Eugenides loves Jane Eyer

The Browser interviews Lyndall Gordon, biographer of Charlotte Brontë who remembers this anecdote:

My own attempts at biography have been, like Claire Harman’s, to resist the myth – to go back to the archives and see which myths don’t hold. But I’ve found that it’s really hard to budge the legend. I’ll give you an instance. In 2007 it was the 150th anniversary of Mrs Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë. The Brontë Parsonage invited four biographers to talk about Mrs Gaskell’s view of Charlotte Brontë. All four of us all said we beg to differ, because we know now that the Brontës were much more embedded in society than Mrs Gaskell’s romanticised view of roamers of the moors. Not that they didn’t roam the moors, but that idea needs counterbalancing. The audience listened to us courteously, but then someone burst out at the end, “But I like the romantic story!” (Interview by Alec Ash)

And they also interview John Sutherland who chooses his favourite books:

Your final two novels are a brace of Brontë sisters. Jane Eyre has recently experienced a revival in the shape of a glossy Hollywood film. Why should we read the book rather than soak it up in the cinema?
There has been a very interesting debate about Jane Eyre which comes through in the latest movie and also in the less-shown earlier movies. It is an idea which was hatched by post-1960s feminism, namely that the real heroine of Jane Eyre is not the plain little governess but the mad woman in the attic, Bertha Mason. No one ever calls her Bertha Rochester, even though she is married to the bad Edward Rochester. If you read the book that way, you can see the mad woman in the attic – who attacked Rochester and burns down his house, who is destructive and angry – to some extent as the other half of Jane Eyre, who is submissive, punishes herself and is obedient to the demands of her lords and masters. Bertha is the locked-up woman inside Miss Eyre. One of the reasons why I think this idea is so popular is because it ties in neatly with ideas about the id which are current at the moment. The new film makes Bertha Mason, who is described as a purple monster in the book, really very sexy and attractive.
When I read the book, she was this shadowy, menacing character. But I don’t remember much about her apart from the fact she was threatening.
No, but she is there. When her brother comes back to interrupt the wedding between Jane Eyre and Rochester, and says that Rochester is still married to Bertha, then she becomes instrumental in changing the course of the novel. Rochester asks Jane to stay and be his mistress, and she runs away. This is the least likely part of the novel. She runs away across the moors, across virtually all of England, only to end up fainting on the doorstep of someone who turns out to be her cousin. The Brontës were never frightened of coincidence in their novels.

Emily Brontë, in Wuthering Heights, has a completely different type of male character in Heathcliff. Rochester and Heathcliff are two competing types of Victorian hero. What does it tell us about the sisters who invented them?
That’s a very interesting question. Two very important women novelists died virgins: Jane Austen and Emily Brontë. It is very odd, because there is a great deal of sex in both their fiction.
The Brontës had this idea of a Samson figure. Rochester, like Samson, has to be mutilated before he can be domesticated. What is interesting about Heathcliff, in Wuthering Heights, is that he isn’t. He remains this superman. He is greater than a human being. He is named after two elemental things, the heath and the cliff. We never know what his first name is. He doesn’t himself. He may be, in fact, half black. He may be a gypsy, no one knows. He comes from nowhere. He is found in the gutter in Liverpool. Some people think he must be Irish because the novel was written during the time of the Irish famine, although it is set in the earlier 19th century.
All the Brontës, Anne as well as Emily and Charlotte, had this image of a great and powerful man whom they feared and were fascinated by, and rather hoped to be dominated by, after he had been tamed. And mere women like Cathy in Wuthering Heights, Jane in Jane Eyre, Agnes in Agnes Grey or Helen in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall – how did they tame these men? Taming man is really what the Brontës were all about.
Do you think that is a Victorian theme – the idea of men as all-powerful but whom women can tame?
Things were changing very fast in Victorian life. You can feel the stirrings of women moving towards getting the vote. The important thing about the Victorian novel is that it had a huge female readership. There is a critic called Elaine Showalter, the author of A Literature of Their Own, who sees it as women having a literature, well, of their own. She sees it as women talking to women across the barriers that are erected between them. So a novel like Jane Eyre is one woman’s conversation with a large number of women. I think that still works today. You could say it is a novel that women readers are privileged in understanding, and that male readers have to struggle, to some extent, to empathise with what is going on. (Interview by Daisy Banks)

A recent French audiobook edition of Wuthering Heights (more information in this previous post) has been nominated for the Lire dans le Noir prize (which will be announced next November 22):

Fiction "Classiques" :  De l'Antiquité au XXe siècle
LYRE AUDIO
Les hauts de Hurlevent d'Emily Brontë, lu par Isabelle Fournier. 

The Montreal Gazette talks with the theatre director and actor Christopher Moore who is involved in a production of Willis Hall's Jane Eyre opening in November:

Christopher Moore is a busy guy these days, dividing his time between Thomas Hardy, Charlotte Brontë and Edgar Allan Poe. (...)
Speaking of locales, how did he manage to get from one rehearsal to another on time? Moore's third classic, Jane Eyre, directed by Kevin Saylor, is being presented by the Lakeshore Players, which operates out of Dorval. And he's a biker, not a driver. Luckily, another city-living actor, Frayne McCarthy, is also performing in the Hardy play and Jane Eyre. (Pat Donnelly)

The Daily Mail asks the writer and garden designer Jane Fearnley-Whittingstall about her favourite readings:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. Jane is my favourite heroine. I'm moved by her suffering as a child and feel her passion when she and her employer Mr Rochester fall in love. Jane's character is real, but Mr Rochester is pure fantasy - every woman's dream. I've been in love with him since I was 13 and I've seen most of the films and TV versions of the story, but no actor comes near to my Rochester - not Orson Welles, not William Hurt, not Michael Fassbender. But they all send me back to the book to wallow in its feverish emotions and enjoy a good cry.

Also on the Daily Mail a comment on the pseudoscience chitchat of the week:

So no surprises then that a paper by Craig Roberts at Stirling University has generated a fair few column inches this week.
The finding, reported in a Royal Society Journal says that women on the Pill choose dull, safe men who are unsexy and do little for them between the sheets.
This sounds, superficially, logical. The Pill makes women infertile (that’s the whole point of it) and it does so by altering their hormone levels. Normally, pre-menopausal women are only wholly infertile while they are pregnant or possibly breastfeeding.
This, the theory goes, is when they need a nice, safe kind partner to care for them and baby, not a wild Heathcliff who will drag them up onto the wild and windy moors to have his wicked, delicious way with them.  (Michael Hanlon)

A new review of Jeffrey Eugenides's The Marriage Plot which mentions the Brontës. In The National Post:

Unfortunately, The Marriage Plot possesses neither the conceptual genius of Eugenides’ first book, nor the second book’s likable protaganist. Instead, we have a fairly standard romance tarted up to refer to the 18th century “marriage plot” novels of Austen and the Brontë sisters, among others. (Christopher Shulgan)

But that was not the only mention around: Die Welt (Germany) in an interview with the author and Die Presse (Germany) or Il Corriere della Sera (Italy).

The Irish Times reviews Critical Children: The Use of Childhood in Ten Great Novels by Richard Locke:

The choice of fiction by white males about white males reflects, Locke says, “the gender priorities of the society that found them so compelling”, not prejudice on his own part. He had to choose characters who “command a wider extra-literary force-field in popular consciousness than Cathy [from Wuthering Heights] or Jane [Eyre]”. (...) That the last, from the novels of Philip Roth, commands a wider “extra-literary force-field” than Jane Eyre is news to me, but maybe, around Columbia, Alexander P is as famous as Mickey Mouse. (...)
Dickens and Twain command most attention. Dickens is regarded as the father of the novel of childhood, and Oliver Twist, from 1838, as the first example of the genre, beating Jane Eyre by almost a decade. (Éilís Ní Dhuibhne)

The Independent (South Africa) reviews Jane Eyre 2011:

Elegant, restrained, beautiful. (...) The film starts at the end of the story, then moves backwards to explain why Jane is stumbling around the desolate moors. The photography is stunning. (Theresa Smith)

And the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal too:

Even if Victorian love stories are not your cup of tea, "Jane Eyre" stands on its own, much like its protagonist, as an all-around good movie. It's emotional, romantic, intriguing and, at least, will have made your English teacher proud. (Sydney Musser)

And Seattle Film Examiner:

Fukunaga spends a great deal of time and effort establishing a mood and creating a strong sense of atmosphere. He captures the mystery and barely contained emotion of the gothic romance perfectly. The cinematography is also terrific and there are many shots depicting the isolation of Rochester’s mansion, showing off the vast and empty surroundings, mirroring Jane's loneliness in the world. The mansion itself is a dark and gloomy setting, much time being spent wandering around it with only a candle to light the way. It’s highly stylized, the way it’s filmed, and there's plenty to look at. At one point, there's a montage sequence that, accompanied by only the soft music of a piano, strongly resembles a scene out of a Terrence Malick film. (Ian Drury)

The Shropshire Star posts a picture of a street banner announcing a screening of the film with a typo:

What would Charlotte Brontë make of this spelling howler on display in a Shropshire town?
That is the question being asked in Ellesmere where cinemagoers are being invited to watch a screening of Jane Eyer, but not Jane Eyre, as the classic novellist intended her famous heroine to be known.
Officials at the town hall today said contractors in Stoke-on-Trent had supplied the rogue banner, adding it had raised ‘a few chuckles’ among visitors and passers-by.

The Philippine Daily Enquirer quotes the director Rodrigo García as saying about Mia Wasikowska:

Between shooting the series and ‘Nobbs,’ I saw her in ‘Jane Eyre.’ I thought that was a big leap already. It was a very difficult role to play. She was beautiful in it.  (Ruben V. Nepales)

The Sitges Film Festival screening is still in the Spanish press: Suite 101, 20 Minutos, La Huella Digital, El Periódico, Sensacine, Ecran Large (in French)...

The Hungarian release of the film is covered or reviewed in Hír24, Népszava, Origo, Femina, Kultúra... The Polish one here: Polytika, Onet (another one), Filmweb, Express Bydgoski, Newsweek.pl, dziennik (and this one), Gazeta, Interia, Rzeczpospolita, Kafeteria, Metro, Gazeta Wyborcza, dwójka-Polskie Radio (including a special program), Kuriera Porannego, We-Dowje... The Italian one: Extra!Music, BestMovie, News Mag,  Paperblog (more), Il Corriere della Sera, Wuz, Cinema BlogLive, La Stampa (and an article about the novel), Cinema e Videogiochi, Milanoweb, Dazebao News, Il Sito di Perugia, Persinsala, Pourfemme,  Il Sole (with Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights and an article about the Brontës), Europa Quotidiano, La Voce d'Italia, RCS, Vogue Italia, Mauxa, MTV, Tuttogratis compares Jane Eyre 1996 with Jane Eyre 2011, Expresso, ComingSoon.it, CineBlog, Voto10...

As Pepe Mel, manager of the La Liga team Real Betis, has written a novel, Who Ate All The Pies suggests that:

Maybe Big Sam Allardyce can re-imagine Wuthering Heights for the Soccer AM generation, with Heathcliff as an heroic, yet troubled northern football manager and aficionado of the long-ball game? (Alan Duffy)

In The Telegraph & Argus we read how the Skipton Girls’ High School celebrate its 125th anniversary:

[M]any girls turned up at school on the day 125 years ago that the school was opened dressed as avi]ator Amy Johnson, writer Charlotte Brontë and chemist Marie Curie – all three with houses named after them at the school.

MSBNC does a curious comparison:

The architectural equivalent of a Brontë novel, and arguably the greatest Victorian building in London, it opened in 1873, went into decline during the Depression, fell hopelessly out of fashion in the 1960’s, and after 40 years of preservation battles has been restored as the St. Pancras Renaissance Hotel. (Stephen Drucker)

Página 12 (Argentina) talks about private writers:

Hubo un tiempo, sin embargo, en que nadie pensaba en tomar decisiones semejantes: Emily Dickinson y Nathanael Hawthorne eran tímidos consumados; las hermanas Brontë comenzaron enmascaradas bajo alias masculinos; Jane Austen empezó firmando con el eufemístico By a Lady por condicionamiento social; y tuvo que pasar un tiempo para que algunos se preguntaron qué había sido de Ambrose Bierce y quién había sido Bruno Traven. (Rodrigo Fresán) (Translation)

Celluloïdz (France) reviews the film Agnosia:

Agnosia s’avère au final parfaitement soigné formellement, aboutissant sur une sorte de drame romantique dans la lignée de la littérature anglaise des soeurs Brönte, comme les Hauts de Hurlevent ou Jane Eyre. (Lullaby Firefly) (Translation)

Handburger Abendbladtt (Germany) reviews the Sophie Rois audiobook version of Jane Eyre:

Sie leiht "Jane Eyre" aus Charlotte Brontë Klassiker ihre Stimme und erzählt die Geschichte eines Waisenkindes, das als 18-Jährige eine Anstellung als Hauslehrerin bei dem vermögenden Mister Rochester findet. Beide verlieben sich ineinander, doch in der Nacht vor der geplanten Hochzeit entdeckt Jane ein furchtbares Geheimnis: Im oberen Stockwerk hält er seine wahnsinnig gewordene Frau versteckt. Obwohl sie Rochester immer noch liebt, flieht Jane und entschließt sich, ihren Vetter nach Indien zu begleiten.
Sophie Rois gelingt es, Charlotte Brontës fesselnden Text samt seiner Charaktere lebendig werden zu lassen, den heuchlerisch-bigotten Internatsleiter Brocklehurst ebenso wie Janes strengen Cousin Saint John Rivers. Und wenn die Geschichte nach sieben CDs zum Ende kommt, ist die Erkältung sicher schon fast überstanden. (Christine Weiser) (Translation)

Tidningen (Sweden) publishes an essay about Jane Eyre with the name Conventionaly is not Morality:

De senaste 100 åren har berättelsen om Jane Eyre, denna brittiska Askunge med Pippi Långstrump-tendenser, filmatiserats över tjugo gånger. Nu senast som amerikansk storsatsning med Mia Wasikovska, ett stjärnskott som bland annat samarbetat med kultregissörer som Tim Burton, i huvudrollen. Att Hollywood väljer att satsa miljontals dollar på att än en gång berätta Jane Eyres ytligt sätt ganska alldagliga historia (bristen på både fäktning och sexscener torde egentligen tala emot filmatisering) kan bara betyda en sak: det finns i denna historia om Jane något outtömligt, något som aldrig slutar tala till oss. (Read More) (Translation) (Matilda Amundsen Bergström)

The Italian writer Laura Bosio shares with Affaritaliani one of her projects:

Sto finendo di lavorare a una raccolta di testi sulla spiritualità femminile, di filosofe, poetesse, scrittrici, mistiche, con accostamenti che spaziano da Saffo a Emily Dickinson, da Teresa d'Avila a Gaspara Stampa, da Murasaki a Emily Brontë. (Virginia Perini) (Translation)

NWA has a superquiz on women writers which includes a Brontë (E.B.); Laura's Miscellaneous Musings posts about I Walked with a Zombie 1943; The Saturated Palette read and enjoyed Jane Eyre; ThinkerViews posts about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; Madmoizelle (France) recommends Wuthering Heights as an autumn reading; Rai News (Italy) reviews the book Emily e le altre; Paperblog reviews Elizabeth Newark's Jane Eyre's Daughter.