Cathy and Heathcliff go wine-tasting

More news outlets comment on the forthcoming Napa-set adaptation of Wuthering Heights to be produced by Greg Berlanti for NBC: Digital Spy, TV Week. The Contra Costa Times wonders,

Would Emily Brontë have been a Cabernet-lover? Or would she have preferred a good Chardonnay?
We're pondering these questions upon learning that NBC is developing a modern update based on Brontë's "Wuthering Heights" that will be set in the Napa Valley. [...]
In the original, the title referred to a sprawling Yorkshire manor. In the NBC version, it will undoubtedly be a gorgeous piece of Wine-Country real estate. (Chuck Barney)

A.V. Club opts for a more vitriolic view:

The push to expose more of the TV viewing audience to the rich history of classic literature that can be exploited for free because it is old continues, with Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights joining a list of recently acquired adaptations ranging from Tom Sawyer And Huckleberry Finn to Hamlet to the original Gutenberg edition of The Mob Doctor. According to The Hollywood Reporter, producer Greg Berlanti (of Everwood, Green Lantern, and Arrow, among others) has set up the Brontë-based Napa at NBC, which will take the doomed, manipulative, stupidly classist romance of Catherine and Heathcliff and transpose it from the English moors to California's Napa Valley, presumably coming up with a more modern, Napa-related reason why these two can't just get married and shut up already. "Oh Heathcliff, if only you were not a vintner of Merlot, when a woman of my standing can only be seen with Pinot Noir!" or something.  (Sean O'Neal)

As does Jezebel, which considers it 'awful sounding':

Were you hoping for yet another big screen adaptation of Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights? No? Okay, but what about a TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights that takes place in modern day Napa Valley? Whether that's what you want or not ("It's not," says everybody), that's exactly what you might be getting.
Greg Berlanti (the creator and writer behind Everwood, Jack & Bobby and Arrow) and scribe Tom Donaghy are currently developing a pilot for NBC called Napa, which will be based on the classic novel. Few other details have been release but we can assume that the show will be about a manic SoCal bad boy named Jax Melbourne who is taken in by a rich vineyard owner only to fall in love with his beautiful, wild and possibly insane daughter Claire Woodly-Vaughn. Love will be made, punches will be thrown and wine will be tasted.
In other words, poor Emily Brontë is spinning in her grave. (Madeleine Davies)

In the meantime, the latest Wuthering Heights is arriving next week in the US and Shockya posts an early review, giving it a C.

While some critics will find much to praise in Arnold’s version of the English classic, doubtless finding a breakthrough version that might better appeal to a modern audience and a forceful depiction of wild, but doomed passion, several factors work against the film. One is the 4:3 aspect ratio, turning the story into a near-square rather than the rectangular shape that TV viewers are accustomed to. This leads to impressions that are even more claustrophobic than previous incarnations have been. Another is the dialect, which is barely understandable (only the Scottish such as in “Trainspotting” would be more muddled). Given the nature of the heavily accented dialogue, it’s a blessing that Arnold chose to let the visuals tell most of the story, inserting the spoken word only for incomplete sentences and exclamations and what amounts more or less to throat clearing.
Yet a third flaw, multiple problems, in fact, is Robbie Ryan’s cinematography coupled with Nicolas Chaudeurge’s editing, which relegate most of the scenes to near darkness and the fights depicted with the stereotypical moving camera likely to cause audience members to wonder who is dealing what cuts and bruises to whom. [...]
Story – B-
Acting – B-
Technical – D
Overall – C
(Harvey Karten)

The Deccan Chonicle has Eve Sinclair comment on her Jane Eyre Laid Bare.

This is why I see erotic novels like Fifty Shades as a step forward and not a step back. As far as I’m concerned, the more we embrace and openly discuss our sexuality and sensuality, the better. And if what we want is more erotic stories, then what better story is there than Jane Eyre? One of the original and best stories about an innocent young woman falling in love with a much more experienced older man and getting way out of her depth.  [...]
And once I’d started to write it like one too, I couldn’t stop. It felt naughty, it felt funny, and it felt emotionally moving too — it felt like what it was: a fantasy, as well as a game. My intention was certainly never to replace the original, only to shed a different light on it and to give it a cheeky 21st century twist. If it brings new readers to this much-loved timeless classic, then all the better.

For this columnist from The Downriver News-Herald the Brontës seem to have been hardly original at all.

William Makepeace Thackeray is regarded as the most prolific Victorian author next to Dickens. Fellow Victorian Charlotte Brontë even dedicated the second edition of her novel “Jane Eyre” to Thackeray.
Whereas Brontë’s admiration may have been for Thackeray, her work owes more to the influence of Dickens. Jane Eyre’s trials and tribulations at the hands of public institutional abuse is a direct product of Dickens’ “Oliver Twist.”
“Jane Eyre” also reflects the influence of another Dickens novel, “Nicholas Nickleby,” in its expose of the abuses of boarding schools.
Brontë likely dedicated “Jane Eyre” to Thackeray because the latter had the burden of a deranged wife like Rochester in “Jane Eyre.” [...]
While discussing Victorian authors, it’s important to acknowledge Charlotte Brontë’s sisters, Emily and Anne. Emily Brontë is the author of the epic novel “Wuthering Heights,” a book that depicts the ugly hazards of love better than any story since Shakespeare’s “Othello.” Indeed, Heathcliff, the main character of “Wuthering Heights,” is almost as infamous and synonymous with love mutating into hate and rage as is Othello.
Incidently, Anne Brontë did not have the impact her sisters had on the literary world. But her 1848 novel “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall” has its share of critical acclaim. It, too, is a story of love in the midst of abuse, in this case the self-abuse of Arthur Graham at the expense of his wife, Helen. (John O'Neill)

We will not debate whether Charlotte Brontë was more influenced by reality or Dickens (although we and the vast majority of Brontë scholars don't think so) but we will say that when she dedicated her second edition of Jane Eyre to William Thackeray she was wholly unaware of the existence of his 'deranged wife'.

J.K. Rowling's new novel The Casual Vacancy is out today and The Bookseller reviews it.

The influences are not hard to fathom. Rowling has written a excoriating critique of English life, channelling Charles Dickens, David Cameron, Charlotte Brontë, and Danny Boyle. (Philip Jones)

The Guardian's Northerner Blog features the Portico Prize for Literature, 'hosted by the library once frequented by Elizabeth Gaskell'. There's a quote from one of her letters to Charlotte:

Mrs Gaskell wrote to Charlotte Brontë in 1859 (sic)

With a struggle and a fight I can see all [t]he quarterlies three months after they are published; until then they lie on the Portico table for gentlemen to see. I think I will go in for women's RIGHTS.

Her husband William was the Portico's chairman for 30 years. (Alan Sykes)

EDIT: As has been pointed out by an alert reader, the above is, of course, impossible, as Charlotte Brontë had been dead and buried for four years in 1859, apart from the fact that no letters from Mrs Gaskell to Charlotte Brontë are (known to be) extant. The Guardian seems to have gone by the info provided here and which is, again, wrong. The actual letter is addressed to George Smith in August 4, 1859 and can be found in The Letters of Mrs Gaskell by J.A. V. Chapple & Arthur Pollard, no. 438, p.567.

The Los Angeles Times reviews the new TV series Elementary, another modern-day take on Sherlock Holmes.

All modern retellings of Sherlock involve a bromance with Watson and a re-imagining of the detective as a tortured romantic hero, falling somewhere between "Jane Eyre's" Mr. Rochester and "Twilight's" Edward Cullen. "Elementary" manages to do both with the same relationship, which begins in true rom-com fashion with the requisite prickly banter and disbelief at each other's failings. (Mary McNamara)

Il Foglio (Italy) discusses 'mannies', male nannies, by looking back on the profession. They seem to think that Jane Eyre was some kind of 'Ugly Betty', though.

Un uomo semplifica molte cose, secondo i sostenitori della balia maschio, nuova frontiera del passaggio di testimone fra uomini e donne, e del mescolamento felice dei ruoli: azzera le possibilità di nuove generazioni di maschi abituati a essere serviti dalle femmine, elimina lo spettegolio costante delle bambinaie sui litigi e i segreti dei datori di lavoro e offre una grande possibilità di ripicca: ribalta il cliché abusato ma sempre di moda della baby sitter da scegliere, secondo le regole non scritte di molte, il più bruttina possibile. E non, come Jane Eyre, solo fintamente bruttina, di quelle che poi sciolgono lo chignon o si mettono in costume da bagno e il bambino piccolo dice: come sei bella, più bella di mamma. (Annalena Benini) (Translation)

The Denver Westword recalls a time when

restaurant menus were as long as novellas, with enough adjectives to give Emily Brontë a run for her money. (Gretchen Kurtz)

Period Drama tells Jane Eyre wonderfully in smilies. Other focus on the more conventional 2011 adaptation: Endlessness Ego, Movie Blog, El castillo de Lord Ruthwen (in Spanish). inRandom reviews Little Miss Brontë: Jane Eyre. There's a Jane Eyre icon battle on and iq_coliseum and wakingnights show theirs. Flickr user Cathlon has uploaded a Jane Eyre-related image. Romancing the Tome is curious about Wuthering Heights 2011. Worldly Travels writes about a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum.