The Telegraph & Argus reports that 73408 people visited the Brontë Parsonage Museum last year, somewhat less than in 2010:
Haworth’s Brontë Parsonage Museum welcomed 73,408 people through its doors, down about three per cent on 2011.
Acting director Ann Dinsdale said: “Clearly I would have preferred numbers to remain up, but considering it was such a wet summer and we had the London Olympics to contend with – which definitely affected our figures – we did pretty well. I’m not too despondent.”
She added that the year ahead looked positive.
The parsonage is currently undergoing a redecoration, which will result in a decor unprecedented in its resemblance to how the house would have looked in the days when it was home to the famous literary sisters. The museum will re-open to the public on Saturday, February 9.
Keighley News informs that the Haworth Bell Ringers are asking for new recruits:
The leader of a church bell-ringing group is appealing for people to help keep the tradition alive in Haworth.
Simon Burnett, the tower captain at the village’s famous parish church, made the plea after a celebration of the 200th anniversary of the marriage of Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell.
The historic occasion was marked by a highly demanding full peal of bells on December 29. The date was coincidentally also the wedding anniversary of the current priest in charge at the church, the Reverend Peter Mayo-Smith.
But numbers are dwindling and the fears are such occasions will not be marked in the future unless new recruits come forward.
Mr Burnett said: “The present band of ringers at Haworth is very active.
“However, we are down to the bare minimum needed to keep the bells ringing. We really need some more people to learn this skill.
“They do not need to be strong or musical. They would be joining both a friendly team with a lively social life and a national ‘fellowship of ringers’. But, more importantly they would be helping to keep the Brontë Bells ringing into the future.”
The six bells in the tower at Haworth Parish Church were paid for with money raised by Patrick Brontë, father of the famous literary sisters. (Miran Rahman)
The
Daily Mail publishes an excerpt from
Three Things You Need to Know about Rockets. A Memoir by Jessica Fox:
‘You’re so dramatic, Jessica,’ he said, laughing. His arm grazed my side but he quickly moved away.
I still couldn’t quite make him out. He was as mysterious, I noted dreamily, as Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester: friendly one minute and distant the next. Sometimes he’d even walk past me as if I were invisible.
The Huffington Post lists Emily Brontë as one famous unmarried woman:
And then there are the role models who preceded the 1960s Women's Liberation Movement, when society dismissed spinsterhood as a tragic fate and offered women few opportunities to earn a living. From Joan of Arc and Queen Elizabeth I of England to Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë and American Red Cross founder Clara Barton, these and many other resourceful unwedded women may never have achieved their remarkable legacies had they taken the less radical route of marriage. (Daria Snadowsky)
Los Angeles Times'
Hero Complex talks about the new black in teen cinema: monster love:
Angsty teenage love may be as old as Shakespeare and the Brontë sisters, but with the star-crossed lover motif getting a makeover (often introducing elements of the supernatural) in the last few years from novelists Stephenie Meyer and Suzanne Collins, Hollywood has been stalking the young adult book market with the ferocity of a jilted lover. One result is a pileup at the box office this season of female-driven stories with strong-willed protagonists battling zombies, witches and aliens while wrestling with their own overwrought emotions. (Nicole Sperling)
IGN talks about spoilers:
It’s even resulted in some ludicrous situations where I’ve seen people complaining that spoilers weren’t clearly flagged in discussions about Jane Eyre and other adaptations of classic literary works. Novels which have been out for centuries should be discussed without fear of spoiling them. (Daniel Krupa)
We definitely need more (Irish politics) context to understand this mention in
The Nenagh Guardian:
Take for example Dónal [O’Grady]’s observation that Kilkenny’s strategic plan “boldy encourages young Kilkenny teachers working outside the county to return home with a strong open invitation to get involved in the Cumann na mBunscol philosophy”. Tellingly O’Grady fails to develop this point.
To this mind it smacks of Jane Eyre hearing a voice calling her back to Mr Rochester which is all very nice and romantic in eighteenth-century Gothic fiction, but does the Kilkenny county board assert the power to offer jobs for returning teachers to mol an óige? Hardly. If not, then with respect, surely that aspect of the Kilkenny strategic plan is somewhere between aspirational and not worth the paper it’s written on?
El Mercurio Digital talks about writers and facing death:
"Si llamáis al doctor, ahora sí que estoy dispuesta a verle.”
La autora de ‘Cumbres borrascosas’ (1818-1848) no pudo disfrutar mucho tiempo de su éxito ya que su salud, que siempre había sido delicada, empeoró a causa de la tuberculosis, que finalmente se la llevaría la edad de 30 años. No quiso ser visitada por el doctor, y cuando se vio realmente enferma, ya fue demasiado tarde. (Josep Oliver) (Translation)
More reviews or articles about
Wuthering Heights 2011 in French:
L'Essentiel (Luxembourg):
Leurs amours, avares en paroles, sont toutes en sensualité, dans le sens le plus organique du terme: plaisir de Heathcliff à sentir les cheveux de Catherine sur son visage, plaisir de Catherine à sentir le vent sur le sien, omniprésence des animaux, vivants ou charognes, brume qui transforme la terre en boue, branches qui cognent aux vitres... (Translation)
Le Temps (Switzerland) lists several of the
Wuthering Heights film adaptations.
Wimgo also posts a review.
Ghazi bin Muhammad defends in
Aljazeera the experience of transcendence but we don't find this mention of Jane Eyre particularly convincing:
Who has not had a premonition exactly before something ill happens to someone one is close to, without ever usually having this premonition or fear? Who has never felt or heard someone in need of them, and responded only to be proved right? When, in Charlotte Brontë's 19th-century novel Jane Eyre, Rochester calls out "Jane!" and she hears him halfway across England and then goes to him to find him in desperate need of her, Victorian readers did not think this an outrageous fiction because many of them privately had - or know people who had - similar experiences.
PostNoon (India) talks about the persistence of classics:
Kovuuri Ganapathy Reddy, who works with the AP information centre in Delhi, recalled fond memories of reading Wuthering Heights. “That’s a dark and intense book.”Ganapathy Reddy said the essence of classics is it has everlasting life.“Classics stand the test of time. You can go back to it and re-read anytime and it still fascinates you.” (Rajesh Ravindran)
Good Choice Reading interviews the author Emily Snow:
Do you have a book in your house that's just destroyed because you've read it so much?
There are actually quite a few that are falling to pieces because I’ve read them so much! I’d say the top three (the ones that I’ll probably need to replace very soon) are The Hunger Games, Jane Eyre, and Skye O’Malley.
A 13-year-old Brontëite in
The Phoenix Muskogee; a reader of
The Telegraph & Argus laments the Brontë waterfall is not featured more often in Brontë-related books or documentaries;
Linda's Bookland (in Hungarian and English) reviews
Wuthering Heights;
Honky's Movie Year posts about
Jane Eyre 2011;
Bookish Whimsy talks about Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre. The Musical;
Confessions of a Readaholic reviews April Lindner's
Catherine.
The
Brontë Parsonage Museum Facebook publishes a first batch of pictures of the redecoration which takes place at the Parsonage and the
Parsonage's Twitter has just tweeted a picture of the plaster medallion of Branwell which will need some restoration.
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