Misreading Heathcliff

BBC Radio 4's Front Row asked for your favourite female-created works of art:

Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush
Emily Brontë's novel Wuthering Heights inspired 18-year-old Bush to write this song, which she fought to convince producers to use as her debut single. Turns out she was right, as the track catapulted her to fame and is now ranked as one of the top singles of all time. 

IAI wonders why we fall in love with fictional characters:

No more do readers typically offer monogamy; if Emily Brontë's Catherine Earnshaw is one soulmate, Bulgakov’s Margarita may be another, and no exclusivity is offered or required. (...)
Let us consider an inverse case: female attraction to a dangerous male for his dangerous qualities, alongside fictionalisation of him as safe. It seems likely that generations of heterosexual female readers of Wuthering Heights have felt at least a degree of attraction to Heathcliff; and, since he is fictional, they have remained safe from physical and emotional harm. But in life this would not be so, and to read the novel in this spirit is, it is implied, a misreading. Brontë seems to have written Isabella’s plot with respect to such a possibility. When Isabella falls in love and lust with Heathcliff, Catherine feels compelled to tell her: ‘It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head.  Pray, don’t imagine that he conceals depths of benevolence and affection beneath a stern exterior!  He’s not a rough diamond—a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic: he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.’ So he proves, in his elopement shortly afterwards with Isabella, who hardly outlives the relationship. She is Brontë’s warning to the fictionalising reader: ‘It is deplorable ignorance of his character, child, and nothing else, which makes that dream enter your head.’
This has not stopped certain kinds of couples since 1847 from modelling themselves on Catherine and Heathcliff. Of these the most famous are Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes. On their return to England from America in 1956, they immediately visited Top Withens, the Yorkshire ruin thought to be the model for the eponymous house. Both subsequently wrote poems entitled ‘Wuthering Heights’, and Ted’s compared Sylvia to Emily Brontë herself. I might add that four decades later, when I was studying at Cambridge, two of my fellow undergraduates – the female partner American, the male partner English,  and both poets – were highly conscious of the antecedence in Cambridge of Plath and Hughes, and, through and beyond them, of Catherine and Heathcliff. (Catherine Brown)

Westword interviews Miriam Suzanne on the upcoming Jane/Eyre premiere in Denver:

Susan Froyd: What’s on your agenda in the coming year?
Miriam Suzanne: We’re currently in rehearsal for a (somewhat queer) stage adaptation of Jane Eyre. It’s a collaboration between my new theater company, Grapefruit Lab, my band and a few others. That has all my attention until it opens on February 23.
After that, the band will be recording a new EP, and Grapefruit Lab will start talking about a fall show. Life is never boring!

myNews LA describes what the visitor could find at the Riverside Dickens Festival:

The festival formally begins at 9:45 a.m. Saturday at the flag pole adjacent to Ninth and Main streets, in front of City Hall, where visitors will encounter actors representing Dickens, Queen Victoria, Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allen Poe, Thomas Edison, Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle — to name a few. (Ken Stone)

Variety reviews the new TV remake of Picnic at Hanging Rock:

[Natalie] Dormer added that the casting was actually accurate for the time, pointing to such literary characters as Jane Eyre and Blanche DuBois. “A woman was a spinster if she wasn’t married by the time she was in her late 20s.” (Ed Meza)

The Independent quotes film director Clio Barnard (Dark River) as saying:

I’d seen the Brazilian cinematographer Adriano Goldman’s Jane Eyre [he also shot Dark River], and that was a representation of the Yorkshire countryside that wasn’t picturesque in a cosy way. I wanted the film to look at what it really is. (Nick Hasted)

BookRiot lists young adult biographical fiction:

The World Within: A Novel of Emily Brontë by Jane Eagland
Spanning several years of Emily Brontë’s life, The World Within depicts Emily’s life with her siblings (Charlotte, Bran, and Anne), her father, and her aunt. Surrounded by death, Emily grieves constantly and aches to hold onto the writing games she plays with her siblings. However, her siblings have agendas for their own lives to follow, some of which includes sustaining the family. As Emily copes and endures trying real-life events, she grows as a young woman and a writer. Moments from her (fictionalized) real life will sparkle as readers recognize details from her famed Wuthering Heights. (Abby Hargreaves)

herinterest gives you tips when 'i love you' is not enough:

“The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter – often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter – in the eye.”
It was Charlotte Brontë who said those words, in Jane Eyre. One of my favourite things to do is look deeply into your eyes, often revealing many of the things that you can’t or choose not to say. (Kimberley)

Diario Córdoba (in Spanish) talks about a recent Wuthering Heights lecture:

Bajo el título de Conversaciones enamoradas en torno a Cumbres borrascosas se ha desarrollado una interesante actividad en la Biblioteca Provincial de Córdoba, donde hemos analizado en profundidad dicha novela. Al frente, dirigiendo, ha estado la profesora María Valero Redondo. Está considerada como novela gótica de finales del siglo XVlll y es la tórrida, tormentosa y apasionada historia de amor entre Catherine y Heathcliff, lo que lleva a los protagonistas en ocasiones a colocarlos en el desdibujado y turbulento límite del abismo. En su momento hubo críticos que lo denominaron como un texto vulgar, repulsivo, morboso, etc. Dentro del contexto queda clara la relevancia de la metáfora. De este libro se han realizado varias y diferentes versiones cinematográficas en diferentes países. Alguna extracta y elimina parte del texto original. (Read more) (Pilar Redondo) (Translation)

Arab News recommends a visit to Yorkshire, PopMatters mentions the 'anachronistic' appearance of Emily Brontë in Jean Luc Godard's 1968 film Weekend.

Le Huffington Post (in French) interviews an expert of the work of John Irving:

Les libraires de Bookwitty: Comment expliquez-vous l'immense popularité de John Irving?
Karine Placquet-Wiltord: C'est un écrivain à la fois très traditionnel et atypique, et je crois que les gens sont assez sensibles à cette tension, que l'on retrouve aussi dans ses livres. Il a des accents très réalistes, des tonalités qui rappellent Charles Dickens ou Charlotte Brontë. (Translation)

Sveriges Radio and Dagens Nyheter (in Swedish) reviews The Essex Serpent by Sarah Perry:

Mot slutet av romanen skriver Cora i ett brev att hon läser böcker av "Brontë och Hardy, Dante och Keats, Henry James och Conan Doyle". Utan tvekan har författaren Sarah Perry själv läst dem. Väldigt mycket. För stundtals känns det som om Emily Brontë skrivit ännu en bok som utspelar sig i dimman på de engelska hedarna. (Lina Kalmteg) (Translation)

Kärnpunkten i ”Ormen i Essex” är närheten mellan Cora och Will. Det skulle kunna vara en viktoriansk roman, en Charlotte Brontë, fast med betydligt mer humor och sälta. (Lotta Olsson) (Translation)

El Punt Avui (in Catalan) reviews the performances of Frankenstein in Barcelona:

[Carme] Portaceli va arribar a Shelley a la vegada que amb Jane Eyre, de qui també va fer una adaptació al Lliure de Gràcia, amb molta sensibilitat. Però si a Eyre el discurs rebel és la bandera, a Frankenstein Shelley desapareix. absolutament. (Jordi Bordes) (Translation)

According to Diario Motor (in Spanish):

Hethel es el idílico pueblo de la campiña inglesa donde Lotus tiene su sede. Es un sitio que perfectamente habría sido el emplazamiento evocado por Emily Brontë para su mítica novela “Wuthering Heights”, “Cumbres Borrascosas” en su traducción al castellano. (Sergio Álvarez) (Translation)

SyFantasy (in French) reviews Melmoth the Wanderer by Anne Radcliffe:

Dans les romans gothiques, il est d'usage de voir l'héroïne poursuivie par unvillain ténébreux, puis de la voir épouser le jeune premier. Ou alors, comme Jane Eyre, de provoquer la rédemption de celui qu'elle aime. Point de tout cela dans Melmoth ou l'Homme errant ! Immalie aime Melmoth tel qu'il est. Pourtant, celui-ci fait clairement comprendre à la jeune fille (parfois de façon très amère et dure) qu'il est ce qu'il est, qu'il ne peut pas changer, et que leur relation est vouée à l'échec. Pour savoir comment tout ça finit, il vous faudra lire le roman... (Adeline Arénas) (Translation)

The Brussels Brontë Blog continues mapping the Brontës' Brussels: now Mary and Martha Taylor.