Inspired by Wuthering Heights

Dutch News reports that the novel De lied van ooievaar en dromedaris by Anjet Daanje has won the Libris prize, the most prestigious award for Dutch literature.

It is the first time the Libris and the Boekenbon prize, the Netherlands’ two major literary awards, both worth €50,000 to the winner, have been won by the same book. Daanje’s ambitious and highly complex novel spans three centuries and 11 chapters, each with a different narrator. She set the first section of the book in a Yorkshire village and drew heavily on Emily Brontë’s novel, Wuthering Heights, for inspiration.

The news is reported as well by GVA, Nouveau and Humo.

The not literal use of literally in Boston Globe.

As for the new challenge, I came up with it because I occasionally receive complaints about the figurative use of literally. Reader Andy Gaus even suggested I challenge you to send me the “best” (i.e., worst) use of the word from a spoken or printed source.

That’s a fun idea — but I fear that insisting literally can only indicate that something really, truly happened may be a lost cause. As Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary reports in a usage note, evidence of “the use of literally in a fashion that is hyperbolic or metaphoric . . . dates back to 1769.”

Further, the people using the word that way have included lots of beloved authors. Charles Dickens used literally figuratively in “David Copperfield” and “Nicholas Nickleby.” Charlotte Brontë used it in “Jane Eyre.” It also turns up in work by William Makepeace Thackeray, Louisa May Alcott, James Joyce, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, and so on.

Rather than continuing to try to arrest the development of literally, it seems to me, we’d do better to coin a new word that means literally in its literal sense. Can you help? (Barbara Wallraff)

The Mary Sue recommends 'Movies Like Pride and Prejudice' and one of them is

Jane Eyre (2011)

Jane Eyre is another beloved classic novel (this time from Charlotte Brontë) that has received countless adaptations. But none have quite hit the mark like the 2011 version directed by Cary Fukunaga. The film starred Mia Wasikowska (Alice in Wonderland) and Michael Fassbender (Prometheus) as Jane and her love interest, Mr. Rochester and was an excellent homage to the source material. From the backdrop of Thornfield to the build-up of the romance, this rendition of Jane Eyre stayed true to the book’s themes. (Danielle Baranda)

Here's how the Brontës would have designed a garden according to El País:

French windows overlook a beautiful and very green garden that looks like a Brontë sister might have imagined it. In this chaotic and noisy city, it’s an island of serenity where people can immerse themselves in their reading and writing. (Carlos S. Maldonado)

Aragón Digital (Spain) interviews writer Espido Freire.

P.– ¿Cuáles son sus referentes? ¿Hay otro libro que le haya marcado especialmente?

R.- Curiosamente aunque haya estudiado mucho a Jane Austen no es la autora que más me ha influenciado. Si estamos hablando de unas influencias más directas, hablaríamos de Shakespeare, hablaríamos de Emily Brontë, de Tolstoi, de Virginia Woolf, Sylvia Plath y en los últimos años de una manera muy marcada, Margaret Atwood. A partir de ahí, todos los grandes novelistas del siglo XIX y algunos autores del Siglo de Oro Español que escribieron principalmente teatro. (Cristina Morte Landa) (Translation)

Imaginary friends in Oprah Daily:

I wondered where imaginary friends might vacation. I thought of my own imaginary friend, who was tall and lean and blond. I’d named him Heathcliff, because I thought of him as part Wuthering Heights character and part Michael Penn song, a Romeo in black jeans.

My younger son called me back to reality, back to our small suburban kitchen the three of us like to crowd into while I am cooking. I turned on the stovetop—click, click, flame—I pictured all of our imaginary friends, vacationing on a beach somewhere, relaxing and enjoying their time off together until we needed them again: Heathcliff, Bad Guy, and Oaken John, staring out to sea, their hair sandy, salt crusting along their sunburned necks. (Kelly McMasters)

The 2015 Jane Eyre manga is discussed on the Eyre Buds podcast.