Mourinho and Virtue

London Theatre reviews the National Theatre's Jane Eyre performances:

Sally Cookson's direction is undoubtedly inventive and moulds an evening of exceptional, stylised theatre at the Lyttelton that breathes new life into this well-worn classic. (4 out of 5 stars) (Tom Millward)

Another (not) review can be read on Partially Obstructed View.

Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman publishes an article about Jane Eyre from a virtuous, literally, perspective:

 What is it about Jane? Why are we drawn to her story? Why are readers, so pleasantly addressed as such by Miss Brontë, gladdened to see her move from unforgiveness to forgiveness of her Aunt Reed; to see her stand up for Christian morality with her master; to see her call upon Providence in her deepest sorrow, to see happiness and contentment finally visit her, all the while retaining her vibrant personality and quick wit? Why does relationship with Jane change and soften Mr. Rochester until he did “begin to experience remorse, repentance; the wish for reconcilement to my Maker...to pray.”?
Virtue. (Allison Howell)

The Herald reviews the film Miss You Already:

Here, she plays former wild child Milly with a very best friend Jess (Drew Barrymore), devoted husband Kit (Dominic Cooper), two lively kids and a sexy job in music PR. We're led to believe that Milly and Jess are soulmates in complete step with each other. They've done everything together, from reading Wuthering Heights to first boyfriends. Milly was always a step ahead, finding a husband and settling down first. And now, after finding out she has terminal cancer, it looks as though she will be forging ahead in another way, too.

And the Evening Standard has actually liked the film:

Much is predictable, but the good outweighs the bad. Take the third-act scene where Jess and Milly share a bed (almost as lovely as the bit in Jane Eyre where Helen Burns asks for a goodnight cuddle). Bring a bib to catch the tears. (Charlotte O'Sullivan)

The Toronto Star interviews Kate Beaton, author of The Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside, Pops:

When Kate Beaton first started posting her online comic, Hark! A Vagrant, her focus was on parodying male-dominated history and literature in the most absurdist way possible. Feminism, while always the undercurrent, has never been the point of her sly punch lines, despite her love of suffragettes and the Brontë sisters. (Sue Carter)

Same as Montreal Gazette:

“It’s often tacked on professors’ doors,” she said, “and used in classroom presentations as a kind of icebreaker into a subject. ‘Today, class, we’re going to read Wuthering Heights, but first here’s this little comic.’ Then students can enter something already knowing that they can enjoy it. I also think that comics are an amazing mnemonic device. My comics are not necessarily accurate representations of an event or a book, but they will warm people up to the idea of thinking about it.” (Ian McGillis)

And The Globe and Mail:

While still rooted in her love of history and literature – the book contains cartoons about the Memoirs of Hadrian, about John Hancock, Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights and Patrick Henry, to just list the names under H in the index – Step Aside, Pops explores questions of gender, race and identity. (Mark Medley)

The Belfast Telegraph adds a new Heathcliff lookalike, no less that the football manager Jose Mourinho:

There he stands, his tousled salt-and-pepper hair tousled in the breeze, his top button undone under his tie with Sinatra-like effortless cool, his brooding Heathcliffian eyebrows knitted in (what looks like) intelligent thought.
Lately, though, the Heathcliff comparison has proved a little too accurate. Yes, Heathcliff is sexy, but he's also hot-tempered, egotistical and ruthless when things aren't going well. (Jane Graham)

BBC News talks about the recent calling of the UK Education Secretary Nicky Morgan for the returning of classics of English literature in schools:

 A quick scan of any list of the most read children's books will reveal that today's youngsters are growing up in a very different literary landscape to their parents.
Gone from bedroom bookshelves are the Famous Five, the Chronicles of Narnia, and the adventures of the Swallows and Amazons.
And in their places are the likes of Jeff Kinney's Diary of a Wimpy Kid, the complete and ever-growing works of David Walliams and Liz Pichon's Tom Gates series.
Only the prolific Roald Dahl remains sandwiched between the bookends by these newer arrivals at the top of the literary pops.
And as for the 19th Century classics of English literature, such as Emily Brontë and Charles Dickens, many children simply have not heard of them. (Hannah Richardson)

The Australian reviews Gerald Murnane's Something for the pain. A memory of the turf:

He pinned only three pictures on the large display board above his college desk, even though it had room for at least 30. There were portraits of Emily Bronte and Marcel Proust. (...)
Murnane smiles on Bronte and Proust (to whom he has sometimes been compared), as well as Henry James. But he loves horseracing, if in a way that sets him up as a true eccentric. He sees it as a metaphor for life and the human condition and, sometimes, “a sort of higher vocation excusing us from engaging with the mundane”. (Les Carlyon)

Once again Emily Brontë and autumn gets together. In Greenville Online we read:

I take a walk anywhere on a Fall afternoon—down a street in my neighborhood, or along a trail in a yellow wood—and I feel, as the poet and novelist Emily Brontë did, that “Every leaf speaks bliss to me, fluttering from the Autumn tree.” (Catherine Scott Crawford)

Público (Spain) interviews Ángeles Caso, author of Todo ese fuego:

Hay muchas frases de la novela, sobre necesidades económicas o las limitaciones personales que recuerdan a la actualidad.
Yo creo que hay verdades de la condición humana que se mantienen desde el origen de los tiempos y no cambiamos tanto. Muchas cosas que les ocurren a las hermanas Brontë tienen un paralelismo exacto con lo que ocurre a día de hoy. También es verdad que he utilizado en la novela una voz que reflexiona, la mía, porque no quería escribir una novela histórica del siglo XIX, sino que tuviese conexión con el mundo actual. Por eso, como narradora, he aprovechado estos asuntos que pueden ser universales.
En su escritura hay dos fortalezas que, quizás, hemos perdido un poco en la sociedad: indagar en la búsqueda de la mejor palabra que exprese lo que queremos y sustituir la acción por la reflexión.
Has señalado las dos cosas que como escritora más me interesan. Recuerdo que cuando hablé de esta novela con mi editora, que acababa de llegar, le dije que iba a escribir sobre las hermanas Brontë y me dijo: “¿Y qué pasa?”. Yo le respondí que nada, y ella me miró un poco horrorizada porque yo no soy una escritora de tramas. (Ana I. Bernal Triviño) (Translation)

Dagbladet (Norway) talks about Camille Paglia's Sex Personae:

Det er voldsomt. Men i det naturvitenskapelig nysgjerrige, ultrapragmatiske perspektivet finnes også en trøst. Det ligger en påminnelse der om alt i deg som du ikke umiddelbart, som inngår i biologiske menuetter som har gått mange, mange ganger før. Men det åpner også for unike, individuelle betraktninger om akkurat hvordan de kanskje virker i deg, og i Sandro Botticelli, og i Emily Brontë; om hvordan du kan observere og fortolke det i deg selv, men ikke konstruere deg selv fra bunnen.  (Inger Merete Hobbelstad) (Translation)

The Penn State University holds a reading marathon and Wide Sargasso Sea is one of the the novels chosen for The Marathon of Madness (via Centre Daily Times);  Battle Hall Highlights posts a curious discovery at the  the University of Texas Architecture and Planning Library:

Brontë, Emily. Two Poems: Love’s Rebuke and Remembrance. With the Gondals Background of her Poems and Novel by Fannie Elizabeth Ratchford. Austin, Texas: Charles E. Martin, Jr.- Von Boeckmann-Jones Co., 1934.

Bookblog of the Bristol Library reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.