Gemma Arterton's current read and other news

Not that we precisely like to echo this papparazzi sort of new but The Sun and other news outlets are publishing photographs of Gemma Arterton's stay in the Canary Islands. What interests us, of course, is the fact that soon after being announced as the newest Cathy she is to be found with what looks very much like a copy (it looks like this edition actually, which is even more clearly seen here) of Wuthering Heights in her hand. Surely that's a good start!

And speaking of film adaptations. The eternal debate of what makes a good adaptation is briefly touched upon in an article from the Guardian.

I have been in France for a few days, during (but not at) the Cannes film festival, and noticed that there has been quite a lot said about the relationship between literature and film. The usual question was posed: why do so many superb novels turn into such poor films? I have long sought to discover the holy grail of a novel and a film version that could be considered equally brilliant.
Merely a very good film of a great novel wouldn't be enough. To put it another way, if the novel in question is widely regarded as being in the top 20 or 30 of all time, the film must have an equivalent status. There is another necessary criterion. The film must follow the book closely. A loose adaptation, using the outline of the book as a vague foundation for a film different in mood, feel and emotion, will not do. Can the film director stray from the novelist? Would, say, putting the characters in modern dress or setting the film in a different country disqualify it? Not necessarily. Apocalypse Now, Francis Ford Coppola's interpretation of Conrad's Heart of Darkness, might be a candidate, though it's not good enough to make my finals.
I've considered some very good films of English classics - Dickens's Great Expectations, Brontë's Wuthering Heights - but none achieve greatness. Thomas Mann's Death in Venice was wonderfully filmed by Luchino Visconti, but the novella was a lesser achievement. I have two films that might meet the test, just: John Ford's cinematic The Grapes of Wrath, by John Steinbeck, and John Huston's Moby Dick, from Herman Melville's classic. Finally though, only one film meets all the criteria: Visconti's The Leopard from the novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa. (Marcel Berlins)

We may (or may not) agree with the first criterion but we certainly don't agree at all with the second one. We actually recently wrote briefly about this in connection with Tamasha's Bollywood-style adaptation of Wuthering Heights.

Also in the Guardian we read about Roy MacLean's first introduction to the Classics:

I spent the summer holidays of my Canadian childhood reading comic books. Not Batman or the Beano which were too parochial for my taste – i.e. testosterone-pumping heroics in Gotham City and daft larks in the Midlands – but rather The Iliad, Moby Dick and the Lord of the Rings. In those days an inspirational American publisher named Albert Kanter produced a series called Classics Illustrated. Over 30 years he adapted 169 literary masterpieces into evocative graphic storybooks. Dickens, Dumas, Emily Bronte, Walter Scott, Gogol and Jules Verne, I read them first as illustrated comics. Kanter's objective was to bring intelligent literature to young people and his work remains the most noble in the history of illustrated children's magazines.

The Guardian's Books Blog is also worth a mention as they are trying to decide 'Who is the most famous fictional character?'

A bit of investigative research (an email sent out to a dozen well-read friends) produced some interesting findings. Suggestions ranged from Odysseus to Harry Potter, via Hamlet and Mr Darcy. Some nominations were endearing ("Heathcliff and Cathy from Wuthering Heights should also get a shout out") (Lisa Kjellsson)

Names can be suggested in the comments and we are surprised to find that neither Jane Eyre or Mr Rochester have yet got a mention...

Indeed if a character's fame could be measured by the number of bizarre, crazy comparisons it receives, Heathcliff would undoubtably be number one. Case in point #764365, from the TV blog of The Washington Post on American Idol's final performance night:

Not surprisingly, Adam picks "Mad World" and once again, he's going to perform it while bathed in blue light. Only this time he's wearing some long Victorian duster coat and heavy boots, and is standing ankle-deep in dry-ice fog, looking for all the world like Heathcliff searching for his Catherine on the moors. [...]
Randy, on the other hand, loves the whole Emily Bronte thing Adam has going on: "I love the long coat -- love the fog!" Randy enthuses. "I'm going to give you an A-plus!" Ditto Paula: "You look astonishingly handsome," she simpers. The American Idol Decency Police rappel down from the balcony seats. (Lisa de Moraes)

The video of the performance can be seen here. Judge for yourselves...

The Washington Post also reviews Sarah Waters's new book, The Little Stranger.

For Faraday such a transformation would be an unthinkable tragedy, and the Ayreses act as though they can forestall the inevitable. "They seem to pride themselves on living like the Brontës out there," a man in town observes. They carry on "gaily at gentry life," even while furtively reusing postage stamps. (Ron Charles)

The Atlantic Free Press discusses education in China and we read that,

Within these various English courses, the job is to memorize a lot of facts, as given by the professors, who come into the classrooms, lecture didactically and leave: no interaction. They are told, "This is what this story or novel means." As in, War and Peace means "war is hell." That's why Tolstoy wrote it. Let's move on. EM Forster's The Road to Colonus is just a little story of an old man on vacation in Greece who has an odd experience and then returns home to banging pipes and irritation. Jane Eyre is a love story, a feminist love story. So is Pride and Prejudice, though there is a social comment involved. . .centred on love, of course. Doris Lessing's stories are about class issues--class conflict. Metaphor counts for naught. Symbolism is an unknown, unmentionable. . .thing. And there is no theory of literature. Ah!--I feel Edgar Allan Poe writhing in his Baltimore grave. (James Secor)

On the blogosphere, Dovegreyreader interviews author of The Taste of Sorrow Jude Morgan. And Insensatos en Moriacity posts in Spanish about Jane Eyre. YouTube user BrendanGCarroll surprises us by uploading a trailer of the infamous 1946 Hollywood film Devotion with the original soundtrack by Erich Wolfgang Korngold playing in the background.

Categories: Books, Comics, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights