Boy George meets Heathcliff

The Hull Daily Mail reviews the current local production of Wuthering Heights.

Five figures – shrouded in dark clothes – walk out of the swirling mist to tell their story.
Over the next couple of hours, we'll watch a man, pining for his late, lost love, scrabble at the earth of her grave. We'll also hear her voice echoing out of the gloom.
Wuthering Heights, Hull Truck Theatre's latest production, proves a stormy gothic horror. [...]
Jane Thornton's adaptation works a minor miracle with the original Victorian novel, which follows the fall-out from these passions, and tensions, across two generations.
Here, the five-strong cast act as both storytellers – addressing the audience directly – and as characters in the drama, which allows the complex story to be clearly told.
And the actors, flitting from role to role, offer an impassioned series of performances.
As Hindley, Stuart Wade provided a vengeful, simmering performance.
During the first half, he struck his prop, a walking stick, down against the stage with such force that it snapped in two.
But in a tale which requires a high-level of emotion – this, after all, is a story which unfolds into one of dark revenge, with deaths and madness on the way – the cast remained believable, rather than straying into the realms of hysteria.
In the lead roles, Gaynor Faye was persuasive as the forceful, but ultimately fragile, Cathy.
Opposite her, Rupert Hill was excellent as Heathcliffe (sic) – capturing the complexities of a character who, you sense, felt abandoned by everyone who had known him.
Under the direction of John Godber, you got a real sense of the chemistry between the two, and the way it taints all those around them.
Staged on Pip Leckenby's stark set – a mix of scrubby moorland and bare-wooden boards – this is a tough, unsentimental production, though one which has room for sense of the supernatural in its Gothic atmosphere. (Will Ramsey)

The Washington Post reviews the novel You Lost Me There by Rosecrans Baldwin and uses Wuthering Heights as an example of what the sadness in that book is not like.

Although "You Lost Me There" is moving and genuine, it's not always enjoyable. Baldwin is not writing about the kind of sadness that can sweep us away, the Heathcliff-banging-his-forehead-on-a-tree kind of grief. The sadness in these pages is about the emotional inadequacy that everyone feels, that total loneliness that overtakes us despite love and family, and the ultimate fear of losing our faculties, losing what makes us who we are. (Fiona Zublin)

According to what he said to the Guardian, Boy George now knows what we are talking about.

Buoyed by "thousands" of supportive letters, George acclimatised [to jail] remarkably quickly. "I spent a lot of time reading; everything from Wuthering Heights to Catch-22 to A Confederacy of Dunces, and listening to Bowie records. [...]" (Nick McGrath)

The Bucks County Courier Times brings our attention to an author with a YA sci-fi retelling of Jane Eyre in the works: Eve Marie Monts.

These days, she is revising her second novel, a young adult science-fiction work inspired by Jane Eyre, which she hopes will appeal to high school students. (Stacy Briggs)

The sci-fi touch is intriguing, although this is not the first time Jane Eyre takes that route - see for instance Jasper Fforde (well, sort of) or Jenna Starborn.

Christianity Today doesn't seem to have really 'got' the social background of Jane Eyre.

Author and psychologist Stephen Simpson, quoted at Crosswalk.com, argues, "Falling in love before you got married or engaged was a twentieth-century concept." Really? Jacob and Rachel lived in the 20th century? Song of Solomon was written in the 20th century? And Romeo and Juliet and Jane Eyre? Simpson is trying to make a point about how much our romantic ideas and practices have changed, but such a sweeping statement only causes confusion instead of clearing it up. (Gina Dalfonzo)

We don't really want to get into the whole argument, but we would just like to point out that the whole

"... And if God had gifted me with some beauty and much wealth, I should have made it as hard for you to leave me, as it is now for me to leave you. I am not talking to you now through the medium of custom, conventionalities, nor even of mortal flesh; -- it is my spirit that addresses your spirit; just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God's feet, equal, -- as we are!"

in Jane Eyre is not random. Jane needs to emphasise the point precisely because marriage - particularly among the higher classes - was mainly ruled by position and wealth, not love.

The Hindu recommends Jane Eyre 1983 as the 'best adaptation' of Jane Eyre.

Timothy Dalton plays his part as Rochester to perfection while the title role fits Zelah Clarke to a T. A special mention must be made of Adela (sic), played by Blance Youinou, who is adorable. The performances are delightful, the music is just right, even the Gothic design of the house and outdoor shots are beautiful, and set the right tone for the production. (Shivani Shrimal)

According to the Milton Keynes branch of About My Area, the Stony Stratford Women's Institute recently held a meeting wehere members discussed their favourite books. Jane Eyre turned up in the conversation. And EDP24 in an article about the classics and the school curriculum mentions the work of Charlotte Brontë as already in the curriculum.

Gadling continues telling about Yorkshire, with special attention today to past unsanitary conditions, such as in Haworth.

Premodern England was a grim place of death, filth, and general misery. Actually that can describe pretty much everywhere in the nineteenth century, but the town where the Brontë sisters lived was especially nasty. Some authors write novels to escape reality, and the Brontë sisters had a lot to escape from. Two of their sisters died in childhood thanks to the neglectful conditions at their boarding school. Then the Grim Reaper took the remaining sisters and their brother one by one.
This may have been due to the horrible health conditions in their town of Haworth, Yorkshire. At a time when all towns were unsanitary, Haworth took the prize. Haworth stands on the side of a steep hill with much of its water supply coming from natural springs near the top. Also near the top of the hill is the town graveyard. So crowded was this graveyard that the coffins were often buried ten deep. Water flowing through the graveyard contaminated the public pumps and ensured a steady supply of more dead bodies, which would rot, seep their juices into the water supply, and start the cycle anew. The Black Bull pub contributed to this by using this spring water to brew its own beer. One wonders what it tasted like.
This wasn't the only spring in Haworth, but the locals managed to ruin the others by placing open cesspools next to the pumps. Although the connection between cleanliness and health was only imperfectly understood, Patrick Brontë, local clergyman and father of the Brontë sisters, realized a place where 41 percent of the population died before age six had some serious issues. In 1850 he brought in Dr. Benjamin Babbage (son of Charles Babbage, who built the first computer) to make an inspection. Babbage was horrified at what he saw and his damning report of the local squalor made reformers take notice. If it wasn't for Babbage, Haworth probably wouldn't get so many tourists. People tend not to like smelling open cesspits and drinking decayed bodies while on vacation. (Sean McLachlan) (Read more)

The Telegraph also mentions the area in passing in an article about their 'Gardening against the odds awards winner: Andrew Barnett'.

The site is 860ft high, but now cocooned against the wind by the green walls. Ilkley Moor, famed for its bleak and windswept moments in Wuthering Heights, is two miles up the road. The garden has been driven by creativity, not cash. (Bunny Guinness)

The Guardian has a poll on which 20th-century classic should be digested by John Crace. Wide Sargasso Sea can be voted.

The Brussels Brontë Blog posts about the last guided tour around Brussels of 2010 (guided tours will be resumed in 2011 when the weather is a bit warmer). Clare B. Dunkle - author of The House of Dead Maids - has written a guest post for Adventures in Children's Publishing and Tempting Persephone reviews April Lindner's Jane.

Categories: Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Sequels, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights