The original punk

ATV Network provides some details about the new season of Skins which premieres next Thursday, January 27. It seems that Kaya Scodelario's role as Cathy in Wuthering Heights 2011 is not the only connection of the series with the Brontës. In the first episode of the fifth season, Franky, Charlotte Brontë is mentioned quite explicitly:

Also, the English teacher was satisfyingly eccentric. He demonstrates what could be described as a controversial teaching style, opening up his shirt to reveal a tattoo of Charlotte Brontë’s face on his chest and exclaiming: "This is the original punk, Charlotte f**king Brontë!" (Sandra Wagg)

Picture Source: E4.

The New York Times reviews the Morgan Library exhibition The Dairy: Three Centuries of Private Lives:

The variety is dizzying. The diaries are written in bound volumes (like Sir Walter Scott’s) or relegated to a scratch pad (like an account of the 9/11 attacks by Steven Mona, a New York City police lieutenant). They are energetically scribbled (like Henry David Thoreau’s, written with pencils made by his family’s own company — a packet is on display) or crazily compressed into nearly microscopic print (like the fantastical reaction to a dark and stormy night by a young Charlotte Brontë). All of these are astonishing presentations, confessions, performances — often self-conscious and, perhaps, occasionally honest. (Edward Rothstein)

Art Daily has an article about it as well.

Le Point (France) reviews the new edition of Brontë juvenilia in French, Le Monde du Dessous. Beware as the review is full of clichés and misreadings (Jane Eyre, the perfect Victorian?... but was she not the original punk?)

Dans la famille Brontë, il y avait Charlotte, la "bonne" fille, celle de Jane Eyre, sage et en parfaite adéquation avec l'ordre moral victorien de l'époque. Dans le sillage de Charlotte, il y avait Anne, la "nonne" qui pensait comme son père, pasteur de son état,  qu'un livre doit avant tout offrir une morale exemplaire (cf. Agnes Grey). Et puis il y avait Emily, vierge forte qui imposa à l'Angleterre un autre romantisme, violent, sensuel et dénué de tout bon sentiment dans son chef-d'oeuvre, Wuthering Heights. Enfin, il y avait Brandwell (sic), le frère, le poète maudit que ses soeurs aimaient d'un amour trouble, voire malsain (Heathcliff, c'est lui...). Privés de leur mère morte trop tôt et sous le joug d'un père austère, ils vécurent une enfance rude, à l'image du presbytère glacial qu'ils habitaient. Pour survivre à cette existence grise, il ne restait à ces enfants que leur imagination, forgée par des heures de lectures silencieuses (Lord Byron, Walter Scott). Le monde du dessous, c'est celui-là, un univers romanesque magnétique avec ses langages, ses intrigues et ses décors désolés, inventés par quatre enfants solitaires qui allaient bientôt devenir des génies. (Marine de Tilly) (Microsoft translation)

Tom Hooper, director of the film The King's Speech, answers questions from the readers of The Guardian:

I worry that the phrase "costume drama" has a sexist origin - used by male critics as a perjorative term about screen adaptations of mainly female writers : George Elliot, Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë. To charge Austen or Elliot as being writers concerned only with the surface - what people are wearing - seems an extraordinary injustice to visionaries of our inner life. It also seems to diminish anything that is set before now, and it would appear to me to be an arrogance of the present to assume that anything set in the past is by default less interesting or more surface than the present.

Financial Times interviews journalist Joan Bakewell, DBE:

What was your earliest ambition?
I wanted to live a wild life. I wanted to be Cathy in Wuthering Heights; I wanted to suffer for love. That quickly segued into wanting to be an actress but it soon became clear that I wasn’t good enough. (Hester Lacey)

The Winnipeg Free Press reviews Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers:

She can hear the murmurs of madwomen through the walls of her dormitory, as well as the weak cries of infants and orphans. The place is truly ghastly in its muffled expressions of sorrow -- as bad as the mysterious attic in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and just as symbolic of the secrets at an empire's centre. (Dana Medora)

Denver Post talks about Thatcher Wine owner of Juniper Books (Boulder):

His bookshelves, set against walls rarely touched by the light flooding the rest of the home, include sets of Jane Austen, the sisters Brontë, Charles Dickens, and the Charles Morris 15-volume set of historic folk tales and fairy tales. The books reflect both his background as a Dartmouth history major and his avocation of collecting rare and valuable books. (Claire Martin)

American Consumer News announces the release by Audible.com of an audiobook of Lady of Milkweed Manor, authored by Julie Klassen, narrated by Simon Prebble and described like this:

In the tradition of Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë, debut author Julie Klassen delivers a compelling Regency Era novel brimming with authentic period details, vibrant characters, and enthralling plot twists.

Ñ Magazine (Clarín) remembers Argentinian humourists from the past:

Cuando pienso en las primeras referencias del humor que me llegó, pienso en la gran Niní Marshall, en el programa La cruzada del buen humor, con los cinco grandes: Zelmar Gueñol, Juan Carlos Cambón, Guillermo Rico, Rafael “Pato” Carret y Jorge Luz. Era un humor paródico, de imitaciones. La gracia era oír la voz de, por ejemplo, Narciso Ibáñez Menta, sin saber si era él. Hoy nadie se ríe con eso. Pensemos en Pepe Iglesias. Era un grande, pero hoy nadie le daría bola. Era un humor de repetición. Al menos, eran humoristas que entendían que el oyente era alguien culto. Mencionaban a Víctor Hugo o a Cumbres Borrascosas ; hoy creerían que se trata del relator de fútbol y del nombre de un telo. (Enrique Pinti) (Microsoft translation)

Newnotizie (Italy) reviews Jane Borodale's The Book of Fires:

Nelle pagine di Jane Borodale si avverte un pizzico dello stile delle sorelle Brontë: come nei loro romanzi, ne La ragazza del libro dei fuochi emerge la grande capacità della scrittrice di plasmare i rapporti umani nella loro complessità, così come si sviluppano nella vita reale. (Angela Liuzzi) (Microsoft translation)

Der Spiegel (Germany) carries two Brontë references. One in an article about the recent anonymous book O: A Presidential Novel, the other a review of Kate Morton's The House at Riverton:

Für "Das geheime Spiel" hat Morton insbesondere die Erinnerungen ans englische Landleben der zwanziger Jahre von Frances Donaldson ("Child of the Twenties") und Beverley Nichols ("The Sweet and Twenties") konsultiert. Als Vorbilder für ihr eigenes Schreiben nennt die 34-Jährige unter anderem Daphne du Maurier und die Brontë-Geschwister. (Nicole Stöcker) (Microsoft translation)

Broadway World announces the new season of the Creede Repertory Theatre (Creede, CO) which includes a production of Charles Ludlam's The Mystery of Irma Vep; Chicago Now remembers the Katherine Hepburn/Howard Hughes alleged affair when she was playing Jane Eyre in Chicago; Myjane (Russia) uses Heathcliff as an example of neurotic character; Jannas blogg reviews Wuthering Heights in Swedish and Francinete Mateus who loves the book is preparing her upcoming visit to Haworth (in Portuguese); Heart of a Coach's Wife posts about Jane Eyre; Thoughts from the edge reviews Jennifer Vandever's The Brontë Project; the Brontë sisters remembers the figure of the mother of the Brontës, Maria Brontë and  Brontës.nl posts about the book project by Jolien Janzing about the Brontës in Brussels.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, Jane Eyre, Juvenilia, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights