Barefoot in the moonlight

The Irish Times has an article on the Richard Burton-Elizabeth Taylor turbulent love affair:

The public’s need to create a latter day Cathy and Heathcliff, to mythologise their story (he was reading the novel in Vienna and thought the cruel and romantic Heathcliff a product of Emily Brontë’s repressed sexual fantasies and Cathy the idealised feminine self). Burton and Taylor’s own story fed on our yearnings and longing for a doubtful notion of romantic love. They came together. They fought. They loved. They left each other. To love is to suffer; they were haunted by each other always. They found safe harbour together and sustained in their capsized world a love we both envied and identified with. (Gabriel Byrne)

It's only fitting to recall that Richard Burton played Heathcliff in a 1958 TV production (The DuPont Show of the Month).

The Star Phoenix talks about chauvinism. The Brontës are quoted:

Many famous, creative people hail from, and love, culturally sidelined places. The Bronte sisters cherished the isolated Yorkshire moors; American novelist Philip Roth is deeply connected to "pastoral" New Jersey, where he grew up. (Bronwyn Eyre)

The Daily Post presents the new TV show by Toby Stephens, Vexed, as follows:

Toby Stephens boasts the high cheekbones, floppy auburn hair and enunciated vowels of a gentleman born 200 years ago.
And that’s exactly why he caused such a stir playing the brooding Rochester in the 2006 television adaptation of Jane Eyre.

Blogcritics reviews positively Melanie M. Jechske's Jillian Dare:

(...) Generally, the story has a natural flow, but there are a few large jumps in time period over the span of a paragraph and the conclusion seems a little haphazardly put together. Jeschke is very descriptive and articulate in setting the scene and making fictional places come alive. I thought it was clever for Jeschke to name the movie that Ethan produced Evasions, which is one of Jeschke’s books from the "Oxford Chronicles" (and worthy of a movie deal).
All in all, Jillian Dare is an enjoyable read that is perfect if you wish to lose yourself in a beautiful love story and sophisticated prose. (Lydia M)

More reviews. The New York Times on Tell Us We're Home by Marina Budhos:

From “Jane Eyre” to “The Nanny Diaries,” literature is rich with stories about the domestic lives of the privileged, as observed by their domestics. Marina Budhos offers a further twist in her novel “Tell Us We’re Home”: Now the children of the privileged are observed by the sharp-eyed daughters of their nannies and housekeepers, as they mingle in the school hallways of an affluent New Jersey suburb. (Jan Hoffman)

The Daily Mail talks about the shooting of an episode of the second series of Last Of The Summer Wine:

After filming the three male leads taking a walk, during which one stood in a cowpat, cast and crew retired to the pub where they were to stay, a bleak but popular hostelry that [Roy] Clarke would later describe as 'Wuthering Heights with strippers'. (Andrew Vine)

Literature used as therapy in The Independent:

[Kate] McDonnell works for Get Into Reading, an initiative started nine years ago by Jane Davis, an English lecturer at Liverpool University. This is principally a story of inspirational women, none more so than Davis, whose original motivation was to introduce great literature to people who would never otherwise encounter it. That is still one of the principles of Get Into Reading, and the charity to which it gave birth, The Reader Organisation. Yet along the way, the goalposts shifted. Davis has effectively turned William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens, George Eliot and Emily Brontë, Alfred Tennyson and WB Yeats, into therapists. (...)
"Many of the people Dave works with don't have the human equipment to have a therapeutic conversation," she says. "But once they start talking about Wuthering Heights, for example, it's a fantastic opportunity to discuss people behaving very oddly without talking about yourself in any way. 'What's the matter with Cathy, she's off her chump!' Those thoughts can get you to a place where you can talk about yourself." (Brian Viner)

In this context, BBC Mundo (in Spanish) adds

Hamlet o Macbeth, Medea o Edipo, Madame Bovary de Gustave Flaubert o las heroínas dementes de las hermanas Brontë, el teatro de Tennessee Williams o películas como "The Shining" o "Rain Man" exploran la demencia con una profundidad de recursos y una precisión de laboratorio que muchas veces es imposible para la psiquiatría. (Marcelo Justo) (Microsoft translation)

Imogen Russell Williams defends teen fiction in The Guardian Book Blog:

Moving from primary to secondary school, I remember being encouraged to soak up as much canonical children's fantasy (Susan Cooper, Alan Garner, Penelope Lively) as I liked, and to make the salmon-leap to grownup books by reading classic titles – Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, a bit of Steinbeck, a bit of Golding. While I was delighted to find fantasy topping the menu, and didn't object to taking on more challenging adult fiction, I also remember an unvoiced but distinct disapproval – a strong hint of arched eyebrow and indrawn breath – if you were caught reading Judy Blume or Paula Danziger. There was a sense of: "It's all very well, but it's teen fiction." There was even a hint of, "You've taken the easy option there, haven't you?"

De Standaard (Belgium) publishes a combined review of three recent fiction Brontë-related books: Jude Morgan's The Taste of Sorrow, Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre and Denise Giardina's Emily's Ghost:

De zussen Brontë hebben schrijvers altijd gefascineerd. Tegenwoordig is er vooral in Angelsaksische hoek weer veel belangstelling voor de schrijfsters uit Yorkshire.
In ‘Eclipse’, één van de Twilight-romans van Stephanie Meyer, leest Bella ‘Wuthering Heights’ van Emily Brontë. Slimme boekenjongens roken hun kans en lieten de negentiende-eeuwse klassieker herdrukken met een cover in Twilight-stijl. Het moge duidelijk zijn: nadat Jane Austen de chicklit-, vampieren- en zombiebehandeling kreeg, is het nu de beurt aan de zussen Brontë. Er staan nieuwe verfilmingen van Brontë-klassiekers op stapel en er rollen heel wat verhalen met een Brontë-achtig tintje van de persen. Zo schreef Syrie James ‘The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë’ en zijn er romans over de telgen van de Brontë-helden, ‘Jane Eyre’s Daughter’ van Elizabeth Newark, bijvoorbeeld. De Brontës zijn dat zeldzaam soort schrijvers die net zo boeiend zijn als hun creaties. Geen wonder dus dat er boekdelen verschijnen waarin de zussen in wit maanlicht dansen, barrevoets, omgeven door een gespierde wind. Ondanks de clichés en de overdaad aan flauwe sequels en persiflages zijn er ook auteurs die van hun Brontë-romans wel iets bijzonders maken. (Kathy Mathis) (Read more) (Microsoft translation)

Comillas cemetery is, according to El País (Spain), reminiscent of Wuthering Heights:

Existen pocos lugares tan románticos como el cementerio de Comillas, y no es descabellado afirmarlo. Cualquiera que haya sentido alguna vez una melancolía profunda o una pasión tipo Cumbres borrascosas encontrará que este lugar le pertenece. (Elsa Fernández-Santos) (Microsoft translation)

Julie News interviews Nadia Baldi, director of Don Chisciotte, a free adaptation of the Cervantes' Quixote written by Ruggero Cappuccio. The piece contains an unexpected Brontë reference:

Signora Baldi, nella rivisitazione di Ruggero Cappuccio del “Don Chisciotte” di Cervantes, il protagonista è un professore universitario, studioso di letteratura epica, emarginato dalla società. Perché è escluso? Perché non riesce ad inserirsi nella comunità di appartenenza?
E’ escluso come lo sono tanti che vivono il disagio di essere dei poeti, delle persone non omologate, delle persone che restano in contatto, forse in maniera ossessiva, con le emozioni e fanno di questo un percorso di vita.
Con quali fantasmi della classicità il professore si troverà a dialogare? Cosa emerge da tali dialoghi?
Farà solo riferimento ai più grandi della letteratura da Jorge Luis Borges a Francisco de Quevedo, dalle sorelle Charlotte, Emily e Anne Brontë a William Shakespeare ed altri. Il suo è un rapporto di appartenenza con questi autori. (Rossella Saluzzo) (Microsoft translation)

In Зеркало недели (Ukrayne) they think that the Brontë/Austen heroines are not comparable to the great Russian literature ones:

Искренность, духовность, внутренняя сила — это настоящие сокровища. Только достойны ли те, кого одаривают этими сокровищами Татьяна Ларина, Сонечка Мармеладова, Ася, такого дара? На фоне русских женщин героини Дж. Остин, сестер Бронте кажутся примитивными мещанками, которым просто посчастливилось дождаться хеппи-энда и устроить свою жизнь. (Tатьяна ДЗЯДЕВИЧ, Анна ЧЕРНЕНКО) (Microsoft Translation)

An Italian member of parliament who recently listened to an audio version of Wuthering Heights in Italia Informazione; The Book Mine Set and The Pirate Princess review Emily Brontë's novel; Könyv, egó, entrópia has problems with the last third of Jane Eyre (in Hungarian); the latest video of the YouTube channel thatgaybunch contains a reference to Wuthering Heights. Finally, Janet Reid, Literary agent runs a contest (just until tomorrow, August 15) giving away a copy of Jane Slayre.

Categories: Books, Fiction, Jane Eyre, References, Sequels, Wuthering Heights