Kazuo Ishiguro has won the Nobel for literature and, as
The Times shows, he's a Brontëite with a sense of humour.
Ishiguro, 62, who was born in Japan and moved to England aged five, agreed with the assessment of his influences, adding that Dostoevsky and Emily Brontë were also significant figures.
“How many passages have I stolen from Jane Eyre but nobody notices,” he said yesterday. He said that the call confirming his win was very “informal . . . they asked me if I was incredibly busy and would I be able to come to Stockholm. It was like they were inviting me to a dinner party”. (David Sanderson)
New Republic highlights where his influences can be seen in his novel
Never Let Me Go:
Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go has several different directions: It looks backward, forward, and sideways. The setting is Hailsham, an academy strongly flavored by the British and postcolonial tradition of boarding school literature (“We loved our sports pavilion”). The novel flits past the canon of “school stories” like Tom Brown’s Schooldays, circles the Victorian classics of schooling (Jane Eyre, David Copperfield), and eventually settles on the wistful pastoralism undercut by dread that defines certain novels of patrician childhood: The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie, The Go-Between. (Josephine Livingstone)
More Brontë influences on writers in a review of
Elmet by Fiona Mozley on
Varsity.
This novel possesses atmosphere in abundance. Characters seem to spring directly from their remote surroundings and Mozley combines rural austerity and human violence with a striking, Brontë-esque vitality. (Juliet Martin)
Mister Heathcliff’s Fortune, establishes how Heathcliff acquired his fortune during the three years he was gone from Wuthering Heights. Set in the New Orleans of the 1770’s it is told from the perspectives of two women, a black slave and a card player, both involved with Heathcliff. Lush and atmospheric prose sets the tone.
Southwark News reviews Sally Cookson's
Jane Eyre as seen at the National Theatre in London.
The use of two modern day songs jarred slightly in this captivating performance…if that’s all I’ve got to complain about in three hours of theatre it’s good going! It was magical, forceful, with a well deserved standing ovation which all the cast were worthy of in this tight and unique production of Jane Eyre. Oh, and not many dry eyes on the way out!! (Including mine!)
This production really made me think of Jane’s character and the strength within her and the author rather than that of the love story – Jane Eyre really is a modern heroine who refuses to be controlled and constrained. (Susan Hallissey)
After a delayed start, we were introduced to what promised to be a dark musical phantasia. Sadly, this was not to be, as the production’s first act was then plagued by a series of technical mishaps. The pre-recorded music was blasted into the auditorium; the actors’ microphones cut out mid-speech (leaving the stage empty while these problems were resolved); backdrops came into collision with the props department; and too much smoke caused coughing fits and often obscured the action on stage.
Similarly, the narrative was not enhanced by its structure, which attempts to tell the story in a linear way and thus is nearly 3 hours long (including intermission). The first act worked well enough, technical mishaps aside. As we rolled into the second act, we seemed to be heading for a punchy conclusion. However, just as the play should have reached its denouement, we were introduced to a slew of new characters we were supposed to identify with. This may be true to the structure of the novel, but for a theatrical audience who had already had their patience tested, I’m afraid this was a bridge too far.
Perhaps the most potent argument against telling the story in the musical form is that most of the songs didn’t seem to add anything to narrative; merely repeating spoken dialogue, but with added embellishments. As such, they neither advanced the plot nor told us anything new about the characters. As the backdrops indicate, however, this is Jane Eyre as Walt Disney might have imagined it.
However, once the rolling fog had cleared from the moors, we were left with a good-natured cast who exuded positive energy and admirable dedication. As the younger Jane, Lauren Brindle had a beautifully clear vocal quality. Her relationship with Helen (Georgia Chadwick), Jane’s doomed childhood friend, was the most enchanting of the show. Chadwick herself bring an almost angelic clarity and softness for such a young performer; and Janet Cowley multi-roles between characters with style and dexterity. Although miscast as Mr Rochester, David Thomas gives a suitably powerful vocal performance that keeps the show on the road.
Frankly, the play would have done better to abandon the smoke, the microphones, and the Christmas panto set-design, and to simply focus on letting the actors bring the story to life. For it is the cast who hold the show together, and the clear love for musical theatre on display here helps win the audience over. As an example of musical theatre, then, Jane Eyre has a lot of heart, but unfortunately suffers from an identity crisis. (Amanda Hodgson)
I’m a gushy fangirl who fell in love with Mr. Rochester in the pages of Jane Eyre when I was in the fourth grade, so of course I would love Victoria.
Julia (Clare Higgins) isn’t plagued by hedonism, but she is beset by guiltless thoughts of her years prior affair with her husband’s brother, Frank. When Frank is given the means for rebirth through his brother’s blood spilling on the floor where he spilled his semen, he returns a monster- a man sized fetus developing in a womb of stale domestic air. Yet, Julia doesn’t perceive him as such, instead fancying herself in a kind of Gothic romance with Frank as her Heathcliff who will be hers in time. This blend of terror and romance, forms the very bones of the horror genre, and speaks to its inherent sublime nature. (Richard Newby)
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