The Spectator discusses what sort of a name you need to sell psychological thrillers nowadays.
A friend tells me that if you wish to write psychological thrillers nowadays, you must not do so under an unambiguously male name. Plain adventure stories can have tough, manly bylines like Andy McNab or Brent Crude, but women buy the psychological stuff, and apparently they won’t take it from men. It is the opposite of the age when Charlotte Brontë had to pretend to be Currer Bell. You must therefore, publishers urge, be a woman, or take a woman’s name, or choose a name like Kim, Evelyn or Jan which could belong to either sex, or write under your initials. This last is an interesting development. When I started as a journalist nearly 40 years ago, I wanted to be C.H. Moore, on the grounds that an unremarkable surname needed some slightly more distinctive support (as in A.N. Wilson), and because I thought it sounded Victorian. I published two or three articles under that byline, but was warned by older, wiser persons that it would alienate readers who felt, by seeing a first name, that they somehow knew the author. Yet a long line of bestsellers — H.G. Wells, T.S. Eliot, J.R.R. Tolkien, P.D. James, E.L. James and J.K. Rowling — would seem to disprove this theory. Fogeyism triumphs when least expected, vide Jacob Rees-Mogg. (Charles Moore)
Evanston Review talks about the upcoming
Jane Eyre (Polly Teale's version)
production at the Northwestern University's Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts:
A young woman arrives at an English manor to begin work as a governess, unaware of the dark secrets stirring in the attic in Polly Teale's adaptation of Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre." The production opens Northwestern University's Wirtz Center for the Performing Arts 2018-19 mainstage season on Oct. 26.
"Jane Eyre" continues through Nov. 11 in the Josephine Louis Theater, 20 Arts Circle Drive, on the Evanston campus.
Teale developed this adaptation of "Jane Eyre" with the United Kingdom's Shared Experience Company, where she is joint artistic director. The company is dedicated to creating theater that combines physicality and text to reveal the inner experience of the characters in the play.
Director Kathryn Walsh, MFA directing program mentor and adjunct theater faculty at Northwester, said she looks forward to directing Teale's bold adaptation of the literary classic.
"This unique adaptation is about the violence we do to ourselves under society's ideas of who we are supposed to be, what our gender is supposed to be and how we are supposed to behave in the world," Walsh said. "I'm excited about this production because it deals with a young woman and what it means to step into adulthood, which feels incredibly important and potent in this moment in time."
Charlotte Brontë's novel tells the story of Jane Eyre, an orphaned child, who is taught by a succession of severe guardians to stifle her natural exuberance. As a result, she locks a part of herself away, out of view from polite society. That is until she arrives at Thornfield Hall to begin work as a governess to the young child of Edward Rochester. Quickly, the wealthy man's passionate nature reawakens Jane's hidden self, but darker secrets are stirring in the attic above.
British Theatre blames the musical
Hamilton for the latest trend on stage in a review of an adaptation of
Moll Flanders.
And, for me, there is the weakness of the production- the musical numbers. Since Hamilton shook up the musical theatre world with its mix of contemporary music and history, new musicals have adopted this rock opera style more fully. (Six explores the lives of the six wives of Henry VIII, but does it as a girl band, Little Six (?), and Wasted adopts the same approach to the Brontë sisters.) (Paul T Davies)
La Razón (Spain) features Carme Portaceli's
Jane (or Jayne, as they mistakenly write it)
Eyre, currently on stage in Madrid.
Ahí, en el espíritu de la cita de la protagonista del libro de Charlotte Brontë, radica la fuerza de un personaje ante el que Carme Portaceli no puede ocultar –tampoco lo intenta– estar entregada: «Lo más fantástico es el hecho de que Jane, desde su nacimiento y sin tener unas circunstancias que la lleven a ser de esta manera, tiene en su interior el instinto de superación más impresionante que yo jamás haya leído. En la obra hay un gran amor, que es el de Rochester y Jane, pero hay algo más importante que es cómo la protagonista tiene el instinto de luchar por su libertad y sus principios. Lo único que te queda en los momentos adversos». [...]
Ahora llega al Español madrileño porque, defiende Portaceli, «pensaba que valía la pena tras comprobar que ha sido algo fascinante y donde hemos colgado el cartel de “sold out” desde el primer momento». Con estas premisas presenta la también directora del coliseo de la Plaza Santa Ana un montaje que define como «una historia de superación de alguien inteligente, brillante y fuerte» que, además «nos habla de cómo era ser mujer en una época». Aunque, como explica Ariadna Gil –actriz principal aquí–, también se trata de una adaptación –a cargo de Anna María Ricart– «complicada porque Brontë, además de contar la peripecia vital de Jane, habla de muchísimas cosas: desde la época en la que vive a la historia de superación de un personaje que no se parece a ningún otro por esa rebeldía que esconde dentro de una apariencia tan formal. Ese sentido del deber y ese apasionamiento tan grande por lo que cree que debe ser y por lo que siente». [...]
Y si la fascinación de Portaceli se palpa a simple vista, no es menos la de Ariadna Gil: «Nunca había tenido un personaje tan difícil ni me había costado tan poco emocionarme en el escenario», se sorprende. Porque para la actriz, Jane Eyre ha supuesto dar un paso en su propio interior. Le ha invadido «la sensación extraña», dice, «de ver cómo me ha hecho mejor. Ves cual es el sitio de las cosas y a qué debes dar importancia. Te enseña una forma de vivir diferente y a ser auténtica». (Julián Herrero) (Translation)
The Irish Times reviews the novel
La ferocia by Nicola Lagioia, translated into English as
Ferocity.
As children, Michele and Clara develop a relationship of almost supernatural closeness. He is Heathcliff to her Catherine, and it is Michele’s devastating grief at his sister’s violent death that drives him to dig into the layers of family archaeology in order to expose its shameful secrets. “He misses his sister...in a stabbing, hallucinatory way. The sense of annihilation is so intense that certain afternoons he forgets what her face is like.” (Catherine Dunne)
El vigía (Mexico) quotes from Albert Camus's
L'Homme révolté.
A la altura de borrascosas cumbres, Albert Camus se da cita con Emily Brontë en El hombre rebelde, para afirmar el sentido de toda reivindicación estéril: “Heathcliff prefiere su amor a Dios y pide el infierno para reunirse con la que ama”, pero no es sólo su juventud humillada lo que expone, sino también “la experiencia ardiente de toda una vida” (Rael Salvador) (Translation)
Derbyshire Life and Countryside recommends Carr Head Farm, a vineyard in the heart of the Peak District.
Sitting just underneath the world-famous climbing ridge of Stanage Edge, around the corner from North Lees Hall with its Brontë heritage, and at the centre of the Peak District, there was hardly any need for marketing thanks to a steady stream of passersby. (Nina Pullman)
A letter to the editor in
The Herald Journal quotes from
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
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