Brontë tales from the crypt

The Huffington Post publishes an excerpt from Gail Goodwin's Solo Notes Journal (January-May 2007). We highlight a fragment where Gail went to see Polly Teale's Jane Eyre as performed by The Acting Company:

Thursday, April 19, 2007 (...)
Afterward, to the performance at Bard of "Jane Eyre" by the Acting Company. Big auditorium of the Fisher Center almost filled. Too big a space for this sort of production. I found myself impatient of theater, stage, strained voices. The actress who played Jane had a rasping, antagonizing voice. The gist behind the production was that Jane/Bertha Rochester were two halves of the same psyche. This also felt strained.

BBC News talks about the Yorkshire band Hope&Social. It turns out that the band have their headquarters in the crypt of a Leeds church:

They're very much a unique outfit that like to do things a bit differently. Their latest album, entitled April, was recorded at The Crypt (mentioned in some of the Brontë books) and utilised the help of some of their fans. (Kate Prothero)

Well, not exactly directly mentioned but it is true that Christ Church in Liversedge was endowed by the Rvd Hammond Roberson, who was the original of Mr Helstone in Shirley (who also endowed a church - though in Lancashire - in Charlotte Brontë's novel) and an old friend of Patrick Brontë's.

The Times lists some of the Special Events on offer Keighley and Worth Valley Railway Company:

And now you can have a go at actually driving a steam train on the KWVR line, which meanders for five miles up the steep gradient from Keighley via Ingrow, Damems, Oakworth, the Brontë sisters’ home village of Haworth and on to Oxenhope.

The Irish Times reviews the paperback edition of Brian Dillon's Tormented Hope:

Patiently, stylishly, Dillon unpicks the psychosomatic knots in which some of the biggest names in western cultural history have entangled themselves, not just willingly but, in some cases, with apparent enjoyment. Here, in various stages of fevers, vapours and dishevelment, are James Boswell, Charlotte Brontë, Charles Darwin, Andy Warhol and Glenn Gould.

The Walla Walla Union-Bulletin reviews the American edition, The Hypondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives, with its priceless cover:

Charlotte Brontë found in her illnesses, real and imagined, an escape from familial and social duties and the perfect conditions for writing. The German jurist Daniel Paul Schreber believed his body was being colonized and transformed at the hands of God and doctors alike. Andy Warhol was terrified by disease and by the idea of disease. Glenn Gould claimed a friendly pat on his shoulder had destroyed his ability to play piano. And we all know someone who has trawled the Internet, seeking the source of fantastical symptoms.

Financial Times talks about learning English in Britain. We wonder what exactly is a Jane Eyre accent?

But the UK has one big advantage. There is, he says, a pecking order of accents, with South African at the bottom and British at the top: “Parents overseas want their children to speak with a Home Counties accent, a BBC accent, a Jane Eyre accent. They want to hear that sound coming out of their sons’ and daughters’ lips.” (Matthew Engel)

Patrick Stewart, one of the patrons of Screen Yorkshire in The Yorkshire Post, lists the wonders of filming in Yorkshire:

Just think about the dramas we've seen on our screens that filmed here – Lost in Austen, Red Riding, Unforgiven, Wuthering Heights, Married Single Other, Five Days – along with films such as This is England, The Damned United and Brideshead Revisited. We've had Baftas and Bollywood.

We suppose Patrick Stewart is talking about Wuthering Heights 2009. Nevertheless another Wuthering Heights, the 1992 version, also filmed in Yorkshire is mentioned in the Guardian:

Kosminsky's Wuthering Heights best conveys the twisted obsessions with power, property and revenge: too many others confuse Romantic with "romance". (Marianne M Gilchrist)

Saturday's Twilight zone:

In the past couple of years, several of my single girlfriends have fallen for the same man. I can understand why. He's chiselled and magnetic in a Heathcliff-meets-Mr. Rochester sort of way – one of those brooding types who, despite his actual age, behaves like a perennially wounded teenage boy. But it distresses me, not only because he's an inappropriate match, but because he is also someone they will never, ever get to meet.
That's because he's fictional.
Yep, my girlfriends are crushing on Edward Cullen, the vampire heartthrob from the Twilight movie series. (Leah McLaren in The Globe and Mail)

El nombre de Edward se le ocurrió a la autora de la historia Stephenie Meyer debido a que solía ser un nombre muy romántico en las novelas de Jane Austen o Charlotte Brontë e Isabella por su hija. (El Heraldo de Honduras) (Google translation)

Meyer räumt ein, vor allem von den Ikonen der britischen Autorinnen des 19. Jahrhunderts inspiriert worden zu sein - von Jane Austen und den Brontë-Schwestern. (Thomas Frankenfeld in Hamburger Abendblatt) (Google translation)

Es würde auch niemand die Funktionalität eines Striptease bestreiten (der nicht zwangsläufig zum sexuellen Vollzug führt), bloß weil die Praxis des kunstvollen Entkleidens als tänzerische Leistung interpretiert werden kann. – Ein wenig mehr Fantasie, bitte! – Die Tatsache, dass »Twilight«-Autorin Stephenie Meyer Mitglied der mormonischen Kirche Jesu Christi der Heiligen der Letzten Tage ist (in erster Linie ist sie eine schlechte Schriftstellerin, die zu viel Jane Austen, Emily Brontë und Shakespeare gelesen hat), findet ihre Entsprechung in der einseitigen Interpretation von »Twilight« als Enthaltsamkeitsfabel gegen eine aufgeklärte Sexualpädagogik. (Wibke Wetzer on Spex) (Google translation)

Oberösterreichische Nachrichten interviews the actor Karl M. Sibelius who recommends Sophie Rois's Jane Eyre audiobook:

Da ich viel im Auto unterwegs bin, greife ich auch gerne auf Hörbücher zurück. Ich liebe die Stimme von Sophie Rois, ihre Interpretation von „Jane Eyre“ von Charlotte Bronte kann ich allen weiterempfehlen. (Google translation) :

L'Humanité (France) reviews Michèle Gazier's La Fille:

Avec une sobriété et une finesse de trait remarquables, elle dépeint un être obstinément soumis à la tyrannie d’une mère qui fut elle-même trompée, bafouée et tôt la mit en garde contre les turpitudes des hommes, notamment celles liées au sexe. Guindée, austère, confite en religion, la jeune fille vivait par procuration dans les livres de Charlotte Brontë qu’elle dévorait en cachette. (Jean-Claude Lebrun) (Google translation)

Zack Rearick, writing in the Port City Poets section of the Wilmington Star News, probably finds himself very radical and bold for saying things like this:

[Robert] Herrick is also buried in Poet’s Corner, but so is Anne Brontë, so that may not mean as much as I made it out to. Yeah, I said it.

Regardless of whether Mr Rearick has read anything by Anne Brontë, the problem is that his credibility is scarce taking into account that neither Herrick nor Brontë are buried there. Anne Brontë is -as it's well known - buried in Scarborough and Robert Herrick's tomb is located in Devon. If you want to be witty, you also have to be reliable. Yeah, we said it.

ABC36 mentions Charlotte Brontë's most likely cause of death: hyperemesis gravidarum. normblog interviews Erin O'Connor from Critical Mass:

What is the best novel you've ever read? > Not possible to name one. There are some I've read over and over, and love more and moreover the years, though - Bleak House, Middlemarch, Jane Eyre, The Woman in White. Yes, I am a recovering Victorianist.

Author Interviews Examiner posts about writer Susan Tekulve:

I read just about everything in the house—mystery novels, newspapers, The Guinness World Book of Records, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights. I cut my teeth, so to speak, on the Romantic writers. (Michael Aloisi)

El Norte de Castilla or El Periódico de Aragón (Spain) review the Spanish translation of Cold Comfort Farm:

En distancias más cortas, las citas se reparten entre las heroínas de Jane Austen, con su mundo contenido y reglado en oposición frontal al de la granja de la novela de Gibbons, y a 'Cumbres borrascosas', auténtico 'leitmotiv' de la narración, que merece incluso un personaje -Mybug, mi pesadilla- dedicado en exclusiva a estudiar y desbaratar la obra de Emily Brontë, desde la autoría hasta las circunstancias de escritura. (ENdC Google translation)

Wirtualna Polska (Poland) reviews Robert Goolrick's A Reliable Wife:

Oprócz postaci, ładnie nam Goolrick buduje i opisy. W zestawieniu ze sporą dawką romantyzmu i niewiele mniejszą dawką grozy dają one połączenie dosyć ciekawe, które istotnie podobać się może. Oczywiście pod warunkiem, że nie mamy względem literatury zbyt wielkich wymagań, a rozrywka jest jedynym powodem, dla którego po książkę w ogóle decydujemy się sięgnąć. Brakuje tu również tej wielkiej pasji i namiętności, którą w Wichrowych Wzgórzach dawało się wyczuć – niby o pożądaniu czytamy tu wiele, ale treść to zbyt sucha i uboga, aby mogła zostać uznana za przekonywającą i rzeczywiście absorbującą. Nie wiem też, na ile uprawnione jest dzisiaj tworzenie tego typu literatury – biorąc do ręki książkę Goolricka ma się bowiem wrażenie, że znów wróciliśmy do wieku dziewiętnastego, że żadnych rewolucji w literaturze nie było, a czas na Emily Brontë faktycznie się zatrzymał. (Joanna Pachla) (Google translation)

The Observer (Canada) recommends reading the Brontës among others during the summer, Brontë bookcrossing in Russia, Associated Content has an article titled Governesses, Corsets and Child Thieves, Powell's Books Blog recommends reading Villette (and Agnes Grey or Juliet Barker's The Brontës). 101 Books in 1001 Days reviews (4 1/2 of 5 stars) Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre and Mog's Blog posts about Jude Morgan's The Taste of Sorrow. Chroniques du Cinéphile Stakhanoviste reviews Wuthering Heights 1939 in French, I Have Things to Do does the same with the original novel (in Portuguese).

Categories: Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Shirley, Theatre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights