"Where did Emily Brontë find it?" ~ BrontëBlog

The Age (Australia) publishes an extract of the upcoming book On Passion by Dorothy Porter including this enthusiastic appraisal of Wuthering Heights:

The most scorching novel in the English language, Wuthering Heights, was written by a reclusive clergyman's daughter, Emily Bronte, who spent most of her time doing household chores or wandering the moors beyond the Haworth parsonage.
The sketchy details of Bronte's life have been forensically scrutinised, in the more than 150 years since her early death from consumption, for the faintest evidence of a secret love life. Somerset Maugham, in an entertaining and insightful essay on Bronte's life and work, speculates with his familiar worldly cynicism that Bronte may simply have suffered a disastrous love affair at boarding school - and then fed off it for the rest of her life. This speculation is not quite as silly as it sounds. Bronte rarely ventured from her home, and one of the few occasions when she did, was to go to school. She left school suddenly and prematurely, in mysteriously unhappy circumstances. (...) (Read more)
Frankly, I have always envied Cathy and Heathcliff, especially their reunited ghosts wandering forever the nocturnal Yorkshire moors. I know only too well how utterly claustrophobic and toxic is the line: ''Nelly, I am Heathcliff.'' I know that real and liveable and enduring love is not a frenzied cannibal's feast. But how intoxicating the dream of a passion that defiantly trounces everything - even death. Where did Emily Bronte find it?

Also from Australia comes this article in The Courier-Mail about Mia Wasikowska, the next Jane Eyre on Cary Fukanaga's production which will begin shooting next March:

After our chat today, she's off to LA tomorrow to promote Alice, then after a quick trip back to Australia she flies to the UK to take on another much-loved literary character, Jane Eyre, in Cary Fukunaga's adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte novel. (Joanne Hawkins)

And her on-screen partner, Michael Fassbender, also talks about this production in The Press Association:

Fassbender said: "I do like that (a challenge) - it's nice to do things that scare the s**t out of you otherwise you just sort of end up getting comfortable."
The film will be directed by Sin Nombre's Cary Fukunaga and Alice In Wonderland star Mia Wasikowska will play Jane Eyre.
Fassbender said: "I'm really looking forward to it and Cary Fukunaga is a really interesting choice. Sin Nombre was one of my favourite films that I saw last year so I'm very excited to see what he can teach me." (...)
Asked if he would still appear in small British independent films now he had made it in Hollywood, Fassbender said: "I'm going to be working on Jane Eyre here next which is obviously going to be a British based production. I just like to go where the good work is and it's always been interesting for me to mix it up as much as possible and it's always down to the script and the filmmaker."

The other imminent Brontë film, Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights (filming will begin in Yorkshire for six weeks at the end of April) has also its place in the news today. From the Montreal Gazette:

Asked what's next, she says "ever heard of Wuthering Heights?" It has been a favourite of hers since she was a teenager, with themes common to her own work. It is, however, her first film that isn't entirely her own and therefore a major step out of her usual discomfort zone.
"I think I'm doing it for the material and two months of shooting on the moors," Arnold says with a laugh. "I'm going to do it my own way, and I may upset some people. But as long as I don't upset myself, everything will be all right."

The Chicago Classical Review comments on a recent concert of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra devoted to Igor Stravinsky's music. Talking about the piece Ode (1943):

The evening led off with Stravinsky’s Ode, heard in its belated CSO premiere. Commissioned to mark the passing of Natalie Koussevitzky, the Ode strikes only a fleeting elegiac tone in the bustling opening Eulogy, the valedictory element more touchingly manifest in the concluding Epitaph. Yet it is the contrasting central Eclogue that contains the most striking music. Mining recycled music from a film score for an abandoned Jane Eyre film project, Stravinsky’s brilliant wind writing with its lively contrapuntal hunt motif was delightful, played with fine, nimble elan by the four CSO horns.

It is not so well known but Igor Stravinsky was the first composer chosen to write the soundtrack for Jane Eyre 1944 (which finally came to Bernard Herrmann's expert hands). He eventually abandoned the project but the music he composed was recycled as the scherzo-like middle section of his Ode composition called Eclogue. The final piece was first premiered in October 1943 by the Boston Symphony Orchestra.

The New York Times reviews The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson by Jerome Charyn, mentioning other recent secret lifes:

As Charyn assumes Dickinson’s own voice and surrounds her with invented as well as historical characters, “The Secret Life of Emily Dickinson” fits neatly into the flourishing genre of literary body-snatching. These novels, written in the person or from the point of view of a dead great writer, include Laura Joh Rowland’s playful “Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë” (Charlotte as sleuth) and Colm Toibin’s insightful novel of Henry James, “The Master,” and let’s not get started on Jane Austen. But all are perfect for the age of too much information. The genre thrives on a contemporary desire to fill in the blanks, and to grant spinsterish ladies the sexual desires they so decorously veiled in their 18th- and 19th-century writing. (Caryn James)

Another book review with Brontë mentions is the San Francisco Chronicle's on The Possessed by Elif Batuman:

Elif Batuman of San Francisco is the amused and amusing whiz from Stanford's comparative literature program who rushed into that forest of books and planted herself there. In graduate school, not so long ago, she "moved to Twin Peaks, where winds howled all day and all night, while giant clouds rushed across the street as if in a hurry to get somewhere, occasionally revealing dramatic views of the city. The others all made fun of me for moving there - Ilan called it Wuthering Heights - but I didn't care." (Bob Blaisdell)

The Perthshire Advertiser talks about one young local actress who has been chosen as Adèle in the upcoming production of Jane Eyre at the Perth Theatre (March 4-20):

PERTHSHIRE school pupil Beth Duncan, is making her professional stage debut in Perth Theatre’s production of Jane Eyre this spring.
The 16-year-old Kilgraston student plays Jane Eyre’s young charge Adele in the Horsecross Arts production of the stage adaptation of the Charlotte Brontë classic.
Beth, who plans to study drama, has already taken part in several school productions, but this is her first experience of working in a theatre.
“It was a bit daunting at first as I had no idea what it would be like working in a professional theatre, but everybody has been really lovely and supportive,” said Beth.
“I have gone beyond the nervous stage now and am really excited about the production which is a very creative and visual take on the well-known story.”
Beth has been brushing up on her French accent for the role which also requires her to perform some ballet steps.
This stage adaptation of Jane Eyre centres on the idea that hidden inside the sensible frozen Jane, there exists another, more passionate self.
As a child, the orphaned Jane Eyre is taught to stifle her natural exuberance. A part of herself is locked away, out of view of polite society, until she arrives at Rochester’s house as a governess to his young child, Adele.
Director Ian Grieve said: “This production uses a multi-talented team to create a show which combines theatre with elements of music and dance to tell the story in a truly dramatic way.
The Horsecross Arts show is urgent, fast and energetic, capturing, for stage, all the atmosphere and passion of the Brontë novel.”
As well as introducing Beth Duncan, the production brings a number of new faces to Perth Theatre stage, plus a welcome return for Perth’s Tom McGovern as Rochester. Music is by Iain Johnstone and Jon Beales

The (in)famous anecdote of the Ryocroft Inn (in New York) and Charlotte Brontë appears again in the Chantham Daily News. Fortunately this time around the mention is not so imaginative as before:

There are 28 guest suites at The Roycroft Inn that bear the names of notable personalities carved in their doors, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charlotte Bronte, Henry David Thoreau and Susan Anthony. (Bob Boughner)

The Otago Daily News (New Zealand) announces the upcoming productions at the local Fortune Theatre, including one adaptation of Wuthering Heights (they recently staged Polly Teale's Jane Eyre):

"While the theatre still has some way to go, this combination of reworking literary classics and celebrating New Zealand's vernacular wit and humour will continue this year, with Roger Hall's Conjugal Rites and Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights." (Nigel Benson)

The New York fashion week is traditionally an event that generates Brontë references among fashion critics. This year is no exception and Los Angeles Times talks about Marc Jacobs:

Neither wind nor snow would ruffle Marc Jacobs' cape, in thick shearling with a bushy fur collar, which looked like it would be at home on a Brontë on the English moors, while Peter Som's cape, in deep blue broadtail with a fur hem, seemed suited for a snow princess. (Booth Moore)

Spanish writer Ana María Matute has been featured before on BrontëBlog as a Brontëite. In El Sur (Spain) there's one more confirmation:

Es lo que ha querido transmitir siempre desde que lo vivió por sí misma cuando era niña y ya pensaba en ser como Dickens, Bronte o Andersen.(Marina Martínez) (Google translation)

La Vanguardia (México) talks about books about love, including Wuthering Heights:

“Cumbres Borrascosas” podría funcionar como una alegoría de los juegos de la vida, la muerte y el amor, en donde a veces nos toca vivir en la hermosura, la paz, rodeada de jardines y acariciada por el sol, como La Granja de los Tordos; y otras veces el destino nos empuja a vivir entre las oscuras y lejanas Cumbres Borrascosas. Entre los personajes de esta novela inglesa está Heathcliff, el hombre afectado por un amor no correspondido y los maltratos de una mala vida, o la idealizada Catherine y los extremos que puede alcanzar una sola persona. El libro fue escrito por Emily Bronte y tiene la firmeza y habilidad de construcción, de fondo y efecto tan impactante, queen su época la autora fue juzgada como una escritora “masculina”. (Eugenia Flores Soria) (Google translation)

El País (Spain) talks about Google book digitalisation:

Y, mucho más anticuado, por ejemplo, que la edición encuadernada de Cumbres borrascosas que consulté ayer para buscar una frase que pensaba incluir en este artículo. Quizá la diferencia afectiva que experimento ante cada uno de los dos soportes (prescindiendo de que contengan, cada uno a su modo, la inmortal historia de Heathcliff y Catherine Earnshaw) se deba a que al de papel no se me ocurre exigirle eficiencia y rapidez, sino sólo que se comporte como siempre lo ha hecho. (Manuel Rodríguez Rivero) (Google translation)

And El Mundo (Spain) has also something to say using Wuthering Heights:

Lo malo es que los hijos (me refiero a militantes de partido, pues también los hay que se van de casa) aprenden que esto es el amor y las relaciones maritales. Y luego las reproducen, aunque empeoradas, del mismo modo en que la segunda generación de "Cumbres borrascosas" es aún peor que la primera. Que ya es decir. (Alejandro Gándara) (Google translation)

NonSoloCinema (Italy) reviews The Wolfman:

La drammaticità, di quelle rare, senza tempo, di Emily Blunt, perfetta per un film tratto da qualche storia della sorelle Brontë, in Wolfman appare, semplicemente, sprecata.(Ilaria Falcone) (Google translation)

Le Temps (Switzerland) reviews Rachel Cusk's The Bradshaw Variations:

Rachel Cusk, nous l’avons découverte avec Arlington Park, un roman où il pleut sans arrêt. Des trombes d’eau. Mais aussi pas mal de larmes, parce que les femmes qui s’y confessent sont des desperate housewives. Insatisfaites, frustrées, à peine révoltées, coincées dans leurs rôles d’épouses ou de mères, ces Anglaises recluses dans les pavillons coquets de la middle class n’ont pas trouvé meilleure confidente que Rachel Cusk. Laquelle dit s’inspirer d’Elizabeth Bowen et surtout des sœurs Brontë, dont les livres sont également très arrosés. «Leurs sujets de prédilection, explique Rachel Cusk, je les partage: l’oppression sociale, le confinement des êtres, les impasses du désir. Les sœurs Brontë nous rappellent aussi que notre liberté, en tant que femmes, n’est pas un cadeau tombé du ciel mais qu’elle est le fruit d’une très longue lutte, à la fois politique et intime.» (André Clavel) (Google translation)

La République des Lettres talks about Kathy Acker:

Post-moderne, Kathy Acker l'est non moins parce qu'elle laisse son texte être constamment traversé d'autres médias (le rock, le vidéo-clip, la bande dessinée), d'autres cultures (le vaudou, le culte d'Ogun), d'autres voix, d'autres flux, d'autres références (la physique quantique, l'anarcho-syndicalisme catalan), d'autres époques (la Sicile du XIXe siècle, le Yorkshire des Brontë, le Londres de Wedekind), d'autres devenirs (on peut penser au devenir-animal de Deleuze et Guattari, à propos des chiens). (Patrick Hutchinson) (Google translation)

Check the comments to this article of the MIT Technological Review about the PageRank Google algorythm if you want to discover how the Brontës were Sergey Brin/Larry Page forerunners. The Telegraph has an article about Shaykh Abdalqadir as-Sufi, previously known as Ian Dallas who was the screenwriter of Jane Eyre 1956 (!). A modern governess in the Adelaide Advertiser. La Nación (Argentina) reviews Brian Dillon's Tormented Hope. On the blogosphere, The Little Professor reviews Elizabeth Newark's Jane Eyre's Daughter, Blogjem loves Jane Eyre and wants to read Denise Giardina's Emily's Ghost, inky fingers posts about different TV adaptations of Jane Eyre (in Swedish). C. Adoph Moores discusses Jane Eyre 1944. Literariamente Hablando posts about the Brontës in Spanish whereas Fly High! reviews Sparkhouse 2003, Kivus publishes a very curious signpost pointing to... Emily (MN) Brontë (TX) and house.of.joanna has uploaded several pictures of North Lees Hall to flickr.

Finally, the Elm Student Newspaper (Washington College) discovers a new piece of juvenilia by the Brontës. Nothing less than a space opera:

The Hexasphere: A Space Opera
This little known (and little read) novel is the only work that all four Brontes worked on together (even prodigal son Branwell did the illustration on the front cover). The Hexasphere follows the adventures of space governess Gertrude Wickershire and her torrid romance with Lesley Morrowton, the brooding, intergalactic smuggler with a heart of gold. Together, they fight with the resistance movement dedicated to protect the six-sided planet (known as the Hexasphere) from the invading forces of a hostile, alien race set on devouring the souls of all mankind. (Chantel DeIulio)