The bench and the library

A tragic death, a bench, a storm and an unexpected return. A story (almost) larger than life in The Guardian:

In hindsight, Emily guessed that something was up with Archie. After Christmas, we drove to Shropshire for a break and stopped on the way at Archie’s grave in a Worcestershire church. Emily was dismayed to find the headstone mottled and the inscription barely legible. It includes lines from an Emily Brontë poem – “No coward soul is mine / No trembler in the world’s storm-troubled sphere.” On 29 December, these very words were movingly recited in the BBC’s Brontë drama To Walk Invisible. On the last day of the year, Archie’s bench beached at Saunton.
“He’s sending a message,” said Emily when we heard. “He’s saying, ‘Don’t forget about me.’” (Jasper Rees)

The future of the South Square Gallery in Thornton in The Telegraph & Argus:

They are now looking at starting a community asset transfer, which would allow them to take on the lease of the building from the council, giving them more control and independence. And they also hope the move cold see the building expand into an even bigger attraction for Thornton, famous as being the birthplace of the Brontë sisters.
A meeting has been arranged for early next month for anyone who wants to get involved in South Square.
The main gallery features varied exhibitions, with the most recent ranging from art looking at the life of the Brontës, artistic expressions of the gender pay gap and the current exhibition of neon nude images by artist Romily Alice. (Chris  Young)

Oregon Artswatch and others) announce that

Bag&Baggage had already shifted its production of Polly Neale’s Brontë, which begins previews March 4, to the Hillsboro Public Library’s Brockwood Branch [as]  the Venetian wouldn’t be available for performances. (Bob Hicks)

Not a bad change according to the Hillsboro Tribune:

"Not only is this a play that has a stellar reputation for creativity and expressiveness, it is also a play written by a woman about women writers," said B&B Founding Artistic Director Scott Palmer. "B&B is committed to making sure that women artists, writers and literary figures have a central role in our all of our work, and 'Brontë' is a great example of that commitment." (...)
"To be able to play intimate moments with our audience sitting right next to us, will be incredibly powerful," said B&B Resident Actor Jessi Walters, who plays Anne. "It has given me a whole new wave of excitement for our forever home, where we will be able to tailor our environment to the creative needs of our shows." (...)
"Could there be any better place than a library to perform a play about the lives of the Brontës? No space I have ever worked in before has informed my performance so much," said B&B associate artist Joey Copsey, who plays Branwell. (Michael Spoles)

Stephen Moss in The Guardian reviews The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick Maker: The Story of Britain Through Its Census by Roger Hutchinson finding that:

The real problem of Hutchinson’s book lies in the subtitle – “The story of Britain through its census”. There is quite a bit of overfamiliar padding on the Irish civil war, the first and second world wars, the great depression. Some of it is relevant to the census – the Irish civil war meant newly divided Ireland didn’t get its 1920s census until 1926 and the second world war meant no census at all was taken in the 1940s. But do we really need chunks of Yeats, reminiscences of life after the first world war, or a lengthy extract from Charlotte Brontë on the Great Exhibition of 1851?

Come on, quoting Charlotte is never a problem.

Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today quotes again the (in)famous words of Charlotte Brontë about Jane Austen:

Even so, the novel was not without its detractors; Charlotte Brontë described the novel as being “a carefully fenced, highly cultivated garden…but with no open country, no fresh air, no blue hill, no bonny beck” and in 1898 a deeply unimpressed Mark Twain would expound that “Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice’ I want to dig Jane Austen up and beat her over the skull with her own shin-bone.”

The New York Times has an elegy for the library:

In later years, I would sometimes go to a library in North London, a drab hulk of a building where I became friendly with one of the chattier librarians. Ms. R. was a middle-age woman with close-cropped hair and scarlet fingernails that flipped absently through the cards of her Rolodex. (...)
She once handed me a copy of “Wide Sargasso Sea,” while describing Jean Rhys’s bohemian life in Paris.
“Her book is much better than ‘Jane Eyre,’ ” she said. (Mahesh Rao)

Our Fifty Shades bit comes from the Odessa American:

And more so, why would anyone want to be with a man like Christian Grey? He is brooding, manipulative and evil. He is often characterized as a modern day Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. At least Heathcliff loved Catherine. In this film, Grey cannot even seem to hold a conversation with his own girlfriend. (Avery McWilliams)

Guangdong Yangcheng Evening News (China) reviews the To Walk Invisible DVD.

El Periódico de Catalunya (Spain) talks about Carson McCullers birth centenary:

Carson McCullers jamás se preocupó por caerle bien a la gente porque ya bastante tenía con llevar adelante una vida de escritura en las más difíciles condiciones. Tanto físicas como anímicas. Físicamente, peleó contra la invalidez sin que su obra, tan apasionada y enloquecida como la de Emily Bronte en 'Cumbres borrascosas', desfalleciera ni un momento en una fácil compasión por sí misma. (Elena Hevia) (Translation)

El País (Spain) has visited the Emily Dickinson exhibition at the Morgan Library in New York.

Se alimentaba de Shakespeare, de las hermanas Brontë, de Dickens, de George Eliot, de Elizabeth Barrett Browning.
En la Morgan Library miro los ejemplares que tocaron sus manos: la Biblia que le regaló su padre cuando era niña; las novelas y los poemas de las Brontë y de Barrett Browning, mujeres valientes que publicaban, hacían vidas activas, se ganaban contra viento y marea una celebridad que ella nunca tuvo y no quiso para sí, o al menos no hizo nada por lograrla. (Antonio Muñoz Molina) (Translation)

La Nueva España (Spain) questions the use of Wuthering Heights as a Valentine's day book and particularly Heathcliff as a romantic figure:

Se sigue recomendando la archiconocida “Cumbres Borrascosas” de Emily Brontë como referente delamor romántico y pasional. Y me sigue sorprendiendo. Tengo la impresión de que el tiempo ha borrado de esta historia lo que pudiera ser su verdadero mensaje, ha limpiado el trasfondo de sordidez de una relación que también puede verse como enfermiza, y ha dejado incólumes a los dos enamorados, Catherine y Heathcliff, como imagen ideal del amor atormentado más allá de la muerte.
He visto a muchas mujeres lanzar suspiros idealizando al protagonista, Heathcliff, por su intensa pasión. Y lo que yo he leído en las palabras de Emily Brontë es la descripción de un ser violento y cruel de principio a fin: el retrato de un maltratador. Alguien que podría ser atractivo para cualquier mujer, pero extremadamente peligroso. (María José Barroso Crespo) (Translation)

Letras Libres (México) interviews the writer Mariana Enríquez:

En una entrevista, comentabas que tú lees Cumbres borrascosas como una novela de terror. ¿El terror es un género o una forma de leer? (Anna María Iglesia)
Es una forma de leer: el terror tiene que ver con la emoción y con una relación física con la literatura y, por tanto, creo que hay terror en muchos textos que no están catalogados dentro de este género. Por otro lado, obviamente existe el género del terror, que está muy codificado, que tiene representantes muy evidentes y ya clásicos y que se sigue haciendo ahora, desde una perspectiva pulp o gore. Sin embargo, el terror está más allá del género: para mí, Carretera perdida de David Lynch es una película de terror, porque me da miedo al plantear una ciudad fantasmal donde se borra el límite entre la ficción y la realidad. Lo mismo me sucede con Cumbres borrascosas, que tiene un personaje casi demoníaco. (Translation)

Bustle recommends a Jane Eyre quote for next Monday's Not My President march. Bahnreads sorts Jane Eyre characters as members of Hogwarts houses. El Blog de Sara Lectora (in Spanish) reviews Jane Eyre.