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Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Tuesday, December 21, 2010 2:03 pm by Cristina in , , , , , ,    No comments
Speaking of the Brontës' Christmas (see yesterday's post), the Yorkshire Evening Post has had the good idea of taking a look at 'at what made the headlines at Christmas in the years when four seminal literary works were published: A Christmas Carol (1843), Charlotte Brontë's Jayne [sic] Eyre (1847), T S Eliot's The Waste Land (1922) and J R R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings (1954)'. Here's what made into the newspaper for Christmas in the year that Jane Eyre was published:
Jayne [sic] Eyre (1847)
December 24: The Leeds Mercury published a poem on its front page, which started: "Farewell to the year, which will soon disappear, May the next with success be attended, Through the universe wide may Dame Fortune preside, And commerce and trade be extended."
There were numerous adverts for circuses, ink, almanacs, coffee houses, tea, Ford's pectoral balsam (to ward off colds), shoe sales, stationers, Wesleyan missions and one by Acme of Fashion, Boar Lane, Leeds, which began: "What is hair? Hair is a lightly organised substance requiring for its production a delicate apparatus of capillary vessels, nerves, glands and tubes. It is formed from a fluid secreted from the blood..."
There was also a report of a murder trial in which one Patrick Reid forced his way into a Mirfield home and struck a servant girl a violent blow to the head, felling her, then did the same to the woman of the house and then the man, before he was disturbed by a caller at the front door. Having got rid of the caller, he returned and cut the throats of all three victims, before ransacking their drawers and making off. He was found guilty and sentenced to death. (Neil Hudson)
Focus Features has released its 2011 preview package and several sites, such as Collider or Rope of Silicon comment on it, mentioning Jane Eyre.
Jane Eyre (March 11, 2011)
Synopsis: Mia Wasikowska (“Alice in Wonderland”) and Michael Fassbender (“Inglourious Basterds”) star in the romantic drama based on Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel, from acclaimed director Cary Fukunaga (“Sin Nombre”). In the story, Jane Eyre flees Thornfield House, the vast and isolated estate where she works as a governess for Adèle, a child under the custody of Thornfield’s brooding master, Edward Rochester. As Jane looks back upon the tumultuous events that led to her escape, from her childhood as an orphan to her education at the cruel charity school to which she was consigned, she realizes that she must return to Thornfield – to secure her own future, and to come to terms with the terrible secret Rochester had hoped to hide from her forever…
Release Date: March 11, 2011 (select cities)
Director: Cary Fukunaga (“Sin Nombre”)
Writers: Moira Buffini (“Tamara Drewe”); Based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë
Cast: Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell, Holliday Grainger, Sally Hawkins, Tamzin Merchant, Imogen Poots, Judi Dench
MPAA Rating: PG-13
The preview package seems to include a few pictures as well but none of them new as can be seen on the Rope of Silicon gallery. EDIT: Focus Features also traces a profile of Michael Fassbender mentioning of course his role as Rochester:
In Cary Fukunaga’s Jane Eyre, Michael Fassbender brings a new twist to the character of Edward Rochester, a figure who remains as enigmatic and unforgettable as he was in 1847 when Charlotte Brontë’s novel was first published. Indeed Fassbender joins a long line of celebrated actors, including Orson Welles and George C. Scott, who’ve put on Rochester’s riding boots in earlier adaptations. As the master of Thornfield, and Jane’s employer, Rochester is a brusque, brooding, but ultimately good man.
Based on the official synopsis of the film, some IMDb members are discussing whether Jane's past might be told in flashbacks.

Incidentally, Forbes reports that Mia Wasikowska is one of their 'stars to watch' in 2011:
Wasikowska's breakthrough year at the box office helped land her as one of our Stars to Watch for 2011. The young star will next appear in a new version of Jane Eyre. (Dorothy Pomerantz)
A reader of The New York Times seems to think that Helen Burns suffered from Attention Deficit Disorder:
To the Editor:
In “Untangling the Myths About Attention Disorder,” Dr. Klass cites actual and fictional instances of what seems to be A.D.H.D. from a time before the condition had a name. Since her examples are both boys, I would like to point to another.
In Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre,” Jane’s school friend Helen Burns is constantly in trouble, regarded by many of the teachers as a slattern and a “dirty, disagreeable girl.”
In the classroom, when the subject they have been reading about interests her, she pays close attention and understands better than anyone else; but at other times her thoughts “continually rove away.” She starts daydreaming, and when called on can’t answer because she has heard nothing.
“I seldom put, and never keep, things in order,” she tells Jane. “I am careless; I forget rules; I read when I should learn my lessons; I have no method.” Helen (said to be modeled on Charlotte’s sister Maria) seems to be a classic example of the predominantly inattentive type of the disorder more often found in girls. (Deborah Roberts)
BlogHer suggests April Lindner's Jane or Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair as Christmas presents for teenagers:
While classics aren't for everyone there are still lots of people, including teens, who enjoy them. The market for retold classics is booming and Jane by April Lindner updates Brontë's tale by making Jane a college dropout and her employer a rock star on the verge of a comeback. It has all the romance, moodiness and mystery of the original. Angieville had a hard time putting it down.
Reader, I loved this book so much I can't stop thinking about it. I had such a gut feeling about Jane from the first time I heard about it and it really is one of the most satisfying feelings in the world when your first uninformed impressions of a book come true. It was honestly difficult putting this one down at night and then getting through the next day all the way until reading time once more.
While I've never quite understood Mr. Rochester's appeal I do have a fondness for BBC period dramas that stems from my own teens. I've been told that if I saw the BBC's 2006 version of Jane Eyre I'd be better able to understand why Rochester is so swoon-worthy. I'd also be tempted to pair it with another book, Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair and a stuffed dodo or dodo t-shirt, but I have been told I sometimes have an odd sense of humor. (sassymonkey)
The Australian discusses why it's important to know about the Bible when it comes to reading the classics:
Indeed, when studying literature, children now in Australian faith-based schools (about 32 per cent of total enrolments, and much higher in senior secondary) enjoy a significant advantage over their state-school peers. Shakespeare, Donne, Milton, Dickens, Brontë (both), George Eliot, Hopkins, Hardy, T.S.Eliot, Steinbeck, Beckett, Yeats, Plath, Golding, Attwood and many, many others, require more than a passing knowledge of the Abrahamic Old and New Testaments. (David Hastie)
Of course that's true to some extent but many readers from different cultures approach the classics with a very limited - if at all - knowledge of the Bible and enjoy the epxerience. It's obviously not the same, but that's when a good annotated edition comes in very handy. And anyway very few people today - even those with a Christian background - could compete in Bible knowledge with, say, the Brontës (not just 'both', but all of them).

Galleycat interviews Kody Keplinger, author of The Duff:
Q: What connection does your book share with the two classics you mention in your book, The Scarlet Letter and Wuthering Heights?
A: Well, when I was writing The Duff I was taking an advanced English course at my high school, and we read The Scarlet Letter and Wuthering Heights. I’d read both before, but it had been a few years. Rereading them, I realized what parallels Bianca had with both Hester (The Scarlet Letter) and Catherine (Wuthering Heights). I always had a weird habit of comparing my life to literature I was reading, so I figured Bianca might do the same. With Hester, Bianca sees herself – her unhappiness with the world around her, her need to escape (which is Bianca’s interpretation of the book). With Wuthering Heights, Bianca mostly just sees how not everyone in the book, or in her life, is perfect and how choices can impact those around you. I don’t want to say more than that because it’s a spoiler – but I loved working two of my favorite books into Bianca’s life. (Maryann Yin)
The Arts Desk has also woven Wuthering Heights into a piece of writing, albeit not quite so literary: Strictly Come Dancing: The Final.
Kara on the other hand (this season’s weeping mess of a winner) played things wisely, offering up not one but two separate character journeys. First off, the dancing; unspectacular initially before moving to the dramatic and technical heights of a professional, albeit with sufficient setbacks of injury and illness to keep things interesting. Then (in case that wasn’t enough) the carefully calibrated romance with her brooding Russian partner. With actual romance coyly deferred until “once the show has finished”, the affair was (is?) the perfectly orchestrated exercise in narrative tension, deferring gratification and fulfilment until the last possible second, and finding a plausible enough reason (professionalism, naturally) for this cruel postponement of young love. Wuthering Heights it ain’t, but certainly a good enough substitute for a Saturday night. (Alexandra Coghlan)
The Anti-Room reviews the stage production of Jane Eyre at The Gate Theatre (Dublin). YouTube user natator9 has uploaded a video including the words of Emily Brontë's Remembrance. And Flickr user Mike Riversdale shows how page 16 of an edition of Wuthering Heights looks like on Google Books.

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