Something out of Wuthering Heights

The Hindu reviews Eve Sinclair's erotic retelling of Jane Eyre:

It has a corset for a cover and the title says Jane Eyre Laid Bare. The tagline explains that it’s the classic novel with an erotic twist. It should be enough preparation. But it’s not. It’s still a bit of a jolt when immediately on Page 3 you encounter Jane, on her way to Thornfield in a one-horse carriage, preparing to pleasure herself on the leather seat. (...)
After the barely there version, I had to re-read the original, if only to check if memory was exaggerating Brontë’s claims on my affection. I found myself riveted. All the bits that Sinclair has left out (or at any rate relegated to smutty flashbacks) — especially Mrs. Reed’s home and Lowood School — ring with immediacy and brilliance. She writes, and that in 1847, with a clarity about morality and prurience that cannot be bettered by throwing in gratuitous romps in the bedroom (and garden and bathtub and horseback). Fact is, Brontë or Thackeray’s novels are perfectly sexy and don’t need the help. As for the cash registers, well, that’s a different matter. (Vaishna Roy)

The same newspaper interviews the author:

“It was meant to be a fun project,” the UK-based Sinclair says over the phone. “I have had this idea for some time. It was meant to be a quick project. I remember reading Jane Eyre and being struck by the smouldering sexuality between Jane and Rochester. Every school girl who has read Jane Eyre would’ve been struck by the sexuality between the two.” (...)
Sinclair’s twist, apart from the erotic one, is radical — with the mad woman in the attic, Rochester’s first wife, playing an important role in the proceedings. She, rather than Jane, is truly emancipated. “Yes, I love that idea!” Sinclair laughs. “And yes, you’re right, she is a symbol of emancipation, although, that said, the reveal happens quite fast, so there are unanswered questions about the logistics of how she’s been living up there all the time. Perhaps there’s a whole other novel right there. The reason I took that decision is because the plot device in the original — of Jane hearing noises in the attic and ignoring them at first and then gradually getting intrigued — works brilliantly as we’re desperate to know what’s up there, especially as Rochester is so slippery in his explanations. I decided to tease the reader one step further and make the real Mrs. Rochester a dominatrix because it made perfect sense of Mason’s injuries and the way Rochester behaves and his broodiness towards Thornfield Hall. It amused me that she was calling the shots and wanted Jane for herself.” (...)
Now that there are talks of a movie version of 50 Shades…, what about a bodice-ripping film on the shenanigans at Thornfield Hall? “Wouldn’t it be fun?” asks Sinclair with a laugh. “It would be interesting because after 9-1/2 Weeks, there hasn’t been an erotic movie. (Mini Anthikad Chhibber)

Manhattan Reader also reviews the book.

The Telegraph brings together these old friends: UK politics and Wuthering Heights:

Sir Howard Davies says he is only following orders "above my pay grade" by making no announcement on how to solve overcrowding in the airports of the South East until 2015. The man leading the Government's review of airport capacity does have one ace up his sleeve, however – after deep consideration, the one-time FSA chairman has decided that Heathwick, the mooted merger of Heathrow and Gatwick, "sounds like something out of Wuthering Heights". And we all know how that story ended. (Harriet Dennys)

San Francisco Chronicle interviews the writer Daniel Handler:

Handler knew he wanted to be a writer from the time he was 8, and read both gothic and noir novels - by Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler - in eighth grade. His youthful preferences in literature are apparent in his series. "That probably has something to do with my thinking that they belong in childhood. Because I was a child when I read them. (Regan McMahon)

The Post & Courier interviews the author Gayle Forman:

I remember my heart breaking and swelling when I first read Harper Lee’s “To Kill A Mockingbird,” and, after poo-pooing Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” as another boring book being assigned in high school English, swooning and reading it twice in a row because, holy smokes, what a love story!

Dawn traces a profile of the Urdu poet Meeraji (1912-1949):

In his youth he translated the Bengali poet Vidyapati, Li Po, most of the symbolist poets, DH Lawrence, the Brontë sisters, Sappho, women poets writing in Japanese and Korean, and Heinrich Heine; he went on to translate Anna Akhmatova and Muriel Rukeyser, and towards the end of his life he compiled three books of translations, one each from Mirabai, Omar Khayyam, and Damodar Gupta.  (Geeta Patel)

Vijesti (Croatia) reviews Love, Sex, Death & Words by John Sutherland and Stephen Fender:

 Prvi oktobar 1848. godine rezervisan je za Orkanske visove (1847) koji je napisala najmanje uspješna od tri guvernante, Emili, ali zato nedvosmisleno najuspješniji pisac među sestrama Bronte. Tog dana otišla je na grob svom tek pokopanom bratu, Brenvelu, koji je odgajan da bude uzdanica porodice, a umjesto toga je preminuo odavši se piću i drogi (laudanum), i amoralnom životu. Brenvelova samodestrukcija opisana je u liku Hindlija, Hitklifovog prethodnika kao vlasnika Orkanskih visova. Brenvel je, kao i njegove sestre, umro od plućne slabosti. U stvari, ispada da ih je dobar dio te porodice pobila vlažnost imanja na kom su živjeli Bronteovi, oivičeni groznom engleskom baruštinom.

Poslije posjete grobu, Emili se prehladila i 19. decembra se pridružila bratu. Šest mjeseci kasnije, od istog problema umrla je i Ana Bronte. Ova odredinica ne govori samo o tome kako je Orkanske visove objavio najnepošteniji izdavač u Londonu, Tomas Kotli Njubi (priređivač Saterlend već ima objavljenu studiju o viktorijanskim izdavačima), što je inače umalo uništio karijeru mladog Entonija Trolopa, nego io tome što je kritika taj roman isprva proglasila "prostačkim", zbog previše proklinjanja u Jorkšajru, a što je očito išlo na nerve nježnim gradskim ušima. (Translation)

Le Bien Public (France) reviews an exhibition by the painter Harold Whittle:

C’est un hommage émouvant rendu à son père décédé qu’elle a toujours vu peindre. La lande à l’herbe brûlée, les maisons dans la campagne, les paysages qui rappellent Les Hauts de Hurlevent des sœurs Brontë, les lacs sauvages au creux des petits monts sont le fond de cette exposition.

El Mundo (Spain) talks about Mike Newell's Great Expectations:

Volviendo a la película, como ya hemos visto en adaptaciones recientes como la que Andrea Arnold completó de 'Cumbres borrascosas', el trabajo del director también de Donnie Brasco consiste en deshuesar la historia, en actualizarla hasta convertirla en una mirada corriente (y por ello, moderna) de un texto extraordinario (y por ello, antiguo).  (Luis Martínez) (Translation)

BlogHer recommends Jane Eyre as a book every girl should read; the book is reviewed on Mein kleines Universum (in German); Zielono w głowie... (in Polish) reviews Agnes Grey; the Brontë Sisters marks the anniversary of the death of Elizabeth Branwell; Fiction Addict reviews Ironskin; Dias de Blog (in Portuguese) likes Dario Marianelli's Jane Eyre 2011 soundtrack.