Sweeping epics

Keighley News promotes the Go Local on Sunday campaign:

A group that markets Keighley and the Worth Valley to visitors is encouraging residents to check out attractions on their own doorstep.
The Brontë Country Partner-ship is promoting this weekend’s Go Local Sunday event.
People living in postcodes BD20, 21 and 22 will be able to gain free entry to a range of local visitor destinations.
Participating attractions are East Riddlesden Hall, Police & Forensic Science Museum, Museum of Rail Travel, Ingrow Loco Museum, Keighley & Worth Valley Railway (one round trip), Brontë Parsonage Museum and The Passionate Brontës’ Guided Walks.

Also in the local newspaper, Haworth is proud to offer an exhibition inspired by the Tour of France Grande Depart:

The Other Side showcases the work of four internationally-acclaimed artists from around the Yorkshire route of the Tour de France.
It aims to highlight 21st-century Brontëland creativity rather than the traditional view of landscapes and literature.
The Other Side is at the Dam-side Gallery in Jacobs Lane, and has been organised under the banner of Worth the Tour as part of the Yorkshire Festival Fringe.
A spokesman said: “The ‘other side’ of the Worth Valley’s creativity is different to the familiar picture postcard Brontë landscapes and traditional Olde Worlde Haworth depictions.
“Instead of looking nostalgically into the past, this exhibition is facing forward with a 21st-century vision, flavoured by the global perspectives of the individual artists.” (David Knights)

And we have also the monthly Brontë Parsonage Museum column in the newspaper:

We celebrated the Brontë Film Season at the end of March and beginning of April to coincide with the Bradford Film Festival.
We enjoyed viewings of Wuthering Heights (1939), Jane Eyre (1943) and Devotion (1946).
These three films, when they were released, attracted many visitors to the Parsonage, and since then have rarely been shown on the big screen. So it was a real treat to be able to see them in a cinematic environment!
We enjoyed an event on April 2 in association with Bradford’s Cartwright Hall exhibition – Rossetti’s Obsession, Images of Jane Morris – which finishes on June 1. Jan Marsh, the author of Jane and May Morris; Dante Gabriel Rossetti, painter and poet and current president of the William Morris Society; and Juliet Barker, award winning biographer and author of The Brontës and The Brontës: A Life In Letters, discussed the letter writing of Jane Morris and the Brontë sisters.
Jan Marsh began the event with a fascinating introduction to the life of Jane Morris, which provided an excellent foundation for the conversation to begin. Jan and Juliet discussed the letters of the women, highlighting the similarities and differences between them.
An interesting point they discussed was the tone of the letters. Charlotte Brontë often consciously adopted a masculine style, whereas Jane Morris was much more conventionally feminine in her style of writing. (Read more) (Hermione Williams)

The Wharfedale Observer reviews the book  Haworth, Oxenhope & Stanbury: From Old Maps by Steve Wood:

According to the Haworth Village House Repopulation Plan of 1851, the Rev Patrick Bronte’s neighbours included butchers, a tailor, wine merchants, a druggist and a number of combers, handloom weavers and at least one “twister” – John Rushworth.
That was also the year that those responsible for public health accepted the Rev Brontë’s appeal for a local board of health to be set up to look into the village’s sewage and supply of fresh water.
In April, 1850, an inspector had called at the village to investigate its sanitary condition. What Benjamin Herschel Babbage found was stomach-turning.
In the vicinity of the Black Bull Inn, he said: “I found the night-soil from the privy emptied itself into a heap immediately below the druggist’s larder window, while the pigsty was below the kitchen window. Upon inquiring at the druggist’s, I was informed that the contents of the midden-stead (dunghill) frequently came up as high as the sill of the larder window and that 20 loads had been removed from it about three weeks before my visit.
“A woman living in this house said she was always poorly and the stench from the midden-stead and pigsty so bad she frequently was not able to eat her meals.”
No wonder the village wiped out most of the Brontë family, leaving old man Brontë blind and daughterless in the parsonage opposite the graveyard. (Read more) (Jim Greenhalf)

Broadway World (Toronto) talks with Vern Thiessen, who adapted Wuthering Heights for the stage in 2010, about his new work, an adaptation of Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage. We don't totally agree with him when he says:

Technical challenges aside, a big attraction in adapting Maugham's work was the ease with which his language translates to the stage. "I was struck by how modern it felt," Thiessen recalls, "particularly Maugham's dialogue. He's a playwright, and his words are fresh, earthy, gritty; the dialogue feels very contemporary. While adapting Brontë, you can't put words in actors mouths - they don't feel right on the stage of today - but Maugham's dialogue translates very easily." (Catherine Kustanczy)

Spear's begins an article about underrated books with a reference to the classics:

Moving, entertaining, inspiring and all-consuming, classic books define the literary landscape. From sweeping epics such as Brontë's 'Wuthering Heights' to understated gems like Chekov's 'The Lady With The Little Dog', the classics retain relevance into old age. (Romy Van den Broeke)

Wall Street Journal reviews Cat Out of Hell by Lynne Truss:

Truss uses this fantastic premise to spin an unruly tale in which horror and humour keep floating in and out, putting the reader on an emotional roller coaster. The moment you start to relax and allow yourself to feel amused by the adventures of a pair of immortal cats, violence and fury erupt. The effect, often, is akin to that of reading a 19th century gothic novel, such as Wuthering Heights, where ghosts and grisly thrills do not prevent you from breaking into fits of giggle. (Somak Ghoshal)

Ilkley Gazette pays tribute to the theatre manager and director Walter Swan:

 Yvette Huddleston, who worked at the Playhouse with Walter, added: “Walter really was the best friend a person could hope to have. He was kind, generous, funny, intelligent, interesting and interested. (...)
We collaborated on many projects – we wrote three stage plays together, the most recent of which was a new adaptation of Wuthering Heights (which we also co-directed) staged at Ilkley Playhouse last summer before transferring to the Minack Theatre in Cornwall where it played to sold out audiences for every performance. (Claire Lomax)

British Vogue talks about Jessica Brown Findlay, now on BBC's Jamaica Inn:

You could write a book on the subject of weather in English literature. A niche study, it would include everything from the sweating summer of The Go-Between to the plot-contriving downpours inflicted upon Austen's girls, the cheek-cracking storms of King Lear, and all that wuthering in Wuthering Heights. (This being England, chapters on inclement weather would outnumber any containing sunshine four to one.) (Charlotte Sinclair)

Grimsby Telegraph interviews the new author Rebecca Mascull:

Rebecca, who counts Raymond Carver, Margaret Atwood, Charles Dickens, Charlotte Brontë, Amy Tan, Isabel Allende and JD Salinger among her inspirations, says finally securing a publisher was "a dream come true".

Los Andes (Argentina) is clearly right when it says

Es probable que la ganadora de GH no haya reflexionado sobre el condicional y sus nuevos usos, sobre la relación histórica de su prosa con la de las hermanas Brontë[.] (Gabriel Dallas) (Translation)

 Adevărul (Romania) interviews the theatre director Mihai Măniuţiu:

Mirela Sandu : Cum vedeţi pe lângă acest festival, viitorul teatrului? Care sunt următorii paşi în construcţia acestuia? MM : Regizori importanţi, texte de succes, consolidarea continuă a trupei şi creşterea ei valorică. Când spun spectacole importante şi de succes, mă refer, de pildă, la Idiotul după Dostoievski, care e în momentul acesta marele succes de public, la La răscruce de vânturi după Emily Brontë, Sânziana şi Pepelea de Vasile Alecsandri, Cei doi gentlemeni din Verona de William Shakespeare, la Hamlet de William Shakespeare, la Războiul Clovnilor de Eli Simon, la Panglica lui Moebius de Robert Cohen etc. (Translation)

A curiosity. What's the name of J.K. Rowling's production company (which is now in the news as it will create a series based on A Casual Vacancy)? Bronte Film & Television Ltd.

Hjerte, Smerte (in Norwegian) reviews and compares Jane Eyre 2011 and Wuthering Heights 2011; English Historical Fiction Authors posts about the places where the Brontës look for inspiration; scotomata (in Polish) discusses a theory about how Heathcliff could have obtained his fortune published in the Eric Hobsbawm book Wiek rewolucji. 1789-1848; Libro Libertate (in Spanish) briefly posts about Wuthering Heights.