A Life Story, not a Love Story

The Sunday Times reviews the National Theatre Jane Eyre production which is back in London:

Reader, I loved it! The best thing about Sally Cookson’s energetic adaptation of Jane Eyre, revived at the National with a new cast, is that it doesn’t obsess over Mr Rochester. The charisma of the sexy bigamist — part Mr Darcy, part Christian Grey — has unbalanced some versions of Charlotte Brontë’s novel, distorting its nature. It’s a life story, not a love story. So, although the bristle-bearded Tim Delap broods splendidly, the night belongs to Nadia Clifford’s honest-to-a-fault Jane. The bits that hit hardest are early scenes in which she defies the cruelty of her aunt (Lynda Rooke), and late ones when she resists the cold courting of a missionary (Evelyn Miller). The real star, though, is the staging. In the boldest flourish, Melanie Marshall croons a chorus-commentary on the action. Numbers include Mad About the Boy and Gnarls Barkley’s Crazy. That they don’t seem out of place is testament to the punch this feminist parable still packs. (ThomasW. Hodgkinson)

Also in The Sunday Times a review of the novel Devil's Day by Michael Hurley:

Set within hailing distance of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights not only geographically but imaginatively, the novel spreads a welter of rawly vivid injury and violence through its pages. (Peter Kemp)

LaCrosse Tribune finds the Halloween 'spirit' in books:

My personal favorite is “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Brontë. Heathcliff and Cathy’s all-consuming, death-defying love is tragically romantic. The moors they love are eerie and mysterious. It is a wonderful, Gothic read. (Jourdan Vian)

Lettera 43 (in Italian) publishes a 'history of pseudonyms':

La discriminazione di genere. Da problemi di gusto e dichiarazioni di identità fino a prudenti scelte di marketing. Cominciamo dalle tre sorelle Brontë, nella prima metà dell'Ottocento. La più grande, Charlotte, pubblicò i suoi romanzi firmandosi con il nome maschile Currer Bell. Stessa strategia adottata da Emily e Anne, sorelle ma 'fratelli di penna' sotto i nomi fittizi di Ellis e Acton Bell. Il cambiamento di genere è motivato dal maggior prestigio associato ad una firma maschile. (Boris Stoinich) (Translation)

ABC (in Spanish) interviews the writer Aixa de la Cruz:

¿Cuáles son sus referentes? (Inés Martín Rodrigo)
Le he dado muchas vueltas a esta preguntay me he decantado por citar los libros que me hicieron querer escribir. «Cumbres borrascosas» de Emily Brontë, «Cosmos» de Witold Gombrowicz, «La insoportable levedad del ser» de Milan Kundera y «El extranjero» de Albert Camus están entre las lecturas que más me marcaron cuando aún no era escritora. (Translation)

Philip Hamlyn Williams, related to William Smith Williams, is writing a biography of him:

The book I am researching sets out to trace whence he came and whither he went to paint a picture of this incredibly creative time in our history which included the groundbreaking shift in the English novel that was Jane Eyre.

Jess Writes reviews Wuthering Heights;  Stone Movies Spree posts about the film Abismos de Pasión 1953.