Charlotte Brontë’s message to all men

The New York Times interviews P. J. O’Rourke, who reveals the actual message behind Jane Eyre:

What was the last truly great book you read?  Do you remember the last time you said to someone, “You absolutely must read this book”? “Jane Eyre,” last week. I hadn’t read it in 45 years. If then. (I suspect CliffsNotes were involved.) I didn’t even remember who was locked in the attic. I told my wife she had to read it. She’d just done so (which I didn’t remember either) and gave me a look that conveyed Charlotte Brontë’s message to all men: The secret of a happy marriage is to have a burning house fall on you.

Lauren Davidson's column in The Huffington Post touches on a similar subject:

To continue with the example of Great Expectations - because there are several other books which were ruined for me when I was forced to read them at too early an age, including Jane Eyre and 1984 - it is not the content of the novel which I find to be unsuitable for young people. 

In the meantime Trouw (Netherlands) looks at how children are depicted in Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights receives a couple of reviews in passing today. The Irish Times considers it 'somewhat undervalued' while RedEye Chicago uses it for comparison together with Cary Fukunaga's take on Jane Eyre in a review of Anna Karenina:

Yet the feelings don’t shout as loud as the characters in a film that’s closer to Cary Fukunaga’s decent “Jane Eyre” than Andrea Arnold’s breathless adaptation of “Wuthering Heights,” opening Nov. 30. (Matt Pais)

This is how Esquire determines whether Twilight's Breaking Dawn - Part 2 is the film for you:

A few questions: Are you a young girl? Do you follow trends slavishly right to the end? Do you have a level of sexual repression that would be more suitable to a Brontë sister than anyone who lives in the twenty-first century? If you answered no to any of the above questions, then Breaking Dawn — Part 2 is not for you. (Stephen Marche)

Metroland begins a review of Wicked the musical with a discussion of sequels, prequels, etc.

Revisionist tales that rewrite the back stories of famous works are darn near irresistible, from Wide Sargasso Sea, feminist critique of Jane Eyre to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’s witty take on Hamlet. It’s fun to read Jane Eyre as heedless interloper, see Hamlet as inscrutable, selfish jerk, and, in Wicked, enjoy the Wicked Witch of the West revealed as Oz’s true heroine, with Glinda the Good recast as a catty bitch, the Wizard as a fatuous fascist and Dorothy as an off-screen pain in the ass. (Shawn Stone)

The Daily Express compares Queen Victoria's dolls to the Brontës' Gondal (and Angria, we would add):

As a psychologist I’m less sure. Dr Stephen MacKeith, once chief psychiatrist to the British Army, studied children who created imaginary worlds, often using dolls.
The Brontë children had one called Gondal. Imagination, Dr MacKeith argued, allows emotionally vulnerable children to create a world in which they have some control. So Victoria’s dolls probably helped her to cope with her situation. (David Cohen)

The Brontë Parsonage staff shows on Facebook an unexpected clothing item worn by Patrick Brontë himself.

Recenzje Młodzieżowe- bo młodzież też lubi czytać! writes in Polish about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Stewartry reviews Tina Connolly's Ironskin. Leaves & Pages posts about Rachel Ferguson's The Brontës Went to Woolworths.