Jane Eyre: spinster and collateral victim

The Hudson Valley Times-Herald Record has one of those funny, weird synopses of Jane Eyre 2011:

Cheer on a young moviemaker's depiction of a romantic spinster as Charlotte Brontë could only have hoped she would someday be seen.

We think the use of the word 'spinster' applied to a 18-19-year-old young woman would have been a bit too much even for 19th century standards.

The Takoma Park Patch has suggestions for husbands wondering what to get their wives for Mother's Day, which is this Sunday in the US. This idea looks easy enough to us:

Or maybe she’ll see a movie you don’t care to – like “Jane Eyre.” With you.
Imagine your happy wife beaming at you, as the other men say knowingly and admiringly “He went to ‘Jane Eyre’!” (Diane Bartz)

Unfortunately the death of Osama Bin Laden has had a collateral victim in the shape of the Minnesota Public Radio programme Revisiting Jane Eyre, scheduled for yesterday's morning but seemingly taken over by discussions of Bin Laden's demise. It looked quite interesting:

After more than 160 years, Charlotte Bronté's classic novel "Jane Eyre" remains incredibly popular and influential. We discuss the enduring appeal and relevance of "Jane Eyre."
Guests
Nicholas Dames: Associate Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University and author of multiple books including "The Physiology of the Novel: Reading, Neural Science, and the Form of Victorian Fiction."
Sandra Gilbert: Distinguished Professor of of English Emerita at the University of California, Davis. She has written several books and is the is co-author of "The Madwoman in the Attic," a landmark in feminist theory criticism.

We hope the programme can be rescheduled in the near future!

The Edmonton Journal reviews the play When Girls Collide at Teatro La Quindicina (Edmonton, AB, Canada) and describes it as:

the kind of tableau vivant you inevitably get when you cross a '40s film noir, gothic Brontë-esque romance, and a screwball comedy. (Liz Nicholls)

The Wall Street Journal's Dear Book Lover receives a question from someone looking for writers in the style of the wonderful Barbara Pym. One of the suggestions is Winifred Holtby's South Riding (the novel upon which the recent adaptation of the same name is of course based and which has also gathered several comparisons to both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights):

I've just been reading a splendid Virago Modern Classic, "South Riding" by Winifred Holtby, first published in 1936. The heroine is another spinster, a school headmistress who at one dramatic moment reminds herself of Jane Eyre. (Cynthia Crossen)

Bookslut reviews Muriel Spark's volume of autobiography Curriculum Vitae and mentions her biography of Emily Brontë in passing.

A few websites reviewing Stevie Nick's new album In Your Dreams mention in passing her song Wide Sargasso Sea, which is considered by The San Francisco Examiner's Backstage Pass to be in keeping with

her traditional gauzelike sound. (Tom Lanham)

Killer Hobbies (Joanna Campbell Slan) announces a new book project:

This Malice was particularly exciting for me because my agent had just announced my new series--The Jane Eyre Chronicles, which features Jane Eyre as an amateur sleuth. I'll be writing these for Berkley. I met my new editor, Shannon Jamieson Vazquez. We had a lovely discussion about the books, and I can already tell Shannon will be a tremendous asset to my career. She's both thoughtful and insightful. My agent, Paige Wheeler, continues to astound me with her laser-sharp mind. She's just brilliant! What a dream team.

We wonder if this will be in a similar vein to Stephanie Barron's Jane Austen Mysteries? Oh well, we'll have to wait and see.

Jane Eyre 2011 is reviewed on the blogosphere by: Letters to Anne, Misogynist and Chauvinist, "Where the Heck's My Pen?!", Bokkens are not Toys, Raven Films and Revelife (who finds similarities with Eat, Pray, Love!). The novel is reviewed by Northern Hospitality and The Reading Seed. Kula-La-La posts about Wuthering Heights. Finally, Abigail's Ateliers puts 'Branwell Brontë in context' in a very interesting, very worth-reading post.

Categories: Audio-Radio, Books, Branwell Brontë, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Wide Sargasso Sea