An irascible demi-celebrity

The Boston Globe talks about modern-day high-school summer readings. It seems that the Brontës are not fashionable anymore:

Not so long ago, high schoolers had to lug heavy beach bags brimming with tomes by Bronte, Steinbeck, and Tolstoy. These days, they’re more likely to carry sprightly fare by contemporary authors like Dan Brown, Mitch Albom, and Bill Bryson.
With apologies to Kafka, the summer reading list is undergoing a metamorphosis.
While area schools constantly tweak their lists and debate what deserves a spot, a consensus is growing that students should be enticed to read, even if that leads them to books that haven’t yet stood the test of time.
So instead of reading about Heathcliff’s romantic misfortune at Wuthering Heights circa 1800, students can laugh over Bryson’s present-day attempt to conquer the Appalachian Trail, while riffing on his hiking buddy’s more annoying habits. (Lisa Kocian)

A Brontë reference in the Washington Times review of Richard Flanagan's Wanting:

Given her faith in continuous improvement, it is perhaps not surprising that she hit on the idea of adopting an aboriginal child and educating it like an English child to prove that aborigines can be brought into the modern world. She chooses Mathinna, who charms almost everyone with her spritely spontaneity. But while spriteliness appeals, it is not what is required, so Lady Jane subjects Mathinna to the kind of Victorian education shown in Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." (Claire Hopley)

Bloomberg interviews writer (and Brontëite) Alice Hoffman:

Zinta Lundborg: What’s your reaction to being described as a “magical” writer?
Hoffman: I like to write about real people in mythic ways because I see them that way. The tradition of literature is magic, whether it’s fairy tales or Kafka, Shakespeare or the Brontes, and the whole idea of realism is a new and not-so- interesting idea.

Los Angeles Times reviews Jean Rhys's biography The Blue Hour by Lilian Pizzichini:

Rhys was thought to be dead, but she was living, precariously, the town drunk in constant squabbles with her neighbors and with her third husband, Max. The news that she was alive reached the ears of a sympathetic publisher who in 1958 signed her to finish the novel she was working on. When her masterpiece, "Wide Sargasso Sea," was published in 1966, and her four previous novels returned to print, she was hailed as the great lost writer of prewar England -- indeed, one of the finest and most original writers of the century. (...)
Pizzichini seems bored by Rhys' post-"Wide Sargasso Sea" life as an irascible demi-celebrity (nightclub impresario George Melly compared her to a septuagenarian Johnny Rotten in a pink wig). But her book -- more a "portrait" of Rhys than a full-blown biography -- largely achieves its aim: to "present the fact of Rhys's life in such a way that the reader is left with an impression of what it was like to have lived such a life." (Eric Banks)

The Sunday Observer (Sri Lanka) talks with the actress Anarkali Akarsha who mentions her role as Jane Eyre in the local TV production Kula Kumariya (2007):

The actress with a charming personality chose ‘Iti Pahan’ by Somaratna Dissanayaka, ‘Arunoda Kalapaya’ by Senesh Bandara Dissanayake and Bermin Fernando’s ‘Kulakumari’ (playing her favourite Jane Eyre) as tele-dramas which made an impact among her fans. (Jatila Karawita)

Stacy's Bookblog posts about Jane Eyre 2006, The World According to Sam and Searching My Soul (in Greek) talk about Charlotte Brontë's novel.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wide Sargasso Sea