Treating the Brontë legacy with kid gloves

The Yorkshire Post reviews Polly Teale's Brontë, now at the Courtyard Theatre in Leeds:

Condensing the lives of four siblings over almost four decades into two an half hours is not easy. When that family is the Brontës, the task would seem impossible.
However, Polly Teale not only manages it, but offers a much more complex portrayal of the sisters and their brother Branwell. Here Charlotte is a talented writer, but she’s also domineering, relentlessly ambitious and at times, plain selfish. Directed by Nancy Meckler, the action cuts between the family at home and their fictional creations. At times it’s a little laboured, but the play is saved from cliche by some stand-out performances.
Kristin Atherton shines as the often unlikable Charlotte, Elizabeth Crarer plays Emily with a perfect mad glint in her eye. Flora Nicholson successfully brings the usually two-dimensional Anne to life, while Mark Edel-Hunt often steals the scene as Branwell, the brother intent on self-destruction.
Too often the Brontë legacy is treated with kid gloves and while Teale may employ a little artistic licence, the result is great drama. (Sarah Freeman)

Howard Jacobson writes in The Independent about the Carmen Callil-Philip Roth Man Booker's Prize controversy:

It has already been well argued that the charge of going "on and on" would knock out most writers from Rabelais to Proust, and that as many women writers are as interested in themselves as women as male writers are interested in themselves in men. Reader, when it comes to novelists sitting on your face, nothing beats the experience of having all three Brontë sisters lowering themselves on you simultaneously.

We read in El País (Spain) about the new project of the writer Elif Batuman:

Mientras mantiene sus colaboraciones con The New Yorker prepara su segundo libro: "Una reflexión sobre el amor y el matrimonio, una novela gótica sobre Charlotte Brontë, que antes me parecía solo una escritora para chicas y se ha convertido en mi nueva obsesión". (Elsa Fernández-Santos) (Translation)

It seems that the Heathcliffgate will be after Gordon Brown even now that he is considered to be president of the IMF:

We can't have someone in charge who doesn't accept how important it is to bear down on excess debt, Cameron trilled brightly when putting the boot in. We're yet to discover how well Dave does on that score. It could be less well than the glowering Heathcliff of the heather. (Michael White in The Guardian)

It takes some remembering, but in the days when people read newspapers, the Iron Chancellor was similarly feted. He was both saviour of the economy and Heathcliff lookalike. GB was number one on the Observer's "Lust List" for a "Bohemian Rhapsody"-busting 14 weeks (eventually ceding to Piers Morgan). The likes of Carmen Callil wrote "long think pieces in GQ magazine" imagining the Great Man sitting on their face. Yet within a decade he would be forlorn and forgotten. (Gideon Donald in New Statesman)

The performance of Beyoncé's new single 1+1 in American Idol is described by Crunk like this:

The song sounds a lot like, “What if Alicia Keys could sing a Prince inspired song without sounding like Heathcliff hooked up to an oxygen machine?”

We have said before that considering the Brontës a precedent of chick-lit was not only wrong but misleading. This article in the Sabotage Times is a correct measure of how dangerous comments like that are:

Chick-flick. The very word alone is enough to send an apathetic shudder down the backs of most red-blooded males. Bridget Jones’ shopping list – groan, The Bronte sisters’ Parisian hen night – pffffft, Carrie Bradshaw’s endless, seeping, BULLSHIT inner-monologue? Zeus, Vishnu, Diana, if any of you are up there, kill me now. (Adam Clery)

An article about the Paganisan province in Philippines in The Philippine Enquire contains a curious Brontë reference:

The resort has two viewpoints that are, as the media colleagues pointed out, nice spots for writing. So I felt like Heathcliff on the cliff brooding over the Yorkshire moors. Or, to make it more Hollywoodish, we felt like Leonardo DiCaprio in “Titanic”—“on top of the world.” (Amadís Ma. Guerrero)

The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle talks about Paula Haffen, webmaster of Living Gluten Free Rochester who is reading Jane Eyre; and former Olympic champion swimmer Mark Tewksbury will read it soon according to The Globe and Mail; St Albert Gazette (Canada) mentions Jane Eyre 2011.

Finally on Open Salon we have found this article describing and comparing Jane Eyre 2011 and the original novel. Nevertheless when we are rendered speechless with a comment like this:

There is not a whit of humor in Jane Eyre. I defy anyone to point out anything funny anywhere in the novel. One could legitimately view it as a humorless, orthodox Christian screed. (Brassawe)

We cannot but be a bit perplexed. Shall we take up the challenge? Let's begin with Jane's answer to Mr Brocklehurst:

Mr. Brocklehurst: And what is hell? Can you tell me that?
Jane Eyre: A pit full of fire.
Mr. Brocklehurst: And should you like to fall into that pit, and to be burning there forever?
Jane Eyre: No sir.
Mr. Brocklehurst: What must you do to avoid it?
Jane Eyre: I must keep in good health and not die.

Espido Freire, author of Querida Jane, Querida Charlotte, slips a Brontë reference in her column in ADN (Spain):

Es lo que tiene la falta de experiencia en trepar entre huecos de escaleras mientras se habla por el móvil. Emily Brontë, tuberculosa y todo, lo hubiera logrado. (Translation)

EFE (Spain)  lists some of the favourite writers of the author Carmen Posadas:

Entre sus autoras favoritas figuran, las inglesas Emily Brontë, Jane Austen y Virginia Woolf, pero no deja de destacar a la española Santa Teresa, a quien calificó como su "favorita de todos los tiempos", no solo por su obra religiosa sin también como "precursora del psicoanálisis". (Translation)

The new film by Pablo Berger, an artsy new version of Snow White, is described in El Correo (Spain):

Su versión será «muy libre, oscura y sombría, más cerca de 'Rebeca' y 'Cumbres borrascosas' que de los dibujos animados». (Oskar L. Belategui) (Translation)

Once again, Meg Cabot's Brontëiteness is mentioned. In an interview on Paperblog (Italy):

Sul tuo sito ufficiale hai postato un lungo elenco dei tuoi autori preferiti classici e contemporanei. Mi puoi dire qual è il più rappresentativo per te?
Amo i libri di ogni tipo: per bambini, chick-lit, di memorie, fumetti, romanticismo, horror, fantascienza e romanzi fantasy. Non c’è effettivamente un genere che non abbia letto e amato... Persino i "classici", come Jane Eyre di Charlotte Brontë e Orgoglio e Pregiudizio di Jane Austen. (Alessandraz) (Translation)

The South Korean film Hanyo (The Housemaid) is reviewed by Mauxa (Italy):

Euny, infatti, Jane Eyre d'oriente, vive con timorata compiacenza l'amore del suo signore-padrone. Rigida e svuotata, si abbandona alla passione in maniera compiacente, remissiva. (Giulio Trivelli) (Translation)

Cyberpresse (Canada) talks about the French translation of Claire Holden Rothman's The Heart Specialist:

En 1869, à St. Andrew's East, village au nord-ouest de Montréal rebaptisé Saint-André-d'Argenteuil, l'une de nos plus brillantes scientifiques voyait le jour. Maude Abbott a affronté mille obstacles pour percer le masculin univers de la médecine, après une enfance digne d'un roman gothique, où planait le spectre des soeurs Brontë. (Sylvie St-Jacques) (Translation)

A new blog about the Brontës (in Portuguese) has now joined the blogosphere: Leituras Brontëanas, which today has a post on Jane Eyre 1944. Her Telden writes in Turkish about the 2006 adaptation while Worthwhile Books and Passionista post about the actual novel. The Loud Librarian reviews briefly Syrie James's The Secret Diaries of Charlotte Brontë. Mujeres en la historia has a post on Charlotte Brontë in Spanish. Flickr user Hannah Harding has created a series of drawings inspired by Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights