Read It Again

The Evansville Courier & Press talks about the upcoming premiere of Wuthering Heights 2011 in the US:

"Wuthering Heights," the 1847 novel by Emily Brontë, gets another film reboot this year. It's the sweeping love story of Cathy and Heathcliff, star-crossed lovers who can't escape their love, or each other — even in death. If you haven't read this yet, read it. If you read it when you were young, read it again, for a totally different take on the storyline. (Kate Linderman)

And so does the Long Beach Press-Telegram:

A radical take on Emily Brontë's classic novel finds a young black man taken in by a Yorkshire farmer who then develops a passionate relationship with the man's teenage daughter. With Kaya Scodelario, James Howson, Solomon Glave and Shannon Beer. Written and directed by Andrea Arnold.  (Rob Lowman)

Film School Rejects has an interesting theory about one of the most distinctive traits of Andrea Arnold's film, the aspect ratio:

Looking at the recent films The Artist, Meek’s Cutoff and Andrea Arnold’s Fish Tank, and inspired by Arnold’s upcoming adaptation of Wuthering Heights, Landon welcomed the “triumphant (but quiet)” return of the Academy Ratio: “Because we now view almost all media through wide screens and distinct rectangles, the Academy Ratio’s square might be one of the only ways that filmmakers can compel audiences to see, perceive, and think differently.” (Christopher Campbell)

The Hollywood Reporter reviews the film San zi mei (Three Sisters) by Wang Bing, seen at the Venice Film Festival:

Many documentaries give the viewer a chance to 'visit' places otherwise unfamiliar and practically inaccessible, but Three Sisters also offers a kind of time-travel, as little appears to have changed in this area for decades or even centuries. The tumbledown farmstead with its muddy yard and rudimentary stone constructions looks like something out of Wuthering Heights - ironic, given that the seminal Anton Chekhov play from which Wang cheekily borrows his title was itself part-inspired by the plight of the Brontës in their provincial parsonage. (Neil Young)

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reviews T.C. Boyle's San Miguel:

In this fertile language he extracts cascades of detail from ordinary events such as getting out of a boat and riding up to a house, watching the mail arrive by sea, or trudging to the outhouse at night. Though never pretentious and rarely superfluous, literary references abound: to Shelley's "Ozymandias," Shakespeare's "Tempest," Brontë's "Wuthering Heights," Dickens' "A Christmas Carol," even Washington Irving's "Legend of Sleepy Hollow." (Mitchell James Kaplan)

The Express Tribune (Pakistan) compares the Masroor sisters (Urdu writers) to the Brontës:

The last of the three Brontë sisters of Urdu literature, Hajira Masroor, left us on Saturday. Her eldest sister, Ayesha Jamal, the author of a collection of short stories, Gard-e-Safar, had died long ago. The other elder sister, Khadija Mastoor, died in 1982 with five collections of short stories and two novels,Aangan and Zameen, to her name. (Abul Hasanat)

Curiously, a book about Urdu literature (Urdu Literary Culture: Vernacular Modernity in the Writing of Muhammad Hasan Askari by Mehr Afshan Farooqi) is reviewed on Dawn (Pakistan) and a Brontë reference appears:

Among the many twists and turns in his career, none surprised his friends and foes more than his interest in Islamic studies and his complete volte face. It was during these days that I had the privilege and honour of meeting him. When I would ask him about Joyce and Proust, he would advise me to offer my prayers. But at the same time, he would also talk of Charlotte Brontë, D.H. Lawrence and Parveen Shakir.

The Global Times (China) has an article about pewter and quotes from Wuthering Heights:

Pewter, a material as bright and shiny as silver, was once widely used for tableware. It is even mentioned in the opening chapter to the classic work of fiction, Wuthering Heights: "One end, indeed, reflected splendidly both light and heat from ranks of immense pewter dishes, towering row after row." (Wang Jiamei) 

Camilla Long's article in The Times mentions an anecdote of Jane Eyre 1944:

“Style is knowing who you are, what you want to say, and not giving a damn” — and partly because he was enormous and throaty, and wore a corset on the set of Jane Eyre. I love a man who can carry off whalebone.

New Jersey Italian-American Culture Examiner interviews the author Adriana Trigiani:

Do you have a favorite book? Why? I love Jane Eyre, but that said, come to my house- there are walls of books. I love books so much, I almost have to break them down by genre to tell you lists of favorites. (Anna Maria Gencarelli)

And the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel interviews another writer, Lauren Fox:

A classic that matters to you: "Wuthering Heights." Every girl loves a bad boy, and Heathcliff is the original. I love those dark, forbidden, swirling passions and the misty moors and the thwarted desire. I'm a sucker for thwarted desire. (Jim Higgins)

Carmen García Ojea talks about Fifty Shades of Grey in El Faro de Vigo (Spain):

Sólo puedo decirte que el éxito de esa trilogía, que no leí ni pienso, hace que me reafirme en mi convicción de que los más interesantes personajes masculinos de las novelas en cuanto a que enamoran locamente a las lectoras y con los que éstas les ponen los cuernos a sus parejas fantaseando se deben a escritoras, no a escritores, como es el caso de Rhett Butler, protagonista de "Lo que el viento se llevó" de Margaret Mitchell, "El caballero de las botas azules" de Rosalía de Castro, Rochester de Jane Eyre debida a Charlotte Brontë, Heathcliff de "Cumbres borrascosas" de su hermana Emily Brontë o ahora Christian Grey, el de 50 sombras de Erika Leonard James, que, según se dice, ha hecho que a miles y miles de mujeres se les abriera el apetito sexual y se quedaran embarazadas, de modo que habrá por el mundo una patulea de hijos de Grey, su padre medianero o mamporrero" (Tino Pertierra) (Translation)

Delirium's Library posts about The Flight of Gemma Hardy; Loca por IncordiaR (in Spanish) talks about Jane Eyre; Fantastic Finds reviews Marta Acosta's Dark Companion; Livres d'Eden and Le Dévore Tant (both in French) review Jane Eyre 2006 and Shelbylee is Daydreaming... does the same with Jane Eyre 1944.