A very different kind of Christmas

The Scotsman talks about Christmas in literature and... well, Wuthering Heights is probably not the best example:

A mere five years after Dickens’ salutary tale, Emily Brontë wrote Wuthering Heights. It contains a very different kind of Christmas scene altogether, full of violence from the moment that the drunken Hindley Earnshaw orders Heathcliff from the kitchen, just as the Lintons arrive from Thrushcross Grange. Hindley insults Heathcliff’s unruly long hair, and Edgar Linton backs him up:
“He ventured this remark without any intention to insult; but Heathcliff’s violent nature was not prepared to endure the appearance of impertinence from one whom he seemed to hate, even then, as a rival. He seized a tureen of hot apple sauce, the first thing that came under his gripe, and dashed it full against the speaker’s face and neck.”
Hindley takes Heathcliff off for a thrashing and locks him up in his room. A proper Christmas scene eventually ensues (“our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong; a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns and a bass viol, besides singers”) but when Cathy fetches Heathcliff from his room he chills Nelly with his words: “I’m trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don’t care how long I wait, if I can only do it, at last. I hope he will not die before I do!”
It is a stunning rebuttal to the message of Christmas about forgiveness and love to fellow men, and represents the flipside to the comfort and wealth the Empire brought to Victorian Britain. Wuthering Heights sees little benefit to our occupation of the world – all it does is divide people, as Brontë’s novel, fill of structural and thematic divisions (Thrushcross Grange vs Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff vs Edgar Linton, Cathy vs Catherine) shows so brilliantly. Heathcliff is an orphan of the Empire after all, the dark-skinned and savage child brought from the Liverpool wharfs, the very site and emblem of the trade and commerce of Empire, by the Victorian father, Mr Earnshaw. (Lesley McDowell)

Jane Eyre 2011 has been released on DVD in India (by Reliance Home Video and PVR Pictures Home Entertainment) and The Indian Express reviews it:

Director Cary Fukunaga’s adaptation of the Bronte classic Jane Eyre manages to be both authentic and a fine, engaging watch. The dimly-lit interiors of the imposing residence of Mr Rochester, Thornfield Hall, the natural shaded light of the moors, the superb re-creation of the fears that can assail very young children, and their vicious, hard-hearted mentors, is done to perfection. But the real star of this show is Jane, as rendered by the very skilled Mia Wasikowska: she makes of the mousey yet spirited governess a complete delight. (...)
The film released just a while back in India, but it came in so fleetingly that most of us missed it when it was in theatres. So it’s nice that it is out so soon on DVD. Bonus features include a brief segment with the director and the lead actors. (Subhra Gupta)

And Time Out Mumbai:

The script retains the Christian overtones of the book and Brontë’s criticism of Victorian social attitudes and keeps the focus on the impassioned relationship between Eyre’s headstrong governess and her impetuous employer, Edward Fairfax Rochester (Michael Fassbender). The Gothic thrills of the massive but gloomy Thornfield estate in the novel are excised of their savage edge and stop short of horror in the film. Cinematographer Adriano Goldman’s subdued palette and the dreamlike narrative flow are complemented by Wasikowska’s acceptance of uncertainty. In fact, the deleted scenes on the DVD reveal scraps of a more thrilling, erotically tinged version of the movie, including Eyre’s dream of a woman tearing her bridal veil. The star turns, including Judi Dench as the warm housekeeper, and the deeply felt narrative core ensures repeat viewings from Brontë fans. (Saumya Ancheri)

The film is also on the top ten of the year for The Buffalo News:

Cary Fukunaga's version of the oft-filmed Brontë classic is the greatest of all those ever filmed. It starred the remarkable Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender. You'll see a very different Fassbender after the first of the year in Steve McQueen's almost-clinical case history of a sex addict, "Shame." (Jeff Simon)

City Press (South Africa) thinks that Jane Eyre 2011 is the best literary adaptation of the year:

The latest version of Charlotte Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre captures this gothic love story in all its timeless splendour. It features Michael Fassbender as the brooding Mr Rochester and 22-year-old Australian, Mia Wasikowska, as Jane. (Gayle Edmunds)

The Otago Daily Times (New Zealand) thinks so too:

Jane Eyre lacked the jokes but gave us full-blown emotional trauma, which for all Jane Eyre nuts is perfectly blissful.  (Christine Powley)

The Boston Phoenix highlights Michael Fassbender's performance:

[T]he classic told with the perfect balance of ardor and restrain. The most understated of Michael Fassbender's many fine performances this year.  (Peter Keough)

The Chicago Daily Observer (reposting from ...With both hands) talks about W.M. Thackeray but goes a bit too far assessing his influence on Charlotte Brontë:

Thackeray worked, lectured, sponsored and influenced young writers like Anthony Trollope and Charlotte Brontë, who not only dedicated the second edition of Jane Eyre to Thackeray, but also portrayed the older writer in that novel as Mr. Rochester. (Pathickey)

Tom Sutcliffe discusses the year in films in The Independent:

It was also a vintage season for those who take their cinema black with the Australian films Animal Kingdom and Snowtown bookending the year with stories of family life turned toxic. Paddy Considine's Tyrannosaur and Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights offered stiff competition in the field of human misery.

Andrea Arnold herself is interviewed on BBC Radio 4's The Front Row:

Film-maker Andrea Arnold is best known for contemporary dramas such as Red Road and Fish Tank, but her 2011 version of Wuthering Heights won wide acclaim. She reveals why her next film won't be an adaptation.

The Globe and Mail discusses the persistence and extended influence of the Jane Austen legacy. Guess who is quoted talking about Ms Austen:

Charlotte Brontë herself complained in a letter to a friend that she found in Austen, “anything like warmth or enthusiasm, anything energetic, poignant, heartfelt is utterly out of place.” (Leah McLaren)

Lorrie Moore asks the following question in The Guardian's Review Christmas Quiz:

Which great American novel is sometimes said to have the same plot as which Brontë novel?

If you don't know, the answer is this one.

Not the only Guardian quiz with a Brontë reference:

What links:
9 Lord Marchmain; Mr Earnshaw; John Jarndyce; Mr Tulliver? (Thomas Eaton)

The Christmas Challenge of The Financial Times also has a Brontë question:

10 Which novel links pop stars Kate Bush and Cliff Richard with filmmakers Andrea Arnold and Luis Buñuel?

The New York Times traces a profile of one of its reviewers, Michael Wood:

“I have favorite authors and directors — Proust, Calvino, Kafka, Emily Brontë, Hitchcock, Orson Welles, Buñuel,” he said, “but among different literatures and media I tend to go by mood.

Tanya Gold describes her experience in The Holy Land Experience in Florida in The Guardian:

Thank God He is resurrected. Because the little girl has stopped crying. We enter the Temple for the Resurrection, because a crucifixion without a resurrection is like finishing Jane Eyre after the bigamous marriage – no happy narrative bump to send you on your way to TGI Friday's.

Cicinnati.com explains a touching Christmas story with a Brontë mention:

“What we have is greater than Heathcliff and Cathy in ‘Wuthering Heights’ and Romeo and Juliet combined,” [Herman] Turner says. “Each day made our love a little stronger.” (Barry M. Horstman)

And the Salt Lake City Tribune looks at the 1911 news finding curious things like:

A disturbing news story, seemingly straight from Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, reports that Mr. George Porter married his former housekeeper, Mrs. Sarah L. Clinkenbeard, two days after the funeral of Mr. Porter’s wife, who had committed suicide. Mrs. Porter spent time in the Utah State Mental Hospital not long after Mrs. Clinkenbeard’s employment in the Porter household, but was released and visiting her parents in Idaho, who were celebrating their golden wedding anniversary, at the time that she (Mrs. Porter) poisoned herself. (Pat Bagley)

My Love-Haunted Heart reviews Wuthering Heights (and mentions Wuthering Heights 2011 too);  Objetivo: Cine (in Spanish), I Believe We Have Already Met (in Polish) and Some Thinking Matter reviews Jane Eyre 2011; Literatura y Recuerdo (in Spanish) posts about Jane Eyre and Book Cafe does the same with Wuthering Heights.