Shirley and class struggle

Books for 2016 in Gloucester Citizen. The new edition of Juliet Barker's The Brontës: A Life in Letters seems to be one of the highlights:

Caroline Sanderson, associate editor of The Bookseller, predicts: "There's likely to be a flurry of books pegged to these anniversaries, but among the ones to watch will be The Globe Guide To Shakespeare by Andrew Dickson (Profile, Feb) and The Brontës: A Life In Letters by Juliet Barker (Little, Brown, April), a selection of letters and autobiographical fragments from the three novelist sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, their brother, Branwell, and their father, the Reverend Patrick Brontë."

Lucio Villari praises in La Repubblica (Italy) the new Italian edition of Shirley:

Il fascino di Shirley è nella compenetrazione tra poesia, storia, descrizioni splendide della natura e dei paesaggi umani. È nella sua struttura critica e dialettica. Charlotte Brontë, figlia di un colto e illuminato pastore anglicano, non esaltava certo la violenza dei luddisti ma la "capiva". Però il personaggio maschile del romanzo, Robert Moore, col quale si intrecciano i sentimenti amorosi di Caroline e di Shirley, è un imprenditore capitalista serio e moderno che nelle macchine vedeva l'occasione di una evoluzione sociale e civile. Gliele distruggeranno e col romanzo Charlotte svelava anche una amara e diversa verità: la lotta di classe e l'esordio del conflitto tra capitale e lavoro. La storia di Shirley è dunque una storia di sentimenti e d'amore e ha per sfondo le guerre napoleoniche e il blocco continentale, ma c'erano altri fondali di cui bisognava tener conto. Charlotte pubblicando il romanzo sapeva bene che due anni dopo si sarebbe aperta a Londra la prima, grande Esposizione Universale che avrebbe esaltato proprio la modernità delle macchine. Il successo decretato dai lettori di Shirley fu anche in questa doppia verità poetica e storica. Non sappiamo se anche Cavour, che frequentava il mondo liberale e economico inglese, abbia letto Shirley, ma in un articolo del 1850 scriveva: «A nostro avviso l'Esposizione generale di Londra è il più bel "congresso della pace" che possa immaginarsi, è il primo passo nel gran problema la cui soluzione è riserbata alla seconda metà di questo secolo... Mentre si agitano in tutte le parti di Europa le questioni politiche, religiose, sociali, l'umanità non trascura il suo progresso industriale, alla cui testa si pone l'Inghilterra…». (Translation)

The Stage lists the best plays of the year according to Natasha Tripney:

Sally Cookson’s version of Jane Eyre may have been lengthy but it was utterly engrossing, rousing and celebratory. A co-production with the Bristol Old Vic, it’s an example of page-to-stage adaption at its very best, true to the spirit of the much loved book while finding ways of making the narrative live in the now; of making it speak – and sing – to a modern audience.

A Younger Theatre agrees:

Even though I took issue with some of the pacing of the plot, this adaptation is still a highlight of 2015 for being an innovative and surprising take on Brontë’s classic. With elements of physical theatre, Michael Vale’s unconventional set and a bit of Gnarls Berkley thrown in for good measure, Sally Cookson’s production got the soul of this epic story spot-on and three and half hours whizzed by. (Laura Stevens) 

Swindon Advertiser interviews the dancer Rachael Gillespie:

As the prima leapt in the air, landing ever so softly, imperceptibly gliding en pointe towards the hypnotic Heathcliff, 13-year-old Rachael Gillespie watched with bated breath, committing every flawless movement and graceful turn to memory.
That day she swore to devote her life to dance and earn a place with Northern Ballet.
The Highworth-born ballerina’s childhood dream became reality eight years ago when she joined the acclaimed company. Last year, her dance journey came full circle as she was cast as young Kathy in Northern Ballet’s Wuthering Heights.
“Wuthering Heights triggered something in my heart,” says the 28-year-old junior soloist. “It was the first ballet from Northern Ballet I had seen. When I first came to the company I was in awe – these were the people I had been watching on stage since I was 13. It was such a privilege.
“I count myself extremely lucky that I am where I am. There are not many jobs in the world for ballet.” (Marian Sauvebois)

Jezebel and hating 2015 already:

I returned to school for the spring semester and enrolled in a class on modernist literature and narrative theory. Some of my favorite novels—The Age of Innocence, Wuthering Heights—gave me a sense of how hatred can weight, even productively, the larger narrative context of a life. But I have never been as meek and penitent as I have often tried to be. I knew that self-loathing was not the weapon that would excise my hate. I wondered, sometimes, if I would one day get free of this old and tired plot line. I asked myself if I would ever be so bold as to assert the right to see from my eyes only, to deem myself still deserving of love and empathy merely because I said so. (Rachel Vorona Cote)

The Times-Union superquiz contains a Brontë-related question:

8. "Oh, Cathy! Oh, my life! How can I bear it?"

Cosmopolitan on one of the many parodies of Adele's Hello video:

In the video, a man in the middle of a work meeting gets interrupted by a call from his ex, Adele. Uh-oh. He tries to put her into voicemail, but Adele is pretty persistent when she's pouring out her heart for you. "I don't understand why she didn't send an email at 3 a.m. like a normal person?" he wonders. Because drunk 3 a.m. emails to exes are this generation's Wuthering Heights. (Rebecca Rose)

Please journalists out there, don't use google images as the only source to look for images of the Brontë sisters... like Roboraptor (Hungary) does. Vampire Bookclub reviews the upcoming Worlds of Ink and Shadow by Lena Coakley. The Sisters' Room (in Italian) reviews the new edition of Giorgina Sonnino's Tre Anime Luminose Fra le Nebbie Nordiche.