Books, manga, 1940s and other news

A reader of The Telegraph and Argus is not very enthusiastic - to put it mildly - about Sherri Browning Erwin's Jane Slayre:

SIR – My sister sent me a cutting from the T&A (April 14) about the forthcoming issue of a book called Jane Slayre. Knowing of my respect for the writings of Charlotte Bronte, she thought it may be of some interest to me – it certainly was.
In my view, writings of the stature of Jane Eyre, indeed any book, should never me messed about with. In short, if Ms Sheri Browning Erwin feels the need to tell us of so called ‘vampires’ then she must write a book of her own. And let such a book be of the quality of Jane Eyre; most doubtful.
I was much disturbed also to read in your article that a certain Ms Sue Long, a teacher no less, is of the opinion that it (the new book) “will draw young people to the classics and perhaps to read Jane Eyre later” – “perhaps” is the operative word.
In my opinion, children once exposed to the likes of Jane Slayre rarely go back to the original and take the ‘messed about’ version to be the norm.
No, I for one will not be buying – or reading – Ms SBE’s book. I will wait until the film version of her efforts comes out (I am sure that is the real reason for this ‘adaptation’) so I can throw things at the screen – SBE’s book would be just about right for the job.
Clive Pearsall, Triq il-Kavetti, Marsascala, Malta

We will write our own review of the book in a few weeks' time.

Oh, and The Telegraph and Argus also has an article and a video of Haworth's 1940s weekend, which always looks like fun even if it has nothing to do with the Brontës but the setting.

The Financial Times views Maggie O'Farrell's latest book, The Hand That First Held Mine:

By contrast, Lexie’s story starts as an over-familiar narrative – older worldly man dazzles headstrong young woman – seen in everything from Jane Eyre to the recent film An Education. (Ed Wood)

It's not the first time that Maggie O'Farrell's books have been connected to the Brontës.

Anime News Network reviews the manga series Aoi Hana (青い花, Sweet Blue Flowers) (an old friend of BrontëBlog's news), where

The handsome Yasuko, like a future Takarazuka starlet, plays Heathcliff in a school production of Wuthering Heights. (Erin Finnegan)

Dagblog comments on Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court and a recent article published on The Washington Post:

A female justice apparently has to be a judicial heavyweight and a character in a Bronte novel. (Although if she is openly emotional, or even just a Latina, her emotionalism is suspect.)
And what's truly repellent about Gerhart is her traffic in the ugly saw that childless women lack full emotional lives. Everybody knows, of course, that a woman who doesn't get married and have kids, and most especially a high-achieving woman who doesn't get married and have kids, is entirely out of touch with her inner life, deprived of her full capacities to imagine, intuit, hope, and feel.
You can ask the Brontë sisters about that last one, too.

Paperback Dolls posts about Wuthering Heights, Serenity_books writes about it in connection to the Twilight saga and Illustration poetry shares a Wuthering Heights-inspired illustration. How Do You Measure A Year? posts about Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre. And finally Flickr user Hazel and cerulean has uploaded a few pictures of Jane Eyre with wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights