Tyler Durden reads Agnes Grey

iF Poems/The Times Young Poet includes in its 30 great poems everyone should know Emily Brontë's Love and Friendship.

Varsity posts a good review of Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights:

Thankfully, the overall sense was that Arnold is someone who understands Brontë’s vision. One of the key features in the novel is the number of different narrators, all with their respective biases and voices.
This adaptation does not have enough space for Nelly Dean or the cantankerous and fervently religious Joseph to be as present on screen as on the page, but this is for good reason. The third most significant character in the film is nature, the Yorkshire moors serving as more than just a picturesque backdrop for an inspiring love tale.
Nature is a complex and reflective force, never quite fully on Heathcliff’s side. There is enough sloppy peat to satisfy both Hughes and Heaney, and at times the branches and the twigs seem to be wailing and later raging, the tormented passions of Heathcliff and Cathy being too much even for the landscape. (...)
This is a film that understands and revitalises the classic, not just because it’s, unfortunately, the first version to feature a black Heathcliff. Rather, it rightfully shakes away any accusations that Brontë’s novel is essentially a clichéd romance. (Salome Wagaine)

Wetherby News finds the film easier to admire than love:

Remarkably dialogue-free with a cast made up largely of young non-actors, rather than letting the words doing the talking, the theory is that the characters’ emotions will emerge almost mystically through the misty camera work and stunning scenery.
Steeped in the brutal beauty of the Yorkshire moors with its harsh diet of mud, rain and wind, this new, untamed Wuthering Heights rubs our faces in the raw passions of the novel while wiping clean most of its narrative complexity. (...)
For all that Arnold has a poetic eye and a wild spark of originality worthy of the young Nicolas Roeg, the results are easier to admire than love. (Graham Chalmers)

Metro London recommends it for the weekend:

Director Andrea Arnold moves from Fish Tank’s grim estates to the wild Yorkshire moors for this rough-hewn adaptation of Emily Brontë’s classic tale (pictured). What it lacks in literary dialogue, it makes up for with fantastically brooding atmosphere and imagery.

The Yorkshire Post reports that the screening of the film at the recent Leeds Film Festival was quite a success:

Organisers have already revealed that the opening gala screening of Andrea Arnold’s version of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – starring James Howson as a black Heathcliff – had been the fastest-selling film in the history of the festival.

There is some controversy about the song composed by Mumford & Sons for the film. Varsity dislikes it:

Unfortunately, the last few minutes of the film is mired by the inclusion of a song, the abysmally mediocre ‘Enemy’ by Mumford and Sons. (Salome Wagaine)

But Paste Magazine likes it:

The clip of the song featured in the video fits the gothic and pastoral scenes of the trailer well and features a seriously catchy melody too. (Luke Larsen)

More reviews on The Film Exciter, emilywight23, Cinewise...

The York Press presents We Are Three Sisters by Blake Morrison which will be performed at Theatre Royal in York (November 22-26):

Blake was struck by how Chekhov’s play and the Brontës dovetailed so well. “Chekhov had read about the Brontës (probably in Elizabeth Gaskell’s biography of Charlotte) shortly before writing The Three Sisters; their story was clearly an influence on the play,” he says.
“So there are good reasons for transplanting the play to Haworth and for identifying the Serghyeevna sisters with the Brontës; they even have a troubled and self-destructive brother in common.
“Above all, I hope that, by taking a cue from Chekhov, the play will banish the gloom surrounding the Brontës and reveal the northern humour and resilience they showed, despite the ever-present threat of death and disease.
“In other words, I’d like to honour the truth of the Brontës while showing Charlotte, Emily, Anne, Branwell and Patrick as they’ve never been seen before.”
Explaining how the Brontës and Chekhov’s play overlap each other in Morrison’s play, Barrie says: “In terms of historical accuracy, we have to do it from the Brontë side first as you wouldn’t be able to please the Brontë Society otherwise.
“So the historical truth comes from historical letters and the play’s title comes from Charlotte’s letters to her publishers, saying ‘We are three sisters’.” (Charles Hutchinson)

Interval Drinks posts a review of the Kingston upon Thames performances.

It's curious how step by step a comment from a review becomes a cliché. It is happening with the performances of Donizetti's Lucia di Lammermoor. OperaWorld talks about the Washington National Opera production like this:

Featuring two dazzling casts and conducted by WNO Music Director Philippe Auguin, you won't want to miss this operatic thriller that seems like "a novel that Emily Brontë or the young Charles Dickens should have written" (The Daily Telegraph).

Which is funny, as we have posted before, because as a matte of fact the Brontës were very fond of Walter Scott.

Las Vegas Review-Journal reviews the novel Falling Together by Marisa de los Santos quoting Charlotte Brontë:

Charlotte Brontë once said, “If we would build on a sure foundation in friendship, we must love friends for their sake rather than for our own.” (Sharon Galligar Chance)

This is one of those quotes that is regularly posted in famous quotes websites and comes from a letter to W. S. Williams  (July 21th, 1851) which is quoted by Elizabeth Gaskell in her biography.

The Miami Herald interviews Jeffrey Eugenides about The Marriage Plot:

The concept of reimagining the marriage plot — the love-or-money trope used so effectively by George Eliot, Jane Austen, Henry James and the Brontë sisters — arose from a discussion about James Joyce with Jim Lewis of Slate magazine.
“I got off on a tangent about the marriage plot, how wonderful those novels from the 19th century were,” says Eugenides, a Brown grad who teaches at Princeton. “I was lamenting that the modern novelist can’t really write a marriage plot anymore because the social conditions have changed so much, with divorce and prenups. Disastrous marriages based on the inheritance plot were no longer available. (Connie Ogle)

The Minneapolis Star Tribune reveals the Brontëite in Chuck Palahniuk:

Palahniuk said he rereads "Jane Eyre" once a year, and that he also frequently goes back to "The Great Gatsby." (Claude Peck)

Lybio posts a clip and a transcription of Jeopardy- Double True Daily Doubles - 2011 Tournament Of Champions (November 16):

[Alex Trebek]
Uh alright. Here is the clue for you in Novels. Her “Agnes Grey” appeared in 1847 under the pseudonym Acton Bell (note the initials)
[Roger Craig]
Who is Anne Brontë?
[Alex Trebek]
Anne Brontë, the least known of the Brontë sisters. $18,000.00 your new total.

Will Hodgkinson talks about Kate Bush's cult in The Times:

In this country at least, Kate Bush worship has reached such a level that she could knock out a version of Wuthering Heights on a washboard and a kazoo and it would be hailed as a masterpiece.  

Nu.nl reviews Natasha Solomon's The Novel in the Viola:

De verhaallus in De roman in de viool is als volgt. Een joods meisje, telg uit een artistieke, welgestelde Oostenrijkse familie, wordt dienstmeisje in Engeland om aan vervolging te ontsnappen, en eindigt met haar Rochester.
Of Darcy. Of de held van een andere jongedame uit de prachtige Britse societyliteratuur die we kennen van Jane Austen en Charlotte Brönte. (Uitgeverij Orlando) (Translation)

Hufvudstadsbladet publishes some extracts from the letters of the Finnish painter Helene Schjerfbeck who, apparently, loved Jane Eyre.
A Different Drum Beat and Litcritique post about Jane Eyre; pholum (in German) takes a look to Jane Eyre 1944; κορωνα γραμματα and feelingonfilms (both in Greek), Gala.de (in Germany) and Blog do Rafael Barbosa (in Portuguese) talks about Jane Eyre 2011; via the Brontë Sisters, websites with pictures of Haworh and the Parsonage: Bertina and In the Country; Poise on Arrows discusses Wuthering Heights.