Jane Eyre on the shopping list

The news of the day is the research - and suitable commercial campaign - carried out by British supermarket chain Asda. As seen on Asda's Media Centre:

- Asda research shows that whole generation of children have turned their backs on classic literature
- 17% of children thought Fagin was a Manchester United footballer
- 6% of children thought Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea is the title of Simon Cowell’s autobiography compared with almost half of all kids who can name the title of David Beckham’s autobiography
In the week that sales of children’s books have soared by 4.9% research from Asda shows that although sales of Twilight and Harry Potter are increasing many children have little or no knowledge of classic literature. The supermarket, who polled over 100 children and 2,000 parents on their reading habits, is predicting that should the decline in classics continue the likes of Bronte and Dickins [sic, funnily enough] could be extinct within a generation. [...]
When questioned on the books they have enjoyed, children reinforced their love of modern literature with 28% having read Harry Potter versus just 3% for Lord of the Flies and Of Mice and Men. This is a rather different picture to their parents generation where 35% of parents remembered reading Jane Eyre as a child compared to just 4% of today’s generation.

And thus Jane Eyre - among other classics - will be for sale at £3 at Asda until January 30. We personally think this is not a case of the availability of the classics being the problem: the classics are everywhere for free, probably in many of these children's homes to begin with, as well as in their school libraries, public libraries and the internet. What's essential is to get them reading, and if it's Harry Potter then so be it. Or Twilight even, which has probably sent a good many young readers in the direction of Wuthering Heights. It doesn't say, though, whether the 35% of parents who remember reading Jane Eyre as children cherish the memory or not, remember what the book is about at all or not, which is important as well.

The news is reported by many news outlets such as Metro or The Telegraph. Also, James Hall writes about it in his opinion column in The Telegraph as well together with the new Channel 4 programme on books, Book Club, and Waterstone's back-to-our-roots initiative.

Both the TV Book Club and Asda’s campaign represent attempts to “de-snob” or democratise the literary world. This is clearly a good thing. Ten years ago, far fewer people than today would have entertained the thought of putting a book by Bronte, Steinbeck or Dickens in their shopping basket with their baked beans. And a mainstream TV show all about reading? Great stuff. Any initiative that gets people reading has to be applauded.
But is there a danger that this trend is going too far? Brand, Wan, Spikey and Vorderman? Are comedians, fashion commentators and maths boffins really the best qualified to tell us what to read? Or am I demonstrating the snobbery that things like the TV Book Club have set out to eliminate?

On a different note, The Wrap has a funny anecdote involving Orson Welles:

At the BAFTA tea, I introduced Christian McKay, who plays Orson Welles in Richard Linklater’s “Me and Orson Welles,” to my friend Jane Ayer, whose father was an actor who appeared in Welles’ “The Third Man.”
Jane told him a story of how, when she was 22, she and her friend John Mankiewicz (grandson of the “Citizen Kane” screenwriter) approached Welles at the Lucy’s El Adobe restaurant in Los Angeles. “Hello, Mr. Welles,” said Mankiewicz. “I’m John Mankiewicz, and my grandfather is Herman.” Welles fixed them with a stare, then said, unsmiling, “So?”
McKay, a Welles scholar of sorts, burst out laughing. “I go around apologizing for the old man all the time now,” he said. “People ask me, ‘Do you think you would have gotten along with him if you’d met?’ And I say, ‘Absolutely not! He would have yelled at me, and I would have yelled at him.’”
For the record, Jane explained, Welles was kidding. When a flustered Mankieciwz stammered, “and this is my friend, Jane Ayer,” Welles solemnly intoned, “Jane. Jane Eyre,” as he had done in the 1944 movie of that name, in which he co-starred with Joan Fontaine. Then everybody laughed, and it turned out that the old man wasn’t such a jerk after all. (Steve Pond)

Brontës.nl (Google translation) reports that Total Music Theatre has a contest giving away a ticket for their Jane Eyre The Musical (in Amersfoort, next February 1). The Heart of Haworth reports the beginning of the announced reforms at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

After several months of planning, work is finally underway at the Parsonage. Following our public consultation events we worked hard with Redman Design to develop plans for the changes to be made. These will include new interpretation through the historic rooms of the Parsonage to help tell the Brontë story more effectively to our visitors, new object cases, displays and labelling, as well as various other decorative changes such as new floorcoverings and window blinds to enhance the domestic feel of the museum. (Read more)

Wuthering Heights is the subject on Literatura Atual (in Portuguese) and on Drude Mangaard, where it has inspired a piece of 'fan art'. Becoming Jane Eyre is reviewed by Misfit Salon and Consuming Books. Finally, Flickr user Añelo de la Krotsche has uploaded several pictures of Haworth taken back in 1985.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Theatre