A Body with Four Organs

HamptonRoads reviews the US Blu-ray release of Les Soeurs Brontë 1979:

The extras include an extremely comprehensive and informative 2013 commentary by an NPR film critic, Wade Major, and a Brontë expert, Sue Lonoff de Cuevas. But more entertaining is the documentary, in which Techiné, Greggory and some of the production crew are interviewed. Techiné describes the film as being “like a vampire story,” in which the three sisters “appropriate the artistic destiny of their brother.” He says the siblings resemble “a body with four organs.” He credits himself with the discovery of Huppert, while Greggory mentions an off-screen conflict between her and Adjani. The costume designer says that all the clothing was made in Rome and how he wanted the costumes to be reflections of the emotions and the drama. Greggory calls the film “artistic and visionary,” but recalls his disappointment when it wasn’t well received by the press. (Peggy Earle)

Evan Gottlieb discusses unreliable narratives and narrators in The Huffington Post:

Traditionally, such narrators implicitly gain the reader's trust quickly; when Jane Eyre, the title character of Charlotte Brontë's classic Victorian novel from 1847, informs us on page 1 that "I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons," we have no reason to doubt her. Neither do we initially doubt the narrators' words in Wuthering Heights (1847), the equally famous novel by Charlotte's sister Emily. Unlike Jane, however, the more we hear from Mr. Lockwood and then Nelly Dean (whose "narration within a narration" occupies the novel's central chapters), the more we come to wonder whether either of them truly understands the significance of the events they relate.
Nelly Dean, in particular, is a classic unreliable narrator: while initially sympathetic and seemingly objective on the surface, she turns out to have a deeply flawed perspective on the events she is relating. Sometimes, this unreliable point of view is relatively harmless; Lockwood's naiveté, for example, is mostly a product of his snobbery and stupidity, and his frequent failures to understand the full significance of what he observes lead to his confusion more than to ours. Nelly Dean's biases, however, cause her not only to misapprehend what is really happening on the Yorkshire moors, but to intervene several times in the plot in ways that frequently have unforeseen consequences. Nelly thinks she is innocent of meddling in the affairs of Catherine and Heathcliff, but we can read beneath the surface of her words, so to speak, to discover their self-justifying, intrinsically deceptive nature.

Olivia Wilde on the pros and cons of being 30. In Glamour:

Yes, Einstein had discovered the theory of relativity by your age, and Emily Brontë had written Wuthering fu*#ingHeights, but honestly, what you achieve is far less important than what kind of human being you are. What do you want people to say at your funeral: "Olivia may have cured HIV, but she ran over my cat and drove away laughing"? No, thanks! I'd rather be a good person who makes people happy than a dick who wins a Nobel by 32.

Radio Holguín (Cuba) quotes from the novel La Hermana by Paola Kaufmann, whose main character is Lavinia Dickinson, sister of Emily Dickinson:

«Emilie, por ejemplo, vivía más bien en Lowood, el colegio de huérfanos pobres en que internaron a Jane Eyre para apartarla de la vista de la señora Reed, su madrastra aborrecible. Para ella, Austin, podía ser según el caso, el señor Rochester, el señor Brocklehurst, o hasta ese primo imbécil John Reed…Yo era Bessie o bien la señorita Temple, y Emilie vacilaba, a veces era Jane Eyre…En ese mundo de ensueño ella se sumergía alternadamente en el dolor del rechazo, en la angustia del hambre, en la ansiedad de los desafíos y el horror del desamor y de la muerte. Todo lo vivía dentro de su alma, todo lo reproducía y lo mezclaba con la realidad». (Manuel García Verdecia)

Books Live asks noted authors about their favourite book by a women writer:

Kate Mosse: Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
It is a novel I’ve read in every decade of my life: in my teenage years, as a story of obsession and the destructive power of possessive love; in my twenties, as an investigation of race and class and the impossibility of escaping the strictures imposed by society; in my thirties, as a novel about landscape and the mystical power of nature; in my forties, with admiration for Brontë’s skill with plot and structure; now, in my fifties — a novelist myself — as a masterclass in characterisation. One of the greatest of epic novels written by a prodigiously talented woman who died at the age of 30, leaving only this one masterpiece behind. (Compiled by Jennifer)

The San Jose Mercury News's Super Quiz is not really very hard:

To whom is the speaker talking? (...)
6. Mr. Rochester: "You almost unearthly thing! I love as my own flesh." (...)
9. Heathcliff: "You loved me -- then what right had you to leave me?"

The Three Panel Book Review posts her take on Wuthering Heights; The Critiquing Critica reviews Emily Brontë's novel; The Briarfield Chronicles discusses her Brontë poll results among other things;  Days and Nights of Sun posts about Wuthering Heights 2009; Stephen Auker has visited Haworth; the Brontë Parsonage Facebook announces that the Victoria Brookland exhibition A Thousand Gleaming Fires

has been so popular we have decided to extend it to early September.

On the Parsonage Wall we also find pictures of an event which took place last week at the Parsonage Gardens:

Last week we were very lucky to welcome the culture and dance group Kala Sangam to the Parsonage. They performed a beautiful response to some of Emily's poetry.