The megaphone and Wuthering Heights in your pillow

More articles on the Lily Cole affair, but nothing really new to show. The New York Times makes a very assertive article:

The clash may seem, to paraphrase another literary giant, much ado about not much. But in an era when women the world over have broken through the walls of silence surrounding forms of patriarchal abuse, the row became a trending topic on social media. The issue was skating on the edges of an infuriating male habit to control what women say and do, some commenters said.
Mr. Holland’s post set off sharp reactions online, overwhelmingly in Ms. Cole’s favor. While he received some support for his post, many critics dismissed his comments as sexist and snobbish, noting that Ms. Cole had helped save a London bookshop and graduated from Cambridge. Others rejected his arguments with pithy obscenities. (...)
Moreover, said Helen Small, a professor of English literature at Oxford, making assumptions about how Emily Brontë would have reacted was a stretch: Brontë is regarded as one of the most enigmatic figures in literary history because of the absence of a confessional narrative in her work.
“You can’t place her within the same contexts that other people operate,” Ms. Small said by phone on Friday. “There is so little evidence for what she thought — using her in this way is irrelevant.” (...)
In an email on Friday, Mr. Holland said he had been “taken aback” by the reaction to his post, and that he had been the subject of “bullying” online.
“I hate bigotry of all kinds and have fought against it all my life,” he wrote, “and now some accuse me of turning against Lily Cole simply because of her gender — a bizarre allegation as my heroes the Brontë sisters were women.”
“In light of the unwanted attention and abuse I’ve had online, I won’t be giving any more interviews,” he said, adding, “You understand.” (Yonette Joseph & Iliana Magra)

Exactly the opposite that W Magazine which is a perfect example of a journalist with not a clue of what it is talking about (not even the title is right!):

 Former Model Lily Cole vs. the Brontë Society Is Already 2018's Best Feud (...)
"If you don’t know Lily Cole, and you’d be in the majority, she is described as ‘a model and social entrepreneur’ (whatever that is)," begins the screed that, just a few days into 2018—also marking the 200th anniversary of Elizabeth (!!!!!!!!) Brontë's birth—just might end up being the most delightfully petty drama of the year. (Stephanie Eckardt)

  The Bookseller quotes several reactions on social networks:

Brontë scholar Samantha Ellis, who previously branded Holland's critique of the society's choice as "tedious killjoy carping", told The Guardian that she thought Cole's selection was "a brilliant idea" and suggested that there is a "whiff of misogyny" involved in the controversy.
"With Tracey [Chevalier], Simon [Armitage] and now Lily, this move has been absolutely fantastic and brought loads more people to the Brontës and the parsonage. The Brontës were passionate, and that’s why people care so much about them. Lily’s clearly passionate about the arts and I don’t see why she wouldn’t be a good advocate. I do think there is a whiff of misogyny about some of the statements made about Lily on Twitter and beyond. People must remember that the Brontës themselves were young women – I think it is interesting that the society chose a young woman.”
Writer Rowan Coleman tweeted: “Call me old fashioned but surely attracting a younger audience to the genius of the Brontës is a positive thing? Next generation to guard the legacy! P.S I think Emily would have put [on] her thunder and longing dress and been delighted!
Journalist Donna Ferguson said: “I interviewed @lilycole last year - she was kind, articulate, funny and possibly the cleverest person I’ve ever met. The Bronte Society will only benefit from her membership & are lucky to have her - anyone who thinks otherwise has definitely never met her."
Meanwhile, writer Juno Dawson tweeted: "Yeah what a terrible role model Cambridge graduate, humanitarian activist Lily Cole is. The Brontës would be turning in their graves. God I *loathe* snobbery. (Natasha Onwuezemi)

iNews makes some interesting points:

 A writer might have been the judicious choice but then again, the mere fact of being a writer doesn’t make one a Brontë expert. The last President of the Society was Judi Dench, an actress. Cole is young, interesting, a well-known cultural figure and may well open up the Brontës to a new audience, which is surely the key to the Brontë Society’s survival. And that is what looks to be at stake here; the Brontës will almost certainly live on, with or without more or less academic ambassadors. (...)
As of this summer, the Brontë Society is also one of the Arts Council’s National Portfolio Organisations, which means it will receive funding of £930,000 over the next four years. It is time it pulled itself together otherwise it might be seen – to borrow a phrase – to be putting in-fighting over the Brontë sisters themselves. (Alice Jones)

New Statesman makes a case for Lily Cole:

In her considered response, it’s evident that the Brontë Society has gained an intelligent and thoughtful role model, who may well go on to introduce a whole generation of young girls to the sisters’ works. And, in doing so, they have also seem to have shed one of their more bigoted members. It’s hard to imagine Emily arguing with that. (Indra Warnes)

Like Bustle:

 The decision to name Cole to the role prompted the resignation of The Real Guy Fawkes author Nick Holland, who wrote that Cole's appointment was "a rank farce." Now, Lily Cole has clapped back at Holland and other detractors, and feminist book-lovers everywhere are here for it.
Let's get one thing out of the way, right away: For a grown man and self-professed lover of women writers to pen a roiling screed that maligns Cole's supposed lack of acting ability, in the same breath as it bemoans the fact that her acting credits are unrelated to her fitness as creative partner, is the only bit of buffoonery at work here.
Holland asks, "What would Emily Brontë think if she found that the role of chief 'artist' and organiser in her celebratory year was a supermodel?" — as if being a supermodel somehow prevents a person from loving literature. He goes on to say that "[w]e all know the answer to that [question], and anyone who doesn’t isn’t fit to make the decision or have any role in the governance of the Brontë Society." Clearly, the only person fit to make such decisions, in Holland's mind, is Nick Holland himself. Now that the Brontë Society has made a decision he does not agree with, he's decided to take his proverbial ball and go home, all the while announcing his departure on a megaphone. (Kristian Wilson)

Even politicians cannot help themselves and have to step in. The Telegraph & Argus;

But speaking in support of Cole, Councillor Rebecca Poulsen (Con, Worth Valley) said: “I cannot get over the furore that this has caused and from what I can see, it is only from one person.
“While Mr Holland is entitled to his opinion, does he mean that only writers should read about the Brontës? Miss Cole appears to be very passionate about the subject and is likely to bring the Brontës to a new generation in a different way. (Vivien Mason)

BBC Look North runs a short piece on the subject (4 min 20 s into the show).

More on STV, Elle, The Irish News, Press Association, Digital Spy, The Week, Kokomo Perspective, Daily Mail, Daily Echo, Metro, Boing Boing, Celebretainment, Female First, Aliron, Yorkshire Post, The Times ...

Claire Harman publishes in The Guardian a brief, lukewarm, review of Samantha Ellis's Take Courage:

Playwright and journalist Samantha Ellis is the latest to promote Anne’s excellence. As with her last book, How to Be a Heroine, Ellis weaves her thoughts on literature into a personal narrative, this time taking stock of her life and achievements at 40 as she edges towards emotional commitment and marriage. “If ... I can arrive at any kind of truth about Anne, what will I learn?” Ellis mines the poems, two novels and five surviving letters for clues, and finds a woman of penetrating intelligence and courage. But being a fierce partisan makes Ellis an unreliable guide. She chooses to downplay severely one of Anne’s most significant attributes – her piety – and adopts an astonishingly negative view of Charlotte.

The Audleys Wood Hotel in Basingstoke, Hampshire is our kind of hotel. Great initiative as read in the Romsey Advertiser:

A Basingstoke hotel is marking 200 years since the birth of Emily Brontë with her literary classic Wuthering Heights being given away as part of a new winter leisure break.
Audleys Wood Hotel, part of Hand Picked Hotels, has launched a Novel Winter Escape designed to encourage guests to cherish the classic novels of British literature and spend their quality leisure time curled up with a good book instead of their smartphone.
The country house hotel group has created bespoke copies of the iconic novel from Brontë, born in 1818, for guests to find on their pillow when checking in to Audleys Wood on a Novel Winter Escape. (Dan Whiteway)

Lucy Hughes-Hallett chooses Villette in her list of best gardens in literature in The Wall Street Journal:

Villette
By Charlotte Brontë (1853)
1. At the turning point of Charlotte Brontë’s other masterpiece (less loved but, in my opinion, greater than “Jane Eyre”), Lucy Snowe buries a bundle of love letters in a garden hemmed in by the buildings of the Belgian girls’ school where she teaches. The garden is a place of repression, haunted by the ghost of a medieval nun who, according to legend, was buried alive there for breaking rules containing female sexuality. But it is also an erotic space. The bolder girls have assignations there, and Lucy watches yearningly as her fellow-teacher M. Paul strolls along its alleyways smoking a suggestive cigar. Madame Beck, the proprietor—with her “shoes of silence” and “face of stone”—is always on the watch. At times, Lucy imagines that even the flowers are staring at her. In happier stories, things planted return to light as green shoots. In “Villette,” after planting her letters, Lucy dreams “strangely of disturbed earth, and of hair, still golden and living, obtruded through coffin-chinks.”

Truthdig reviews A Secret Sisterhood by  Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney

"You are very ugly,” were Mary Taylor’s first words to Charlotte Brontë when they met at boarding school—hardly an auspicious start to a friendship. Taylor, who was from a radical family of nonconformists, also disparaged Brontë’s conservative views. But eventually the two became close, and, as young women, shared both their writing and their determined aspiration for publication. But, the authors assert, their friendship has long been overshadowed by the “well-worn image” of the trio of Brontë sisters. In 1844, after the two had traded manuscripts and shared joys and disappointments for many years, Taylor immigrated to New Zealand. It was, Brontë wrote, as if “a great planet” had fallen from the sky. (Elaine Elinson)

The New York Times talks about malt shop novels:

In seventh-grade English class we were required to keep lists of the books we read for pleasure, with brief reviews — an adjective or two — then post them on a wall by the door. I was a bookworm, and eager to please. I quickly notched “Gone With the Wind” (“great”), “Jane Eyre” (“so good”), and “Wild December,” a fictionalized account of the Brontës (“really interesting”). (Joanne Kaufman)

And, in the same newspaper, a review of Yiza by Michael Kölhmeier:

Like many tragedies and fairy tales (“Oedipus Rex,” “Jane Eyre,” “Hansel and Gretel”), Köhlmeier’s dark gem of a story takes its English title from its protagonist, Yiza, a 6-year-old girl who escapes with two older boys from a home for migrant children. (Lisa Russ Spaar)

Ara (in Catalan) reviews Cartes completes (1960-1983) de Mercè Rodoreda and Joan Sales:

Sense renunciar a la profunditat de pensament ni a la seducció de l’estil, l’ingredient indispensable d’una novel·la és que sigui llegible, que tingui nervi narratiu. Tot i la seva complexitat (beneïda complexitat), Tolstoi, Austen, Dickens, G. Eliot, Proust o les Brontë inciten a una lectura apassionada, sense intermediaris. Sales aprecia les qualitats més subtils de La plaça del Diamant, però la seva fe en el llibre se sustenta en l’atractiu de la lectura.  (Gonzalo Torné) (Translation)

Financial Times describes Wuthering Heights 2011 as an 'austere reworking'. An alert for Italian readers, tonight at 21.20h on RAI Premium, Cime Tempestose 2004 will be aired.