Her wit shone through the words

Frances Wilson reviews in The Times the controversial book Jane's Fame: How Jane Austen Conquered the World by Claire Harman. We highlight just a couple of Brontë references:

Austen even brings out the best prose of those who dislike her novels. Charlotte Brontë thought Pride and Prejudice “a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden, with neat borders and delicate flowers; but no glance of a bright, vivid physiognomy, no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck”. Mark Twain went further: “every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone”.
Claire Harman offers some killer comments of her own, such as her comparison of the first biography to be written of Charlotte Brontë with the first memoir of Austen. “If Mrs Gaskell’s stylistic model for her Life of Charlotte Brontë was the romantic novel, that of James Edward’s Memoir of Jane Austen was the form most familiar to him, the sermon.” Harman’s own literary model is Lucasta Miller’s The Brontë Myth, but the styles of the two books are as different as Emma is from Jane Eyre.

Another book review is the one of Black Rock by Amanda Smyth, published in The Independent:

There are echoes of the archetypal "mad woman", if not in an attic then in a marital room in the Caribbean, with scenes reminiscent of Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. Smyth ties up her loose ends rather too neatly, but this is a vivid and compelling story, exploring the extent of our control over our destinies. Celia attempts to challenge the assertion of her father: "I believe you follow your life... You don't lead your life". (Anita Sethi)

The Christian Science Monitor reviews a book that was featured on BrontëBlog several days ago: A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick. Yvonne Zipp finishes her review like this:

But Goolrick is a solid wordsmith, and he handily manages the impressive task of making readers care about a woman bent on cold-blooded murder. And generating the proper Gothic ambience in Wisconsin is no mean feat.
What’s next? “Wuthering Heights” set at the Mall of America?

Juliette Binoche confesses to The Age something we already suspected:

"I made a choice once, I said no to a film ... but after I hung up I had this terrible feeling in my gut, I've got to do it, I've got to do it." So she rang back and said yes. The film, she added later, was Wuthering Heights, in which she played Catherine and Ralph Fiennes was Heathcliff, and, she said with a hoot of laughter, "I shouldn't have done it." (Philippa Hawker)

Los Angeles Times reviews the performances of The Mystery of Irma Vep at the Ark Theatre (Los Angeles, CA):

Subtitled "A Penny Dreadful," the narrative slinks around Mandacrest, where Daphne du Maurier and the Brontes would feel right at home. The master is a devoted Egyptologist, newly remarried after the death of his first wife -- the titular, anagrammatical Irma Vep, whose crazed portrait practically leaps out from designer Shelley Delayne's faux-grim setting. (David C. Nichols)

The Spenborough Guardian talks about the organ at Birkenshaw Methodist Church which is being dismantled and transported to Germany.

Christian Goeb, who is buying the organ, has just spent a week, helped by volunteers from the congregation, dismantling smaller parts and taking them by road and ferry to Cologne. (...)
During his six day stay in West Yorkshire, Christian fitted in visits to the Yorkshire Dales and Haworth and soaked up the Bronte history. He also flexed his musical talents on the organ at St Paul's Church in Birkenshaw. (Gemma Ryder)

WWD Fashion is a bit confused about Heathcliff's characteristics:

Forget urban Zen. Angst and aggression informed Banana Republic’s fall collection (...)
In men’s, Banana is planning to cozy up to its customer. Thus, chunky sweaters, soft scarves and plush outerwear were designed to “make people feel like they’re in a cocoon,” said Kneen. The collection was heavy on black, but there were pops of brights to help provide a bit of hope. “It’s sort of like a modern Heathcliff,” Kneen said, “romantic and optimistic at all costs.”

The San Francisco Chronicle's podcast Ask Mick LaSalle briefly discusses several movie adaptations of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre (just go some 24' into the podcast) and Lavender Pages discusses Jane Eyre.

Let's end this newsround with a post published on Womenstake, theblog of the National Women's Law Center. Gina Nespoli vindicates with passion Anne Brontë (even though she transplants Anne to two centuries before her time).

Rarely in the17th century (sic) , or even hundreds of years after, were religious and social issues addressed so plainly in published work, especially by a woman who published under no male pen name (both Charlotte and Emily used male pen names). This is evidence of her revolutionist and radical nature which should be praised as an example of a pioneering feminist. Anne embodied strength, drive, intelligence and realism in her works. Her wit shone through the words and embraced a new area of revolution. Not only did she question the things you should not question, but she created a woman who was more than a character of love or affection!
All of the Brontë sisters and their fellow women authors should be admired and exalted as pioneers in women’s rights, but today I would like to extend my gratitude especially to the works of Anne Brontë.
She has changed my perspective of women in that period. She inspires me to question the environment I have become so comfortable in. While the world around her was consumed by dominant, condescending male figures, she stepped out of the confines of her gender role and created fabulous literary works within stagnant political and religious surroundings.

Categories: Anne Brontë, Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights