Lack of Colour

Daiji World (India) uses Jane Eyre as a metaphore in this complaint about the lack of cultural resources in Mangalore:

Anyway, may be to call Mangalore intellectually dead is going a bit too far, but definitely it’s not in good health. We have so many colleges, but how many students would be aware of what’s happening outside the sphere of their own lives? We have book shops where, to find a classic like Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre you need to make at least three rounds in three weeks of at least three different booksellers. (Anisa Fathima)

The Canton Repository announces a book club meeting discussing Jasper Fforde's The Eyre Affair:

Massillon Public Library’s Monday Night Book Club will meet at 6 p.m. Jan. 17 in the second-floor meeting room to discuss “The Eyre Affair” by Jasper Fforde.
“Someone is kidnapping characters from works of literature!” information from the library explains. “When Jane Eyre is plucked from the pages of Brontë’s novel, ‘Thursday Next,’ a literary detective, is faced with the challenge of her career. ‘The Eyre Affair’ by Jasper Fforde is an ingenious fantasy that unites intrigue with English literature in a delightfully witty mix.”
Those interested in reading this book and joining the discussion group may borrow “The Eyre Affair” from Massillon Public Library.
The program is free and open to the public. No reservations are required. Massillon Public Library is at 208 Lincoln Way E. For information, call Cindy Patterson at 330-832-9831, ext. 312, or visit www.massillonlibrary.org. (Gary Brown)

Sunday's Zaman (Turkey) vindicates female poets:

In the Victorian era in England literature and the arts were very much in vogue. Weekly newspapers printed episodes of books, with a popularity amongst the literate classes similar to a cliff-hanging soap opera today, and had poetry pages, too. In order to break into a man’s world, many female authors took male pen names. The Brontë sisters each first published under a male pseudonym, and every pub quiz team worth their salt knows that George Eliot was actually Mary Ann Evans. But by the middle of the Victorian era, the success of the early pioneers meant that women began to be taken seriously as writers. Sure, they probably had to be twice as good as the men to get published, but many of them were. (Marion James)

The Hamilton Spectator offers good advice for this season:

There is no single better gift you can give someone you care about than your words. You don’t have to be Shakespeare, or a Brontë, or Churchill, or Eminem. You just have to be honest. (Lorraine Sommerfeld)

You can follow a discussion about Rochester's appeal (or lack thereof) on Robin McKinley (blog and forum) and Melissa Marr. A discussion that might not be of interest to Slightly Bookish. Snarky Mamma reviews April Lindner's Jane.  Kostümfilme & Co. (in German) compares some original inspirations and the creations of costume designer Michael O'Connor seen on the trailer of Jane Eyre 2011. Interestingly it is pointed out that the costumes in the trailer seem to lack a bit of colour (or it may be due to the photographic treatment by Adriano Goldman). Finally, Flickr user silverstealth shares a whole set of Haworth Christmas 2010 pictures.

Categories: Books, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References