Brontë Verbs

New Wuthering Heights 2011  reviews:

Ultimately, “Wuthering Heights” is a worthwhile film for the risks taken by and pure talent of its filmmaker even if I would consider this a slightly lesser work than “Red Road” or “Fish Tank.” Those films had a little more dramatic urgency and didn’t seem quite as self-important or conscious of their own design as the worst moments of “Wuthering Heights.” However, those worst moments never overwhelm what works about this adaptation – the fact that it is further proof of the remarkable creativity of one our most interesting directors. (Brian Tallerico in Hollywood Chicago)

Arnold's reading of the book is coarse, disturbing, blatantly sexual and violent. This is an insouciant, punkish take on the classic. Emily Brontë might well have approved. (Graeme Tuckett in The Stuff-New Zealand)

The film will be screened tomorrow December 2 at the Ajaccio Festival du Film Anglais et Irlandais (Under the Screen). Another review can be read on Choi Jeong Woo's Blog.

Constance Hale lists some examples of using verbs in English with creativity in The Huffington Post:

Another nineteenth-century writer, Charlotte Brontë, shows that when the verbs are good, you can rely on terse, crisp sentences. Notice how much meaning she packs into these tight sentences from Villette, in which the narrator awaits reunion with her beloved:

The sun passes the equinox; the days shorten; the leaves grow sere; but—he is coming.
Frosts appear at night. November has sent his fogs in advance; the wind takes its autumn moan; but—he is coming.
The skies hang full and dark; a rack sails from the west; the clouds case themselves into strange forms—arches and broad radiations; there rise resplendent mornings—glorious, royal, purple as monarch in his state; the heavens are one flame; so wild are they, they rival battle at its thickest—so bloody, they shame victory in her pride. I know some signs of the sky, I have noted them ever since childhood. God watch that sail! Oh, guard it!

STV Coatbridge interviews the writer Anne Donovan:

The former St Patrick's High School pupil felt a thrill as a young girl staring at the shelves of novels and the worlds on the pages of books by Enid Blyton, Charles Dickens and Emily Brontë. (Graham Fraser)

Not surprising as she is the author of Being Emily.

The Independent publishes an extract from the upcoming book Classic Tracks by Richard Buskin:

"In the case of 'Wuthering Heights' she was imitating this witch, the mad lady from the Yorkshire Moors, and she was very theatrical about it. She was such a mesmerising performer – she threw her heart and soul into everything she did – that it was difficult to ever fault her or say, 'You could do better'," Jon Kelly recalled.
"You couldn't keep Kate away from the sessions even if you had wild dogs and bazookas. She was just drinking it all up, learning everything that went on. The first moment she walked into the control room, I could tell that's where she wanted to be; in control of her own records. She was astute, and she was also phenomenally easy to work with.
"In the final analysis, Kate's talent would shine through anything." Which is precisely what happened when she re-recorded her "Wuthering Heights" vocal late one night, doing two or three takes from which Andrew Powell chose the best. "There was no compiling," Kelly confirmed. "It was a complete performance. We started the mix at around midnight and Kate was there the whole time, encouraging us," Kelly remembered. "You couldn't deny her anything. So we got on with the job and finished at about five or six that morning." 

Rebecca Makkai confesses in the Wall Street Journal:

Some writers are inspired by dialogue, by character; I'm inspired by spaces: hallways, cupboards, theaters, attics, libraries. I spent hours as a child sketching the floor plans of my dream houses on graph paper. (There were trap doors, of course, and trampoline rooms and fire poles.) As a reader, too, I'm drawn in as much by the wallpaper as by the people in front of it. I might love the "red-room" Jane Eyre is locked in better than I love Jane herself.

The Guardian talks about the women writers of 2012:

In a single year [E.L.] James's daydreams have inspired countless parodies and imitators, from Sylvia Day's bestselling Crossfire trilogy , featuring lookalike covers and characters, to Jane Eyre Laid Bare , which copies James's original trick of filling in the yearning silences of an earlier book. (Justine Jordan)

The New York Times review The Graphic Canon, edited by Russ Kick:

Russ Kick is best known for his “disinformation” guides that expose myths and lies by unearthing subversive facts and countercultural knowledge. His books include “50 Things You’re Not Supposed to Know” and “You Are Being Lied To” — volumes that challenge the reader to question assumptions. What he asks us to acknowledge with “The Graphic Canon” is this: “Gulliver’s Travels,” “Wuthering Heights,” “Leaves of Grass” — these works of literature do not reside just on the shelves of academia; they flourish in the eye of our imagination. (Annie Weatherwax)

The New York Times interviews Joe Queenan:

You’ve written a great deal about movies, often scathingly. Let’s get
 sunny: do you have any favorite movies that were adapted from books?
“L.A. Confidential” was a brilliant book and a brilliant movie. The same is true of “True Confessions.” “The Sweet Hereafter” is a great book and a great movie. So is “Black Robe.” “Brokeback Mountain” is a great movie based on a beautiful novella. You can say the same thing about “Emma,” “Sense and Sensibility,” “Great Expectations,” the most recent “Jane Eyre” and several versions of “Pride and Prejudice.” Not to mention “Ran.” (John Williams)

Los Angeles Times reviews Fairy Tales From the Brothers Grimm by Philip Pullman:

But while authors as varied as Margaret Atwood, Angela Carter and Charlotte Brontë have engaged in radical reworkings of folk tale motifs over the years, Pullman's take hews rather closely to the spirit of the originals. (Mindy Farabee) 

This is Whiltshire gives the winners of the recent Royal Wootton Bassett Arts Festival:

Young actor William Haywood also achieved an outstanding mark of 91 for his portrayal of Heathcliff from Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, winning him the cup for the solo act acting, age 14 to 16-years.

Clash Music interviews the songwriter Martin Rossiter:

Do you read one book at a time or more than one?
I contemplated lying about this, to paint a picture that I was some sort of all consuming bibliophile-a literature gannet. The truth is I don’t have the mental capacity to cope with more than one at a time. The danger would be that Jane Eyre would suddenly appear as a agent provocateur in the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Free Lance-Star has a curious intuition about the Brontës' pen names:

I’ll even throw in a copy of “I am Maru,” a picture book about an excruciatingly adorable Japanese cat that I found while cleaning out my desk last month. The author of that book is someone named Mugumogu, which I’m pretty sure was the original pen name for one of the Brontë sisters. (Edie Gross)

The Tyee has an article about the films of Hayao Miyazaki. Talking about Spirited Away:

Chihiro may start out as a bit of sulky lazy bum, but like the many girl heroines before her, everyone from Jane Eyre to Mary Lennox in the Secret Garden, she is forced to come to terms with what she is made of, to trust her own strength and courage. (Dorothy Woodend)

The Sydney Morning Herald talks about the so-called upper middlebrow:

Such cultural demarcations are more difficult - perhaps irrelevant - in an age where authors mash-up Emily Brontë and zombies, musicians snatch Bach to enliven their beats, and humble columnists borrow ideas to dress up their own thin education. (Sam de Brito)

The Cliffs of Fort Lee seems an odd place to associate to Wuthering Heights but not according to Fort Lee Patch:

These cliffs and bluffs sometimes remind me of the classic film Wuthering Heights. (Tom Meyers)

The Winnipeg Free Press recommends a visit to Cheltenham, UK:

Did you ever wish you could travel back in time, back to the days of Jane Eyre, Pride & Prejudice or Downton Abbey? Well, you don't need Michael J. Fox's Delorean; just a regular plane, train or automobile can take you to a world that will make you think you've walked into a Jane Austin (sic) novel. (Glenna Turnbull)

SlithersMusicZine reviews in Spanish the latest Twilight film:

Mentar el concepto de romanticismo a colación de las criaturas de los colmillos abstinentes es comparar  Cumbres Borrascosas  con “Hombres y mujeres  y viceversa”, creer que el juicio a la Pantoja es la adaptación televisiva de “El Capital” de Karl Marx, o pensar en Ana Botella como candidata a entrar en el reality porno de Nacho Vidal. (Celso Hoyo Arce) (Translation)

La Montagne talks about local libraries:

Et comme les étagères ne sont pas extensibles à l'infini, il faut se résoudre à faire le vide. Jocelyne Pattarelly confesse que l'exercice est très difficile. « On prend les livres un par un et on se demande si, vraiment, on peut s'en séparer. Par exemple, Les hauts de Hurlevent n'est pas sorti depuis six ans, mais celui-là, on ne peut pas ne plus l'avoir ! » (Géraldine Sellès) (Translation)

The Yorker publishes an original story with a Wuthering Heights mention;  songs from the Hernán Espinosa's musical Cumbres Borrascosas were performed at a recent concert in Córdoba (Argentina): Celebración (celebrating ten years of musicals by Hernán Espinosa) according to La Nación; Hathaways of Haworth imagines a day in the life of Emily Brontë;  Les Cloches (in Portuguese) posts about Wuthering Heights; Lucia Boffa Photography posts a picture of her old copy of Jane Eyre; Alison Lublink posts about Jane Eyre; New Kids on the Geek (in French) and Garota de Óculos (in Portuguese) review Jane Eyre 2011 (Tartakovsky? Power puff Janes?); classixquest reviews Wuthering Heights 1939.

Finally, let's not forget that tomorrow, December 2 at 3.00 pm you have a rendez-vous at Haworth:

Scroggling the Holly marks the opening of the festive season in Haworth, involving gathering holly on the holly cart to decorate the village. Morris dancers and brass bands provide music and dancing, and of course all our unique independent shops, tea rooms and public houses will be open for Christmas shopping and well-earned refreshment.
Children dress in Victorian costume and the procession makes its way up the historic cobbled Main Street to the Church at the top where the crowning of the Holly Queen ceremony takes place. The Holly Queen then opens the gates to admit the spirit of Christmas and of course, Santa. Come and help the villagers welcome Christmas to Haworth.