"Catherine Earnshaw, I volunteer to give you a good slap"

Erica Wagner writes in The Times in praise of Jane Eyre and in detriment of Wuthering Heights:

The incidents are too coarse and disagreeable to be attractive, the very best being improbable, with a moral taint about them, and the villainy not leading to results sufficient to justify the elaborate pains taken in depicting it.”
So said The Spectator in 1847, when Wuthering Heights first appeared, and I am inclined to agree. I loathe Wuthering Heights. Every character is irritating to me; I can’t keep track of their names; and if you can pronounce “Thrushcross Grange” without spitting and lisping, I tip my hat to you. Catherine Earnshaw, I volunteer to give you a good slap. Just stop it already, all of you.
Jane Eyre is the book for me. Charlotte Brontë’s novel was published the same year, and had me riveted the first time that I read its famous opening sentence. Wuthering Heights begins with the tedious Mr Lockwood on a visit to his landlord: how dull is that? But here is Eyre’s voice, quick and vivid in your ear: “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day.” Aspiring writers, take note. If the beginning of your book immediately causes your reader to ask herself, why?, then you may well be on to something.
Move on to the whole first paragraph, there is so much in it. Not only Eyre’s character, not only a fine observation of weather and landscape, even a hint of Mrs Reed’s controlling nature. Here is a book to grab you and never let you go.
[...]
Wuthering Heights, I dare say, is much more of a period piece; a gothic novel in the truest sense. Fair enough to note that it is Jane Eyre, of course, that has the famous madwoman in the attic; the first Mrs Rochester has become a trope of both literature and literary criticism. But the shifting narrative of Wuthering Heights makes it too thickly woven, too opaque.
More than 150 years after Brontë’s novel was published, Jane Eyre’s voice still rings clear as a bell.

Jane Eyre is indeed still influential, as The TV Paige - a Chicago Sun-Times blog - review of ABC's Happy Town goes to show:

Be warned: "Happy Town" doesn't skimp on the grisly. Also, just about every scene seems to be inspired by another thriller ("Jane Eyre"! "Soylent Green"! "The Stepford Wives"! "Fargo"!). (Paige Wiser)

And this conversation between a grandfather and his grandson is quite representative too of its presence in literature lessons:

On a recent Friday when I picked up my 13-year-old grandson Robbie at school, the conversation in the car turned to his weekend homework.
Robbie said he’d be reading 80 pages “Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte. My pal asked me if I ever read that book, which he said he was enjoying.
I told him that while I was not a great fan of the Bronte sisters, all three of them writers, I did recall Charlotte’s work about an orphan girl who became a governess in a mysterious household.
Robbie asked when I read it. I told him it was when I was still in high school, when my mind was full of baseball and football, and the book was required reading.
“You have a good memory, Grandpa” Robbie said. I laughed and said, “Maybe not as good as you think. ‘Jane Eyre’ became a movie in the 1940s with one of my favorite actors, Orson Welles, playing the lead. I’ve seen that film on Turner Classic Movies a couple of times.”
Back home I did some research and discovered that “Jane Eyre” was published in 1847, 10 years after Queen Victoria took her seat on the throne she was to keep for 65 years. (Ev Parker in The Napa Valley Register)

But theatre designer Emma Ryott is there to defend Wuthering Heights (sort of) in the Yorkshire Post:

Name your favourite Yorkshire book/author/artist/CD/performer.
Wuthering Heights, I guess. . .

And there's also the eternal debate between teachers and students, as reported by The Courier-Journal.

College is around the corner and this is what it’s like, Alison Grover told the seniors she student teaches.
So give “Wuthering Heights” a chance, will you? Instead, Grover said she was told, ‘”Not everybody is nerdy like you, Miss Grover.’” (Dale Moss)

The Sydney Morning Herald discusses Murder at Mansfield Park by Lynn Shepherd and brings up the subject of novels inspired by other novels, which includes a mention of Wide Sargasso Sea.

In literary circles this kind of writing doesn't garner much respect. There have certainly been esteemed novels directly responding to classic works, from Jean Rhys' reinterpretation of Jane Eyre in Wide Sargasso Sea to the popular reinvention of L. Frank Baum's Oz mythos in the Wicked series. For the most part, though, this appropriation only gets the wizened nod when it demonstrates a kind of critical superiority to its source material, acting either as clever parody or serious critique. It's not enough to simply imitate or try to re-create the original. (John Bailey)

And the Boston Globe reviews One If by Land, Late If by T by the Second City company. One of the segments features...

Dana Quercioli portraying Emily Brontë as novice stand-up comedian. This bit could fly anywhere — on “SNL’’ in its halcyon days, even. (Sandy MacDonald)

The Telegraph and Argus announces a good initiative to take place in Thornton in May:

“During May, South Square and BIASAN will run a workshop for asylum-seekers and refugees, which will enable them to explore the landscape and landmarks of Thornton village, including the Bronte birthplace and the viaduct.” (Jim Greenhalf)

The Brontë-Along continues as creative as ever: A Few Good Things writes about 'Heathcliff-ishness' and Flickr user lucy.loomis has created a few Wuthering Heights-inspired collages.

Categories: Brontëana, Emily Brontë, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights