A woman’s view of her own times

Expressen (Sweden) reviews Anna Azcárate's Jane Eyre in Malmö.

I Intimans version försöker man kompromissa. Scenerna hastas igenom i stället för att utvecklas, känslostämningar hinner inte etableras. Bäst är dialogerna mellan en förträffligt glåmig Jane Eyre (Natalie Sundelin) och hennes uppdragsgivare och senare älskare mr Rochester (Joakim Gräns). Där får allvaret finnas kvar och mot slutet, då allt elände trots allt löser sig till det bästa, blir jag berörd på riktigt. [...]
I andra stycken känns det som om man är rädd för det melankoliska, för att publiken inte ska orka med den lågmälda seriositet som "Jane Eyre" till stor del utgörs av. Där man hade kunnat ge sig hän åt svärtan, tar man till humorn som grepp.
Det fungerar inte alls och är dessutom inte konsekvent. Delar av framför allt första akten utmynnar i något som mest hade passat ett studentspex. I andra akten är det i stället främst det ålderdomliga språket som förvandlas till ofrivillig komik. Vill man modernisera berättelsen, hade det varit bättre att arbeta med replikerna, än att ta till onödig buskis. (Sara Berg) (Translation)

The Oregonian has Ariel Yang, library services supervisor, recommend some books and one of them is

Recommended Adult Title: Yang recommends "Nelly Dean: A Return to Wuthering Heights," by Alison Case. This year marks the 200th anniversary of author Charlotte Bronte's birth, and readers will find several new works of fiction and nonfiction coming out this year to celebrate the family's legacy. "Nelly Dean is a gripping piece of literature that tells the story of 'Wuthering Heights' through the eyes of the Earnshaw family's youngest servant," Yang writes. (Samantha Swindler)

The American Scholar publishes an interview with the author of the novel:

Usually these modern books focus on minor characters who rarely speak in the originals—like Antoinette Cosway, Jean Rhys’s take on the madwoman in the attic. But in Wuthering Heights, Nelly Dean narrates a huge chunk of the novel, and in Nelly Dean, she’s our narrator from page one. Why did you focus on Nelly Dean and not, say, Zillah, another maid in the house?
Well, Zillah is awful, isn’t she? Who would want to spend time in her mind? But seriously, in teaching and writing about the novel, I found myself becoming more and more interested in Nelly. I was struck by how ready readers—like other characters in the novel—were to blame her whenever anything goes wrong, even though she often seems to be doing her best for people who, frankly, don’t treat her very well. There’s actually a whole strain of criticism that sees her as the villain of the story, which just seemed so unfair to me. After my daughter was born, it dawned on me how traumatic it must have been for Nelly to be forced to leave four-year-old Hareton, whom she has mothered since birth, alone with his crazy alcoholic father, so she can follow Cathy to Thrushcross Grange. It startled me that I had never noticed this before, and that neither had my students or, as far as I knew, other critics. From that point on, interest became obsession, and I realized I had to tell her story.
Why do you think readers are so willing to blame Nelly for what goes wrong in the novel?
It’s so hard to find a stable and enduring moral center in Wuthering Heights that there is a huge temptation to find a single figure of approval or disapproval. So you get what I call the Vindicate Heathcliff school of readings, the Blame Cathy school, and, of course, the Blame Nelly school. And there’s that handy moment in Wuthering Heights where she actually does blame herself for everything, so they jump on that as a confession of guilt. But I’ve also noticed a certain tendency for readers to have exaggerated expectations of loyalty and obedience from servants—to see any sign of independent thought or action as reprehensible insubordination. You’d think we would know better, but apparently not. (Stephanie Bastek) (Read more)

The Telegraph makes the case for Erica Jong's 1973 novel Fear of Flying and its dramatisation for Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour next week.

No official watershed demarcates hours when f--- and other swear words can be used. It remains a matter for the ultimate judgment of controllers. Since the turn of the new century, DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover and James Joyce’s Ulysses have been on Radio 4. But, I hear you say, they are classics. Why do this book and those words deserve to be on the air?
Because, I would argue, Jong’s novel is as much a classic as Lawrence’s. It’s certainly a better read, as vital a picture of a woman’s view of her own times as that of Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre, the Woman’s Hour serial the week after next. (Gillian Reynolds)

Madeleine Potter mentions her part in Polly Teale's play After Mrs Rochester on DC Theatre Scene.

After Mrs Rochester was a devised piece, shepherded by director Polly Teale, inspired by Wide Sargasso Sea, the Jean Rhys novel which itself is a prequel to Jane Eyre. “It was a brilliant conceit, to tell the story of the writer. I played Jean when young and Diana Quick played her in older life, while Mrs Rochester is always on stage, so there is a triumvirate of the three; everybody else played multiple parts. Mrs Rochester is an alter ego to Rhys. It’s a memory play that metaphorically covered wide expanses of time, and the experiences of these women, and that extraordinary book, a truly great novel. It was an unforgettable experience.”
After a regional tour, the piece came to London and transferred to the West End. “It wasn’t at all obvious that it would do well on the West End, whatever that means, because, of course, the truth is that you never know. But Sonia Friedman [the producer renowned in this country for bringing British productions over to Broadway] saw it and thought it would do well on the West End, and we had an extraordinary run. People still come up to me on the street and tell me how much they loved it.” (Christopher Henley)

This is how RunRun (Spain) describes the current situation in Venezuela:

Son tiempos ambiguos, tormentosos, difusos. Como lo sugiere la novela, Cumbres Borrascosas (Wuthering Heights) de Emily Brontë (1847). Venezuela ha entrado en una espiral de caos y anomia que pareciera sucumbir. Pero el país no es una novela ni sus ciudadanos somos tordos de un solo vuelo (con el perdón de Orwell y su “Rebelión en la granja”). (Orlando Viera Blanco) (Translation)

Sohu (China) describes the Libra sign as follows:

　　As the Sign of Marriage and Partnership, Libra will be a big fan of the romance genre when it comes to both books and movies. Gone With Wind and Wuthering Heights rank among your favorites. In fact, searching the shelves for anything by the Brontë sisters should make your decision simple. (每日英语)

The Brontë Parsonage Facebook page reports that Miss Ellen Nussey visited the parsonage yesterday and shares some pictures. Culture Shock discusses if Jane Eyre is timeless or antiquated. By the way, this reddit thread is discussing the novel.