Finding your Biographical Parents

The Huddersfield Daily Examiner adds another good reason to enjoy Christmas activities in Haworth (besides the ones we already posted about):

It is the start of their countdown to Christmas and you suspect one that provides an unforgettable memory for visitors to Haworth.
Marsh Ladies Choir will be making their now annual pilgrimage to the Brontë village to sing carols in its cobbled streets on December 5.
The ladies will wear Victorian costume including bonnets and shawls made by two choir members.
It is a chilly, annual trip to Haworth and one that delights tourists who love the special atmosphere that it creates. (Val Jabin)

And also an update from Imelda Marsden on the Brontë-themed events taking place at Mirfield.

The start to Mirfield's Brontë-themed charity events yesterday went well with a superb talk with slides by Helga Hughes, curator of the Red House Museum, Gomersal. A Writers' Friendship with a Brontë descendant present at Whiteley's garden centre restaurant across from the former Roe Head school where the Brontë sisters attended. After that, at 2.30pm, we went down to St Mary's church to open the church exhibition with the connection to the Brontës which they attended while they were at school in Mirfield. Today, Saturday 27th November, down at Eastthorpe, Mirfield, the Kirklees Brontë Group and the shops are going to be in costume. There is a  Brontë word clue competition up to Monday 6th December 12pm - the clue sheet can be picked up from the Mirfield library. Tomorrow, Sunday 28th November, a walk in the footsteps of the Brontë on the route they took from Roe Head school to St Mary's church, Church Lane, Mirfield. The walk starts at 1pm from the top end of Whiteley's Garden centre, Leeds Road, across from Holly Bank School (formerly Roe Head school), Mirfield. The walk ends at St Mary's Church with a chance to view the church/Brontë exhibition .On the walk some of us are to have collection tins for Help the Heroes. Warm refreshments and food will be served at the church after the walk. All are welcome on the walk.

The Sydney Morning Herald has an article about the page 69 test:

I picked a few books at random from my shelves and looked up page 69. The results varied wildly.
In Jane Eyre, I found a wonderful scene about the poor little girls at Lowood school, enduring hunger and cold and a grim pecking order where the biggest girls took over the space in front of the fire "and behind them the younger children crouched in groups, wrapping their starved arms in their pinafores". (Jane Sullivan)

The Times asks singer, songwriter and DJ Sophie Ellis-Bextor about her party top ten playlist:

10 Wuthering Heights, by Kate Bush. An unexpectedly nice moment. 

Warren Clements's column in The Globe and Mail is particularly funny today:

Readers Jackie Norris-Dean and Christopher Dean pass along a WonderTypo from The Globe, the sort that sets the mind coursing. The author of an article on Michael Nyqvist, star of the Swedish film The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, intended to say that the orphaned Nyqvist had been searching for information on his biological parents. Instead, the line emerged as, “So at age 30 he set out to find his biographical parents.”
Norris-Dean and Dean, playing with the notion of rewriting one’s biography to taste, comment: “This opens up possibilities of the most delightful parlour game to while away the long Canadian winters: Who would be your biographical parents? I immediately claimed descent from Anna Karenina and Heathcliff, ensuring a brief but thrilling life. My husband's considered choice of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy seemed at first unimaginative, until he pointed out that he was assured of the inheritance of the Pemberley estates at [£]10,000 a year!”

The Knoxville News Sentinel reviews Jamie Cox Robertson's An Uncommon Heroine:

Jami Cox Robertson's new book, "An Uncommon Heroine" (Adams Media), takes us up the family tree of such women, women we know on a first-name basis: Scarlett; Tess; Hester; Sula; Antonia.
There's Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, whose goodness shines through dark events; industrious, pragmatic Amy Dorrit from Charles Dickens' tale of how sudden riches don't necessarily bring happiness; Catherine Earnshaw from Emily Brontë's "Wuthering Heights," who, self-centered and vengeful though she is, softens our hearts with her love for Heathcliff. (Ina Hughs)

ABC (Spain) publishes the welcome speech given by José María Merino to celebrate the entrance tothe Royal Spanish Academy of Language (RAE) of writer Soledad Puértolas:

El universo de los escritores admirados por Soledad Puértolas abarca muchísimos más autores y autoras, pues es una lectora incansable y reflexiva, capaz de distinguir claramente los valores más significativos de cada uno. Entre otros, citaré de pasada a Tolstói, a Chéjov, a Baroja –sobre quien escribió una memorable tesis doctoral, El Madrid de La lucha por la vida—; a Chordelos de Laclos, a Emily Brönte (sic), a Stendahl (sic), a Zorrilla, a Flaubert, a Virginia Wolf (sic), a Thomas Mann, a Proust, a Kafka, a Raymond Chandler, a Cesare Pavese, así como a los poetas Fernando Pessoa y Carlos Drumond de Andrade. Soledad Puértolas es también buena aficionada al cine, por lo que no es raro que algunos críticos hayan encontrado en ella ciertas concomitancias con la estética de realizadores como Eric Rohmer, Louis Malle o François Truffaut. (Microsoft translation)

We hope that the typos come from the transcription. Otherwise it is unforgivable, taking into the account the scholarly context of the speech.

Ñ (from Clarín) (Argentina) mentions the broadcast of In Search of the Brontës in the Canal Encuentro (see sidebar for details):

Biopic sobre Charlotte Brontë. Una historia devastadora: cuatro muy jóvenes hermanos vencidos por la tuberculosis (entre ellos la célebre Emily), a quienes apenas sobrevive unos años. Fallece un mes antes de cumplir los 39. (Rafael Cippolini) (Microsoft translation)

Diario de Cádiz (Spain) covers the presentation of the book Cámara Oscura by Pilar Vera:

Sacado de contexto todo esto, podríamos pensar que estamos ante la habitante del ático de una mansión construida por las hermanas Brontë, pero [Óscar] Lobato nos situó: "Es una alquimista de las letras, con un vocabulario limpio, claro y rápido. Una mujer que ha leído mucho y ha viajado mucho. Con este libro reirán, sonreirán y hasta se carcajearán. Contentará al adolescente y al paladar del lector más exigente". (Pedro Ingelmo) (Microsoft translation)

La Ventana (Cuba) publishes another interview to Guadeloupean writer Maryse Condé, author of La Migration des Coeurs (Windward Heights):

Cuando leyó Cumbres Borrascosas, sintió que “Emily Brontë podía hablar a Maryse Condé más de un siglo después, porque su historia era similar”. Como escritora, ¿su sustrato es el ser humano, más que su tiempo?
—Como suelo decir, la literatura existe para decir la verdad. Y si la verdad de un ser humano dice también alguna verdad sobre su tiempo, pues el provecho es doble. La literatura no existe para inventar mundos mágicos: existe, acaso, para sacar lo mágico de nuestro propio mundo. Ese le pertenece a cada persona, por separado. (Marianela González) (Microsoft translation)

Rodrigo Fresán makes a passing reference to the Brontës on Página 12 (Argentina):

Y –cambiemos de tema, por favor– de un tiempo a esta parte cada vez pienso más en las góticas hermanas Brontë. Encerradas en su casa, a solas pero juntas, leyendo y escribiendo, el mundo entero como patio de atrás. (Microsoft translation)

Sud-Ouest (France) interviews Henri Courtade, author of Loup, Y est-tu?:

Doué pour l'écrit, grand amateur de livres classiques - Bernanos, Giraudoux, Chateaubriand, Brontë - Henri Courtade a des connaissances à revendre. (Microsoft translation)

Futurezone (Austria) talks about pseudonyms:

Ein Grund dafür, ein Pseudonym zu nutzen war beispielsweise der Wunsch, als weiblicher Literat ernstgenommen zu werden. Zu den Zeiten als die Brontë-Schwestern ihre Werke schrieben, war es für Frauen unschicklich, literarisch tätig zu werden, weshalb die Schwestern männliche Pseudonyme wie Ellis Bell wählten um zwar ihre Ideen zu veröffentlichen, darunter jedoch nicht gesellschaftlich leiden zu müssen.  (Bettina Winsemann) (Microsoft translation)

The New York Times mentions the 'Wuthering Heights anecdote' in Mark Twain's Autobiography; daydreaming posts about Jane Eyre 2006 and De rerum natura, desu does the same with Jane Eyre 1996 (in Russian) ; Small Review reviews positively Clare B. Dunkle's The House of Dead Maids; an also positive review of April Lindner's Jane is published on All-Consuming Books;  La Collezionista di Dettagli (in Italian) talks about a curious initiative called Ring di Lettura which will feature Charlotte Brontë's Henry Hastings in the Italian translation by Maddalena De Leo; come_daylight publishes more icons inspired by the trailer of Jane Eyre 2011; The Squeee has her own Jane Eyre sequels/derivatives/retellings list; Jayne's Books loves Jane Eyre.

Categories: Alert, Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Juvenilia, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Translations, Wuthering Heights