Weathering Heights and other news

Good news for the Brontëites from Down Under as Jane Eyre 2011 seems to have already a release date there: April 7, according to The Australian:

UNIVERSAL's coming year is packed full, with [...] Mia Wasikowska starring in Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre (April 7). (Michael Bodey)

While we wait to see that at last, The Herald (Ireland) mentions the previous screen adaptation of the novel in connection to Toby Stephens's career and his role as Mr Rochester.

A couple of news outlets mention Jean Rhys's sequel to Jane Eyre. The National (UAE) uses it as it usually is, as an example of a work of fiction based on someone else's previous literary creation:

So it isn’t particularly surprising that sometimes, authors take the somewhat safer option. They “borrow” characters from other writers’ works – the more famous, the better – and place them in their own books. The most notable, and successful, example is Jean Rhys’s 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea; essentially a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, we discover the previous, colonial life of Mrs Rochester, before she is shut away in the attic of Thornfield Hall, supposedly mad.
Wide Sargasso Sea works because Mrs Rochester is an intriguing character for whom imagining an interesting backstory is easy – and Rhys is a fantastic writer. But all too often, borrowing characters in this way is a dangerous game to play. The wrath of precious fans of the originals is easily incurred and the books will always be compared with their more illustrious predecessors. (Ben East)

Booktryst - a Seattle Post-Intelligencer blog - reports a few recent rare-book (and imaginary) findings such as the following:

"I smell fish," Salt sniffed, "and I'm not talking about Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea Bass: 20 Lite N' Easy Meals. (Stephen Gertz)

Daily Express comments on a recent Q&A with Yoko Ono on her website where she made the following blunder:

shockhorrorDJ
Hi Yoko, have you ever been to Scotland?
Yes. I think it’s a beautiful, beautiful country, It always makes me think of Weathering Heights, my favorite book.

Yeah, and we love The Beetles!

For more laughs, PopCandy - a USA Today blog - suggests the work of cartoonist Kate Beaton.

Beaton's background makes her webcomic especially entertaining and (bonus!) educational. If you're not reading Hark! A Vagrant, you should check it out -- topics range from Benjamin Franklin to Henry VIII to the Brontë sisters.

Wuthering Heights is on BookBuzz's list of books that change with each reading. And the News-Sentinel includes Jane Eyre's 'Reader, I married him' in an article on how 'Famous lines from movies, other sources become part of vernacular'.

Discussions about the Twilight books goes on. Today, The Daily Reveille instructs,

Quit calling it the modernized “Romeo and Juliet” or “Wuthering Heights.” That’s an insult to authors, screenwriters and readers worldwide. (Kelly Hotard)

A couple of sites mention the Brontës plaque at Poets' Corner in Westminster Abbey. The Manila Bulletin:

As usual, the church was packed with tourists, our class straining to see the ornate tombs of numerous monarchs, and the memorials of distinguished authors, including Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, the Brontë sisters, T.S Eliot, John Keats, and many more. (Caitlin Alisa Coyiuto)

And Halifax-Plympton Recorder:

Chalk-white cliffs, rolling downs covered with thick mists. Green fields outlined by great hedges, cities combining Roman walls, Gothic cathedrals, and modern skyscrapers.
This was what I thought of when I thought of England. I also thought of Shakespeare’s theatre, Jane Austen’s ordered country homes, the Brontë sisters’ romantic moors, and the sleepy shire nestled in the quiet hills. [...]
The English students among us were thrilled to visit Poets’ Corner at Westminster Abbey, where Shakespeare, Austen, Carroll, the Brontës, Lord Byron and dozens of other British authors and poets are honored or buried. (Casey Meserve)

Speaking of the moors, poet-turned-crime-writer Peter Robinson, explains to the Brisbane Times why he chose Brontë Country as the backdrop for his Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks series.

Brontë country was an obvious place to base his fiction, partly out of nostalgia, the need to write from knowledge and because Robinson liked the kind of regional English detective story that "throws in an inspector and a sidekick to look at the mores and social make-up of an area and the human psychology of its inhabitants". (Linda Morris)

As for the blogosphere, Anne's two novels are discussed: Shanna's Journal discusses The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and All That Is Gold and Livres et Lectures de Lili (in French) post about Agnes Grey. The Immaculate White Bed has written a Wuthering Heights-inspired poem. NotRobotic discusses 'Words and Images: Meaning and Signification in Jane Eyre'. Silvae (in German) posts about Jean Rhys and Wide Sargasso Sea. Les Brontë à Paris (in French) recreates/imagines a day in County Down in 1794. And finally The Squeee celebrates its first birthday (and briefly mentions some of the Brontë goings-on there in during this year), so congratulations on that!

Categories: Agnes Grey, Books, Brontëana, Brontëites, Haworth, Humour, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights