The mother of all soap operas and the father of all the Brontës

If you are in Australia, don't forget to watch the second - and final - episode of Wuthering Heights 2009 this Sunday. The Brisbane Times has a reminder.

Wuthering Heights ABC1, 8.30pm
Surely the mother of all soap operas, Wuthering Heights was Emily Bronte's only novel and viewers who don't much care for overblown costume dramas will be forever glad of the fact. But for those who enjoy a romp on the moors, cruelty, deception, eternal love cursed by venality and amorality unfettered by decency and shame, well, it's a pity she wasn't as prolific as her sisters.
In this second and final instalment, Heathcliff's fiendish machinations reach the plane of high art, Cathy finds herself in the worst of all possible worlds and without giving the game away ... What am I saying? This is Wuthering Heights , for heaven's sake – everyone knows what happens. It all ends in tears. (Pat Sheil)

And the Sheffield Telegraph includes a Brontë alert for today which might be interesting for Brontëites around Ecclesfield (UK).

Patrick Father of the Brontës, one man show with Colin Pinney, as the Rev Patrick Brontë recounting the story of his son Branwell and his famous novelist daughters – Emily, Charlotte and Anne, EPPIC Theatre, Wells Lane, Ecclesfield, Friday, 7.30pm (£5, 2402624)

The theatre's website provides us with more info about this piece included in the Off the Shelf Festival of Writing and Reading:

Colin Pinney, as the Reverend Patrick Bronte, reveals the story of Patrick's son Branwell Bronte and his famous sisters: Charlotte Bronte who wrote Jane Eyre, and three other novels: Emily, author of Wuthuring [sic?] Heights: and Anne, who wrote Agnes Gray and The Tenant of Windfell [sic?] Hall.
Such were the times that all three were forced to pretend they were male authors. The fame of the Bronte's rests on their novels, but they were equally proud of their verse, from the "simple-minded rhymes" of the Reverend Patrick Bronte to the compelling poetry of Emily and her brother Branwell - "My Unhappy Brother" as Charlotte called him.
The performance includes comments made by the Bronte's on one another's works and springs a few surprises in verse and pose from the Bronte's, their friends and their critics.
Also mentioned are such diverse characters as Miss Finch the Scourgemistress, Tom Spring the champion prize fighter of England, and the stationmaster at Ludden [sic?] Foot.
For One Night Only
Friday 30th October 2009
Start 7.30 prompt

Colin Pinney's one man show was previously presented at the Swaffham Assembly Rooms (Norfolk), last Sunday October 18th, 3.00pm.

The Independent has an article on Paul Auster, who is, as you know, an admirer of Emily Brontë.

They say he's a postmodern master of meta-narratives, with his spools of stories within stories, but he cites the likes of Emily Brontë over Baudrillard as a source of inspiration. (Arifa Akbar)

The Times has a lengthy piece on '70 facts you didn't know about Marvel' and this is what they say about Wolverine's past.

Wolverine's origin story was kept a mystery for 26 years. Most superhero comics deal with origin stories in the first few issues but Wolverine was different. His writers fed readers only snippets of his past - he fought in the Second World War, sinister government scientists erased his memories and covered his bones with an indestructible metal alloy, he may have been the first mutant, his real name is not Logan but James - but these served only to make him mysterious. Marvel eventually relented to fan pressure in 2001 and published Wolverine Origin. The series is set in late 19th century and tells the story of a servant girl who befriends a frail, pampered boy from a rich family. After a series of Bronte-like tragedies, the boy eventually turns into the rough, beer-swilling clawed killer fans know and love. (Owen Vaughan)

And now for the dear otherworldly creatures who visit us so often lately: vampires and zombies.

Zombies (or something like them) in The Herald (Scotland), in the appropriately-entitled article, 'The whole country’s trapped in a kind of zombie trance':

There was much circling over A Discovery of Witches by the US academic Deborah Harkness. This novel tells the story of scientific researcher Diana Bishop, who dis­covers an ancient alchemical manuscript in the Bodleian and unleashes all manner of supernatural folk, among them the dashing, Heathcliff-like, Jaguar-driving vampire, Matthew Clairmont, who may be 1500 years old but is still able to pull women. (Roger Tagholm)

And vampires in The Tyee:

There is no point in bemoaning the issue. Times change and so we get a thin gruel of left-over ideas and rehashed hash. The success of Twilight, which is simply another bastardization of Jane Eyre (poor yet plucky girl, wins the heart of smoldering aristocrat, vaults over all class and economic distinctions) still works, even if is only a faint echo of the original. If Edward Cullen is no Rochester, on television, the vamp man is even further reduced into a smudgy charmless lunkhead named Stefan Salvatore in The Vampire Diaries. (Dorothy Woodend)

On the blogosphere: The Squeee has watched Wuthering Heights 1978 and Life and Times of a "New" New Yorker posts about Wide Sargasso Sea.
EDIT:
An alert from Tampa, Florida:

TEMPLE TERRACE LIBRARY GREAT BOOKS ROUNDTABLE:
This group meets every month (except December and August) on the LAST SATURDAY of each month, from 1:00 P.M. to 2:30 P.M., at the Temple Terrace Library, 212 Bullard Parkway, Tampa, Florida The group is free and open to the public, although copies of the reading selections are lent out free only to those who hold a Hillsborough County library card. For more information on joining this group, contact the moderator, Patrick DeMarco at TampaBayArea1@greatbooksdiscussionprograms.org or at 813-672-9052.

10/31/09: JANE EYRE (Charlotte Bronte)

Categories: Alert, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Patrick Brontë, Theatre, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights