Rochester happy wearing petticoats and Heathcliff dressed by Calvin Klein

The School Library Journal reviews - as a matter of fact summarises rather than reviews - Brian James's The Heights:

Gr 9 Up–This bleak tale of star-crossed love will have little appeal for teens. Angry, orphaned Henry has been raised as a brother to sweet daydreamer Catherine, though their feelings for each other run much deeper than that of siblings. After her father dies at the beginning of the novel, her domineering brother, Hindley, drives the two apart. Catherine finds solace with Edgar, the preppy son of a wealthy neighbor, while Henry becomes caught up in violence at his new public high school. After another tragedy further widens the gap between Henry and Catherine, she resolves to make a clean break with him, but then yet another tragedy occurs. James is known for his unflinching novels about teens battling issues such as child abuse and depression. In The Heights, he cleverly alternates between Henry’s and Catherine’s points of view of the same incidents to show how their feelings for each other change over the course of the book. However, the angst is over-the-top even for a YA novel, and the attempts at profundity fall flat. Send readers to Wuthering Heights instead.–(Leah J. Sparks, formerly at Bowie Public Library, MD)

The Toronto Star makes a list of the top 5 Sophomore Book Flops and Shirley appears on it:

Jane Eyre has entered the canon as one of the foremost examples of Romantic fiction in the English language; Shirley has not. This 1849 attempt at novelistic political commentary was not reprinted in her lifetime. (Bert Archer)

Well, not exactly, although Shirley was not the big success that Jane Eyre was, a second edition was published in 1852 (dated 1853), in Charlotte Brontë's lifetime. Not the first time that Shirley has this doubtful honour.

Antonia Quark on The New Statesman reviews a BBC Radio 4 programme:

The Grandfather of Self Help, 2 July, 11.30am, Radio 4) told the story of the journalist Samuel Smiles, whose book Self Help was published on the same day as The Origin of Species in 1859, and went on to sell more copies than the Bible that century.

And applies the self-help techniques of the book He's Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding Guys (Hardcover) by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo to Jane Eyre with hilarious results:

All self-help books are useless, of course. I mean, take, for instance, He’s Just Not That Into You, the American mega-seller that promotes hardline tactics for women in dead-end relationships, and apply its advice to some of the great romances of literature: “Dear HJNTIY, I am in love with my boss. He dressed as a gypsy to fool me into revealing my feelings but still fails to make a move. Please help.”
“Dear Jane, if a guy is happy to hang out with you wearing earrings and a petticoat then he’s definitely not that into you. Wake the fuck up.”

USA Today interviews Jack Murnighan, author of Beowulf on the Beach: What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits who makes the following (gender-oriented) recommendation:

Q:What would you recommend for people who think classics are too stuffy?
A: If you're a guy, read Beowulf. I call my book Beowulf on the Beach because I did catch myself reading Beowulf in a foldable chair in the Hamptons and really enjoying it. It's really short. It's only 70 pages and has a ton of action. So in some ways, it's a perfect beach read. It has a lot of violence and battle scenes, so typically men are going to like it more, although not exclusively.
Q: What else?
A: Wuthering Heights is a great book for women to go back to and read again. It's compelling, romantic, creepy, gripping and well-written. And if you know it was written by a woman who more or less was never allowed out of her house, you wonder, how did she came up with these crazy characters? How did she come up with all this drama and all this intensity? And you realize, wow, she must have been smoldering inside. (Carol Memmott)

Of course we like it when someone recommends Wuthering Heights but the great-book-for-women thing does get tiring.

Stephanie Harper on the Denver Entertainment Examiner publishes a list of summer reads for the lover of literature, including Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea:

4. Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys- This incredible novel, based on the infamous Bertha in Bronte’s Jane Eyre (Rochester’s supposedly crazy first wife), is not only set in the beautiful and tropic 1840’s Jamaica, but the sensuality of Antoinette Cosway, and the world she is a part of, makes this a perfect summer read. The plot brings to light several feminist issues with the inclusion of the signature Rhys woman in Antoinette, but also serves as a lovely and powerful critique of British colonialism, and capitalism in general. It is tragic, but engaging, and sure to be a fast read.

Gamasutra interviews Dan Pinchbeck, writer and producer of the single-player mod for Valve Corporation's Half-Life 2: Dear Esther. The interviewer finds echoes of Wuthering Heights in this adaptation:

Comparisons between such works as Wuthering Heights and The Turn of the Screw are obvious, and not at all unjustified. How do you think Dear Esther can only work as a game, rather than a short story or novella?
Wow. Thanks again. I didn’t really imagine it would ever get much attention at all, to be honest, so the way it’s been picked up and talked about is still a massive surprise to me. (Phill Cameron)

Keighley News reports the recent charity walk at Haworth in aid of the Cystic Fibrosis Trust lead by the actress Jenny Agutter (The Railway Children). The Bennington Banner advises GOP's politicians tactics to reconcile with their voters:

The GOP understands that many of its pillars have worked tirelessly in the grueling arena of state and national politics to attain the high plateaus of accomplishment that they now enjoy. The bestowment of political celebrity upon some men oftentimes can lead to a delusional state wherein they recast themselves as great characters from romantic literature; Heathcliff, if you will, as dressed by Calvin Klein. (Alden Graves)

5-Squared posts about Agnes Grey, Medb's Montage has a brief (and not very positive) review of Jane Eyre. The Graphic Novel and Study Abroad: English Adventure!! posts about an epic trip to Top Withens.

Finally, the Brussels Brontë Blog talks about a recent meeting and the Brontë Sisters has added several additional posts.

Categories: Agnes Grey, Books, Brussels, Comics, Haworth, Jane Eyre, References, Shirley, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights

Read More

The first ten chapters of Jane Eyre are NOT skimmable

PopMatters interviews Jack Murnighan and writes about his book Beowulf on the Beach. What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits.

Emily Bronte, on the other hand, is a “bushfire waiting to blaze”. And by the way, don’t feel bad about skipping the first few acts of [missing in the original text!] , they’re kind of irrelevant. And the first ten chapters of Jane Eyre are skimmable. (Rachel Balik)

We couldn't disagree more with that statement about Jane Eyre. Those first ten chapters shape Jane Eyre, and by skipping them you would miss one of the greatest character developments in literature (in our humble opinion, anyway). Adaptations already cut them short so, if you read the book, do read its beginning too.

It looks like writer Reggie Nadelson didn't skip those chapters, as seen in an interview with her in The Independent:

Which fictional character most resembles you?
For me and for ten million girls growing up, it was Jane Eyre . Now, I think it might be Rosalind in Shakespeare's As You Like It or a character from a Woody Allen film. (Arifa Akbar)

SchoolGate - a blog hosted by The Times - looks into modern governesses:

It sounds strange, because the concept of a governess seems so dated - Jane Eyre was one, after all, and that was in the mid 19th century. (Sarah Ebner)

The Globe and Mail reviews the film Inkheart, based on Cornelia Funke's homonymous novel.

Writers and filmmakers have long relished the fantasy of physically entering works of art. [...]
Jasper Fforde has made a career of writing novels about Thursday E. Next, a detective who enters Jane Eyre and Hamlet to stop people from kidnapping the heroes or scrambling the plots. (Warren Clements)

And another film mention comes from the Boston Herald, in a review of the new film The Proposal:

Directed by Anne Fletcher (“27 Dresses,” “Step Up”) and scripted by newcomer Pete Chiarelli, “The Proposal” drops such literary names as Don DeLillo and “Wuthering Heights” to establish its literary cred. (James Verniere)

Apparently Sandra Bullock's character reads Wuthering Heights each Christmas. Such a Christmas-y book, indeed.

And we just don't know what we are going to do with these historians who WON'T check their sources or whatever it is they are doing wrong. From The Herald-Mail:

Historian John H. Nelson will present a lecture titled "Laudanum - A History" at the Washington County Rural Heritage Museum Friday, June 26, at 7 p.m. The free lecture consists of a history of Laudanum, from its origins to how it affected famous writers such as Elizabeth Browning, Samuel Coleridge, Emily Bronte and Sir Walter Scott. (Harry Nogle)

Clearly Emily Brontë, who famously refused any kind of medicine and treatement during her last illness, was NOT affected by laudanum. It was a Brontë, yes, but it was her brother Branwell. What these historians seem to be having trouble grasping is that fact that there are several Brontës. It looks as if they glimpsed 'Brontë' somewhere and glued it to the first name they identify it with.

Brontës.nl has two interesting alerts for Dutch an Belgian readers. NCRV (on Nederland 2) airs Jane Eyre 2006, starting next Monday. There's an article by Patrick Bremmers about the production and Charlotte Brontë's novel on NCRV-Gids. The other alert concerns the upcoming Theater Artemis production of Wuthering Heights (Woeste Hooegten) which premieres next October 20 in Den Bosch. Now the complete tour (October 2008- February 2010) has been announced including performances in Haarlem, Rotterdam, Brussels, Kortrijk, Schoten, Turnhout, Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Brugge, Utrecht, Tilburg, Gouda, Breda, Almere, Zwolle, Groningen, Heerlen, Mol, Leiden, Dordrecht, Den Haag, Arnhem and Hengelo.

Finally, the Asheville Citizen-Times has another alert for next August. Auditions for a local production of Jane Eyre. The Musical:

Auditions for “Jane Eyre: The Musical,” at HART, 250 Pigeon St., Waynesville, are 6:30 p.m. Aug. 9-10. Show opens Oct. 2. Those interested in off-stage production are also asked to stop by during this time. 456-6322.

Blogs: Jules' Book Reviews gives Wuthering Heights a 4/10. Romance Cafe writes about Jane Eyre. And Genny's Art Space posts a lovely drawing of Jane Eyre.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Theatre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

Read More

It takes some guts to bring a new version of Wuthering Heights to Yorkshire

Tamasha's Wuthering Heights comes to Harrogate. And the Yorkshire Post has a reminder:

Emily Brontë's eternal love story Wuthering Heights has inspired about 30 adaptations. Each new version clamours to set itself apart from the rest.
Deepak Verma has found the perfect way to make his telling of the tragic love story stand out from the crowd. He has moved the story wholesale from the wilds of the Yorkshire Moors to the sun-scorched desert of Rajasthan.
Heathcliff becomes Krishan and song-and-dance numbers a la classic Bollywood movies become part of the script.
"People who love the novel understand that it's a universal story. To me it's about a kid with nothing brought up in a house where he sees the good life and where he meets the love of his life," says Verma.
"Reading the story, I found a real parallel, because of the social structures and all the other frameworks of the story, with today's India.
"It might seem strange to some people to relate Victorian England with modern India, but the issues of class and society and all those big things are there in the story and in today's India. I wanted to embrace that with this piece."
The project has been a labour of love for Verma, who has spent almost five years seeing his original idea go from concept to stage.(...)
But it takes some guts to bring a new version of Wuthering Heights to Yorkshire.
"I'm really excited about it coming to Yorkshire. It's the last venue on the nationwide tour and we're going to be really celebrating when it comes to an end next week," says Verma.
Not even a little nervous?
"It's been really well received and we're talking to people about it going into the West End. I think that helps, the fact that it has been so well received."
He doesn't seem to quite grasp the gravity of the situation. He has not just moved one of Yorkshire's greatest novels to Rajasthan, but has also, judging by early reports, fair butchered the story.
Verma's version features Catherine and Heathcliff and their love story, but does not follow the latter half of the novel and the story of their children.
"I took a long look at it and had to decide what story from all of this I wanted to tell in the two hours that I had on stage," says Verma.
"And it was clear to me that the story I really wanted to tell was the eternal love story between Cathy and Heathcliff."
Verma finally reveals the other reason he is confident that Yorkshire audiences won't simply be up in arms and see it as sacrilegious.
Brontë's book, clearly, is the major source of inspiration for the new play.
But Verma has also returned to the classic age of Bollywood of the Fifties and Sixties for his inspiration.
"The stories from Bollywood of that era are about big emotions and big stories. It seemed a perfect fit for this story and particularly the way I wanted to tell it. I wanted to take the aesthetic of those classic movies and bring that to the stage as a part of this story. It just made sense to me," says Verma.
The musical has already secured a loyal – and culturally diverse – following at its London performances. Verma says that Indian audiences are fiercely loyal to shows that they enjoy, but the universal nature of the story has brought in people from all cultures.
The show has been developed and produced by Tamasha, one of the leading Asian theatre companies in the country.
Run by Kristine Landon-Smith and Sudha Bhuchar, who played Sanjay's love interest Meena in Eastenders, the company was set up almost 20 years ago. Its name is taken from the Punjabi word meaning commotion, and it was established to address the paucity of Asian work on British stages.
Verma says that it is recognised now not as a leading Asian company, but a leading "theatre company whose work has an Asian slant to it".
"The reason I wanted to tell Wuthering Heights on stage was because I have always felt a real connection to the character of Heathcliff," says Verma.
He says he was also always attracted to the darkness of the novel.
"I love the images of the dark moors, but for me, the key to Wuthering Heights is the love story that is at its centre. That's why it works perfectly as a Bollywood musical."
Wuthering Heights is at Harrogate Theatre, June 16 to 20. (Nick Ahad)

The Independent quotes Wuthering Heights in an article about fusion across the arts:

The worry now is that the concept could soon buckle with the strain of carrying so many disparate meanings – some contradictory – and market pressures. "Fusion" for example, describes Chadha's populist pastiche Bride and Prejudice as well as the new, colourful production of Wuthering Heights by theatre company Tamasha, which transports the story to Rajasthan using both Bollywood and British musical theatre styles, a combo previously served up in Bombay Dreams. Audiences do love such productions of borrowing and cheek. (Yasmin Alibhai-Brown)

The Telegraph interviews Tom Hardy and several mentions to Wuthering Heights 2009 slip in (with the eternal will be on ITV1 later this year):

Hardy’s also played Charles Bronson, the notoriously violent prisoner, and Bill Sikes. And he’s going to be Heathcliff in ITV1’s upcoming version of Wuthering Heights. In episode one of that he bashes his head against a wall with such force that you can hear a crunch. (...)
In a preview of the ITV1 adaptation of Wuthering Heights, it’s hard to tell whether Hardy’s Heathcliff is going to hit or kiss his Cathy (who will be played by his The Take co-star Charlotte Riley) – which is just how you want him. And there’s a tenderness to his performance that he hasn’t had the chance to show before now. (Serena Davies)

We were afraid that someone would link together the results of the Ryan Commission in Ireland and Jane Eyre and it has happened. In The Independent or the Irish Times:

"Some of us read the Bronte's accounts of what their powers-that-be did to orphans. We were horrified. It gave us bad dreams. But it was fiction. That was the great thing. It was fiction. It hadn't happened. Not really. And certainly not in Ireland. Now, we know different. Now, we know, courtesy of the Ryan Commission, that, within living memory and within our own country, we visited comparable horrors on our children. Let us not hide behind euphemisms. This was not just 'failure to protect'. This was torture, pure and simple." (Lise Hand)

The Books on Film Examiner talks about Robert Pattinson and suggests a period piece for the actor:

Would you pick a "period" piece such as his part as the older Rawdy Crawley in Vanity Fair based on the classic novel by William Thackeray (that subsequently got cut but put back in for the DVD)? A Jane Austen or Bronte novel, perhaps? How about another biopic, something like his role as Salvador Dali in Little Ashes? (Connie Ann Kirk)

And the St Petersburg Times reviews Jack Murnighan's Beowulf on the Beach:

Then he offers, for each book, the Buzz, which he defines as "your cocktail party Ph.D." — what most people know about the book whether they've read it or not. (A Farewell to Arms is a great war novel, Jane Eyre's title character is a fine role model for girls.)(Colette Bancroft)

Hungtington News selects Jayne Eyre (sic) and Wuthering Heights as favorite romantic movies. The Banned Books Group recommends both novels as Urgent Reads: The 20 Books You Must Read This Year!, in the Rockland Republican Journal. The Worksop Guardian talks about an awarded local teacher with a Brontë project:

Since winning the award, the Valley teacher has brought in a new lesson plan for Wuthering Heights that includes group discussions and presentation that prompted quiet murmurings of applause from her pupils. (Tom Glover)

The Times (South-Africa) concludes this article about reading love stories with a mention to Wuthering Heights:

I’m a collection called My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, a book of classic love stories edited by Pulitzer Prize winner Jeffrey Eugenides, offered as “a cure for lovesickness and an antidote to adultery.” I like the idea that reading saves marriages; it should be used in literacy campaigns. The book includes stories by Anton Chekhov - The Lady with the Little Dog, which recently starred in the film of The Reader– Alice Munro Denis Johnson, Vladimir Nabokov, Raymond Carver and Richard Ford. With such a variety of well-written takes on everything love related you might as well just marry this book. I’m sure that by the time I finish it, the sun will shine and I can finally fall asleep without artificial assistance. Until then, if you’re reading this, I still like to imagine you as Heathcliff to my Cathy, throwing yourself on my grave when you realize your mistake and I’m using the book to disguise myself as I sit, watching your building, waiting to see what you’re reading now. (Tymon Smith)

On the blogosphere, Love Romance Passion interviews the author Sandy Lender, an absolute Jane Eyre fan (as we posted before):

10. Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

Sandy Lender: This might seem a wee bit odd, but in addition to my Choices Meant for Gods, I would encourage folks also to read Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Bronte. This novel is one of the best ever written. It’s my favorite of all time. There are elements in Jane Eyre that influence my writing on a conscious and subconscious level, and folks who have already read the book will probably pick out a few of those elements in Choices Meant for Gods.

When You're Happy, I'm Happy =D and Giraffe Days post about Wuthering Heights, Hey, Little Sister talks about samplers, embroidery and the Brontës, ihartyou23 finds echoes of Emily Brontë's novel in the Filipino soap opera Tayond Dalawa.

Finally, Brontës.nl publishes an account (in Dutch) of the recent, and succesful, performance of Veronica Metz, from Anois, in Haworth.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

Read More

Beowulf and Novel Violence

Some recently published books with Brontë content:

Beowulf on the Beach
What to Love and What to Skip in Literature's 50 Greatest Hits
Jack Murnighan
Random House

# Format: Trade Paperback, 384 pages
# On Sale: May 19, 2009
# Price: $15.00
# ISBN: 978-0-307-40957-7 (0-307-40957-0)

Feel bad about not reading or not enjoying the so-called great books? Don’t sweat it, it’s not your fault. Did anyone tell you that Anna Karenina is a beach read, that Dickens is hilarious, that the Iliad’s battle scenes rival Hollywood’s for gore, or that Joyce is at his best when he’s talking about booze, sex, or organ meats?
Writer and professor Jack Murnighan says it’s time to give literature another look, but this time you’ll enjoy yourself. With a little help, you’ll see just how great the great books are: how they can make you laugh, moisten your eyes, turn you on, and leave you awestruck and deeply moved. Beowulf on the Beach is your field guide–erudite, witty, and fun-loving–for helping you read and relish fifty of the biggest (and most skipped) classics of all time. For each book, Murnighan reveals how to get the most out of your reading and provides a crib sheet that includes the Buzz, the Best Line, What’s Sexy, and What to Skip.

The book includes two sections devoted to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre and Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights

Novel Violence
A Narratography of Victorian Fiction
Stewart Garrett
280 pages,
ISBN: 9780226774589
Published May 2009

Victorian novels, Garrett Stewart argues, hurtle forward in prose as violent as the brutal human existence they chronicle. In Novel Violence, he explains how such language assaults the norms of written expression and how, in doing so, it counteracts the narratives it simultaneously propels.
Immersing himself in the troubling plots of Charles Dickens, Anne Brontë, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy, Stewart uses his brilliant new method of narratography to trace the microplots of language as they unfold syllable by syllable. By pinpointing where these linguistic narratives collide with the stories that give them context, he makes a powerful case for the centrality of verbal conflict to the experience of reading Victorian novels. He also maps his finely wrought argument on the spectrum of influential theories of the novel—including those of Georg Lukács and Ian Watt—and tests it against Edgar Allan Poe’s antinovelistic techniques. In the process, Stewart shifts critical focus toward the grain of narrative and away from more abstract analyses of structure or cultural context, revealing how novels achieve their semantic and psychic effects and unearthing, in prose, something akin to poetry.

The chapter on Anne Brontë is: Mind Frames. Anne Brontë’s Exchange Economy.

Finally, we mention the republishing of Elizabeth Longford's Eminent Victorian Women (first published in 1981):

Eminent Victorian Women by Elizabeth Longford
# ISBN: 0750948876
# ISBN-13: 9780750948876
# Format: Paperback, 240pp
# Publisher: The History Press
# Pub. Date: May 2009

Elizabeth Longford has chosen a group of Victorian women who, in their actions or writing, challenged the repressive rules of established society. They include Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, whose cloistered lives were illuminated by the vividness of their creative genius; Josephine Butler, who brought about the end of the infamous Contagious Diseases Acts; Annie Besant, who campaigned vigorously for the rights of women subject to unreasonable husbands or harsh employers; Harriet Beecher Stowe, whose novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin brought the cruelties of slavery to the world’s attention; and James Barry, born Margaret Bulkley, medical reformer and arguably the first British female to qualify as a suregon. This is a fascinating account of a crucial period of struggle for women’s rights and of some of the remarkable personalities who took part.

Categories: Books, Scholar

Read More