A person like yourself

The Washington Post publishes a (not very good) review of Margot Livesey's The Flight of Gemma Hardy:

The first time I read “Jane Eyre,” I was 32 and teaching it to an energetic class of high school freshmen. After months of male-oriented fare such as “The Odyssey,” “A Separate Peace” and “Lord of the Flies,” most of the girls soaked up this stirring story of a young woman’s struggles, but predictably the boys cried, “Unjust! Unjust!” Revolt was a dangerous possibility (and I knew I’d be the Piggy character). I either had to persuade these guys to enjoy Charlotte Brontë’s Victorian classic or risk losing control of the class entirely.
Reader, I taught them.
The key was emphasizing Jane’s righteous fury and the plot’s outrageous melodrama. Those same elements must have appealed to Margot Livesey when she first read the novel at the age of 9 while sitting in a room that looked over the Scottish moors. (What 9-year-old doesn’t like a good Bil­dungs­roman?) In a brief preface to “The Flight of Gemma Hardy,” the writer notes that her childhood bore an eerie resemblance to Jane’s: She was poor and lonely. She was sent to an all-girls school where the other students bullied her. She prayed nightly for the place to burn down.
Now, approaching 60, with six novels behind her, Livesey has recast Brontë’s novel in the mid-20th century. She claims that “The Flight of Gemma Hardy” is “neither my autobiography nor a retelling of ‘Jane Eyre,’ ” but that’s a little like saying Mr. Rochester is not a married man. In fact, large swaths of “Gemma Hardy” track “Jane Eyre” closely. “Small and plain” as she may be, that original girl is a tough act to follow. (...)
The larger problem, though, is that Gemma is a plainer plain Jane. She rails and she rages, but she never attains the volcanic fury of her predecessor, which, after all, is what makes Jane so hypnotic. (...)
By modulating all those elements of Brontë’s classic, Livesey has produced a novel that’s far more reasonable, but what more withering thing could someone say about a well-written story? The thunderstorm romance that crashes through “Jane Eyre” is about as disruptive in these pages as a passing cloud. The sizzling eroticism of the 1847 novel makes the tepidness of this modern book’s sexuality all the more baffling. (...)
When an author dons the mantle of a classic, it’s not unreasonable to expect her to reanimate it in some significant way. There’s nothing jarring or silly about this homage (for that, see Sherri Browning Erwin’s “Jane Slayre” with a werewolf bride in the attic), but for all of Live­sey’s intelligent and graceful storytelling, she keeps Gemma Hardy’s flight too close to the ground. (Ron Charles)

The writer Hilary Mantel remembers when she read Jane Eyre for The Times:

“Jane Eyre, which I read when I was 10, seems to be a self-validating text for women who will go on to be writers. Jane is an observer and accused of being unchildlike. It may be the first time you meet a person like yourself between the covers of a book." (Stephen Amidon)

Oscar comments and/or predictions:

[T]he best costume Oscar is another category difficult to predict. I am picking “Hugo.” However, I think “Jane Eyre” or “Anonymous” could win this.  (Dustin Chase in Galveston Daily News)

Michael O’Connor, in his second go at the award, which he won his first time around, is up for his Victorian period costumes for Jane Eyre.  (Robert Janjigian in Palm Beach Daily News)

Sandy Powell has won three of these, but the enormity and beauty of her work on "Hugo" should triumph again, especially since Oscar voters love this movie about movies but won't have many chances to reward it in the big categories.
Will win: "Hugo"
Should win: "Jane Eyre" (Chris Hewitt in Pioneer Press)

And QMI Agency,  El Paso Times, Playbill...

Film.com interviews an anonymous Academy member:

Anyone you were sad to see not receive a nomination? (...)
I thought Mia Wasikowska captured Jane Eyre more effectively and beautifully than all the other versions of a story that seems to be filmed every five years like clockwork. (...)
Where are we likely to see an upset?
The best I can do is answer how I voted differently than what has been predicted, Like Jane Eyre for costumes, War Horse in the sound categories (I mean come on, it’s got war AND horses), Hugo in cinematography, and of course most of the big awards. (...) Jane Eyre featured period costumes you believed those characters got up and put on that morning, it wasn’t just creating a bunch of various costumes of a particular era. (Loquaciousmuse)

Las Vegas Review-Journal gives its own Terry Awards to performances ignored by the Oscar:

Fassbender demonstrated on-screen power playing characters as varied as the furious future Magneto in "X-Men: First Class," "Jane Eyre's" stormy Mr. Rochester and "A Dangerous Method's" pioneer psychiatrist Carl Jung. And, most notably, Fassbender bared both body and soul in "Shame," creating a haunting portrait of a self-destructive sex addict that ranks among the year's most searing. (Carol Cling)

Àlex Gorina in the Guía del Ocio Barcelona (Spain) also misses Mia Wasikowska:

Hay errores históricos: el de Michael Fassbender por Shame o Mia Wasikowska por Jane Eyre, donde faltan también los decorados.

The Independent publishes a list of marriage proposals:

Mr Rochester's proposal to Jane Eyre is blunt and to the point: "Poor and obscure as you are ... please accept me as your husband! I must have you for my own."

Seacoast Online presents an upcoming local production of the Lanford Wilson's piece Burn This comparing it to the Brontës:

"I was just musing on this yesterday, its appeal," says [Ken] Stephens, who directs the show. " 'Burn This' looks back at the Brontë sisters. ...; We see these smart and innocent women like in Jane Eyre thrown into situations and dealing with these very complex guys and we root for them." (Jeanné McCartin)

Intellectual Property Brief discusses the copyright of fictional characters:

Popular characters are adaptable characters; they are characters which are easy for most to relate to. Heathcliff of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights or complex Fitzwilliam Darcy in Austen’ Pride and Prejudice may respectively be tortured (Heathcliff wins here) and complex. Yet they both embody general ideas, including the struggle of adapting to different social circles of one’s own. An idea to which a consequential number of people can transfer and adapt to their own experiences. Those character traits would likely not be copyrightable.  (Caroline Gousse)

La Motte's Blog posts about Wuthering Heights;  The Eater of Books (in Portuguese) reviews Jane Eyre; Vom Lesen und vom Schreiben (in German) reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; theSkinnyStiletto and Spoiling w/out warning (in Portuguese) post about Jane Eyre 2011; .... Musings of a Book Lover reviews April Lindner's Jane; Danielle Sloan uploads a Wuthering Heights-inspired set of pictures to Flickr.

And finally a last-minute alert from BBC News:

The former home of Victorian novelist Elizabeth Gaskell is opening to the public as part of a history event.
The Cranford author lived in the Grade II listed villa in Plymouth Grove, Victoria Park, Manchester, from 1850 until her death in 1865.
It is open to visitors on Sunday for the Manchester Histories Festival, which aims to reveal new and hidden histories across Greater Manchester.
The house, which was restored in 2010, will be open until 16:00 GMT.
Gaskell wrote most of her novels in the house and authors including Charles Dickens and Charlotte Bronte are known to have visited and stayed there.
Festival visitors can see slide shows and listen to readings from Mrs Gaskells' novels and letters.