FOMO Brontë Bicentenary

The 43rd Ilkley Literature Festival (September 30-October 16) is discussed in the Yorkshire Post:

To mark the 200th anniversary of her birth, Charlotte Brontë is celebrated throughout the festival with a whole series of talks, workshops and even a guided walk exploring her life and work. “We have two different strands,” explains Feldberg. “Beyond Jane Eyre which is about different aspects of and perspectives on Charlotte’s work and her life. That includes the guided reading group which this this year is Villette. We have a walk around Ilkley that looks at the buildings that Charlotte would have seen when she came to visit the town. There is an event about Charlotte Brontë and slavery in the Caribbean. She was born nine years after the abolition of the slave trade act (1807) and she was 17 years old when it was abolished – and it was a hot topic in Yorkshire at the time – partly because of William Wilberforce’s involvement. And it is interesting how her novels touch on these issues. Then we have another strand which is completely different called Charlotte Brontë’s Festival which is really inspired by what an interesting and complex and multi-faceted person she was. Given what we know about her interests through her letters and her early childhood writings, if she lived in the 21st century what would she be interested in?” (Yvette Huddleston)

LiteraryHub publishes an excerpt from Riverine by Angela Palm:

A look at the miniature view cut by a window: Catherine looking out at the moors in Wuthering Heights, fretting from inside, and Anne Carson’s parallel vista while staying at her mother’s house in “The Glass Essay.” These are little landscapes of loss and stagnation, the women confined within the walls of their respective homes. The distance, those moors that swallowed their respective men, swells outside the window.

Elle Magazine interviews the actress Kristen Stewart:

She's 26, the same age as my younger cousin (to whom I'm very close), and I find myself slipping into the same role I have with her: protective yet practical, keen to make things comfortable for someone who is slightly less socially confident than me. She won't do up her seatbelt, despite the car's incessant beeping and in the end I tell her to buckle up for goodness sake, and she does. I feel instinctively that I want to keep her safe. There's a withered red rose on the dashboard and I have a hunch who it's from (stay tuned). The fact that she keeps it there makes me think my instincts might be right – she's one of those people who cares so acutely they're forever teetering on the edge of suffering. But then, as Anne Brontë wrote, 'who dares not grasp the thorn, should never crave the rose.' (Lotte Jeffs)

Tablet reviews The Sacred Combe by Thomas Maloney:

It’s a familiar scenario. The protagonist, after some definitive break with the past, finds him- or herself at a mysterious mansion, often the ancient seat of a decaying family. They infiltrate and either heal, in the optimistic version, or are themselves dragged down; in either case they transform along the way. Rebecca, Bleak House and Jane Eyre are obvious examples, along with Brideshead Revisited and The Woman in Black. In children’s literature the genre encompasses the Harry Potter and Narnia series, The Secret Garden and Elizabeth Goudge’s magical The Little White Horse. (Suzi Feay)

Los Angeles Times reviews Jung Young Moon's Vaseline Buddha:

There are novels that try to transport you, that in the words of Neil Gaiman act as “a dream that you hold in your hand.” If the dream succeeds, you forget the physical book you are holding and travel to Tralfamadore, Wuthering Heights, Wonderland, wherever; you live life through the eyes of the characters, become other than you are. (Tyler Malone)

Verily Magazine on getting over FOMO as an introvert:

Realizing that it’s not wrong, embarrassing, or—heaven forbid—nerdy to value my alone time revolutionized my outlook on life. I mostly credit this to reading Quiet (a must-read for all introverts), but also to identifying with the strong-willed but bookish, soft-spoken characters in novels like A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Fahrenheit 451, and Jane Eyre. We introverts love people, but we know that we cannot show them the love they deserve when we’re too burned out from spending time with them. (Madeline Fry)

The Belfast Times talks about the actress, now novelist, Talulah Riley:

In a lot of romance literature, the male characters have characteristics which would be considered quite misogynistic, like Jane Eyre's Mr Rochester's Riley says. "Yet those guys are considered really attractive to women. (Hannah Stephenson)

La Prensa (México) has an article about the writer Sonia Ehlers:

La escritora mexicana residente en Panamá cree que hay más amor que odio en su novela. “Te puedo decir que soy amante del realismo de Camus, de los diálogos de Heminghway (sic), del romanticismo de Jane Austen, de los mundos paralelos de Virginia Wolf y las hermanas Brontë. Los vicios de algunos escritores también forman parte de los protagonistas de esta novela”, argumenta. (Fanny D. Arias Ch.) (Translation)

Ahora (Spain) reviews a recent bilingual republishing of the complete poetry of Emily Dickinson:

En los prólogos de la edición que nos ocupa, José Luis Rey soslaya la “leyenda, cierta, de su vida aislada, de la bella de Amherst”, para atender a su clasificación dentro de la tradición a la que pertenece: “hija del padre de aquella literatura, Ralph Waldo Emerson”, “admiradora de las Brontë”, “influencias fundamentales de la Biblia y Shakespeare”, “poeta de lo trascendental”.  (Natalia Carrero) (Translation)

Cromos (Colombia) announces a film series on TV channel Studio Universal:

Se inicia con el estreno de “Jane Ayre”(sic), la historia de una joven institutriz que huye de su empleo en Thornfiel House debido al amor que siente por su jefe, Edward Rochester, y el pasado que éste oculta. La joven, que fue criada en un orfanato, reflexiona sobre su juventud y los acontecimientos que la llevaron al neblinoso páramo donde trabajaba, así de decide regresar. El film es una exquisita adaptación de la novela de Charlotte Brontë y lo protagonizan Mia Wasikowska y Michael Fassbender. (Translation)

SoloLibri (Italy) reviews George Eliot's Silas Marner:

Non per questo gli autori hanno fallito nel descrivere personaggi di spessore umano significativo, basti pensare a Heathcliffe (sic) di “Cime Tempestose” o all’eroina “Jane Eyre”. (Claudia Graziani) (Translation)

Últimas Noticias (Venezuela) interviews the screenwriter Fernando Azpúrua

-¿Y qué pasó con el cine y la televisión?
– Ahorita acabo de terminar de escribir una mini serie junto a César Sierra para IdeasVIP. Es una versión de cinco capítulos de la novela “Cumbres Borrascosas” que estrenará muy pronto en las pantallas de los venezolanos. Ha sido un proyecto que me ha enseñado muchísimo y definitivamente otra forma de acercarse a la ficción. (Translation)

Wuz (Italy) talks about the Italian translation of Lyndall Gordon's Charlotte Brontë. A Passionate Life. Once Upon a Book Star posts about Jane Eyre.