Jane With a White Piano

An habitué in this section is John Mullan with his top tens for The Guardian. Today, Best Pianos in Literature:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
Jane can play the piano, of course – but Blanche Ingram, her rival for the attentions of Mr Rochester, can really play. She sits proudly at the piano, "spreading out her snowy robes in queenly amplitude" and beginning "a brilliant prelude; talking meantime". But this is showing off, and dooms her.

Another recurrent subject of these last few weeks is holiday reads. From The Guardian:

After this, the field's open. Old favourites, neglected classics, high-class thrillers, books your friends have been nagging you to read: all can go in the mix, Ryanair's excess baggage rules allowing. In my bag – though this may yet change – will be Shirley by Charlotte Brontë (old favourite), Lady Rose and Mrs Memmary by Ruby Ferguson. (Rachel Cooke)

Bookreporter reviews The Lost Summer of Louisa May Alcott by Kelly O'Connor McNees:

Although she was surrounded by great writers all the time, from Thoreau to Emerson and Hawthorne, who were all friends and colleagues of her father, she probably shared more of her inclinations with writers like the Brontë sisters and Edgar Allan Poe. (Jane Siciliano)

Lisa Armstrong has written an article on the colour white and fashion for The Times:

Indeed white could be said to be Miss Tilney’s style signature. And unlike Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre, she’s not portrayed as barking mad. What’s not to like? Austen was quite partial to the (non) colour herself.

Playback :stl reviews the comic book adaptation of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:The Graphic Novel:

Wuthering Heights now comes with a blurb on the cover that says it's Twilight's Edward and Bella's favorite book. I also understand that maybe some of these kids are maybe getting interested and picking up the “original” Pride and Prejudice and maybe all those Twihards are reading Wuthering Heights and I realize that that's a good thing. I do. Really. (Erin Jameson)

We have more Twilight today, of course:

Then, of course, there’s the Great Edward Debate, which got played out here last year in the fury of responses to my New Moon post. Is he a swooningly idealized James Dean/Heathcliff/Brad Pitt figure, an amorous obsessive with just the right touch of otherworldly danger? Or is he a blood-guzzling “stalker,” an erotic harasser who will break into your house and stare at you while you’re asleep because he’s the kind of guy whom any sane girl would avoid at all costs? (Owen Gleiberman in Entertainment Weekly)

Would it surprise you to know that it’s all about sex—safe, secure, if still slightly naughty sex? Would it also surprise you that it’s about formula, a fictional blueprint that has been around since Shakespeare solidified tragedy and Heathcliff left Cathy on the wind-swept moors? Would you finally see how, in standard mass media manufactured conformity, it’s nothing more than the Pet Rock with pecs, or Silly Bandz with a little less substance? Or maybe you mistakenly believe that author Stephenie Meyer has create a literary masterwork which demands the kind of feeding frenzy response from women—young and old—that only a timeless treasure can demand. (Bill Gibron in PopMatters)

Meyer uses uses Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" in the book "Eclipse," however, it was not represented in the movie. The idea of fire and ice, in reference to the poem in the beginning of the popular book, was read by Bella during the movie and fit extraordinarily well to the plot. Throughout the film Edward represents ice and Jacob fire. (Megan Byrne in Intelligence Journal Lancaster New Era)

Si Catherine Hardwicke avait su transposer la fébrilité amoureuse entre Edward et Bella dans Twilight et Chris Weitz, mettre un peu plus d'hémoglobine dans les scènes d'action, tout en respectant l'univers de Meyer, qui se réclame naïvement ou présomptueusement de Jane Austen et d'Emily Brontë, cette fois, on n'embarque plus tant Slade semble s'être foutu royalement du public de jouvencelles à qui cette saga s'adresse. (Manon Dumais in Voir) (Google translation)

Det där med omöjlig och förbjuden kärlek har ju alltid fascinerat, inte minst när det handlar om den alluppslukande kärleken – Meyer själv har inspirerats av Romeo och Julia (Shakespeare) och Svindlande höjder (Emily Brontë), vilket märks tydligt. (Henrik Strömberg in Göteborgs-Posten) (Google translation)

Vampyrerna är inte vad de har varit. 2000-talets vampyr är inte ett monster för skräckfantasten, utan en romantisk hjälte som kämpar mot de mörka krafterna inom sig. Att sådant slår visste redan Emily Brontë när hon skrev ”Svindlande höjder” på 1840-talet. (Karin Nykvist in Sydsvenskan) (Google translation)

Det finns ett mönster i nästan alla moderna vampyrberättelser. I centrum står en ung flicka, nästan alltid grubblande och lite vilsen i tillvaron. Sen möter hon den underbare mannen - som visar sig vara en vampyr. Mannen med en mörk och farlig sida är ett klassiskt mönster, ända sen Jane Austen och systrarna Brontë. (Anna Höglund in Sydöstran) (Google translation)

Det er Jane Austen og Emily Brontë i ny og postmoderne utgave: handler om valget mellom lidenskap og overbevisning. Men der Austen i The Twilight Saga: Eclipse. Fornuft og følelser plasserer denne motsetningen hos to unge kvinner, er det mennene som illustrerer forskjellen i Eclipse. (Ingunn Økland in OsloPuls) (Google translation)

And a couple of Heathcliff lookalikes. The tennis player Roger Taylor:

With his thick, dark locks and full eyebrows – both greying a little at 67 – he was idolised by a generation of female fans who saw him as a romantic heart-throb, Heathcliff with a tennis racquet.
Unlike Heathcliff, however, he was always the perfect gentleman. (Deirdre Fernand in The Aberdeen Press and Journal)

The folk singer Seth Lakeman:

His potential for mass appeal was obvious as soon as the Mercury shone a spotlight on him. In a field not known for its hunks, the ladies might see something of Heathcliff about his swarthy looks. In live shows, when he fiddles until the hairs ping from his bow, he and his band have more than enough energy to impress a rock audience. (David Smyth in the London Evening Standard)

Another kind of lookalikes are English pubs in California. Like this one in Muir Beach:

Even for non-Anglophiles, Muir Beach's Pelican Inn offers irresistible charm. The seven-room inn, perched amid the pastoral hills of Marin and shrouded in fog, is not a too distant cry from England's famous moors brought to life by the likes of Thomas Hardy and the Brontë sisters. (Tanya Henry in the Marin Independent Journal)

Time Out Chicago makes the following (very true) recommendation for a trip to Yorkshire:

Cultivate a Zen-like acceptance of weather.
(...) One of the high points of the trail, literally and metaphorically, is the crossing of the Yorkshire moors. Covered in heather that turns deep purple, they rise dramatically, and the trail has been carefully chosen to afford prospects to the north. All of which would have been great, except that (a) the heather is not in bloom in June, so it’s mostly brown and dull green, and (b) our two days on the Yorkshire moors were so foggy that we usually couldn’t see 50 feet in front of us, let alone enjoy the vistas of the lower country. But on the plus side, the deep fog made us feel as if we were in a Brontë novel. (Hank Sartin)

Globo Livros reminds us that Salinger recommended reading the Brontës:

Em seu último conto, "Hapworth 16, 1924", publicado na revista New Yorker em 1965, J. D. Salinger recomenda, por meio da carta de Seymour, os livros que fizeram parte da sua construção literária e intelectual. Autor do também clássico O Apanhador no campo de centeio, ele nos presenteia com uma lista que vai de Miguel de Cervantes a Charles Dickens, passando pelas irmãs Brönte e sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (Isadora Altab) (Google translation)

Heathcliff in an article about criminal law? It happens in Portugal, in the Correio da Manhã:

Uma personagem como Azdak, o juiz do "Círculo de giz caucasiano" de Brecht, é, para o Direito Penal, um "simples" corrupto. E "vulgares" criminosos são, de igual modo, os fascinantes Raskolnikov de Dostoievsky, Heathcliff de Emily Brontë ou Thérèse Desqueyroux de Mauriac. Mas todos eles exprimem forças e fraquezas profundas da alma humana, sobre as quais o Direito pouco dirá. (Fernanda Palma) (Google translation)

Libertad Digital (Spain) reviews Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons:

Gibbons trata a autores tan conocidos como Thomas Hardy, D. H. Lawrence o las hermanas Bron të sin piedad ni reverencia; así, esas larguísimas descripciones propias del género, tan intensas, dramáticas y artificiales, son parodiadas en párrafos memorables, abundantísimos en adjetivos y símiles de lo más rebuscado. (Carmen Pulín) (Google Translation)

Dünya Bülteni (Turkey) interviews Firdesv Canvaz, author of the biography of Fatma Aliye:

Dolayısıyla Fatma Aliye Hanım’ın bu tavrı aynı dönemde yazan diğer kadınlar gibi hem biraz temkin hem de tedirginlik içermektedir. George Eliot, Charlotte Brontë, Willa Cather, May Sarton gibi kadın romancıların çoğunun ilk romanlarının merkezinde bir erkek kahraman vardı. (Google translation)

Het Financieele Dagblad (Netherlands) talks about 'romantics in the closet':

Als klein meisje was ze niet uit bloemetjesjurken te krijgen, haar huis is ingericht met bij elkaar gescharrelde oude meubels, en ze leest en luistert Brontë en Brahms. Het liefst zou ze hoeden en lange jurken met lagen van kant dragen. Maar dat zou op z'n zachtst gezegd wat afstand tussen haar en haar collega's scheppen, dus blijft ze in de kast. (Laura Dufour) (Google translation)

Knack (Belgium) mentions Jane Slayre, Mico's Forest posts a couple of digital art pictures entitled The Brontë Sisters, From Books to Movies and Back Again publishes her opinion about Jane Eyre and Kомсомольская правда (Russia) recommends reading Charlotte Brontë with the help of one of the Jane Eyre film adaptations.

Finally, Onvaou gives the chance to win three double tickets for the upcoming performance of Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights at the Festival de Montpellier (next July 14):

Onvaou vous propose de gagner 6 places pour le concert du 14 juillet à l’Opéra Berlioz à Montpellier.
Écrit par Bernard Herrmann, reconnu notamment pour ses musiques de films pour Alfred Hitchcock, l’Opéra concert Les Hauts de Hurlevent est tiré du roman d’Emily Brontë. Il raconte l’histoire d’un enfant bohémien, élevé dans une famille étrangère et humilié par les deux enfants légitimes du père. Orchestré de façon dramatique, on décèle nettement l’influence des Opéras de Tchaikovski et de Frederick Delius.
Le concert sera diffusé en direct sur France Musique.

Just go to this website and answer the (very) easy questions. Good luck! (Deadline: July 11)

Categories: Jane Eyre, Music, Opera, References, Sequels, Wuthering Heights