid in such a way as to stop horses slipping on the steep hill.
“There are many other setted streets in Haworth and I’ll be asking the Council about them, particularly Church Street which leads to the Parsonage.”
Chris McCarthy, of the newly-formed Haworth Village Association, said it was great news coming just as the village plan had been published.
“The plan emphasises the importance of the setts to the village and that they should be a top priority for maintenance,” he said.
Some of the setts were loose with deep cracks in places and it was important that long-term restoration took place as soon as possible, he said.
Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council had been working closely with Bradford City Hall chiefs on the project, said its chairman, Councillor John Huxley. He said: “This investigation will be the first step towards ensuring Haworth’s great character is maintained and preserved for further generations.
“Besides proving an incentive for visitors to make Haworth a destination, this fantastic street scene gives residents a sense of identity and pride.”
Bradford Council has appointed consulting engineers Sanderson Associates and landscape architects Camlin Lonsdale to carry out the investigation which will look at how the setts were originally laid down. (Clive White)

It's about time. Such a characteristic feature of the place should be well cared for. Hopefully, though, they will also consider seriously reducing traffic and thus avoiding the setts getting all cracked and broken, which has been a concern for several years now. Indeed the cynic in us wonders whether the change and going-back-to-our-origins campaign is not a way of trying and selling to the Haworth residents a way of mending that.

Interestingly, Michael Fassbender himself comments to The National a little on how 'his' Wuthering Heights is going:

Fassbender is also signed on to play Heathcliff in a new adaptation of Wuthering Heights, although the project is having some difficulties getting off the ground. “I would love to play Heathcliff because I ain’t getting any younger,” he says. “Heathcliff is 19 at the beginning of the book.” John Maybury was scheduled to direct the classic Emily Brontë story but had to pull out. Now Peter Webber (Girl With a Pearl Earring and Hannibal Rising) has replaced him and the film is set to start shooting in the spring. Fassbender, though, does not place much stock in schedules for anything.
“I just listen to my agent these days, he tells me where to be the next day and I just go,” he says. “It pays to be wary in the current economic climate. I was connected to three films last year and they all got pushed back, so until you have the contract signed, sealed and delivered I’m taking nothing for granted.” (Kaleem Aftab)

The ITV got there first of course, although their much-debated budget cut still generates articles in newspapers. It looks as though perhaps they actually wish they hadn't got there first after all, according to The Times:

Although ITV plans to air a version of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, starring Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, executives believe that money spent on making a costume drama does not generate as much viewing and advertising as using the same cash on a programme such as Simon Cowell’s Britain’s Got Talent. (Dan Sabbagh)

This could be a good place to wonder if taking risks and actually adapting a classic that hasn't been adapted so many times but since it seems no one is taking risks these days we will just leave it at that.

NY Arts asks Heike Cavallo about her influences:

The act of drawing itself is like an exploration that can help one remember and express the unspeakable. It is about, as Tanya Kovats suggests, “mapping and measuring oneself.” My work is informed by psychoanalysis, the writings of Julia Kristeva, fictional works such as Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte, The Bloody Chamber by Angela Carter, as well as Marina Warner’s and Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s writings about childhood.

And The Knight News has a Q&A with Liesl Schillinger, book reviewer for the New York Times.

Q. Who are your favorite authors?
A: Graham Greene, Anthony Trollope, Jane Austen, Yeats, Charlotte Bronte, V.S. Naipaul, Kurt Vonnegut, P.G. Wodehouse, and most of the Russian greats. (Michael Orbach)

PopSyndicate reviews the Studio One Anthology which includes Wuthering Heights.

The March issue of Vogue features an article on Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight series, and she continues talking about Jane Eyre, as she has done profusely in the past:

One thing you learn quickly if you spend a day with Stephenie Meyer is that she doesn't so much write stories as transcribe them; they are playing in the multiplex that is her mind's eye. "I've been an editor for 20 years, and I've never worked with a writer who speaks of their characters as if they are so completely real," Tingley says.
"I had always told myself stories my whole life and assumed that everyone does," Meyer says. "You know, it's funny; in Jane Eyre, which is something I've read 40 million times, there's this scene where she shows Rochester her paintings. And she explains that in her head it was so different. And Rochester replies that she captured just a wisp of what she was seeing. I used to paint, and I won a few watercolor contests, but I could never get it to look exactly like it did in my head. But with writing, I discovered I could get it to look exactly like it did in my head." (Robert Sullivan)

Incidentally, Examiner looks for a 'better heroine' to introduce your teenager to after she has read Twilight:

True, they are the main characters in classics written by Jane Austen and the Brontes, and potential sex is the even the driving force there, but it’s kept simmering too long for the modern teen who wants to see something boil over.
No, it is hard to match the Twilight formula – contemporary, young, lots of romantic scenes – with, instead, an uplifting, worthy heroine. But we can try alternatives. (Diane Petryk Bloom)

Apparently, though, the Brontës offer none in the end.

24dash has amused us by letting us know about

Solihull-based Julie Eyre, [who] runs the aptly-named ‘Bronte Business Networks’. . . (Jon Land)

Apt indeed!

And we finally get to the blogs: The Tamasha Blog for their Wuthering Heights has been updated with prictures from the rehearsal week number 5. La Audacia de Aquiles reviews Wuthering Heights in Spanish, Heavens to Mergatroyd reviews Villette and Angela Kaelin discusses the 'Spiritualism in Jane Eyre'.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Haworth, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Wuthering Heights