A room of one’s own, CornwallPenzance’s historic Chapel Street has many a literary connection. From the house in which Maria Branwell, mother of the Brontë writing clan, grew up, to the Admiral Benbow pub – said to have inspired the inn of the same name in Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island – the street promises rich pickings for visiting bookworms. Not least at Women in Word, the bookshop of the Hypatia Trust. Sitting towards the top of the street, it specialises in women’s fiction and nonfiction and includes titles by local writers. Behind it is a stylish two-bedroom holiday apartment, income from which supports the Trust’s work.Three nights from £373.50 for four people, self-catering, hypatia-trust.org.uk (Rhiannon Batten)
Only 2% of GCSE students study a book written by a female author, according to research by campaigners who are urging exam boards to diversify their set text lists to curb the rise of misogynistic views. [...]The most common books authored by women on the approved text lists across exam boards between 2018 and 2022 were Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, the campaigners found.These two novels are among the longest on set lists, at 624 and 448 pages respectively, and the campaigners said teachers were disincentivised from choosing them over shorter, more accessible books. (Rachel Hall)
Brontë purists, of course, are taking issue with O’Connor’s creative liberties (how could Emily possibly have – gasp – hot sex?), but for historical accuracy can take a backseat when it comes to timeless human conditions. [...]Where did this film start for you? Did you always want to make an Emily Brontë film?I've been wanting to write and direct for a while and I've been working on the script for a while. I knew for my first thing I wanted it to be about Emily because I felt like I've always located in her a sense of being authentic and being true to who I am, even if what that is feels different. I think we all feel that we're different, ultimately. I just think she's also a really beautiful kind of role model for people in terms of being yourself. The other thing is I've always just wondered who she was as a person. She's quite a mysterious figure, so spending time with her on film was a great way of thinking about her and getting to know her a bit better. Even though, ultimately, I felt after the film, I still feel I don't really know her, but that's all right. She's elusive. [...]Some reviews have been talking about how creative liberties were taken. If you can't already tell, I'm not a Brontë purist. I didn't even know any of that, but also wouldn't have cared. But what is that about? Are people just being protective?I think some people don't like that she's not a virgin. They want to keep her in a glass case. They don't want her to go out and have a good time. I really have loved reading some of the reviews that have been like, "How dare you?" because to have such an extreme reaction means that it affected them and it means that they've maybe got their own relationship with Emily Brontë and they've placed her up on a shelf where they feel that she should stay.There's a mask scene in the first 20 minutes where a dead mother comes to visit, or in imagination does, but if you still feel like you are watching a biopic at that point, I really feel like that's on you. This is a film that's exploring the idea of Emily. Scenes from Wuthering Heights are in the film and her poetry are in the film. There's a love triangle in the film, there's a love triangle in Wuthering Heights. It’s a mix of different things. In the same way that Emily wrote what she felt, that's what I wanted to do. I've got to say, it fills me full of delight to be honest. I'm coming into the story with such respect for Emily and so much love for her, and I know when I break the rules, and I know why I'm breaking the rules.I'm doing the film to speak to people in your generation. If you like the film and you respond to it and it ties into your life and who you are in the middle of working out who you are, then I'm so happy – and that's what art should do, that's what film should do. To just watch a character through a glass case, what's the point? What's interesting is Emily kept all her reviews in her desk and there were lots of people who'd written kind of “how dare you?” reviews. She got them out and read them every now and then to kind of have a laugh, so I feel like she'd probably feel the same way as me. (Sophia June)
The lives of novelists and poets are a frequent subject for cinematic storytelling. Powerful literature, the kind that appeals to readers over the centuries, inevitably inspires visual and emotional fantasies. And that has led to film adaptations: lending concrete voices and visuals to what had been creatures of the imagination, confined to the page. Wuthering Heights is one of those novels that many of us (outside of English majors) might have first encountered as a film, starring Merle Oberon and Lawrence Olivier as the doomed lovers Catherine and Heathcliff. Emily Brontë’ wrote only one novel (under the pen name Ellis Bell) and it is considered one of English literature’s great Gothic romances. Brontë died young, at 30, and in Emily, screenwriter and director Frances O’Connor has spun an origin story for her brilliance that plumbs the emotional depths of her life, including familial strife and tumultuous romance.The film’s opening credits play over dramatic vocal music, creating an odd, tense mood, and the first scene establishes a domestic life rife with conflict. In the Brontë family home, Emily (Sex Education’s Emma Mackey) has given a copy of her newly-published novel to her sister Charlotte, author of another Gothic romantic classic, Jane Eyre. Charlotte (played by Alexandra Dowling) is disgusted with what she has read and asks why Emily would write such a book, full of such horrible people who only care about themselves. Emily is silent and stoic at this outburst. Wuthering Heights was accepted for publication not long after Jane Eyre was published. The success of Charlotte’s book (written under the pen name Currer Bell) delayed the printing of Emily’s novel. The film hints at the artistic competition among the Brontë siblings. Anne also wrote a novel, Agnes Grey (with the pen name Acton Bell), and like Emily and Charlotte, was a published poet. The undercurrent of tension establishes an intriguing dynamic. [...]The excellent cast is more than up to the task posed by this historical biopic. The chemistry between Emily and Weightman is electric, and the scenes of their sexual awakening are rendered with lush, sensual detail. Abel Korzeniowski’s (A Single Man, Nocturnal Animals) score is mostly compelling, but there are times when it feels inappropriately jolting. This unevenness in tone is also partly due to Frances O’Connor’s somewhat disjointed screenplay. The narrative is chronological, but the defining events in Emily’s young life are often dramatized in oddly random or abrupt ways. It would have been much more effective to build up to these epiphanic moments by exploring the unusual Brontë family dynamic a bit more deeply. Still, the film’s sweeping visuals serve as partial compensation, capturing the natural marvels of the landscape that inspired such iconic writing. The stone houses, rolling pastures, spreading trees, and storm-swept moors become characters in this origin story — which becomes the inspiration for one of English literature’s great doomed romances. For O’Connor (an Australian-British actress with a respectable career), the Gothic novelist is an artist who casts off repressive social norms and uses words to evoke (and exorcise) demons of terrible natural beauty.As with Greta Gerwig’s Little Women, there is an obligatory scene in which we see Emily writing her novel, by hand and by candlelight. In O’Connor’s interpretation, Wuthering Heights is a work born of grief and rebellion, a declaration of a misfit’s right to be who she is, and a paean to lost love. Despite some occasional missteps of mood and underdeveloped subtexts, Emily traverses this vision of liberation with enormous sensitivity and daring. (Peg Aloi)
George Eliot's Middlemarch (1872) begins with a marriage that disappoints and dissolves over time. Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), by contrast, ends with a marriage between Jane and Rochester, a union that actually restores sight in one eye to a blind Rochester. The prototypical marriage plot in Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813) converges property consolidation with a happy union between Mr. Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. Victorian literature, after Austen, often plays with marriage as an organizing plot device, a contract that either culminates the events of the novel or catalyzes them.Netflix’s hit reality TV series Love Is Blind (2020– ) is also obsessed with the marriage plot. The show, which describes itself onscreen as an “experiment,” takes Charlotte Brontë’s blind love literally. (Samantha Pergadia)
Wuthering Heights, in its various incarnations on the screen and for television — especially the 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon as Heathcliff and Cathy — has been regarded as a tragic romance. In its play version here, as in the novel, the focus is more on the roots of revenge and domestic violence, especially that of the times in which the original novel was written. As such, it becomes a harder slog to go through for modern audiences.Those with a taste for depictions of the social norms of mid-1800’s England, and those with a liking for modern British stagecraft, will no doubt be enthralled with McCarter Theatre Center’s production of Wuthering Heights. For all others, I would recommend spending an evening at home watching the 1939 film while snuggled under a blanket. (Allen Neuner)
The Scoundrel and Scamp production, directed with a sure hand by Bryan Rafael Falcón, has a solid cast. Dawn McMillan’s Charlotte slipped right into the role of the bossy big sister; Allison Akmajian made Emily’s suppressed rage and desire palpable; and Myani Watson shone as the self-righteous Anne. Hunter Hnat, who rarely disappoints, played several roles, including the drunken brother, Branwell. Tony Caprile’s principal role was as the father, Patrick, but he took on a number of other characters, giving them all distinction.The trouble with this play is the script. Skipping back and forth in time made the story convoluted and confusing. Elizabeth Falcón was tasked with playing characters from the women’s novels, who appeared to underscore what the women were writing. You know, the free-spirited Catherine from “Wuthering Heights,” the mad Mrs. Robinson from “Jane Eyre.” The device was overwrought and kind of annoying. Although the Brontë family was fascinating, this over-long play never made us care much about them.That said, this production was packed with energy and talent. That almost made up for a weak script.(Kathleen Allen)
A new permanent exhibition has opened at Elizabeth Gaskell's House exploring the author's role in Victorian society and her links to Charlotte Brontë.The Cranford author lived in the 19th Century Manchester villa from 1850 until her death in 1865.The exhibition explores Gaskell's involvement with social and charitable organisations in the city.It also shows her association with the leading reformers, writers and artists of the time.They held her in high esteem, with her friend Charlotte Brontë describing her as "kind, clever, animated and unaffected".
A newly commissioned film, exploring the relationship between Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell, and a dressing up area are all part of the exh
ibition space, which fills what is known as the Brontë Room (named after Charlotte Brontë who stayed at the house on several occasions and would have likely slept in this room). There is also fun to be had with an interactive dressing table, a centre piece of the display. Through touch and sound, you are transported to a time of great excitement as Elizabeth prepares to attend the Art Treasures Exhibition held in Manchester in 1857; still recognised as the largest art exhibition ever held in the UK and possibly the world.
George White: Your upcoming project is Emily. Can you tell us anything about that; what your role is on the film and how it's going?
S.S.: Emily is coming out later this year and is a reimagining of what inspired Emily Brontë to write Wuthering Heights, which we filmed up in Yorkshire. It's not really a facsimile, more an interpretation of her life. I got to jump into the 1800s, which I absolutely loved, and we had a great time bringing this world to life.
A priori, cette interprétation de la mystérieuse figure littéraire n’est pas forcément mauvaise. Malheureusement, l’exécution d’O’Connor l’est. Bien qu’il y ait un peu de feu sous l’expression maussade de Mackey, une grande partie de sa direction semble avoir été de faire ses yeux aussi larges que possible et de garder sa bouche toujours dans une moue sombre. Pire encore, O’Connor ancre le passage à l’âge adulte artistique d’Emily dans une romance par cœur avec un beau curé qui lui donne également des cours de français. Bien sûr, nous sommes à l’ère du style de narration «insérez ici un personnage historique qui baise», mais joue ici plus comme une mauvaise fan fiction, surtout par rapport aux profondeurs de l’émotion humaine que le chef-d’œuvre d’Emily atteint.
En plus de la seller avec un corsage vraiment banal déchirant une mauvaise romance, O’Connor jette à la fois Charlotte, et surtout Anne, avec l’eau du bain. Chaque fois que le film se présente, Charlotte est opposée artistiquement – et à un moment donné, romantiquement – à sa sœur. Alors qu’Anne est reléguée à environ trois ou quatre scènes, à jamais la Brontë oubliée. (Note latérale : lisez son roman Agnès Gray (sic) si jamais vous en avez l’occasion.) Leur frère Branwell s’en sort beaucoup mieux, et c’est peut-être le plus que vous verrez de lui dans un film sur les Brontës. O’Connor semble suggérer les thèmes de l’inceste trouvés dans Les Hauts de Hurlevent peut avoir une origine familiale.
Les débuts d’O’Connor sont certes ambitieux, mais avec des images extraites d’innombrables meilleurs films d’époque, une partition autoritaire d’Abel Korzeniowski et une façon dépassée de monter les femmes les unes contre les autres, je ne pouvais que penser que l’héritage d’Emily méritait mieux que cela. (Translation)
One historian came back after a couple of weeks and said that he believed it was linked to the Brontë sisters and the Branwells of Penzance. Maria Branwell left her home in Penzance in 1812 to move to Yorkshire, where she met and married Reverend Patrick Brontë, and eventually gave birth to Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë. The Branwell family that remained in Penzance were notable, but not for their musical interests, with the exception of Hugh Branwell (1890 – 1966) who, according to historian Peter Pool, “had a career totally unlike his ancestors, as a musician.”
Sadly, there are no records of Hugh Branwell running a musical academy, and by the time he was born, the original house on Park Corner had been split into two homes. In fact, the 1842 Tithe map of Penzance shows that the building had already been split into two homes by then. (Greg Martin)
Traditionally linked with Yorkshire, the Brontë sisters spent a lot of time in Lancashire walking from their home at Haworth across the South Pennine Moors. The picturesque hamlet of Wycoller near Colne and the secluded ruins of Wycoller Hall, dating back to the 16th century, are thought to have been frequent haunts of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, while the hall is widely believed to have been the inspiration for Ferndean Manor in Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre. Although most famed for their novels, the literary sisters also wrote poems, the most famous of all being Emily’s unflinching ‘No Coward Soul is Mine.’
You can now retrace their steps in Lancashire by undertaking a four and a half mile (7km) Brontës in Pendle walk through the countryside frequented by the talented trio, beginning in Trawden. It takes in the beauty spot of Lumb Spout and follows the old moorland pack horse trail to the village of Wycoller and the ruins of the hall. (Claire Barre)
Gaslight (1944)
In some respects, I consider this George Cukor’s Rebecca-lite. It has several of the same beats about a haunted old house and a woman being driven mad, but for all of the increased horror movie atmosphere, it feels a lot less menacing than Hitchcock’s exquisite anxiety. Again like Rebecca (or Jane Eyre for that matter), a young woman finds herself living in a disturbing home of faded grandeur after a whirlwind marriage. (David Crow, Don Kaye)
Having had imaginary affairs with Byronic heroes, I was always attracted to those tales of loves that did not have happy endings. Whether it was Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights that I empathised with or a young Theodore Lawrence from Little Women, these men were all unsuccessful in uniting with their true loves. (Jonaki)
Vào đầu thời đại Victoria, có chị em nhà Brontë cũng sáng tác tiểu thuyết, Charlotte Brontë với Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë với Đồi gió hú, đều xuất bản năm 1847, cũng có ảnh hưởng đến tiểu thuyết lãng mạn phổ biến sau này. Mặc dù giờ đây những tác phẩm của cả Jane Austen và chị em nhà Brontë đều được tôn vinh là tác phẩm kinh điển, trở thành một cột mốc văn hóa và được công nhận có giá trị văn học, nhưng không thể phủ nhận nguồn gốc của văn học lãng mạn. (Tu An) (Translation)
Siri Hustvedt, en su último libro, habla de Cumbres borrascosas como un libro que se ha leído de las más diversas maneras. Como una obra maestra, una “mezcla de depravación vulgar y horrores antinaturales” —como dijo alguno de sus contemporáneos—, o como una novela racista —desde una visión políticamente correcta—. Algo similar pasa con la “lectura” que se hace de la reina. (Piedad Bonnett) (Translation)
“Les Hauts de Hurlevent” Amour, haine et vengeanceMonument de la littérature anglaise, Les Hauts de Hurlevent est l’unique roman d’Emily Brontë, décédée à 30 ans, qui plonge le lecteur dans un climat surnaturel où se mêlent passion amoureuse, humiliation et vengeance. À sa parution, l’œuvre effraie autant qu’elle scandalise par sa puissante exploration des affres du mal enfouis en tout un chacun.Documentaire de Mathilde Damoisel (France, 2022, 52mn) Coproduction : ARTE France, Les Films d’Ici (Antoine Oury) (Translation)
Le Parisien (France) talks with the writer Tatiana de Rosnay who says:
« À l'intérieur de moi, c'était les Hauts de Hurlevent ». Nous sommes dans les années 1980 et Tatiana de Rosnay se balade en petit tailleur la journée, attachée de presse ou journaliste free lance, pour mieux embrasser les nuits londoniennes. (Sandrine Bajos) (Translatiop)
Tranne quando interpreta la quasi omonima Catherine Earnshaw di Cime Tempestose in Wuthering Heights: un personaggio preesistente, creato da un’altra persona. È lei, non Kate Bush, a parlare di guerra persa, di gelosia, e implorare il suo Heathcliff di venire a scaldarla.Se c’è un personaggio di Cime Tempestose che rassomiglia alla Kate Bush di The Kick Inside è Isabella Linton, la cognata di Catherine che subisce le angherie di suo fratello Hindley (Flaminia Zacchilli) (Translation)
Charlotte is, frankly, unlikeable at times and cruelly mocks Arthur as an intellectual inferior, but it is to Pauline Clooney’s credit that she doesn’t over romanticise the couple. There are enough letters written by Charlotte to establish that she was no simpering Victorian bride. By the time of her marriage she was the celebrated author of Jane Eyre and, aged 38, she knew that taking a risk with Arthur would spare her the lonely life of a spinster.I thoroughly enjoyed this poignant novel. It has warmth and humour and its sensitive depiction of an intimate relationship is a glimpse of a largely untold part of Charlotte’s life, while remaining respectful to the Brontë legacy.It is thoroughly researched too, with Pauline visiting locations the newlyweds stayed at or passed through. Their story unfolds against a backdrop of Victorian Ireland; as they travel through the country and stay with Arthur’s family in Banagher, on the banks of the River Shannon, the impact of the famine is felt, and their tour highlights the poor and privileged of Irish society. (Emma Clayton)
While tourists from around the world flock to Haworth’s Bronte Parsonage Museum, a miniature replica of the family’s famous home is attracting visitors of the wildlife variety.Bats, bugs and beasts are all welcome at a Bronte-themed community garden in Thornton - birthplace of the Bronte siblings - where mini literary landmarks have been installed. The ‘Prickly Parsonage’ hedgehog home, Bronte Bat Box and Bronte Bug Chapel are a novel way of making wildlife feel at home in the village.The hedgehog and bug homes are at South Square arts centre in a community garden which was launched on Thursday - Charlotte Bronte’s birthday. Local schoolchildren were invited to help fill the Bronte Bug Chapel with bug-friendly bricks, bamboo sticks and leaves, and the youngsters learned how to protect wildlife from Hedgehog Emergency Rescue, Bingley Yorkshire (HERBY).
The Brontë sisters are among those known to have admired the now abandoned Wycoller village which forms part of this week’s suggested walk. The route starts and ends in the Trawden - the only village in the UK where the community owns its pub, shop, library and community centre.
Landmarks along the circular route include the hidden gem Lumb Sprout waterfall, which was a favourite tourist spot in the Victorian era. The route also take you past the ruins of the once grand Wycoller Hall, which is believed to have been the inspiration for Ferndean Manor is Charlotte Brontë’s literary classic Jane Eyre. (Jamie Lopez)
Penzance, CornwallFrom Rye, take the Night Riviera Sleeper via London, which is only a short train trip away, to add a romantic twist to the adventure. Penzance’s promenade has a rustic, Victorian charm, but stroll up to Chapel Street to see the town’s impressive Georgian architecture, including the eccentric and outlandish Egyptian House or the little abode of Maria Branwell, mother of the Brontë siblings. (Vic O'Sullivan)
Biographies, it is well-known, are not entirely reliable as far as telling the truth is concerned. This has been so right from when the art of the biography started to be recognised as a distinct branch of literature: James Boswell was accused of manipulating quotes to suit his perspective in The Life of Samuel Johnson (1791), while Elizabeth Gaskell was pilloried for trying to scrub away all evidence of her subject’s “immorality” — such as her love for a married man — in The Life of Charlotte Brontë (1857). (Pooja Pillai)
[Stacey] Pike said the group also plans to invite new potential members to join, and are having an "open brew day" on May 29. So who would make a good member?
"Anyone who supports the mission! If Queer Beer N.L. were a song, we'd be Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush. I'm trying to say that we're really weird, really gay and really ourselves," says Pike. (Andie Bulman)
He devorado todo lo que se ha cruzado en mi camino: novelas del Oeste —soy una crack de la geografía del Far West desde Amarillo a San Antonio—, novela romántica —Jean Austen y las Brontë son imprescindibles—, novela negra —Joel Dicker, Henning Mankell o Lorenzo Silva— y fantástica —olvidé las veces que leí Harry Potter—. Y en el medio toda la intelectualidad que se puedan imaginar, pero soy más pulp que cult. (Rocío Cortés Galdo) (Translation)
Fem un assaig: els autors més sol·licitats van ser Stefan Zweig, Virginia Woolf, Maggie O’Farrell, Anne Brontë, Enric Casasses i qualsevol que tinguis de teatre o d’aquell que va escriure una història de la música del segle XX. Aquest és el rànquing que es desprenia del treball de camp fet a peu de parada ahir al migdia durant dues hores llargues. (Eva Vñzquez) (Translation)
Jane Eyre - Fins a vuit adaptacions al llarg de les dècades s'han fet sobre l'obra de Charlotte Brontë. La més recent, del 2011, de Cary Joji Fukunaga -responsable d'obres mestres com Breaking Bad o True Detective- ens regala un repartiment de tres estrelles com Mia Wasikowska, Michael Fassbender i Judi Dench, amb una mística i una escenografia que adapta amb excel·lència la novel·la de la britànica. Disponible a Amazon i Filmin. Altres adaptacions destacades són les minisèries de 2006 i 1983; i el film de 1996, amb William Hurt, Charlotte Gainsbourg i Anna Paquin. (Víctor Rodrigo) (Translation)
Nando López, escritor de novela juvenil y editor de la colección de adaptaciones clásicas de Loqueleo Santillana, tiene claro que el profesorado pasa a ser “mediador de lectura”. “No hay que olvidar que muchas veces las aulas son la única puerta de entrada a esos clásicos para mucha gente y tenemos que darles las herramientas para que puedan disfrutar de Lorca, Virginia Woolf o las hermanas Brontë”, indica. Además reivindica abrir las miras fuera de España. (Marina Prats) (Translation)
Florencia Bocalandro: ¿Nos podés compartir 3 libros que te hayan marcado como lectora?
F.Bon:.: Jane Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë; El jinete de bronce de Paullina Simones y Amor bajo el espino blanco de Ai Mi.
F.Boc:¿Cuáles son tus escritores/as favoritos?
F.Bon: Tantos, es que leo desde que tengo memoria. Algunos son Mark Twain, Charlotte y Anne Brontë, Jane Austen, Edith Hull, Orhan Pamuk, Alessandro Barbero, David Grossman, Jorge Fernández Díaz… Como verás, es una gran mezcla, porque así es mi vínculo con la lectura, muy ecléctico. (Translation)
Antonella Ruiz, bookstagram, booktuber y booktwitch
Fue así como hace tres años empezó con su cuenta de bookstagram llamada ‘Suspiro entre libros’. “Mi primera reseña que hice fue mi libro favorito que es Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë. Empecé con cinco likes o 10 likes, pero así fue como encontré mi propio ritmo; fue un proceso en el que fui aprendiendo y me fui inspirando de otras personas”, cuenta la influencer que al momento suma 14.000 seguidores en Instagram. (Mishell Sánchez) (Translation)
Sául Rodríguez: Cuando traduces a un autor, estos siempre cargan sus propias imágenes, ¿qué tanto te abordan al momento de traducir?J.C.: Mucho. Yo estoy marcada por las imágenes de los poetas a quienes he traducido. Me lo he preguntado porque ¿traducir es una pérdida de tiempo?, ¿es entregar tu tiempo de creación a los demás? No, no es pérdida de tiempo. Es aprender a leer a profundidad a los autores que estás traduciendo y, además, nutrirte de los autores que ellos leen. Te pongo un ejemplo: la primera parte de Cristal, Ironía, Dios (de Anne Carson) está totalmente fundamentada en Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë. Tuve que buscar la mejor edición posible para entender… hay una expresión en inglés que es to hang the puppies. Ya ves que el protagonista cuelga a los cachorros, pero ¿realmente los cuelga?, ¿los cuelga o los ahorca?, ¿están ahorcados o están colgados?, porque dice que hay un cordón que va de la manivela de la puerta y atado a la silla. ¿Están ahorcados o están colgados? Toda esa investigación, Anne Carson la va llevando a lo largo del libro. No lleva la imagen, lleva la idea, lo que te quiere decir. Y como está dividido en tres partes, en la parte de "Dios" vuelve a retomar la idea de ahorcar. Entonces, dices: "¡Ah! ¡Entonces sí es ahorcar!". (Translation)
The tiny book by Charlotte Brontë for sale at the New York International Antiquarian Book Fair is still all over the news: New Criterion, Deia (in Spanish), News24, Le Courrier du Vietnam, Mbl (Iceland), 021 (Serbia), Oman Observer, Puente Libre, La Jornada Maya (México)...
César Díaz-Cid, director of Pedagogy of Secondary Education in Language and Communication of the USS and doctor in Literature, recommends reading the Brontës in G5 Noticias (Chile). La Verdad (Spain) also mentions the Brontës in an article about the joys of literature. Primicia (Venezuela) lists Wuthering Heights among the 15 books you should read once in your lifetime. Dan and the 1001 Movies posts briefly about Wuthering Heights 1939.
Meanwhile, it has been revealed that the Brontë Parsonage museum contains a pair of Native American moccasins which belonged to Charlotte Brontë.
That’s her off the reading list. And I give the Brontë statue outside her old home in Yorkshire a couple more days before some lunatic tears it down.
Charlotte Brontë must fall! (Richard Littlejohn)
"Jane Eyre," a classic novel by Charlotte Brontë, is a great starting point. A story about love and overcoming life’s struggles, "Jane Eyre" employs a rich lexicon while reporting on the plot’s many characters. Thus, this work allows students to prepare for two key types of ACT and SAT reading questions: understanding vocabulary in context and recalling details. (Tiffany Sorensen)
American Ballet Theatre has released a new Orchestral Performance video!
Emily Wong, an ABT Company pianist and member of ABT's Orchestra, plays the Piano Sonata in B flat from Jane Eyre
The piece by Franz Schubert takes place during the final pas de deux of Act I.
Whip-smart, sarcastic and beautiful, Naomi prefers the company of Agatha Christie and Jane Eyre to real-life people. (Anna Stroud)Agatha Christie was real people.
“Beautiful Liar” is a K-pop gothic story. And no, we’re not talking modern goth. The literary Gothic stories such as “Wuthering Heights” or “Frankenstein.” The symbolism alone is enough to make my head spin, but to remember that these are the same guys who gave us “Dynamite“?! It’s mind boggling. (Jess)El cultural (Spain) discusses the use of pseudonyms. There's an interesting post on Penzance and the Brontës on Cornish Story.
The imaginary realms of the Brontë sisters offer an escape from Victorian constraints in a graphic novel that blurs fiction and memoir.Will Pavia interviews Gabriel Bryne in The Times:
Before Jane Eyre and before Heathcliff, there was Glass Town. Isolated on the edge of the Yorkshire moors, the Brontë siblings spent their formative years squeezing minute script on to precious paper, collaborating and competing to tell slyly overblown sagas of imaginary lands – Angria, Gondal and the great city of Glass Town. (...)
Greenberg blurs fiction and memoir: characters walk between worlds and woo their creators. Pivotal periods such as Charlotte’s schooling in Belgium, where she because obsessed with her tutor, a possible model for Mr Rochester, are omitted: instead Greenberg focuses on the delights and dangers of “an interior world that was brighter, more golden” than reality. (James Smart)
Charlotte or Emily Brontë? BothNorwich Evening News announces the upcoming performances of Wuthering Heights in Norwich:
Weeks of wild weather mean you might not need much imagination to picture the fierce beauty of the exposed Yorkshire moors, the setting for Emily Brontë's classic novel.The best audiobooks on the market according to the Daily Mail:
But this adaptation of Wuthering Heights takes its bold and confident styling in a different direction, with director and joint designer Sabrina Poole's production mixing video, audio, and clever use of the Maddermarket's galleries and windows to bring the internal storms of its characters to life.
Jo Clifford's text strips away the later chapters of the book and rejigs some of the timeline to focus on the frustrated passions that rage between Cathy, the gentleman's daughter, and Heathcliff, the vagabond boy rescued by her father.
Christina Clarke is confident and convincing as Cathy, with subtle artefacts of her growing attachment to Jose Taourca's Heathcliff. His accent wobbles a little but otherwise he is fittingly broody and quick to passion - whether romance or repugnance.(James Goffin)
Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëThe Tremenheere Wetherspoon pub in Penzance is not far from Brontë history according to Cornwall Live:
Narrated by Joanne Froggatt 12hrs 32mins
A contemporary review condemned the novel’s ‘vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors’, and Brontë’s strange tale of obsession and revenge still compels and disturbs almost two centuries after its publication. Downton Abbey’s Joanne Froggatt brilliantly conveys its unique intensity.
Thomas Branwell and his wife Anne lived just around the corner from the pub at 25 Chapel Street. Thomas and Anne produced 11 children but only four girls and one boy survived infancy.Horror Cult Films talks about Jacques Tourneur's I Walked with a Zombie 1943:
The children’s much-loved Aunt Jane married the local Methodist minister and moved up north to Yorkshire. Jane was later visited by one of her nieces, Maria.
Maria fell in love with the Reverend Patrick Brontë. They married and produced a son, Branwell, and three daughters, the future novelists Charlotte, Emily and Anne. The rest is literary history. (Lee Trewhela)
“I once walked with a zombie” are the first words we here as we see two people at a distance walking along a beach in an opening possibly inspired by Rebecca’s “last night I went to Manderlay” – which is appropriate I guess seeing as Daphne du Maurier’s story isn’t that dissimilar to Charlotte Brontë’s and the Edward Rochester substitute in the movie often seems more like Max de Winter.(Dr Lenera)The Patriot announces Riverside's 27th annual Dickens festival:
The festival will formally get underway at 10 a.m. outside Riverside City Hall, at Ninth and Main streets, where visitors will encounter actors representing Dickens, Queen Victoria, Bram Stoker, Mark Twain, H.G. Wells, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allen Poe, Louisa May Alcott, Jules Verne, Emily Brontë, Mary Shelley and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- to name a few.The Talko has one of these pointless articles whose only purpose is to fill pages of nonsense:
Jane Eyre Would Be A Libragonn1000 (Portugal) talks about the latest concert in Portugal of Emily Jane White:
While Libras are known for their indecision, that doesn't mean it's their only trait. Jane Eyre, while a bit quieter than the other literary heroines, still shone in many ways: A truly diplomatic nature, somewhat of a charismatic socialite, and a passion for fair treatment are all things she displayed. Her fight for true love and the truth that haunted the one person she grew to care about is something a Libra would undoubtedly understand just as well. (Lianna Tedesco)
Se o despojamento instrumental e escrita confessional da estreia, aliados a um timbre dolente mas caloroso e aveludado, suscitaram algumas comparações iniciais com os relatos de Cat Power, a californiana foi definindo um lugar especial num universo que aceita heranças do gótico sulista, do blues ou do alternative country, assim como dos olhares de Emily Brontë ou Cormac McCarthy, sem que as suas canções fiquem confinadas a um género em particular. (Translation)The Deccan Herald reviews Venita Coelho's Whisper in the Wind:
Coelho clearly has a delicate touch when required — she conjures up powerful images of a bygone Goa and its gossipy, socially conservative and Portuguese influenced culture. However, Gothic stories — Daphne du Maurier’s ‘Rebecca’ and Charlotte Brönte's‘Jane Eyre’ come to mind — succeed best when the prose is at its most sparing. Here, there’s too much going on. (Saudha Kasim)The Independent mentions Christiane Ritter's Eine Frauerlebt die Polarnacht:
A Woman in the Polar Night is remarkable for a few reasons. First, accounts written by women about hanging out in the wilderness in the early 20th century are hardly two a penny. At the time, few women were published, let alone female writers of the landscape. Nature writing by women existed – Susan Fenimore Cooper, Dorothy Wordsworth, Phillis Wheatley and Emily Brontë, for example – but it wasn’t until the 20th century that Nan Shepherd, Rachel Carson and Annie Dillard paved the way for the growing number today. (Lucy Jones)Diario de Cádiz (Spain) argues that English heather has its origins in the Strait of Gibraltar's zone:
TÚ dices brezo, amor, y yo pienso en Heathcliff. En las Brontë. En los páramos de Yorkshire. En Escocia ardiendo en magentas imposibles. “Sí, es normal. Cuando se piensa en un brezal, la mente se va a las grandes extensiones –comenta el catedrático Fernando Ojeda, cabeza del Grupo de Investigación Febimed–. Pero, probablemente el brezo (Calluna vulgaris) que le da a las highlands de Escocia u tonalidad rojiza tan característica tuvo su origen aquí, en las herrizas del Estrecho español y marroquí. (Pilar Vera) (Translation)Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) recommends some book bargains:
”Jane Eyre”. Övers. Ingegärd von Tell. Modernista. Roman. Vilken lycka för den som har denna viktorianska klassiker kvar att läsa! Guvernanten Janes möte med mr Rochester tillhör litteraturens mest laddade. Charlotte Brontë blandar suveränt mänsklig klarsyn, gotisk spänning och outtalad sexuell passion. (Translation)Página 12 (Argentina) quotes the words of Marlon James criticising the Brontës... and everybody else basically:
Evidentemente no habrá respuesta de Charlotte, Emily y Anne Brontë que, según el gallito James, “no entendieron ni lograron capturar la emoción humana”. Tiene ¡el tupé! de criticar la pluma de las hermanas “por su estilo demasiado recargado”, y no se corta medio pelo al admitir que nunca pudo terminar Cumbres borrascosas: su animadversión, irónicamente, se basa en que el clásico de clásicos le resulta “demasiado violento”, “descaradamente cruel, sin justificaciones”. (Translation)La Gaceta de Tucumán (Argentina) reviews the novel Nuestra Parte de la Noche by Mariana Enríquez:
El conflicto se dará cuando Juan, una especie de Heathcliff rubio intente rescatar a su hijo, Gaspar, y mantenerlo lejos de lo que parece ser su destino heredado por la sangre. (Karina Ocampo) (Translation)OK Diario (Spain) quotes the writer Patricia Betancort:
Me encantan las novelas románticas, y el siglo XIX es una época que tanto a través de la literatura, como de las películas siempre me ha atraído, por el Romanticismo, como movimiento cultural y artístico», explica la autora. Y añade que, además, «es innegable, en mi opinión, que muchos escritores y escritoras dejaron huella al reflejar de forma magistral unas historias de amor que, más de un siglo después, a mí me conmueve como lectora. Orgullo y prejuicio de Jane Austen, Cumbres borrascosas de Emily Brönte (sic), La dama de las camelias de Alexandre Dumas, Madame Bovary de Gustave Flaubert…». (Translation)Cretedoc (Greece) has an article about the Brontës.
An alert for today, January 4 in London:The Friends of Southwark Cathedral presents
The Mother of the Brontës: When Maria Met Patrick - A Talk by Sharon Wright
January 4, 14:30pm
Southwark Cathedral
At long last, the untold story of the mysterious Mrs Brontë.
They were from different lands, different classes, different worlds almost. The chances of Cornish gentlewoman Maria Branwell even meeting the poor Irish curate Patrick Brontë in Regency England, let alone falling passionately in love, were remote.
Yet Maria and Patrick did meet, making a life together as devoted lovers and doting parents in the heartland of the industrial revolution. An unlikely romance and novel wedding were soon followed by the birth of six children. They included Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, the most gifted literary siblings the world has ever known.
Her children inherited her intelligence and wit and wrote masterpieces such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Yet Maria has remained an enigma while the fame of her family spread across the world. It is time to bring her out of the shadows, along with her overlooked contribution to the Brontë genius. Untimely death stalked Maria as it was to stalk all her children.
But first there was her fascinating life story, told here for the first time by Sharon Wright.
This lecture begins at 2.30pm after which tea and cake will be served.
A new book exploring the Brontës Cornwall connection:Brontë Territories:
Cornwall and the Unexplored Maternal Legacy, 1760-1870
Melissa Hardie
Edward Everett Root (30 Nov. 2019)
ISBN-13: 978-1911454465
‘Actually... the Bronte girls got their literary talent from the Carne side, as their Aunt Elizabeth spun wonderfully wild and woolly tales of Cornwall. So there!’ Philip Carne
This new book explores the important maternal background of the great literary family. In highlighting the background of their Cornish mother and her family, it provides a major and fresh source of cultural understanding of the Brontё milieu. Surprisingly ignored until now, Cornish contextual networks and issues are shown to have been very significant in the creative evolution of the writers.
Place-histories of Yorkshire and Ireland have been exhaustively investigated as backdrops to Brontë writings. Largely unacknowledged, however, is the influential agency to their writings that Cornwall, as a mental and spiritual legacy, also offers. Their Cornish kin did much to mould and form capabilities, temperament, and literary concerns.
Born and bred in the town and district of Penzance at Land’s End, Maria (Carne) Brontë (1783-1821) died young at Haworth in Yorkshire, leaving her six children all under 10 years of age. Travelling far to take over the care of the children, her Cornish elder sister Elizabeth (Carne) Branwell (1776-1842) is also virtually ignored in Brontë history. Yet it was Elizabeth who would provide the general tenor, the daily routines and domestic rhythms for the family as children, adults, and creative beings.
This new illustrated study captures the whole milieu in which Maria, Elizabeth and their kinship circle grew up in Cornwall, known even then as a legendary and romantic place. In their everyday life were a number of journalists, travellers, poets, story-tellers, and published academics, critically influential in their day. The legacies of story-telling, journal reading and direct participation in the life of books were vital.
This volume presents a full cast-list of possible participants in the lives of the constituent families. The focus pivots on the critically important period in which the Wesleyan Methodist emphasis on education and loving usefulness to family and society was to the fore, transforming the face of Cornwall into the Victorian period. In an age of revolutions – American, French and industrial – the Branwells, the Carnes, the Battens and the Fennells were laying new roads into the future.
Contents:
Author’s note and acknowledgements. List of illustrations. Introduction.
Part 1: Place and time
Living at the edge: the Penwith Hundred;
Creators of Penzance;
A legendary place: stories and storytellers;
And then came Wesley;
The everyday.
Part 2. ‘sisters and the cousins and aunts’.
The naming game: Identification and patterns;
Branwells with links: Bronte, Carne, H. Davy (PRS), Botterell, Fennell, Batten, Johns, Kingston, Pellew & Carthew Reynolds, Lovett (Chartist);
Carnes with links: Cock, Polwhele, Fox, Bolitho, Vyvyan, Southey, Thackeray, Coleridge, Davies Giddy Gilbert (PRS), Wesley brothers.
Battens with links: Cristal, Wollstonecraft, Malthus, G Dyer, Clapham Sect, L Stephen (V Woolf).
The John/Johns with links: Arundell, H Martyn (missionary), C Kingsley. Charles A Johns.
The Document register
Index
As we have reported earlier, a new Maria Brontë biography has just been published:The Mother of the Brontës
When Maria Met Patrick
by Sharon Wright
Pen & Sword History
ISBN: 9781526738486
July 2019
At long last, the untold story of the mysterious Mrs Brontë.
They were from different lands, different classes, different worlds almost.
The chances of Cornish gentlewoman Maria Branwell even meeting the poor Irish curate Patrick Brontë in Regency England, let alone falling passionately in love, were remote.
Yet Maria and Patrick did meet, making a life together as devoted lovers and doting parents in the heartland of the industrial revolution. An unlikely romance and novel wedding were soon followed by the birth of six children. They included Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë, the most gifted literary siblings the world has ever known.
Her children inherited her intelligence and wit and wrote masterpieces such as Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Yet Maria has remained an enigma while the fame of her family spread across the world. It is time to bring her out of the shadows, along with her overlooked contribution to the Brontë genius.
Untimely death stalked Maria as it was to stalk all her children. But first there was her fascinating life’s story, told here for the first time by Sharon Wright.
Revealed: Brontë sisters' grandfather 'had links to murderous Cornish smugglers and his dirty money allowed Emily, Anne and Charlotte to publish their classic novels' (Terri-Ann Williams)Oh, dear.
Age 16In The Guardian, the best prequels (before The Hunger Games):
“Jane Eyre”
by Charlotte Brontë
Nobody understands you and your terribly unfair life. Reader, you are not alone.
Adult fiction prequels abound too, from the likes of Porto Bello Gold by Arthur D Howden Smith (a competent tale of how Captain Flint and Murray gained and buried their loot, written 50 years after Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, though whether as a cynical attempt to cash in or as an early piece of fan fiction it is hard to tell) to books such as Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, the story of Mr Rochester’s “mad” wife and likely to endure as long as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre itself. (Lucy Mangan)From The Times' Judith Krantz obituary:
Her own reading tastes included Margaret Drabble and Doris Lessing. She also loved the early 20th century, especially Proust and Colette, although lamented a lack of sex scenes in their predecessors. “I wish Jane Austen or the Brontë sisters had been able to do it — wouldn’t it have been wonderful?” she said. “We’d have known what Heathcliff was like in bed. All we know is that he must have been terrific.”Isabella Linton probably disagrees.
Although in the past, women and girls have read them avidly, and far more readily than men have tended to tackle Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë, perhaps they are now out of tune with a literary culture that has become more feminised and emotionally literate. (Jake Kerridge)GoldDerby lists the best William Wyler films. Wuthering Heights 1939 is number 4:
Literary purists were appalled by this adaptation of Emily Brontë’s novel, which only depicts 16 of its 34 chapters, slashing an entire crop of characters from the narrative. Yet Wyler perfectly captures the book’s gloomy, tragic mood, thanks in large part to Gregg Toland’s atmospheric black-and-white cinematography (which won the Oscar). Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon perfectly embody Heathcliff and Cathy, the doomed couple at the story’s center. The film does an expert job recreating Victorian England (with Thousand Oaks, CA, standing in for those windy hills), while the operatic performances make our hearts swoon. “Wuthering Heights” earned seven additional Academy Award bids, including Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor for Olivier.The Arizona Daily Star interviews the paediatrician and parenting educator Marilyn Heins:
When I was 10 or so, a neighbor saw me carrying a pile of library books home and asked me what I liked to read. I was deep in the Brontë sisters at that time. She went in her house and came out with a biography of the Brontës. After I read it, we discussed them and their books.Caravan Magazine (India) talks about Dom Moraes's neglected nonfiction:
Darwen, he remembers, is “slap in the middle of William Blake's dark, satanic mills,” and a few miles away, “the ghost of Heathcliff still ululates over the moors around Haworth, where Emily Brontë and her sisters and drunken Branwell once, twitchingly, lived. (Abhrajyoti Chakraborty)The Richmond Star Tribune is travelling across Yorkshire:
After an easy descent, we made our way into Arncliffe (from the Norse for Eagle’s Cliff), a tiny village straight out of Emily Brontë. Though it consists of little more than a modest green, a church and a clutch of fieldstone houses, it is home to a well-known 18th-century pub, the Falcon. At tiny tables around a coal fire, we refueled with a Ploughman’s Lunch and cauliflower soup while the barman and his aunt debated Brexit. (David Hage)Well and Good mentions Wuthering Heights... well, not really:
I thought I had heard about twin flames in the upper echelons of classic literature—like maybe in a quote from Wuthering Heights. But like many of my shamey moments, I realized I was actually thinking of a Taylor Swift lyric; this time it was “twin fire signs” in “State of Grace” from her Red album. (Mary Grace Garis)The Jewish Journal and author attribution:
Authorship attribution is helpful if you suspect fraud: for instance, if you believe that Shakespeare wasn’t educated enough to write the plays, or that Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre was really written by her brother, Branwell. (Sarah Allison)La Voz de Almería (Spain) mentions Jane Eyre:
Echó un par de ojeadas a la biblioteca de su dispositivo electrónico, y como no encontrara nada a primera vista que le llamara la atención para satisfacer sus iniciales deseos literarios, hurgó en su maleta y descubrió a Jane Eyre. Aunque hacía algunos años que durante su periodo almeriense había deleitado su insaciable afición lectora con la obra maestra de Charlotte Brontë, comenzó a recordar algunos capítulos y la curiosidad le llevó a engancharse, de nuevo, con el destino, el amor y las intrigas de la joven Eyre. Mi amiga Dorita disfrutó a lo grande con la relectura de esta obra maestra de la literatura victoriana, pero no solo por la intensa trama argumental, que la llevó, en ocasiones, a identificar numerosas situaciones con la vida real, sino porque, sin pretensión expresa, había recuperado el olor y la exclusiva textura del papel de aquel viejo ejemplar que llevaba consigo como si de un amuleto se tratara. (José Luis Masegosa) (Translation)Entre un Jardín de Libros (in Spanish) reviews Villette. AnneBrontë.org publishes an account of Charlotte Brontë's wedding.
The grandfather of the Brontë family has always been portrayed as a gentleman merchant and an upstanding figure of his Cornish community. But new research has revealed that Thomas Branwell was, in fact, involved with murderous smugglers and that without his dirty money his granddaughters Emily, Anne and Charlotte might never have published their famous novels.The Sunday Herald reviews the children's book The Fantastically Feminist (and totally true) Story Of The Astonishing Authors: The Brontës by Anna Doherty
Long before the birth of his grandchildren, Branwell was indicted for “obstructing the Customs Officers in searching his dwelling”, according to Custom House records of 1778.
Other documents show he had been in business with men who were wanted for murder and who were described in a 1791 report as “the most notorious smugglers in that part of the kingdom”. Evidence of his illegal business dealings was unearthed by Sharon Wright while researching a forthcoming book on Branwell’s daughter, Maria, who married the poor Irish curate Patrick Brontë. Maria died aged 38, leaving their six children in the charge of her sister, Elizabeth.
Wright told the Observer that Branwell, who died in 1808, has always been seen as a “Penzance bigwig”, an astute businessman who traded in tea, among other goods, and who owned an inn run by his brother.
She was astonished to discover a murkier side to him – yet Branwell’s illegal dealings provided a legacy that enabled his grandchildren to pay for the publication of their writings.
“We wouldn’t have Wuthering Heights or Agnes Grey without their grandfather’s involvement in the well-armed and even murderous smuggling operations running out of Penzance. The family money left to Emily and Anne … paid for these works of genius to appear in print for the first time.
“No-one has ever connected the Brontës to Cornish smuggling before and this part of the family fortune is in startling contrast to the genteel life their mother and aunts lived amid Regency Penzance society.”
Ann Dinsdale, principal curator of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, described the evidence as “fascinating”, casting light on how Branwell’s legacy enabled his granddaughters to get published: “In effect, their books were vanity published,” she said. “They paid for the publication of their poems in 1846. Then Emily and Anne actually paid for their novels to be published. They couldn’t find a publisher who was willing to take on their publication. So they ended up financing it themselves.” (Dalya Alberge)
I’m unbelievably happy to finally get the chance to review this one. It’s certainly different to what I normally do in the sense that it’s not a novel, or even a collection of fairytales or poetry. The Fantastically Feminist (and totally true) Story Of The Astonishing Authors: The Brontës By Anna Doherty is beautiful, not only when looking at its contents, but with its design as a wide, short book with a certain weight to it gives it a feeling that is reminiscent to a scrapbook. There’s something subconsciously comforting about its design as it feels like the sort of book one might fill with pictures of and notes on loved ones, which in a way is exactly what it is. (...)Books that changed the writer Malla Nun in The Sydney Morning Herald:
There was also a very healthy approach to the books the sister’s wrote and bringing them to attention of children. I feel that a lot of the time when faced with books that are classics or just a little older, it can be difficult to get children to find an interest in them but this does it so much better than I could have imagined. In my experience, books of a different time are rarely as scary and difficult to understand as many of people first believe. The emotions and messages that are portrayed in a good book will, by putting a little effort into it, transcend time and capture any reader. I think that this book is crucial to show to children, and for someone of any age to read, who loves the Brontës’ works, or is just looking to try something a little different. (Gemma E. McLaughlin)
Jane Eyre - Charlotte BrontëHow Iris Murdoch taught writer Sarah Perry to love the Gothic in The Telegraph:
Reading creates empathy. Despite being set in a foreign landscape that was far from anything that I’d experienced, I felt absolutely connected to Jane’s story. I wanted to be Jane: small but filled with inner strength and a blazing courage. Jane said things like, "I’m no angel and I won’t be one till I die: I will be myself." Those words, coming from a woman’s mouth, still have a revolutionary sting. Viva Jane!
Iris Murdoch's The Bell (1958) is a Gothic novel, and its protagonist Dora Greenfield, arriving by train at the threshold of Imber – its gates concealing sundry lakes, lodges, abbey walls and drowned bells – a Gothic heroine. She is haunted with "letters and telephones and imagined footsteps on the stairs"; she suffers "from guilt, and with guilt came fear". She is the second Mrs de Winter swooning at Manderley's clotted banks of scarlet rhododendrons; she is Catherine Morland approaching Northanger Abbey with marriage and Mrs Radcliffe on her mind; she is Jane Eyre knocking on Thornfield's door, had Jane Eyre been large and faintly stupid.iNews advocates for audiobooks:
Admitting you listen to books is like catnip to a certain strain of literature snob. (Other characteristics include: getting jittery at the mention of diversifying the canon, and muttering snatches of Rudyard Kipling in moments of stress.)La Verdad (Spain) presents de book Breve Historia de la Misoginia by Anna Caballé Masforroll:
“Oh, you just listened to Wuthering Heights? You probably won’t know who Heathcliff is, then?” sneers a twerp from your book club, before lecturing you about the other protagonist, whom he insists is called “Kitty”. (Gwendolyn Smith)
Su autora, Anna Caballé Masforroll comenta que una mañana de domingo, paseando por los puestos de libros del mercado de San Antonio, compró un librito cuyo título le llamó la atención, Cinco novelistas inglesas, firmado por Charles David Ley. Abriéndolo por el índice vio que trataba de las cinco grandes novelistas inglesas del siglo xix: Charlotte, Emily y Anne Brontë, Jane Austen y Mary Ann Evans, más conocida como George Eliot, un grupo de escritoras que se atrevía a romper los paradigmas masculinos exponiendo públicamente su visión del mundo a través de sólidas ficciones sustentadas en la propia subjetividad. (Translation)
Sunday 7 AprilBritain's most peaceful places according to Countryfile:
Anne Brontë Walk
7 miles (11.2km) Circular
Packed lunch
Meet Barbara Walker at 10.30am at Haworth Church (top of Main Street). A varied walk around Haworth on good paths, visiting the quaint hamlet of Newsholme Dean and the Anne Brontë Stone. Walk devised by Michael Stewart. *** (Via Keighley News)
North York moors, YorkshireCornwall Live lists some 'fascinating' facts in Cornish history taking place in April:
There’s a reason why Cathy and Heathcliff run wild on the North York Moors in Wuthering Heights – the stark beauty of the largest heather moorlands in Britain thrills the soul. The weather on t’moors may be bracing at best, but if you’re feeling an urge to stride around and breathe in fresh sweet air, this is where to do it. Pretty Staithes is nearby when you feel ready to face civilisation again. (Sian Lewis)
April 15, 1783NPR reviews the novel Women Talking by Miriam Toews:
Maria Branwell Brontë was born in Penzance. She was the mother of Emily, Charlotte, Ann and Branwell Brontë, and helped to establish the first Methodist chapel in Penzance. (Lee Trewhela)
August, it turns out, earns his keep. As a narrator, he occupies a space similar to Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby or Nelly Dean in Wuthering Heights. (Lily Meyer)A classics apology tour on Podium Cafe:
And not all of them go away, if you know how to set the hook you so cleverly baited for them. If you weren’t sure why Andrew was comparing people snickering at Chris Froome’s gangly cycling style to the lowly treatment of Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, or why Conor analogized Tour de France podium results to the three famous plays of Sean O’Casey, let’s just say we know a thing or two about retaining our unique blend of readers. (Chris Fontecchio)El País (Spain) publishes an excerpt from the last book by the late writer Amos Oz, What's in an Apple?
Mi educación erótica empezó leyendo libros: Madame Bovary, Anna Karenina, a Jane Austen, Virginia Woolf, Emily Brontë. Tras leer muchas novelas sobre la vida espiritual de las protagonistas, con mínimas alusiones veladas y censuradas a su vida carnal, llegué a un punto —pasa algo parecido al aprender a conducir— en que ya estaba casi preparado para el examen teórico. (Translation)Diario de Navarra (Spain) discusses the novels of Edith Wharton:
No es suficiente con señalar qué aspectos distinguen a una novela costumbrista de una novela de situación. Es necesario ilustrarlos. Y dado que ella ha leído casi todo lo que se ha editado hasta ese momento, no le cuesta nada mencionar a Balzac, a Tolstoi, a Brontë, a Proust, a Thackeray, a Stendhal, a Flaubert, a Meredith, a Trollope, a Turgueniev o a Jane Austen. (Ignacio Lloret) (Translation)La Nación (Argentina) asks several writers whether they fell in love with any literary character. Mariana Enríquez chooses Heathcliff:
Aquello de lo que debiéramos huir (y vuelve como el océano)Smart Bitches, Trashy Books discusses whether the location in which you read a book enhances your memory of it. One of the contributors writes a nice description of her experience with Jane Eyre.
Me enamoré de Heathcliff, uno de los protagonistas de Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brönte (sic), a los 12 o 13 años, cuando leí la novela por primera vez. Y me enamoró porque está escrito para que te enamores, pero con un amor que no es un buen sentimiento. Heathcliff es extraño, demoníaco; es un ser no del todo humano, y está muy dañado. Además, es violento. Es, en términos de corrección política, el hombre del que una mujer debería huir y completamente irresistible en el texto. Un maldito, un romántico, un desastre. Pero lo amé.
Creo que sobre todo en mis primeros libros, la idea de Heathcliff -esa fuerza de la naturaleza con el resentimiento del Satanás del Milton (y con su belleza)- me atrapó lo suficiente como para que algunos personajes se le parezcan. Ahora ya no tanto (o no lo sé: es un arquetipo que puede volver resignificado). Fue perceptible a todo nivel, incluso hasta querer ser así, cargar con esa sombra y ese amor oceánico. El amor dura hasta hoy. No creo que sea un amor sano y eso me tiene completamente sin cuidado. Heathcliff es el lado oscuro: la ficción ofrece la posibilidad enormemente liberadora de abrazarlo sin consecuencias reales (o no muchas)". (Celina Artigas) (Translation)
The ending, which plods for more than 50 pages after the denouement, reaches across decades and continents to explain everything, and the structure of the plot, eventually revealed, depends on a sequence of elaborately justified coincidences. To some extent, this dependence is part of the genre; the plot of Jane Eyre also relies on wild coincidence and supernatural intervention in a broadly realist narrative, but Brontë knows what to leave unexplained. (Sarah Moss)Wicked Local Framingham talks about an exhibition of local artists like Sharon Cunningham:
Using rich shades of green, Cunningham’s “Swift Water, Lake District, UK” evokes the rugged terrain that once inspired England’s greatest authors like poet William Wordsworth and the Brontë sisters. (Chris Bergeron)We don't know if the Lake District was really such an inspiration to the Brontës, though.
Jaya Bhattacharji Rose: Penguin Classics is the trademark list of the publishing firm. It has existed for so many decades. Are there any titles that are perennial bestsellers or do some titles on the list exist because of their seminal value to a literary canon?The Red Hook Star Revue discusses the Essential Essays by Adrienne Rich:
H.E.: The graph of Penguin Classics sales is L-shaped: there are many titles that sell a few copies a year and a few titles that sell many copies. Some of the perennial bestsellers include Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.
A politically-engaged writer for most of her life, her piercing readings of Jane Eyre and Muriel Rukeyser and Emily Dickinson, her thoughts on the violence of language and her determination to become a “thinking activist” seem like a heaven-sent compass in our increasingly fraught times. (Matt Caprioli)The Age reviews Milkman by Anna Burns:
Milkman tells the story of "Middle Sister" who stands out in her neighbourhood for her habit of reading while walking ("Are you saying it's OK for him to go around with Semtex but not okay for me to read Jane Eyre in public?" she asks at one point). (Alex Marshall)The National discusses the life and work of Eunice Guthrie Murray:
The diary entries begin to peter out at the start of the war, although she does take time to discuss Jane Eyre at length, calling it “the story of a woman fighting against injustice”. (Nan Spowart)ArtFund presents the Penlee House Gallery and Museum in Cornwall:
Set in semi-tropical gardens, it was built in 1865 for JR Branwell, a wealthy merchant related to the Brontë family. In 1949 it was was taken over by Penzance Town Council and transformed into a district museum. Successive remodellings and extensions have turned it into a lively and popular place, with excellent space for its collections as well as temporary exhibitions, of which there are around five a year.El País (Uruguay) reviews Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood:
El relato contiene narración en primera persona, en tercera, transcripción de confesiones judiciales y reportes de prensa de la época, baladas populares, poemas de Emily Dickinson, Emily Brontë, Alfred Tennyson, Christina Rossetti y otros autores, epístolas, etc. (Mercedes Estramil) (Translation)Le Monde (France) interviews the writer Maryse Condé:
Annick Cojean: Vous êtes donc arrivée là, Maryse Condé, lauréate 2018 du prix Nobel alternatif de littérature, bien que…Göteborgs-Posten (Sweden) reviews the essay Barn. Paradiset och flykten därifrån by Kristoffer Leandoer
M.C.: Bien qu’on m’ait affirmé, quand j’étais petite fille, que les gens comme moi ne pouvaient pas devenir écrivains. J’avais 12 ans à Pointe-àPitre quand une amie de ma mère a voulu me faire un cadeau original. Elle savait que j’avais lu tout ce qui pouvait me tomber sous la main : Balzac, Maupassant, Flaubert… Alors elle a opté pour un roman d’Emily Brontë : Les Hauts de Hurlevent. Dès que j’ai ouvert les premières pages, j’ai été transportée. Ce livre était extraordinaire. Par quel miracle cette jeune Anglaise, fille de clergyman, qui vivait sur les landes balayées par le vent, pouvait-elle être si
proche de moi, petite Antillaise qui vivait au bord d’une mer chaude ? Nous étions sœurs ! J’en étais bouleversée. Dès le lendemain, j’ai couru remercier la dame. Et je lui ai dit : « Un jour, moi aussi j’écrirai des livres aussi beaux que ceux d’Emily Brontë !» Elle m’a dévisagée avec une sorte d’étonnement outré : «Mais tu es folle ! Les gens comme nous n’écrivent pas ! » (Translation)
Leandoer har både det rätta och lätta handlaget för att förklara komplicerade resonemang på ett levande sätt. Smittad av författarens entusiasm och driv märker jag nästan inte att jag ibland inte riktigt hänger med i svängarna. Däremot noterar jag att det jag gillar allra bäst är avsnitten som ges lite mer luft och tid, som kapitlet om barnen i Marguerite Duras romaner som brådmognar i en vuxenvärld uppfylld av egna lidelser, eller kapitlet om de moderlösa systrarna Brontë som lärde sig leva och sörja och skriva genom att använda masker. (Karl Olov Nilsson) (Translation)
Unless explicitly said
