Happy 100th, Mr Herrmann

Because of her filmography full of literary adaptations we knew that Romola Garai liked literature, but what we didn't know was the following, relayed by the London Evening Standard:

The passion for the 19th century is deep-rooted: when she was a teenager, she became obsessed with Jane Eyre and painted her bedroom dark green to look like a library.
"I never saw that world or the people in it as being innately different. I would see adaptations of novels and feel like people were acting oddly in them. I always thought that was weird and wrong. If you're interested in playing strong female parts, a lot of those are in period TV. Then I just acted like I thought people behaved." (Richard Godwin)

We wonder if she has a favourite Jane Eyre adaptation? Lagniappe covers the 'worst' and 'best' literary adptations and Jane Eyre makes it to both categories:

"Jane Eyre.” This novel gets its own Best and Worst category, since it has been adapted so many times for TV and film. Worst is a toss up between the William Hurt version from 1997 and the Timothy Dalton (1983) one, because I just really hate Timothy Dalton. The production values in both are equally dreadful. I prefer the Orson Welles/ Joan Fontaine option from 1943 because she’s just so angelic and he’s Orson Welles. Still haven’t seen the most recent one, but I’m willing to give it a chance. (Asia Frey)

And of course Bernard Herrmann was a very Brontë composer. Today, June 29th, marks the centenary of his birth and news outlets celebrate it with articles such as this one from the Wall Street Journal:

Bernard Herrmann may be best known for his memorable contributions to classic films, including his rousing overture to "North by Northwest," the shower scene in "Psycho," the romantic themes of "Vertigo," the eerie electronic music in "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and the desolate blues of "Taxi Driver." He might have preferred to be celebrated for his opera "Wuthering Heights," symphonies and cantatas such as "Moby Dick," and other concert works. According to the film composer John Williams, Herrmann's greatest ambition was to be recognized as a conductor. (Jim Fusilli)

The Minnesota Opera recently staged that same opera and today they share an audio programme: A Celebration of His Life and Music.

Straight has a review of Juliet Barker's revised edition of her biography The Brontës:

As a huge Brontë fan–I read Jane Eyre at least twice a year–I was thrilled to discover this monumental tome. First published in 1994, The Brontës was subsequently republished in 2010, surely an indicator of how much more information had become available since the original publication date. [...]
I find it interesting to note that the entire timeline of The Brontës is measured against the life of one of the people it covers the least: the father, Patrick. The Brontë patriarch was born in 1777 and died in 1861, outliving his wife and all of his outstandingly gifted children. In a family where illness was a fairly commonplace occurrence even from childhood, the fact that this was not unexpected does not lessen the sadness and prematurity of it.
As much as I enjoyed The Brontës, I found I had to strategically read it over the course of a couple of months, if only to give my wrists a break from a reading-induced case of carpal tunnel syndrome. Still though, whatever discomfort I felt was a small price to pay for so much insight into what was and is one of my favourite literary families. (Jennie Ramstad)

Another book reviewed today is Carmela Ciuraru's Nom de Plume by The Jewish Daily Forward's The Arty Semite.

“Nom De Plume” never feels gimmicky, though, because pseudonyms reveal a lot about an author’s relationship to identity. As in the case of the Brontë sisters (who originally published as Acton, Currer and Ellis Bell), Aurore Dupin (George Sand) or Marian Evans (George Eliot), pseudonyms were a necessity for women who wanted their work to be taken seriously. (Daniella Wexler)

Terri Peterson Smith, the new Minnesota Reads reviewer seems to be a Brontëite:

Have you ever had a crush on a fictional character? Who?
Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre. A guy who is wealthy, passionate, and has some sort of dark secret. . . you can’t beat that. Later, I read Wide Sargasso Sea, which tells the story from the viewpoint of Mrs. Rochester, the wife he has locked in the attic. He doesn’t come off so well. (Jodi Chromey)

Jane Eyre also makes it into Flavorwire's 10 Inappropriate Literary Character Crushes:

Jane Eyre from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
Neither of this novel’s romantic leads is depicted as conventionally attractive. But (perhaps because of the book’s largely female readership) we tend to hear a lot of people confessing that they find moody Rochester sexy. Well, why not Jane, too? Although she famously describes herself as “poor, obscure, plain, and little,” we think she’s got a lot to offer — for one thing, she’s an excellent conversationalist. And there are few things more attractive than her no-bullshit attitude. (Judy Berman)

The Guardian wonders why China loves Shakeapeare and notes that one of his main translators into Chinese also translated Wuthering Heights.

The Brontë Sisters celebrates Charlotte and Arthur Bell Nicholls's wedding day on a day like today in 1854. There are blog posts on Jane Eyre today on Musings of an Academic Fangirl and On Writing. And posts on Wuthering Heights on The Bookworm's Blog and Meia Palavra (in Portuguese). QueerBlog (in Italian) seems to take it for granted that Branwell Brontë was gay because of Douglas A. Martin's 2005 book. Anne Brontë's Lines Composed in a Wood on a Windy Day read by Charles Bice has been uploaded to YouTube by wimabi.

Categories: Audio-Radio, Biography, Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Opera, Wuthering Heights