"Rochester, you sexy rascal"

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle talks about the Rochester Institute of Technology’s The Future of Reading conference (June 9-12, 2010). One of the speakers, Margaret Atwood, says:

"How could I not have a secret fondness for a city that's named after Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre?" asks Atwood, tongue firmly in cheek. "Rochester, you sexy rascal." (Stuart Low)

Poor Col. Nathaniel Rochester, so easily forgotten.

B.R. Myers in The Atlantic criticises ruthlessly modern American prose. Talking about Don LeLillo:

Most of the author's thoughts, regardless of which character is speaking them, take the form of disjointed strings of elliptical statements. This must be what satisfies critics that they are in the presence of a challenging writer—but more often than not "the dry shrivelled kernel," to borrow a line from Anne Brontë, "scarcely compensates for the trouble of cracking the nut."

The line comes from the first sentence of Agnes Grey.

The Independent traces a profile of Simon Armitage:

Critics have praised his dry Yorkshire wit, and he has drawn on the region in numerous works; not least All Points North, the successful 1999 book in which he explored the quirks of the area described as "that bit of Yorkshire, where the M1 slashes across the M62, where Jarvis Cocker meets Geoffrey Boycott, Emily Brontë meets Ted Hughes, Peter Sutcliffe meets David Hockney". (Rachel Shields)

The New Haven Register makes a rather cryptic reference to the Brontës:

My daughter is an English major who would rather read dialogue by Charlotte and Emily Brontë than Lauren and Whitney Airball, thankfully. (Joe Amarante)

Ron Judd in The Seattle Times thinks that a Charlotte Brontë sketch is not sexy enough:

Dear Jeff Bezos: Love my Amazon Kindle reader. Love it. But for the love of God, can you please do something about those ghastly screen savers? If I have to go to sleep another night with visions of strange fish, flocks of birds, skulls on bookshelves, obscure Latin texts — or worse, the ghostly, pale visages of Harriet Beecher Stowe, James Joyce or Jane Austen on my brain, I'm sending the thing back.
Seriously, Dude: When the hippest, sexiest image on your handheld device is a sketch of Charlotte Brontë, you're simply not going to connect with the kids.

Sugarscape selects the "buffest" boys in literature:

Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
The original brooding, tortured soul - Heathcliff is hands-down hot. His love affair with Cathy is SO passionate he makes Edward Cullen look like a damp piece of kitchen roll. But when his one true love betrays him he has this to say: 'I have not broken your heart — you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you——oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?' (Kate Wills)

buecherwald enjoyed Jane Eyre, Giraffe Days and Chinwag with Cissie review Rachel Ferguson's The Brontës Went to Woolworths, Punky Fried and A forte for fashion love Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights