Mythic Aplomb

On the 203rd anniversary of Charlotte Brontë's birth, the mourning ring is still in the news: Mental Floss, Keighley News, 6PR882...

Rebecca Nicholson in The Guardian mentions it:

Meanwhile, the Antiques Roadshow itself has provided one of its genuine save-it-until-the-end-of-the-episode reveals, as reports appeared of a woman in north Wales bringing in a ring she had found in her attic, only to discover some of Charlotte Brontë’s hair braided inside it. My attic has a carrier bag full of Christmas decorations and several posters that survive only because I’ve been saying I’ll get them framed for a number of years, so I am doubly impressed at the quality of this particular treasure. Without the hair, the ring would have been worth £25; its new, hirsute value is £20,000. Perhaps it can join one of the more macabre artefacts on display at the Brontë parsonage in Haworth: Anne’s handkerchief, stained with blood.

The Daily Mail has a list of best one hundred cultural experiences:

78. See the Brontë treasure
Treat yourself to a Treasures experience at the Brontë Parsonage. During these special hour-long sessions, a member of the curatorial team shares facts and stories about a number of carefully selected objects. From £75, bronte.org.uk (Neil Armstrong)

The Independent includes the usual Brontës on a new top-40 aka books-to-read-before-you-die:

Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
You will need a cold, dead heart not to be moved by one of literature’s steeliest heroines. From the institutional cruelty of her boarding school, the “small, plain” Jane Eyre becomes a governess who demands a right to think and feel. Not many love stories take in a mad woman in the attic and a spot of therapeutic disfigurement, but this one somehow carries it off with mythic aplomb. (Ceri Radford)

Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Will there ever be a novel that burns with more passionate intensity than Wuthering Heights? The forces that bring together its fierce heroine Catherine Earnshaw and cruel hero Heathcliff are violent and untameable, yet rooted in a childhood devotion to one another, when Heathcliff obeyed Cathy’s every command. It’s impossible to imagine this novel ever provoking quiet slumbers; Emily Brontë’s vision of nature blazes with poetry. (Chris Harvey)

The Sunday Times recommends some paperbacks:

Normal People by Sally Rooney
Normal People, about the on-off love affair of two Irish students, feels like the promising debut, succumbing to problems that the more mature Conversations managed to avoid. If that novel read like a knowing modern take on F Scott Fitzgerald’s Tender Is the Night, then Normal People is more like a muted, ingenuous rewrite of Wuthering Heights. (Claire Lowdon)

The author Elizabeth Coleman chooses for The Sydney Morning Herald the books that changed her life:

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Like so many teenage girls of my time, I was captivated by the brutal romance of Wuthering Heights. But what blew me away even more was learning that author Emily Brontë was a vicar’s daughter who lived a short and very sheltered life. As a teenage girl who was living a pretty sheltered life myself while aspiring to be a writer, Wuthering Heights taught me that there’s no limit to the imagination.

The Punch (Nigeria) interviews the son of the local crime writer Chief Oladejo Okediji:

But I know that the credit of being a writer is his. He had a private library in his room. He stocked the shelves with all the classics of English literature and even had all the modern writers such as D. H. Lawrence, George Bernard Shaw and the Brontë sisters. But in addition, he had books on Ifa literature, orisa traditions, and eastern spirituality. (Gbenga Adeniji)

Le Journal de Montréal (Canada) interviews the actress Isabelle Vincent:

Karine Vilder: De tous les grands classiques de la littérature, quels sont vos préférés ?
Adolescente, j’aimais beaucoup les romantiques du XIXe siècle. Comme toute jeune femme enflammée, je m’identifiais aux personnages de Stendhal (avec Le Rouge et le Noir), de Gustave Flaubert (avec Madame Bovary) ou de Charlotte Brontë (avec Jane Eyre). (Translation)

El Diario (Spain) explores the history of zombies:

La posterior Yo anduve con un zombi mezclaba aspectos del muerto viviente haitiano y su naturaleza mágica con una historia heredera del gótico femenino de las hermanas Brontë, y más concretamente de su novela Jane Eyre. La realidad colonial, pero no el esclavismo, quedaba en el trasfondo del paisaje dibujado por Jacques Tourneur y el productor Val Lewton (responsables también de La mujer pantera), quienes dotaron de una estética atmosférica, onírica y vagamente poética a este memorable cuento de terror. (Ignasi Franch) (Translation)

Brit Voyage describes a visit to the moors, including Brontë Bridge and Top Withens. The Sisters' Room visits Lothersdale and Stone Gappe. Brontë Babe Blog posts about 'Reality Versus Fantasy in Charlotte Brontë’s Roe Head Journal'.