Bertha's kookaburra

Grantland thinks there are a few Oscar rules that need to change. One of them concerns Michael Fassbender:

If your four favorite lead performances of 2011 are Michael Fassbender as Rochester in Jane Eyre, Michael Fassbender as Magneto in X-Men: First Class, Michael Fassbender as Carl Jung in A Dangerous Method, and Michael Fassbender as a very unhappy, very naked man in Shame, too bad. Although the same actor can be nominated in both lead and supporting categories (it’s happened about a dozen times, most recently for Cate Blanchett in 2007), the Academy will not allow an actor to be nominated for more than one performance within the same category. (Mark Harris)

The Guardian Books Blog discusses Sci-fi and the Booker prize:

It's an endlessly fascinating subject, and the conversation was particularly timely, given the widely-acknowledged paucity of this year's Booker shortlist - but we didn't really break new ground until a few minutes before the end of the event, when Miéville made a point that I found so interesting I wanted to disseminate it further. The real schism, he suggested, lies not between "litfic" and fantasy/SF, but between "the literature of recognition versus that of estrangement". The Booker, he said,

and the tradition of, if you like, 'mainstream literary fiction' of which it's the most celebrated local jamboree, has tended strongly to celebrate the former over the latter. There's an obvious relation with realist versus non-realist work (thinking on these lines might help map links between the pulpiest SF and more celebrated Surrealist and avant-garde work), though the distinction maps only imperfectly across the generic divide. All fiction contains elements of both drives (to different degrees, and variably skilfully). That very fact might be one way of getting at the drab disappointment of, on the one hand, the cliches of some fantasy and the twee and clunking allegories of middlebrow 'literary' magic realism (faux estrangement, none-more-mollycoddling recognition), and on the other at those utterly fascinating texts which contain not a single impossible element, and yet which read as if they were, somehow, fantastic (Jane Eyre, Moby-Dick, etc). Great stuff can doubtless be written from both perspectives. But I won't duck the fact that at its best, I think there is something more powerful, ambitious, intriguing and radical about the road recently less feted. I'd rather be estranged than recognise. (Sarah Crown)

GoLocalProv recommends Margot Livesey's novel The Flight of Gemma Hardy in which

In the grand tradition of literary strong-willed orphan girls, Gemma is being called a modern-day Jane Eyre. (Robin Kall)

A columnist in The West Australian mentions the Brontës among other inspiring women. And Mercatornet's Conniptions on Sydney's bird life:

The Kookaburra’s manic laughter sounds like the mad woman in Jane Eyre after a night on the turps. (Michael Cook)

Funny because the production company behind Wide Sargasso Sea 1993 was Laughing Kookaburra, so very apt.

Southern California Fashion Examiner on fashion:

At Paris Fashion Week last month for so many of the Spring/Summer 2012 shows, designers, from Christian Dior to John Galliano, filled the runways with looks seemingly inspired by “Wuthering Heights” and the classic Gothic novel. Though Heathcliff was nowhere to be found, there was certainly a statement made with sweeping black gowns in lace and chiffon. Paired with a loose updo, chandelier earrings, and a bold red lip surely added finishing touches to this look. (Alexandra Morales)

The Brontë Sisters quotes from a letter written by Charlotte to Ellen Nussey on October 17th, 1841. Optima Dies . . . Prima Fugit reviews Jane Eyre 2011.