Brontë's defiant spirit

The Guardian children’s book roundup includes:

Jane Eyre: A Retelling by Tanya Landman, Barrington Stoke,
Many teenage readers, be they dyslexic, reluctant or just easily overwhelmed, may struggle to get to grips with Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece in its original form. Landman’s slim, enthralling retelling, published by “super-readable” experts Barrington Stoke, feels true to Brontë’s defiant spirit, but is infinitely easier to digest – and reading this vivid, straightforward version might well encourage strugglers to return and conquer the behemoth. (Imogen Russell Williams)

iNews publishes an excerpt of Deborah Orr's Motherwell. A Girlhood:

Me, though? I’d been a pretty little child. But after I learned to read, I couldn’t stop reading. Which meant, because I’d sneakily read when the rest of the house was asleep, that I was tired all the time. I looked pale and wan. And the things I wanted to talk about – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Oliver Twist, plants, trees, woods, walks, the dog, folk stories, gardens and macramé – were hardly the stuff of fascination to my peers.

The Sunday Times interviews the model and actress Jodie Turner-Smith:

She changed her clothes, shoes, patterns of speech. “I would practise in the mirror, talking in a way that I thought was like black American: cutting you down with my words in five seconds if you came for me.” But at the weekends she was going to the local library, reading and studying. “My favourite book was Jane Eyre.” (Charlotte Edwardes)

Patch Greater Hartford announces an upcoming production of Jane Eyre in Hartford:

A new adaptation of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë's beloved tale of courage, sacrifice and self-respect, will debut next month at Hartford Stage. The novel has been adapted for the stage by Hartford Stage Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson, who will also direct. Jane Eyre runs Thursday, February 13, through Saturday, March 14. (Nancy Sasso)

Anne Brontë's bicentenary and the publication of a new edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in Spain are in La Voz de Córdoba (Spain):

Este año se conmemora el 200 cumpleaños de Anne Brontë (1820-1849), la menor de las tres hermanas novelistas victorianas. Emily es conocida por su única novela Cumbres borrascosas, Charlotte es conocida por Jane Eyre; en cambio, Anne es menos conocida. A Anne la crítica le ha dedicado menos estudios. Esta columna la rememora y la celebra. (Juan de Dios Torralbo) (Translation) 

Milenio 2020 (México) celebrates Wuthering Heights:

Al respecto no tengo cosa mejor para compartir que una intuición de entonces en un paper para esa materia. Hice un nexo literario y su desarrollo; va, breve. Apunté que cuando el personaje de Juan Rulfo Pedro Páramo y el de Brontë Heathcliff pierden respectivamente a Susana San Juan y a Catherine Earnshaw, los dos se entregan a destruir Comala y Wuthering Heigths. Dije que cuando Comala confunde las campanas luctuosas con una incitación a la fiesta las palabras de Pedro Páramo “Me cruzaré de brazos y Comala se morirá de hambre” bien pudieron cifrar el odio de Heathcliff por Wuthering Heights a la muerte de Catherine. Los vecinos de Wuthering Heights sobre Heathcliff: “ese demonio que no acaba de atravesar patios”; igual que Pedro Páramo en la Media Luna. Y la mejor definición de Heathcliff en las palabras del arriero sobre quién es Pedro Páramo: “Un rencor vivo”. (Luis Miguel Aguilar) (Translation)

Pangea (Italy) interviews Monica Pareschi, translator of a recent new edition of Wuthering Heights in Italian. A very interesting read:

 Libro miliare e inesorabile, “un diavolo di libro, un incredibile mostro”, lo diceva Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Cime tempestose è stato tradotto innumerevoli volte – la prima edizione, per i Treves, è del 1926, lo hanno ‘maneggiato’, tra i tanti, Elio Chinol e Bruno Oddera, Bruna Dell’Agnese e Margherita Giacobino, Beatrice Masini e Marta Barone – così che la versione Einaudi per mano di Monica Pareschi (già eccellente traduttrice della sorella di Emily, Charlotte, e di Bernard Malamud, di Doris Lessing, di Shirley Jackson, James G. Ballard, Paul Auster) è un piccolo evento editoriale. Nel mio privilegio di lettore, oltre a interrogare chi ne sa più di me, mi sono messo a fare un esercizio. Alcuni passi di Cime tempestose (questo, ad esempio: “Il suo insediamento a Wuthering Heights portò un’indicibile angoscia. Mi convinsi che Dio avesse abbandonato la pecora smarrita alle sue abiette peregrinazioni, e che una bestia feroce se ne stesse acquattata tra la casa e l’ovile, pronta a balzare e a seminare distruzione”) mi hanno ricordato il Cormac McCarthy più arcaico e biblico, in bilico sugli assoluti. L’osservazione mi ha fatto sorridere. Forse Emily Brontë – cioè il suo mefistofelico specchio, Heathcliff – è il remoto modello, l’idolo, del Giudice Holden che sparge terrore e innocente spietatezza lungo quel mattatoio superbo intitolato Meridiano di sangue. (Translation)

Le Monde (France) reviews Fiona Mozley's Elmet:

Elmet fut l’ultime royaume celte indépendant d’Angleterre. Jusqu’au VIIe siècle, il constituait un sanctuaire pour ceux qui souhaitaient échapper à la loi. C’est en ces terres, devenues Yorkshire et célébrées dans Les Hauts de Hurlevent et les poèmes de Ted Hughes, que la Britannique Fiona Mozley situe Elmet, son premier roman. (Macha Séry) (Translation)

El Universal (Colombia) visits British painter Freda Sargent who lives in Bogotá and mentions:

 Muchas de sus series como ‘Temas del ermitaño’, ‘Los naipes del tarot’, ‘Los narcisos’, ‘Los carpinteros’, ‘Wuthering Heights’, beben de las fuentes de sus memorias de infancia, pero también de la poesía que ha sido esencial en su creación: Blake, Keats, Auden, Yeats, entre otros.  (Gustavo Tatis Guerra) (Translation)

El País (Spain) interviews the writer Najat el Hachmi:

¿Qué libro tiene en su mesilla de noche? Tengo la traducción al catalán del Libro de los avaros de Al-Jahiz, ¿Puede prestarme su pistola, por favor, de Lorenza Mazzetti y Cumbres borrascosas (que creo que leí siendo demasiado joven). (Translation)

Rodrigo Fresán in Página 12 (Argentina) thinks that Sam Mendes's Skyfall may be the 'most intelligent and subliminal rewriting of Wuthering Heights'.

La Nueva Tribuna (Spain) reviews Alegría by Manuel Vilas:

Nada de lo que amamos podrá extinguirse mientras vivamos. Lo sé por el autor de Alegría: parecemos como dice él personajes de Cumbres borrascosas. (José Luis Ibáñez Salas) (Translation)

More news outlets celebrate the Chinese year of the rat, mentioning that Charlotte Brontë is... well, a rat: The Mercury News, Whyy ... A Wuthering Heights quote in Your Tango's 'Happy Quotes About Being Alone Everyone Who Loves Spending Time By Themselves Can Relate To'. A local politician selects Wuthering Heights among her favourite books on Granma (Cuba).