Have you forgotten the sea by this time, Ellen? ~ BrontëBlog

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Have you forgotten the sea by this time, Ellen?

Sunday, July 18, 2010 1:47 pm by M. in Biography, Books, Charlotte Brontë, Fiction, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights No comments

The Oklahoman reviews Juliet Gael's Romancing Miss Brontë:

Author Juliet Gael's fascination with Charlotte Brontë began more than eight years ago when she took a graduate-level seminar devoted to the lives of the Brontë sisters. Since that time, she has made several trips to England to the small village of Haworth where sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë lived through their literary triumphs as well as their terrible sorrows.
In "Romancing Miss Brontë” (Ballentine Books, $25), Gael not only blends fact and fiction into a beautiful love story but brilliantly depicts the lives and limitations of Victorian women in the 1800s. (...)
Even if one is not a Bronte aficionado, this novel will charm you. (Peggy Gandy)

The Guardian talks about British seaside resorts and their 'retro' appeal. A passing mention to Charlotte Brontë's visit to Bridlington is made:

Previously undistinguished fishing villages like Brighton and Ramsgate were reborn as fashionable marine spas. Patronised by the Prince Regent and his racy set, such places duly became as much about getting your end away as getting well. Virtually simultaneously, the Romantics were also inventing the sea view by making the ocean aesthetically "sublime". So sublime that Charlotte Brontë was moved to tears when she first clapped eyes on it at Bridlington in 1839. (Travis Elborough)

The actual anecdote comes from Ellen Nussey via Clement Shorter:

The day but one after their capture they walked to the sea, and as soon as they were near enough for Charlotte to see it in its expanse, she was quite over-powered, she could not speak till she had shed some tears she signed to her friend to leave her and walk on; this she did for a few steps, knowing full well what Charlotte was passing through, and the stern effoits she was making to subdue her emotions her friend turned to her as soon as she thought she might without inflicting pain; her eyes were red and swollen, she was still trembling, but submitted to be led onwards where the view was less impressive; for the remainder of the day she was very quiet, subdued, and exhausted. (The Brontës. Life and Letters, Clement Shorter, Chapter IX)

Going Places (South Africa) reviews Heritage Theatre's production of The Mystery of Irma Vep in Durban:

But, first, a brief introduction. The curtains open to reveal the drawing room at Mandarcrest Manor (an isolated mansion on the Yorkshire Moors of which the Bronte sisters would be proud) complete with a portrait of the late mistress, Irma Vep. (Shirley le Guern)

Daily News (Los Angeles) talks about the classical TV show Dark Shadows (1966-1971)

Although it started out as a kind of "Wuthering Heights" swoon-a-thon, the show really took off with the introduction of Barnabas. The vampire was, at first, an evil monster, which had been the standard interpretation since Dracula's introduction in the late 19th century. (Bob Strauss and Tony Castro)

Howard Jacobson reminisces about his stay as a lecturer in Sydney and how he managed to go unnoticed. In the Guardian:

It was Germaine Greer – who had lectured at Sydney – I was replacing. A tough act to follow, I was told. So I didn't try. I did it my way – cultivating a leather-jacketed bohemian look, growing my hair, smoking enough cigarettes to kill a hundred men, clicking my fingers like a jazzman when I entered a seminar room, tearing up novels I didn't like, telling students that the novels they liked – works of irrationality such as Wuthering Heights – were rubbish, and otherwise doing all I could not to make the same mistake I'd made in Cambridge, which had been to pass unnoticed through the quadrangles. Stage one of my mission, at least, was accomplished. This time the bastards knew who I was. I had put the past behind me.