A must read

The London Review of Books has an excellent article on the Brontës by editor Alice Spawls. If you just read one article today, then let it be this one.

A wood engraving by the illustrator Joan Hassall, who died in 1988, shows Elizabeth Gaskell arriving at the Brontë parsonage. Patrick Brontë is taking Gaskell’s hand; Charlotte stands between them, arms open in a gesture of introduction. We – the spectators, whose gaze Charlotte seems to acknowledge (or is she looking at her father apprehensively?) – stand in the doorway; the participants are frame
d in the hallway arch, with the curved wooden staircase behind them. On the half-landing is the grandfather clock Patrick used to wind up at 9 o’clock every night on his way to bed (so Charlotte’s friend Ellen Nussey remembered), though the original grandfather clock was sold in 1861 after Patrick’s death, and in any case stood in an alcove, as its replacement does now, and couldn’t be seen from the front door. Gaskell first visited Haworth in September 1853 – she described it in two letters to friends, one of which she reproduced in her Life of Charlotte Brontë, and Charlotte and Gaskell discussed the arrangements in the letters they exchanged. ‘Come to Haworth as soon as you can,’ Charlotte wrote on 31 August, ‘the heath is in bloom now; I have waited and watched for its purple signal as the forerunner of your coming.’ In the event a thunderstorm before Gaskell’s arrival ruined the heather’s glorious colour.​
Hassall compiled her scene from different sources: Patrick’s profile, with his distinctive high neckerchief (worn, we are told, because of his fear of bronchitis), was copied from a photograph taken late in his life, when all his children were dead and the family famous. Charlotte, looking younger than she would have been at the time (37) and prettier than she probably ever was (more on this later), is copied from George Richmond’s chalk drawing of 1850. Gaskell – the least distinctive of the three – is represented as much by her dress and slightly haughty stance as by her profile. She seems to be looking down at Patrick, though he’s a head taller. Hassall may have used the 1832 miniature by William Thomson of a 22-year-old Gaskell, or perhaps Richmond’s 1851 drawing (there isn’t as much difference between them as twenty years ought to make). She may have made Gaskell up altogether. The parsonage hall is accurately rendered; perhaps Hassall took it from life.
It’s not a particularly remarkable image, just the sort one comes across by accident, one of the many that illustrated the Brontës’ novels and books about them, as well as romances of famous lives, histories of great authors, worthies of the world and other forgotten compilations that conflated fact and fiction and made figures of the day into heroines and legends. There’s something unsettling about it, though, just as there is about a later image (artist unknown), which shows Charlotte at work on a manuscript while Patrick looks on benignly. Gaskell’s warm welcome is more convincing: there is no report of Patrick ever watching his daughters work; he retired to his study in the evenings. It is uncanny, when one knows the portraits and pictures, to see them separated from their originals and placed in new arrangements. What was done when we weren’t looking? They are ready for Woolf’s travesty of a biography, where ‘all the little figures – for they are rather under life size – will begin to move and speak, and we will arrange them in all sorts of patterns of which they were ignorant.’ (Read more)

The Slate Book Review features Alan Bennett's latest collection of diaries, Keeping On Keeping On and tells an anecdote we had heard before:

Bennett’s affection for his younger partner emerges clearly enough, though, if often at a wicked slant. He records Rupert turning toward him one evening as the credits roll on a television adaptation of Wuthering Heights:
R: ‘You’re rather like Heathcliff.’
Me (gratified): ‘Really?’
R: ‘Yeah. Difficult, Northern and a cunt.’ (Mark O'Connell)

InUth recommends the 2009 adaptation of Wuthering  Heights:

1) Wuthering Heights – Emily Bronte (1847)
Yes, they’ve already made a series on Emily Brontë’s dark love story (starring Tom Hardy, FYI) in 2009. But have you seen it? That would be a no, right? Precisely why the murky world of WH needs to come alive yet again – to reintroduce us to the ruthless and twisted love story of Heathcliff and Cathy. (Trinaa Prasad)

Il Dubbio (Italy) interviews actor Alessio Boni, who played Heathcliff in the 2004 Italian adaptation of the novel.

Dopo l’uscita di “La ragazza nella nebbia”, sembra che un certo cinema italiano si sia improvvisamente accorto di lei. C’è ancora un pregiudizio del cinema nei confronti della tv? Prima ce n’era molto di più. In effetti sembra che questo personaggio abbia risvegliato qualcosa. In questi ultimi anni mi sono arrivate proposte cinematografiche che non mi convincevano, allora a quel punto scelgo di fare Heathcliff di Cime tempestose in tv. Preferisco la serie True detective a centinaia di film che ho visto. (Chiara Nicoletti) (Translation)

Non Fiction (France) reviews the show Notre Carmen, based on Bizet's famous opera.

Au cours de cette scène, une vidéo d'un amateurisme assumé est projetée sur trois écrans : les personnages caressent un poney dans une campagne verdoyante qui pourrait se trouver dans l'Angleterre d'Emily Brontë. Cette projection confère à la scène un comique décalé, sans nuire à l'émotion offerte par le chant. L'équilibre fragile et subtil de ce beau moment est emblématique de l'art du collectif berlinois Hauen und Stechen, qui est invité pour la première fois en France : un art exigeant, qui mêle références savantes et populaires et sait faire rire sans renoncer à émouvoir. (Caroline Mounier-Vehier) (Translation)

Springfield News-Leader features what's new at the Christian County Library.

Need comic recommendations? Library staff are happy to help match readers with comics that fit their interests and reading levels. Comics can be a great way to get young reluctant readers interested in books, or to read a familiar story in a new way, like the manga version of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (Katy Pattison)

This is how writer Rodrigo Fresán describes Angela Carter in ABC (Spain):

Si se me pide una definición diré que Angela Carter es como una Karen Blixen/Isak Dinesen que se cayó en un burbujeante caldero con LSD hasta los bordes con Kate Bush como música de fondo. O una Brontë liviana de hermanas, independiente y trotamundos. En un mundo mejor y más justo, a Carter deberían volverse adictos los millones de jóvenes que se quedaron sin su dosis de Harry Potter o de vampirismo para escolares. (Translation)

Diary of a Bookfiend posts about Jane Eyre.