Heathcliff would make Gripper Stebson cry

John Walsh in The Independent quotes again from a Charlotte/Ellen exchange of letters concerning the sea for an article about British seaside resorts:

In the summer of 1839, Charlotte Brontë, then working as a governess in Skipton, Yorkshire, wrote to her friend Ellen Nussey about her holiday plans. At the age of 23, she said, she'd never been to the coast, never seen a beach, never clapped eyes on rolling waves. The prospect of doing so, on a proposed trip to Bridlington, was intensely exciting: "The idea of seeing the sea – of being near it – watching its changes by sunrise, sunset, moonlight and noonday – in calm, perhaps in storm – fills and satisfies my mind. I shall be discontented at nothing." Did she feel a big anticlimax on finally clapping eyes on the briny? Not at all. According to Ms Nussey, she "was quite overpowered, she could not speak until she had shed some tears ... her eyes were red and swollen, she was still trembling ... for the remainder of the day she was very quiet, subdued and exhausted."

Check this previous post for more precise information about the aforementioned quote.

Why do UK Prime Ministers tend strangely to compare themselves to the wrong literary/TV character? The Telegraph comments on David Cameron's joke comparing himself to Gripper Stebson's character in Grange Hill and of course remembers Gordon Brown's Heathcliffgate:

Gordon Brown claimed to identify with Heathcliff, Emily Brontë's complex Byronic brooder, but frankly appeared more short-tempered than saturnine. (Judith Woods)

The Wall Street Journal reviews The Wave Watcher's Companion by Gavin Pretor-Pinney:

Allusions to Robert Burns and Emily Brontë share space with the film maker Jacques Tati and the movie "When Harry Met Sally" (the scene where Harry tells a friend about his failing marriage as both men compulsively do "the wave" at a baseball game). (Jennifer Ouellette)

The Daily O'Collegian challenges one recurrent romantic fantasy:

Our culture insists on telling women to believe one whopping fallacy: a man can change with the love of a good woman.
Novels such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, movies as diverse as Rebel without a Cause and The Breakfast Club and reality shows such as Dad Camp and Tool Academy sell this falsehood. (Karen Sisk)

Unthinkable? gives a Brontë example in an article about Kindle:

All I can say is that somewhere at Amazon there is a graph showing how many of everything they can se ll if the price of the Kindle gets reduced to $99, and then watch these numbers explode. Even a cheapskate like me will buy a Kindle at that price just to read Jane Eyre and the like.(US Chick)

Regrettably Bessie A. Winn-Afeku (in The Huffington Post) will not have a good memory of Jane Eyre (Kindle reading or not):

I spent so much time writing thesis papers about Jane Eyre I never wanted to write for fun.

Marie Claire talks about the London boutique Apartment C which apparently has curious new initiatives:

The venue also provides guests with the option of listening to romantic readings, given by a wandering handsome waiter, ranging from classics such as Wuthering Heights to the wonderfully trashy Love machine by Jacqueline Suzanne.

We think that Colin Sokolowski doesn't qualify to enter our Brontëite ranks:

What was your first favorite book?
Either Lord of the Flies or Of Mice and Men. I seem to recall they were among the first books I actually didn’t fake book reports on for my ninth-grade English class (unlike Wuthering Heights). (Jodi Chromey in Minnesota Reads)

A retired teacher and Brontëite in Fort Mill Times, Touring Old Blighty visits Brontë country, No Charge Bookbunch posts about Romancing Miss Brontë, Reading at the Moonlight reviews Rachel Ferguson's The Brontës Went to Woolworths (in Spanish), jill_rg asks for help in the interpretation of a scene of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Breakfast at Lucie's and La vie page à page... review Agnes Grey in French, Eygam who cried Wolf reviews Wuthering Heights in Czech and Les Brontë à Paris posts about Patrick Brontë's Cottage Poems in French.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Books, Charlotte Brontë, Cottage Poems, Fiction, Jane Eyre, References, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights