Vic-lit competition

A letter to The Guardian insists on the fact that if Emily Brontë had to be remembered by a train station (which was an idea previously suggested in a column not any real plan) it shouldn't be in Leeds:

Bradford or Keighley would be more appropriate stations for Emily Brontë; Haworth would be best, though it is on a quirky line. Tony Harrison should have a plinth reserved for him in Leeds. More popularly, how about one for Paul Simon at Warrington? (Barrie Wilson)

Readers from The Guardian recommend books read in 2010: 

The Taste of Sorrow by Jude Morgan (Headline, 2009) gave a cold, misty flavour of the relentless adversity experienced by the Brontë family that eventually – and not by any means expectedly – manifested itself in absolute success for three of its members. (Colette Lawlor)

Among the websites mentioning the releases in 2011 of Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights o Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre we highlight The Guardian's comment:

From Barking to Brontë for Andrea "Fish Tank" Arnold, though she's likely to shake the dust off the oft-told classic, with Skins siren Kaya Scodelario as Cathy and newcomer James Howson as Heathcliff, but sadly no Kate Bush cameo. They'll have Vic-lit competition next year, though, from Mia Wasikowska's Jane Eyre. (Steve Rose)

But also the San Franscico Examiner:

After stunning critics with his debut film, the Spanish language "Sin Nombre," Bay Area native Cary Fukunaga does a complete about face. Do we really need another version of Charlotte Brontë's classic British novel? We do if it is given a fresh approach and stars intriguing newcomers Mia Wasikowska ("The Kids are All Right," the TV series "In Treatment") and Michael Fassbender ("Inglourious Basterds," "Hunger") and Judi Dench and Sally Hawkins to boot. (Ruthe Stein)

Or the London Free Press, Heyouguys!, Canoe, Toronto Sun, ...


John Sutherland is promoting his new book about literature criticism: 50 Literature Ideas You Really Need to Know. Now in The Times:

Who is the real heroine of Jane Eyre, the dutiful Jane or the first Mrs Rochester, raving in the attic, and why did no one formulate this question until the 1960s? (Feminism).

2011 also marks the 400th anniversary of the publication of the King James Bible. The Times begins an article about it like this:

It echoes through the speeches of Abraham Lincoln and of Martin Luther King, threads through the verse of Milton and T. S. Eliot, the prose of Charlotte Brontë, even that of Norman Mailer. (Bess Twiston Davies)

The upcoming London performances of Graham Greene's The Potting Shed trigger the memories of the journalist in The Guardian:

Cliff Richard's theatre appearances have been few. Many will remember the critical drubbing he got in the musical Heathcliff in 1996. Not quite so well known is the fact that, some 40 years ago, he appeared in Graham Greene's The Potting Shed. (Mark Cook)

Associated Content posts about Alfred Hithcock's Rebecca and compares its cinematography to Wuthering Heights (with Gregg Toland's Wuthering Heights 1939?):

Cinematographer George Barnes picked up an Oscar himself, and his lens moves elegantly from the moody seaside cliffs (befogged and romantically dangerous, a la "Wuthering Heights") to the even moodier interiors of the immense Manderley estate, where the shenanigans occur. (Nick Smithville)

SPS (France) (n° 292, octobre 2010) reviews Les briseurs de machines - De Nedd Ludd à José Bové by Nicolas Chevassus-au-Louis. Shirley is not forgotten:

C’est ainsi que la première partie du livre explore le « séisme luddite » qui secoue l’Angleterre. La présentation en est originale et séduisante puisqu’en trois chapitres successifs l’auteur nous offre trois éclairages distincts : celui qu’en donnent le pouvoir et les médias à travers rapports et chroniques de presse, puis celui des acteurs en citant des proclamations et des courriers des activistes de l’époque, et enfin le climat de ce début de siècle agité tel qu’il est dépeint dans le roman Shirley de Charlotte Brontë pour lequel les briseurs de machines constituent la toile de fond sociale dans laquelle s’insère l’action. Dans une seconde partie l’auteur évoque ensuite les « répliques », de moindre amplitude donc, en poursuivant l’analogie tellurique, en France comme en Angleterre. (Michel Naud) (Microsoft translation)

Slate (France) talks about the use of Richard Wagner's music in films. Luis Buñuel's Abismos de Pasión is one of them:

Ainsi des Hauts de Hurlevent (Abismos de pasión, Luis Buñuel, 1954), pour la séquence hallucinée du tombeau, ou du Chien andalou, court métrage surréaliste de 1929, sur un scénario de Salvador Dali et Buñuel, dont la version sonorisée intègre la partition wagnérienne. (Jean-Marc Proust) (Microsoft translation)

Badische Zeitung (Germany) reviews Stephen Frear's film Tamara Drewe:

Es ist schon erstaunlich, wie fahrlässig das britische Kino die Provinz aus den Augen verloren hat. Dabei könnte es an eine große literarische Tradition anknüpfen, etwa an die ländlichen Sittenstudien von Jane Austen, den Brontë-Schwestern und Thomas Hardy.  (Gerhard Midding) (Microsoft translation)

O Globo (Brazil) checks the Facebook stats of some 19th century writers... and the numbers are a bit bizarre:

No Facebook, a principal página sobre a autora tinha sido "curtida" (...) por 251.581 pessoas até a última quinta-feira. Outros escritores do século XIX, como Charles Dickens (99.986 pessoas), George Eliot (5.967) ou as Irmãs Brontë (3.732), não chegam nem perto de tanta curtição. (André Miranda) (Microsoft translation)

Agora (Brazil) insists on the Stephenie Meyer Twilight saga influence on the revival of Wuthering Heights:

É claro que nenhum desses bateu um dos maiores fenômenos literários de todos os tempos: a saga de Bella Swan e companhia, que ainda faz tanto sucesso que ressuscitou o clássico O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes, de Emelie Brontë. (Rodrigo Cáceres Lopes) (Microsoft translation)

Norrländska Socialdemokraten (Sweden) publishes an article  about a visit to Haworth and Brontë country:

Döden är inte långt borta från systrarna Brontës hus i Haworth. Kyrkogården ligger som en park runt byggnaden. Gravstenarna fanns på plats redan när Brontë bodde här. Inskriptionerna på stenarna vittnar om att det är längesedan döden var närvarande. Mossa gör årtalen svårlästa, men de flesta här har legat under jord i mer än tvåhundra år. Högt gräs och färgblekta tygblommor vittnar om att de levande inte passar de döda. Bortom gravstenarna reser sig kyrkan.
Att utsikten har varit densamma sedan systrarna skrev sina romaner och dikter vid 1800-talets mitt är en passande tanke, men kyrkan de såg försvann i lågor och den som nu kan beskådas byggdes senare. (Read more) (Tomas Polvall) (Microsoft translation)

Upsala Nyd Tidning (Sweden) talks about book endings:

Desto starkare modernitet, desto mer tragiska slut, skulle man kunna hävda. I realismens 1800-tal, den tid som formade den moderna romanen – skulle det sluta illa för alla hjältar, i synnerhet om de råkade vara hjältinnor. Därför kommer också Charlotte Brontë alltid att vara lite finare än Jane Austen. (Sebastian Johans) (Microsoft translation)

Bács-Kiskun (Hungary) interviews author Andrea Weninger:

– A „női irodalom” a könyvkiadás talán legsikeresebb ágává nőtte ki magát. Mi a véleménye erről a címkéről?
– A Nora Roberts, Danielle Steel által fémjelzett romantikus irodalomról keveset tudok. Kevés szabad időm van, akkor olyan könyveket olvasok, amelyek nagyon tetszenek. Például Jane Austent vagy a Brontë nővérek regényeit. (Rákász Judit) (Microsoft translation)

On the 2.0 world, nimblerunner shares a good way of starting a new year: running to Top Withens; readergal1004 and My K.R.A.S.I. Thoughts just finished Jane Eyre; I Read This! reviews April Lindner's Jane; Fall in Love With Books reviews The Heroine's Bookshelf; The Squeee makes her own 2010 summary (full of Brontë things); Зеркало недели (Ukraine) defines the writer Люко Дашвар (Lyuko Dashvar) as the Ukrainian Charlotte Brontë.

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