Mark Twain's maid

The Telegraph interviews Lydia Davis, author of a new translation of Gustave Flaubert's Madame Bovary:

Reading the novel in her twenties, Davis was disappointed. “I think I must have been expecting something different, maybe a romantic love story with an uplifting ending, something along the lines of Jane Eyre.
”But the story of Emma Bovary offered no “reader, I married him” thrill.  (Kasia Boddy)

The fascinating first edition of the Autobiography of Mark Twain.The Complete and Authoritative Edition, Volume 1. Edited by Harriet Elinor Smith contains an unexpected (and perplexing) Brontë reference. We have found it via Recordpub:

"The other maid, Wuthering Heights (which is not her name), is about forty and looks considerably younger. She is quick, smart, active, energetic, breezy, good-natured, has a high-keyed voice and a loud one, talks thirteen to the dozen, talks all the time, talks in her sleep, will talk when she is dead; is here, there, and everywhere all at the same time, and is consumingly interested in every devilish thing that is going on."

The editor says in a note:

It is not clear why why Clemens appropriated the name of Emily Brontë's classical novel (1847) for the garrulous older maid; he may have had in mind the narrator of the story, Ellen (Nelly) Dean, a household servant. (p. 500)

It has been some time since Tanya Gold 'delighted us' with a Shagging Jane quote. In The Times an article about a single woman's view of sex:

Even Jane Eyre was all about shagging, and I have said many times that if Jane Austen had got naked with Captain Wentworth she wouldn’t have written Persuasion. Go on, Austen fans. Write in. Beat me up. Shout.

We hear a certain cluebat is just striking the air...

Variety talks about the 'lone producers' in the UK. In particular, Kevin Loader:

In the U.K., these lone producers include veterans such as Paterson, who just finished producing "Burning Man" in Australia for director Jonathan Teplitzky; Kevin Loader, who's following his success with "In the Loop" by producing Andrea Arnold's "Wuthering Heights" (...)
Ex-BBC veteran Loader worked with Jones on "The History Boys" and "Straightheads," and has since produced "Brideshead Revisited," "Nowhere Boy" and "Wuthering Heights" for Ecosse Films, as well as Armando Iannucci's hit political satire "In the Loop." (...)
"For me, business is ticking over, but Christ, it's precarious," he says. "Until we started pre-production on 'Wuthering Heights' on Aug. 8, I hadn't been paid this year. And it's hard to get anything back from films further down the line, which is why we have to do something about the business model."  (Adam Dawtrey)

Oliver Cross in his column in the Yorkshire Evening Post quotes Emily Brontë:

But no more of that nonsense. Yorkshire Post Newspapers may have temporarily (well, since 1972) occupied my soul but, as Emily Brontë said, although probably not in relation to YPN, no coward soul is mine. From now, my life will be about striking out boldly, going forward and looking after number one. Gosh, I feel scared.

The Vancouver Sun talks about the always controversial question of who deserves and who doesn't deserves to be included in the literary Western canon:

Along with many literary specialists, I support those who have in their minds already updated the canon -- to include, for instance, many Dead White European Females (DWEMs) such as Charlotte and Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Jane Austen and Virginia Woolf. (Douglas Todd)

Another recurring debate is about e-readers and books. The Queen University Journal says:

Books bring people together. As you sit on the bus or in-between classes reading a novel, someone recognizes the title and stops to chat with you. They declare their love for Little Women or ask you if you really think Wuthering Heights is as romantic as some perceive it to be.
That’s not possible with the Kindle, which has no front cover to recognize, or a title to indicate which fantasy world you’re immersed in.  (Kate Bascom)

The Times presents the English translation of Rula Jebreal's Miral:

“Every time she would talk to us and give us books – she gave me Moby Dick. She felt it was important that I read it. “Moby Dick, that is something beautiful. And Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist. All these things she gave us. (Amanda Mitchison)

Today, November 6,  The Four-Faced Liar is presented at the Reeling Film Festival (Chicago Lesbian & Gay International Film Festival):

Bridget (played by the film’s writer, Marja Lewis Ryan) is a Brontë-quoting, pint-sized pimp who loves the ladies. (Benjamin Kelner)

The Herald Sun (Australia) describes The Distant Hours by Kate Morton like this:

The Distant Hours is a book that will satisfy readers who count the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen among their favourite authors. (Blanche Clark)

DVD Talk reviews Stephen Frears's Tamara Drewe:

Buffini has also written the forthcoming adaptation of Jane Eyre, and judging by Tamara Drewe, she's an excellent fit. (Jamie S. Rich)

Edge (Boston) reviews the current performances of The Turn of the Screw at the Stoneham Theatre:

The governess, though, is lost in her own romantic delusions, citing Jane Eyre as her inspiration. (Robert Nesti)

El Cultural (Spain) interviews Portuguese writer António Lobo Antunes:

P.- ¿Y qué le ha parecido la concesión del Nobel a Vargas Llosa?
R.- (...) Cualquier premio que le den es muy merecido. El problema es que es que estamos muy lejos del siglo XIX, cuando había más de 30 genios escribiendo a la vez: Dickens, Gogol, las hermans Brönte, Whitman, Balzac, Flaubert... Vivimos un declive muy grave. Ahora sólo hay cuatro o cinco en este nivel. (Alberto Ojeda) (Microsoft translation)

Het Nieuwsblad (Belgium) reports that Jane Eyre. The Musical is used as course training in the Academie voor Muziek, Woord en Dans Beveren:

De Academie voor Muziek, Woord en Dans Beveren richt een musicalopleiding in. De opleiding komt voort uit de legendarische productie Jane Eyre en geeft een doorgedreven training voor jongeren en ouderen. Doorheen de opleiding maken de leerlingen kennis met alle facetten van musical zoals solozang, samenzang en drama. Er zal gewerkt worden met twee groepen: jongeren vanaf 10 tot 14jaar en volwassenen vanaf 17jaar. Voor beide groepen zijn er geen audities voorzien. Geïnteresseerden kunnen contact opnemen met de Gemeentelijke Academie Muziek, Woord en Dans in de Lijsterbessenlaan in Beveren of naar de infoavond op maandag 8november om 20uur komen.  (Microsoft translation)

Комсомольская правда (Ukraine) interviews musician Dmitri Shirov (Дмитрий Шуров) who has a somewhat distorted idea about the novels of Charlotte Brontë:

Родственные отношения в группах – это прекрасно. Родственник – это тот человек, которого никогда не пошлешь на три буквы во время репетиции. Например, есть такая культовая американская группа «Карпентерс», которая вообще состояла только из брата и сестры, которые росли в отдаленном месте, никуда не выходили…Почти, как в книгах Шарлоты Бронте. И группа распалась лишь по той причине, что сестра умерла. (Владислава МИКОЛЮК) (Microsoft translation)

Writer Carmen Boullosa mentions a Brontëite past on NSS Oaxaca (Mexico); Comedy of Clothes and sparknotes are reading Wuthering Heights; Why Art Matters discusses the cover of a Wuthering Heights Modern Classics 2000 edition;  Eclectic Bibliophile imagines several alternative endings for Jane Eyre; Law and Conversation talks about Charlotte Brontë's correspondence with Robert Southey and its context.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Music, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights