Where Thelonious Monk overhears conversations

The New York Times is warming up for the premiere of Wuthering Heights 2011 in the US next Friday with this interesting article where they talk with Hila Shachar (author of the recent book Cultural Afterlives and Screen Adaptations of Classic Literature: Wuthering Heights and Company), Peter Booker (writer of the latest Wuthering Heights TV adaptation in 2009) and Charmian Knight, a lecturer, writer and member of the Brontë Society. We strongly recommend reading it:

With more than a dozen film versions, Emily Brontë’ s “Wuthering Heights” is something of a cultural touchstone for ill-fated love. The title alone conjures up images of a brooding Heathcliff and a delicate Cathy clinging to each other or suffering alone on the Yorkshire moors. For many fans, the characters are synonymous with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon in the 1939 movie. And yet, at least when it comes to screen adaptations, the novel may be the most misunderstood book of all time.
“I think it’s developed a cultural mythology, sort of like ‘Romeo and Juliet,’ but there are so many other plotlines,” said Hila Shachar, author of “Cultural Afterlives and Screen Adaptations of Classic Literature: Wuthering Heights and Company .” The love story is appealing as myth, she continued, “but why do we remember it as a love story?” (...)
“Brontë’s book is not Romanticism — it’s a harsh and brutal book,” Ms. Shachar said by phone from Perth, where she is a professor at Western Australia University. “When you read the reviews from that time, critics called it savage, and they criticized it even more when they found out it was written by a woman. But we’ve turned it into a romance, because that suits us.” (...)
The fact that “Wuthering Heights” is so adaptable heartens some scholars, who celebrate the novel’s messiness and survival in popular culture nearly 200 years after baffling readers and critics.
“My view is that you cannot spoil a classic text, because it’s a renewable resource,” said Charmian Knight, a lecturer, writer and member of the Brontë Society who happens to be a longtime Yorkshire resident. “Every reading is sort of a new work of art and a new reconstruction of the text, and ‘Wuthering Heights’ has a huge extended life outside of its pages.” (...)
“We can’t trust those voices because they’re all characters with their own agenda,” Ms. Knight said. “With Dickens or Charlotte Brontë or other 19th-century writers, you’re with a safe driver and are told the truth. With Emily Brontë, you’re overhearing conversations and don’t know what to believe.”
For all these reasons, it’s understandable that Samuel Goldwyn, who produced the 1939 version (and considered it one of his greatest achievements as a Hollywood producer), reportedly wanted the novel reworked as “a story of undying love that transcends the gloomy nature of its backgrounds.”
For Mr. Bowker, the gloom and the background were part of the challenge.
“It’s like being a jazz musician trying to adapt Thelonious Monk because it’s so crazy in its structure,” he said. “It’s brilliant, but trying to do a cover version of it is almost impossible.” (David Belcher)

The Oregonian is interested in the film as well:

The new preview for "Heights" shows that unconventional casting and a moody score featuring the band Mumford & Sons  will make this unlike other adaptations of the romantic drama.  (Grant Butler)

And The Epoch Times recommends it:

Nevertheless, the pressure of nature, indicated remarkably by the excellent, often handheld, camerawork of Robbie Ryan, plus Nicolas Becker’s vibrant soundtrack that presents barking dogs, wind, rain, flapping shutters, and more, show the basic helplessness of man against the elements.
Andrea Arnold’s is an interesting take on this ever-compelling classic, far different from the better-known William Wyler-Sam Goldwyn production of 1939, which starred Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier.  (Diana Barth)

Even The Malaysian Insider has something to say:

Famous books by Charles Dickens like “Great Expectations” and “Oliver Twist” have seen at least two major movie adaptations, and the Brontë sisters are even more in vogue now with “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights” getting movie adaptations that can only be described as “modern” (as in modernist films, not films set in the modern day), especially the latest adaptations by Cary Fukunaga and Andrea Arnold respectively. (Aidil Rusli)

And moviepilot (Germany), CinemaBlend's Operation Kino,

Curiously, the NewYork Times also runs a story featuring Wuthering Heights with a sense of humour:

He wasn’t alone in channeling a juvenile fantasy. I had organized our vacation around a much-anticipated rendezvous with my adolescent crush: Heathcliff of “Wuthering Heights.” I had fallen for him in 1970 after seeing the film version of Emily Brontë’s novel at my childhood cineplex in Peabody, Mass.
It starred Timothy Dalton, who in his pre-Bond days stalked the rain-swept moors howling for his beloved Cathy. So what if he was sadistic and probably psychotic? This was a man who would love you until the end of time, or at least the end of the credits.
I tried to explain their convoluted romance to my husband over Emma [the GPS unit]’s excessive chattering, but he was in thrall to her British accent and computerized lisp.
“Isn’t she amazing?” he said as she navigated another mazelike roundabout.
“I was telling you about Heathcliff.”
“He sounds nuts.”
“At least he’s real,” I replied, which technically wasn’t true, but in comparison to Emma’s disembodied voice, he held a slight edge. “Can’t we please turn her off? She’s giving me a headache.”
“Then you drive.” (...)
[My husband]  had a conference call for work and needed to be back at the hotel by late afternoon. Perfectly reasonable, except it was our last day to visit Brontë Country.
“But I’ll die if I don’t see the moors,” I said, picturing Heathcliff’s brooding face against a gnarled and craggy landscape.
“Well, O.K.,” he said.
It was a long drive, but Emma was her usual exemplary self, getting us to Brontë’s hometown, Haworth, without a glitch. En route, we passed plenty of what I imagined were dales, but no moors.
“Do you know the difference?” my husband asked.
I had to admit I didn’t, except in my mind, the moors came with Michel Legrand’s lush “Wuthering Heights” soundtrack and the dales with Emma’s grating voice.
Haworth was crowded and touristy. My husband wanted a traditional ploughman’s lunch at a pub, but we wound up at a deli drinking weak tea and eating rock-hard scones. The Brontë Parsonage Museum was an even bigger disappointment. It wasn’t even on the moors.
“This may sound stupid, but where are the moors?” I asked a woman.
She told us to follow the path behind the parsonage. We walked for a while but encountered only a bunch of sheep.
“We really should be getting back,” my husband warned.
I stopped an elderly man, who told us the moors were 10 minutes by car.
“I guess these are them,” I said when we finally arrived.
The barren land did look fairly wild, though nothing like in “Wuthering Heights.” My husband took a photo of me with my hair blowing in the wind.
“O.K., let’s go,” he said.
I begged him to let me have a few more minutes. I walked ahead alone. I had no idea what I was looking for. Did I expect Heathcliff to ride up on a black stallion, take me in his arms, and offer a life where we’d live forever and never have to drive? (Patricia Morrisroe))

An estate development in Olsztyn, Poland is also compared to Emily Brontë's novel:

Jak widać, jedni stawiają na luksus, przepych, elegancję i nawiązania historyczne. Inni z kolei, co nie dziwi w mieście ogrodzie, postanowili odwołać się do natury. I tak olsztynianie mogą zamieszkać np. na romantycznie brzmiącym Wichrowym Wzgórzu. Okazuje się, że okolice Jarot nie muszą wcale kojarzyć się z ponurymi blokowiskami, ale przy odrobinie wyobraźni w zachwaszczonych łąkach można dostrzec podobieństwo do dzikich pejzaży rodem z powieści Emily Brontë. Jeśli kogoś to nie satysfakcjonuje i obawia się, że na wzgórzu może być nieco wietrznie, może wybrać lokal na spokojnym Osiedlu Przylesie niedaleko ul. Jagiellońskiej.  (Marta Bełza, Magdalena Spiczak-Brzezińska in Gazeta Olsztyn) (Translation)

Dewsbury Reporter has an alert from Shirley country:

A fascinating guided walk celebrating the extraordinary life of Mary Taylor takes place this weekend.
Led by Helen’s Heritage Walks, those taking part will discover more about the pioneering early feminist who lived at Red House, Gomersal, in the early 19th century.
Mary was a close friend of Charlotte Brontë, and was immortalised as Rose Yorke in the author’s novel Shirley.
She refused to be bound by the traditional roles expected of middle-class women at that time and lived a uniquely independent life.
In 1845 she emigrated to New Zealand where she started a successful shop business. After returning to Gomersal in 1860 she spent 33 years writing and travelling.
She led tours of women mountain climbing in Europe and wrote radical feminist articles and books. Her novel Miss Miles was published in 1890.
The event is on Saturday and starts at Red House in Oxford Road, with a short guided tour around Mary’s old home which featured as Briarmains in Shirley.

Forbes talks about forgotten books:

This is not about “Moby Dick”, I assume you’ve read that or shame on you if you haven’t….Ditto for some familiarity with Dickens, Faulkner, Tolstoy, Balzac, Twain, Austen, Flaubert, Charlotte Brontë, and the pre-requisite to all, first modern novelist Miguel de Cervantes’ “Don Quixote”. (Richard Finger)

The Star-Telegram reviews the DVD release of Dark Shadows:

Although the show was often inadvertently humorous (largely because it seemed to have a budget of about $1.50), the intent -- with its story of the rich but haunted and trouble-plagued Collins family -- was to be some blend of Dracula and Wuthering Heights.

Denise Carter defines in The Cairns Post a perfect weekend:

I read a lot and really love literature. At the moment I’m reading a screenplay a friend gave me. I recently read Jane Eyre and then saw the movie. It was quite splendid.

Radio Nacional de Colombia features the writer Jaime Manrique, Brontëite:

“Yo amaba ‘Cumbres borrascosas’, y por eso quería ser una más de las hermanas Bronté (sic); y, como ellas, morir tuberculoso”, confiesa el autor residente en Nueva York, quien cada tanto regresa por Colombia.  (Translation)ç

KatEye Studio posts some pictures of Brontë country;  The Life Edit has visited Haworth; Reawrite, Books before Bed, Bibliophilic Monologues and My Guilty Obsession review Tina Connolly's Ironskin; The  Briarfield Chronicles analyses the moment when Lucy Snowe plays the part of a man in Villette; This Beautiful Mess has created a fanmix for Jane Eyre 2006; Beyond Paisley reviews Jane Eyre 1996; A New Yorker in Oslo loves Jane Eyre; not the same feeling that smeharbinger; Les Chroniques de Racines (in French) posts about Jane Eyre 2011.