Jane Eyre: A Retelling by Tanya Landman, Barrington Stoke,iNews publishes an excerpt of Deborah Orr's Motherwell. A Girlhood:
Many teenage readers, be they dyslexic, reluctant or just easily overwhelmed, may struggle to get to grips with Charlotte Brontë’s masterpiece in its original form. Landman’s slim, enthralling retelling, published by “super-readable” experts Barrington Stoke, feels true to Brontë’s defiant spirit, but is infinitely easier to digest – and reading this vivid, straightforward version might well encourage strugglers to return and conquer the behemoth. (Imogen Russell Williams)
Me, though? I’d been a pretty little child. But after I learned to read, I couldn’t stop reading. Which meant, because I’d sneakily read when the rest of the house was asleep, that I was tired all the time. I looked pale and wan. And the things I wanted to talk about – Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Oliver Twist, plants, trees, woods, walks, the dog, folk stories, gardens and macramé – were hardly the stuff of fascination to my peers.The Sunday Times interviews the model and actress Jodie Turner-Smith:
She changed her clothes, shoes, patterns of speech. “I would practise in the mirror, talking in a way that I thought was like black American: cutting you down with my words in five seconds if you came for me.” But at the weekends she was going to the local library, reading and studying. “My favourite book was Jane Eyre.” (Charlotte Edwardes)Patch Greater Hartford announces an upcoming production of Jane Eyre in Hartford:
A new adaptation of Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë's beloved tale of courage, sacrifice and self-respect, will debut next month at Hartford Stage. The novel has been adapted for the stage by Hartford Stage Associate Artistic Director Elizabeth Williamson, who will also direct. Jane Eyre runs Thursday, February 13, through Saturday, March 14. (Nancy Sasso)Anne Brontë's bicentenary and the publication of a new edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in Spain are in La Voz de Córdoba (Spain):
Este año se conmemora el 200 cumpleaños de Anne Brontë (1820-1849), la menor de las tres hermanas novelistas victorianas. Emily es conocida por su única novela Cumbres borrascosas, Charlotte es conocida por Jane Eyre; en cambio, Anne es menos conocida. A Anne la crítica le ha dedicado menos estudios. Esta columna la rememora y la celebra. (Juan de Dios Torralbo) (Translation)Milenio 2020 (México) celebrates Wuthering Heights:
Al respecto no tengo cosa mejor para compartir que una intuición de entonces en un paper para esa materia. Hice un nexo literario y su desarrollo; va, breve. Apunté que cuando el personaje de Juan Rulfo Pedro Páramo y el de Brontë Heathcliff pierden respectivamente a Susana San Juan y a Catherine Earnshaw, los dos se entregan a destruir Comala y Wuthering Heigths. Dije que cuando Comala confunde las campanas luctuosas con una incitación a la fiesta las palabras de Pedro Páramo “Me cruzaré de brazos y Comala se morirá de hambre” bien pudieron cifrar el odio de Heathcliff por Wuthering Heights a la muerte de Catherine. Los vecinos de Wuthering Heights sobre Heathcliff: “ese demonio que no acaba de atravesar patios”; igual que Pedro Páramo en la Media Luna. Y la mejor definición de Heathcliff en las palabras del arriero sobre quién es Pedro Páramo: “Un rencor vivo”. (Luis Miguel Aguilar) (Translation)Pangea (Italy) interviews Monica Pareschi, translator of a recent new edition of Wuthering Heights in Italian. A very interesting read:
Libro miliare e inesorabile, “un diavolo di libro, un incredibile mostro”, lo diceva Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Cime tempestose è stato tradotto innumerevoli volte – la prima edizione, per i Treves, è del 1926, lo hanno ‘maneggiato’, tra i tanti, Elio Chinol e Bruno Oddera, Bruna Dell’Agnese e Margherita Giacobino, Beatrice Masini e Marta Barone – così che la versione Einaudi per mano di Monica Pareschi (già eccellente traduttrice della sorella di Emily, Charlotte, e di Bernard Malamud, di Doris Lessing, di Shirley Jackson, James G. Ballard, Paul Auster) è un piccolo evento editoriale. Nel mio privilegio di lettore, oltre a interrogare chi ne sa più di me, mi sono messo a fare un esercizio. Alcuni passi di Cime tempestose (questo, ad esempio: “Il suo insediamento a Wuthering Heights portò un’indicibile angoscia. Mi convinsi che Dio avesse abbandonato la pecora smarrita alle sue abiette peregrinazioni, e che una bestia feroce se ne stesse acquattata tra la casa e l’ovile, pronta a balzare e a seminare distruzione”) mi hanno ricordato il Cormac McCarthy più arcaico e biblico, in bilico sugli assoluti. L’osservazione mi ha fatto sorridere. Forse Emily Brontë – cioè il suo mefistofelico specchio, Heathcliff – è il remoto modello, l’idolo, del Giudice Holden che sparge terrore e innocente spietatezza lungo quel mattatoio superbo intitolato Meridiano di sangue. (Translation)Le Monde (France) reviews Fiona Mozley's Elmet:
Elmet fut l’ultime royaume celte indépendant d’Angleterre. Jusqu’au VIIe siècle, il constituait un sanctuaire pour ceux qui souhaitaient échapper à la loi. C’est en ces terres, devenues Yorkshire et célébrées dans Les Hauts de Hurlevent et les poèmes de Ted Hughes, que la Britannique Fiona Mozley situe Elmet, son premier roman. (Macha Séry) (Translation)El Universal (Colombia) visits British painter Freda Sargent who lives in Bogotá and mentions:
Muchas de sus series como ‘Temas del ermitaño’, ‘Los naipes del tarot’, ‘Los narcisos’, ‘Los carpinteros’, ‘Wuthering Heights’, beben de las fuentes de sus memorias de infancia, pero también de la poesía que ha sido esencial en su creación: Blake, Keats, Auden, Yeats, entre otros. (Gustavo Tatis Guerra) (Translation)El País (Spain) interviews the writer Najat el Hachmi:
¿Qué libro tiene en su mesilla de noche? Tengo la traducción al catalán del Libro de los avaros de Al-Jahiz, ¿Puede prestarme su pistola, por favor, de Lorenza Mazzetti y Cumbres borrascosas (que creo que leí siendo demasiado joven). (Translation)Rodrigo Fresán in Página 12 (Argentina) thinks that Sam Mendes's Skyfall may be the 'most intelligent and subliminal rewriting of Wuthering Heights'.
Nada de lo que amamos podrá extinguirse mientras vivamos. Lo sé por el autor de Alegría: parecemos como dice él personajes de Cumbres borrascosas. (José Luis Ibáñez Salas) (Translation)More news outlets celebrate the Chinese year of the rat, mentioning that Charlotte Brontë is... well, a rat: The Mercury News, Whyy ... A Wuthering Heights quote in Your Tango's 'Happy Quotes About Being Alone Everyone Who Loves Spending Time By Themselves Can Relate To'. A local politician selects Wuthering Heights among her favourite books on Granma (Cuba).
4 Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëIn the same vein, Bustle recommends '15 Classic Novels You Missed In College That You Need To Read Now', such as
Odds are, when you read the Charlotte Brontë classic about an orphaned governess who falls in love with her tormented employer, Edward Rochester, the master of Thornfield Hall, you were in grade school and—shall we say—unenthusiastic.
But take it from us, revisiting the twists, the turns, the secrets in Brontë’s story as a willing adult participant is simply thrilling. And we highly recommend it. (DeAnna Janes)
'Wide Sargasso Sea' by Jean RhysSpectator reviews The Testaments by Margaret Atwood. Beware of spoilers!
In her prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, Jean Rhys centers on Antoinette Cosway, the young woman who will become Bertha Mason — Mr. Rochester's first, locked-away wife. (K.W. Colyard)
Aunt Lydia is approximately as old as Margaret Atwood, who was born in 1939. She remembers the founding of Gilead in New England, the suspension of the US Constitution, the liquidation of Congress, the mass executions and the terror. Before the coup, she was a distinguished family court judge who had an abortion to prioritise her career, ‘a law degree and a uterus: a lethal combination’. After Gilead was established to address the problem of the US’s declining birth rate, she was tortured, then recruited as a trusted enforcer of the new rules for girls and women. She writes her testament at Ardua Hall in the Hildegard Library, surrounded by forbidden texts from the old world: Anna Karenina, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Paradise Lost, Lives of Girls and Women. She hides her manuscript inside a hollowed-out copy of Cardinal Newman’s X-rated (because Roman Catholic), Apologia Pro Vita Sua: A Defence of One’s Life. It is addressed to ‘My Dear Reader’. And so she takes her place in the long tradition of fictional composers of memoir alongside Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre and George Orwell’s Winston Smith. (Ruth Scurr)Daily Nation (Kenya) interviews writer Karang’ae Chege.
What is that one book you read that was out of your comfort zone? Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë was out of my comfort zone owing to the sad events dominating the pages. (Kariuki Wa Nyamu)The Guardian takes readers’ travel tips for autumn breaks in the UK.
Hebden Bridge, West YorkshireAccording to The Portsmouth News, Southampton airport is the gateway to
Hebden Bridge’s autumnal colours, post-industrial buildings and poetic links all add up to this being the best time to visit. See the leaves changing colour as you walk by the river up to Hardcastle Crags and among the ruins and former mills, which used water to power their looms. Detours over the moors take you to the farmhouse at Top Withens, said to have provided some inspiration for Wuthering Heights, and the Brontë Parsonage at Haworth. At nearby Heptonstall is Sylvia Plath’s grave and Ted Hughes’s Lumb Bank, an 18th-century former millowner’s house, now the Arvon Centre for writers. Among interesting places to stay is Elmet Farmhouse (sleeps six, three nights from £440) which Hughes knew well.
Chris
LeedsIf you want to add about 5 hours to your journey, then yes it is.
This hidden gem in the heart of Yorkshire is your base for exploring the stunning Yorkshire Dales and, just a short trip away from the city centre, historic Harewood House with its royal connections, extensive art collections and impressive grounds. Head out of Bradford to Haworth if you’re interested in literature and want to learn all about the famous Brontë sisters.
ATTN: FREE ticket for Amy Liptrot's event this Sun at 2pm! A generous benefactor can no longer come & would like to gift her ticket to someone who might not otherwise be able to attend. Please email lauren.livesey[@]bronte[.]org[.]uk - we'll select someone at random @ 2pm Thur— Brontë Parsonage (@BronteParsonage) September 18, 2019
The new issue of Brontë Studies (Volume 43 Issue 4, September 2018) is already available online. We provide you with the table of contents and abstracts:Editorial
pp. 271-272 Author: Amber A. Adams
An Anne Brontë Whodunit
pp. 273-283 Author: Lonoff, Sue
Abstract:
Only a few of Anne Brontë’s writings with her signature survive. Among them is a first edition of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall that also includes pencilled notes. At some point this three-volume edition became not one but two ‘author’s own copies’, although neither owner was aware that the volumes Anne signed had been separated and sold as sets with other unsigned volumes. This article examines questions that arise from the discovery of their division: whether all of the signatures are genuine, how the signed volumes came to be split up, and above all why Anne’s putting her name to this copy of Tenant matters.
The Several Stages of Gondal
pp.284-299 Author: Chitham, Edward
Abstract:
The poetic fragments relating to Gondal and Gaaldine, the imaginary countries of Emily and Anne Brontë, have been considered to imply a coherent whole, and efforts have been made to construct a possible narrative round these fragments, with a few other names of places and characters. This article will assert that there were three or more distinguishable phases in the creation of Gondal, reminding readers that the queen of Gondal, ‘A. G. A.’, lasted only four years of the eleven or more of its existence.
Rooms in Wuthering Heights
pp. 300-310 Author: Tytler, Graeme
Abstract:
One striking aspect of Wuthering Heights is the use of rooms as settings for, or backgrounds to, most of the actions or situations described by its various narrators. Thus, as well as being made aware of the social difference between the two principal domiciles through references to particular rooms and buildings, we note, for example, the thematic role played by the oak-panelled closet at the Heights and by the drawing room at the Grange, just as we see frequent mention of chambers or bedrooms, usually with ominous implications. The rooms most often referred to, however, are the Heights sitting room and parlour, the Grange library and parlour, and, above all, the kitchen, which, though the humblest room in both households, is undoubtedly the most interesting for being the space in which all kinds of human behaviour, ranging from the near tragic to the utterly comical, take place.
Blurring Boundaries and a Generic Matrix in Jane Eyre’s ‘Political Unconscious’
pp. 311-322 Author: Robab Khosravi
Abstract:
In The Political Unconscious, Fredric Jameson regards genres as ‘literary institutions’, arguing that genres are political and a reflection of the socio-historical circumstances. Earlier in Marxism and Form, Jameson had proposed that the key aspect of a text is its form and that content is only secondary to form. In this sense, interpretation is inseparable from literary form — and all interpretation is historical. This paper attempts to map Jane Eyre’s ‘political unconscious’ to suggest that the novel’s generic elasticity — its elaborate fusion of Gothic transgression, romance dialectics and echoes of autobiography and Bildungsroman — is the hidden and coded manifestation of a utopian imagination. In effect, Jane Eyre incorporates a technique of montage and a (subsequent) collapse of generic boundaries, because the text’s political unconscious dreams of a disintegration of class boundaries. It is often argued that the concept of genre is no longer relevant in our postmodern context, as postmodern texts are characterized by a tendency to transgress generic boundaries. This paper considers the theoretical implications of such transgression for an interpretation of Jane Eyre’s generic affiliations.
‘A brilliancy of their own’: Female Art, Beauty and Sexuality in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre
pp. 323-334 Author: Ioannou, Maria
Abstract:
This article studies the portraits of Rosamond Oliver and Blanche Ingram in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, to argue that, first, the portraits participate in the nineteenth-century dialogue about women in art and, second, capture Jane’s convictions on the theme of sexual love. This is especially so in the case of Rosamond’s miniature, which comes at a point where Jane has resolved to choose a sexual union rather than a loveless marriage. In an important sense, Jane is Rosamond; the subject (artist) identifies with the object (model) in an equation of female beauty with agency and capacity for sexual feeling.
Candles at the Time of the Brontë Novels
pp. 335-340 Author: Clifford Jones, J.
Abstract:
Candle usage in the Brontë novels is examined. Factors in the interpretation include the types of candles in use at the period, especially beeswax candles and tallow candles. Scientific principles are invoked in descriptions of the burning behaviour of the respective candle types. The practice of candle ‘snuffing’, which features several times in the novels, is explained. The need for economy in the use of candles is evident in two of the novels, and this is linked to the Candle Tax.
Miscellany
A Brontë Reading List: Part 9
pp. 341-355 Author: James Ogden, Peter Cook & Sara L. Pearson
Abstract:
This list is part of an annotated bibliography of scholarly and critical work. The earlier parts were published in Brontë Studies, 32.2 (July 2007), 33.3 (November 2008), 34.3 (November 2009), 36.4 (November 2011), 37.3 (September 2012), 39.1 (January 2014), 41.3 (2016) and 42.4 (November 2017). The present part covers work published in 2015.
Reviews
Brontë Transformations: The Cultural Dissemination of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights
pp. 356-357 Author: Cook, Peter
Emily Jane Brontë and her Music
pp. 357-360 Author: Duckett, Bob
Ill Will: The Untold Story of Heathcliff
pp. 360-362 Author: Duckett, Bob
Elmet
pp.362-364 Author: Cook, Peter
In the Footsteps of Emily Brontë: A Catalogue of the Art Work of Percy J. Smith, Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights.
pp.365-367 Author: Van Der Meer, Carolyne
An alert for tomorrow, May 5, at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:Fiona Mozley: Elmet
An afternoon with writer
May 5, 2:30PM
Fiona Mozley visits Haworth to discuss Elmet, her debut novel which was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker Prize. It’s been described as an ‘elemental, contemporary rural noir’ rooted strongly within Yorkshire, and has been heavily lauded for its ‘rich and unfussy lyricism’. Her evocation of landscape, and a wilful protagonist named Cathy, have drawn multiple comparisons with Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.Fiona Mozley was born in Hackney but grew up in York and studied at Cambridge before moving to Buenos Aires for a year – without speaking any Spanish. After briefly working at a literary agency in London, she moved back to York to complete a PhD in Medieval Studies. She also has a weekend job at The Little Apple Bookshop in York.
Spring has finally arrived – and we’ve even had an early blast of summer!The Guardian explores the Cumbria moors. And moors, you know, are Brontë territory:
We are getting incredibly busy at the museum, with a series of upcoming events, and our events programme for the second half of the year will appear in a couple of weeks.
We are delighted to welcome 2017 Man Booker shortlisted author Fiona Mozley to Haworth on Saturday May 5.
Fiona’s debut novel, Elmet, is rooted strongly within Yorkshire and her depiction of landscape, and the presence of a protagonist named Cathy, have drawn comparisons with Wuthering Heights.
So join us at Hall Green Baptist Church in Haworth at 2.30pm to hear Fiona talk about her ‘rural noir’. Tickets cost between £7 and £2.
We are taking part once again in the national initiative Museums at Night this month, with a late night Thursday opening which allows you to learn more about the day-to-day domestic life of the Brontës.
We have some strange domestic objects in our collection – a linen crimper that looks like a modern day pasta maker! – and during the evening our museum assistants will be getting ‘hands on’ in our historic rooms, in order to allow you a closer look and the opportunity to find out exactly what some of the objects were used for, and how we care for them now.
After 5.30pm, admission is free to visitors who can provide proof of residence in the BD22, BD21 and BD20 postcode areas, or people living in Thornton, and we are open until 8pm.
The weekend of May 19 and 20 is Haworth’s 1940s weekend, and so we’ve decided to screen a 1940s Hollywood biopic of the Brontës, which is called Devotion.
It is not a terribly well known film, but this retelling of the Brontës’ life story features Olivia de Havilland, Ida Lupino and Paul Henreid, and has been described as ‘better as cinema as history’.
Come along and see if you agree! The film screening is free with admission to the museum.
On the following Friday, May 25, a new exhibition opens in the museum – this will be Kate Whiteford’s Wings of Desire.
Kate is a land artist, and her exhibition explores Emily Brontë’s hawk, Nero, through film and aerial photography, depicting a bird’s-eye view of the landscape around the Parsonage and across the moors to Top Withins.
The exhibition runs until July 23, and promises to be a fascinating addition to the Emily celebrations.
And we continue with the theme of Emily’s hawk over the weekend as we welcome Oxenhope-based SMJ Falconry to our museum meadow, Parson’s Field, on Sunday May 27.
Come along between 10am and 4pm to witness flying displays with a variety of incredible birds, including the tiny Merlin hawk similar to Emily’s Nero, peregrine falcons and a red kite. The birds of prey display is free with admission to the museum.
And to conclude with the bird theme, our May half term Wild Wednesday workshop on May 30 is called ‘Flights of Fancy’. Be inspired by Emily and her love of birds, and make your own lovely bird out of paper – with wings to boot! (Jim Seton, Diane Fare)
Moors do much to their observers without much to do it with. No trees. High, stream-veined upland with bones of rock breaking the skin in steps. It’s bare. Bleak, if you like. Associations run deep and dark as the peat. Brontë, bog-body, Baskerville, Brady – the mind’s grasping associations fill all that vacant space. (Simon Ingram)Also in The Guardian:
Academics, booksellers and publishers curated a list of the “Top 10 books by women that changed theworld”, which was voted on by members of the public. Titles on the list range from Eddo-Lodge’s polemic on race to Virginia Woolf’s A Room of One’s Own and Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. [Reni] Eddo-Lodge’s book, which won the the Jhalak prize for the best book by a British writer of colour, received 12% of the public vote.Yorkshire Post on the tourism in the Dales:
Other books on the list included Simone de Beauvoir’s The Second Sex, Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, was conducted for Academic book week. (Alison Flood)
It is hard to put a figure on how much hard cash next weekend’s Tour de Yorkshire is worth to our economy, but the travelogue-like pictures of the county at its best, on screen around the world, year in, year out, are creating a familiarity with the county that did not exist before. The region’s increasing use as a movie location also creates imagery that sticks in the mind. But it has to be the right movie. The Railway Children was filmed on the steam line through Haworth and Oakworth nearly 40 years ago, but its lasting appeal, and that of the valley’s most famous residents, the Brontë family, has created a tourist economy that endures today. (David Behrens)Lincolnshire Live recommends The CB Inn, in the Yorkshire Dales:
It has the Wuthering Heights-style scenery, for a start - although Bronte hometown Haworth is about sixty miles away.Financial Times reviews the novel All the Beautiful Girls by Elizabeth J Church
In fact, that geographical fact is important - it actually feels sixty miles grimmer and more isolated even than the desolate country around Haworth. God only knows what Wuthering Heights would have been like if it had been set here. (Robert Rowlands)
Church’s heroine, Lily Decker, is orphaned at the age of eight in Kansas, after a car crash in which her beloved mother, father and sister are all killed. Wards with harsh or evil guardians are legion in fiction, and Lily’s Aunt Tate and Uncle Miles, who take her in, are as bad as anyone Jane Eyre or Oliver Twist encounter. (Susie Boyt)Radio Times interviews the new BBC2 Front Row Late presenter, Mary Beard:
And then there’s the library. “I’m afraid this sounds frightfully old-ladyish. I read Jane Eyre again, which I first read when I was 12.” (Michael Hodges)Bustle and books according to your favourite podcast:
For fans of literary podcasts: 'Texts from Jane Eyre: And Other Conversations with Your Favorite Literary Characters' by Daniel Mallory OrtbergThe Australian reviews The War on the Young by John Sutherland:
Book-lovers are probably already familiar with bookish podcasts such as Reading Women or Overdue. And if you want a book that mashes up classic literature with conversational dialogue and smart phone technology, then Texts from Jane Eyre is the book for you. Written by the brilliant Daniel Mallory Ortberg (of Dear Prudence fame), this book is a clever, strange, hilarious tour of all your literary faves. (Charlotte Ahlin)
Sutherland’s mainstream books on English literature —such as Is Heathcliff a Murderer? and Can Jane Eyre be Happy? — have won him a sizeable readership. The War on the Young is his second polemic in Biteback’s “Provocations” series. The first, The War on the Old, argues ‘‘institutional neglect and universal indifference’’ towards the aged has reached lethal levels. (Richard King)The Asian Age loves comics:
Comics, I suspect, are still seen by people as being not quite the thing, old chap. To these people I say, “Go away”. Go away, and take your barren, strait-laced pleasures with you. There is a time for Jane Eyre and a time for Hawkgirl: comics are far too pleasurable to be sullied by the vapidity of a bunch of sanctimonious puritans. (Meher Mirza)Libreriamo (Italy) lists novels for being proud of being a woman:
Jane EyreLibrópatas (Spain) talks about 'bibliophile detectives in crime novels':
Jane Eyre è la protagonista dell’omonimo romanzo di Charlotte Brontë. Jane è una donna forte e decisa, caratteristiche che si vedono fin dalla sua infanzia: la sua forza e decisione, nonostante un’infanzia per niente facile, sono descritte in tutto il romanzo. Diversamente dalle favole, in cui la dama viene salvata dal principe azzurro, qui Jane lotta da sola per la sua vita e la sua felicità. (Translation)
Thursday Next. En este caso se trata de una detective que trabaja en el departamento dedicado a los crímenes literarios (que suena de los más sugerente, sí) y después se pasará a la policía de la ficción (o Jurisficción) para asegurarse de que la trama de los libros no sufra alteraciones significativas. Lo cual ya nos permite hacernos una idea de cómo es el mundo de las novelas de Jasper Fforde; uno de ciencia ficción en el que la frontera entre realidad y literatura es muy fina, y en el que encontramos títulos como ‘El caso Jane Eyre‘, ‘El pozo de las tramas perdidas’ o ‘Algo huele a podrido’.Still echoes of the unveiling of the Brontë Stones project with Kate Bush being the main news attractor: Lonely Planet, Keighley News, Keighley Online, Far Out Magazine, Star Magazine, The Current, Oxford Mail, It's Nice That, i-D...
There’s still time for you and your family to join us at the museum and take part in some holiday activities.Still locally, The Telegraph & Argus announces something that will take place at the upcoming Bradford Literary Festival:
We’ve got walks up to Penistone Hill every day at 2pm, and a Wild Wednesday drop-in workshop on April 11, where you can make your own ‘marvellous map’.
Speaking of maps … I spent last Friday doing a 14-mile moorland trek with local author Michael Stewart and local cartographer Chris Goddard on a recce for an ‘Emily walk’.
Michael has devised this as part of his Bronte Stones project – more on that next month.
The weather was incredibly wuthering – it was windy, boggy and exhausting. Very Emily Brontë!
My plan is to do the walk as part of our Emily birthday celebrations at the end of July.
It’s a tough but rewarding walk for the hardiest of walkers!
More details will be released nearer the time.
Back in the museum, we have our first late night Thursday of the year on April 19, now we’ve moved into our summer opening times.
And as it’s close to Charlotte’s birthday, some characters who knew her well – Tabby the housekeeper, and John Brown the sexton – will be in the Parsonage ready to share stories about Charlotte and her life at home.
Admission is free after 5.30pm to visitors who live in the BD22, BD21 and BD20 postcode areas or Thornton.
The evening after sees us introduce our writer in residence for 2018, Patience Agbabi.
Patience took part in last year’s Poetry at the Parsonage event, and we liked her so much, we invited her to play a part in Emily’s bicentenary year by becoming our writer in residence for the year.
She will join us at West Lane Baptist Centre, to read and perform, and tell us more about her plans for the residency.
Patience is an amazing performance poet, so we’re very excited about the evening and her plans for the rest of the year.
She’ll be at West Lane Baptist Centre on Saturday, April 28, 7.30pm.
The literature lovers amongst you are in for a treat this spring, as the week after Patience Agbabi, we welcome Fiona Mozley to Haworth.
Fiona will be discussing her Booker shortlisted novel Elmet, which has been described as an example of northern rural noir – sounds very Wuthering Heights!
Fiona will be at Hall Green Baptist Church on Saturday May 5 at 2.30pm.
We’ve been pretty busy this month with TV and radio recordings.
BBC’s Countryfile were filming in the museum last week.
W had Radio 4 in the library on Friday, recording an episode of ‘Beyond Belief’, focusing on the Brontës and theology. Very celebral stuff!
When we know the broadcast dates, we’ll put the info on our website. (Jim Seton)
The festival will also see the launch of the Brontë Stones project – a series of four sculpted stones creating a path from Thornton, where the literary sisters were born, to Haworth. (Chris Young)The Oldham Evening Chronicle publishes the results of the PlotFest one-act playwriting competition:
The second prize went to Manchester’s Bob Pegg.Fake (and very bad) essay writing on The Tab:
Researching for another project, he discovered that Charlotte Brontë and Karl Marx were both in Manchester on the same day in 1846.
His play – The Salutation - imagines a meeting between these two great minds, using historical facts as well as dramatic licence to explore how their conversation may have gone.
I gave them a fake essay title, "To what extent are women restricted by society in Victorian literature?", your lecturer couldn’t have come up with something better than that. I said the essay needed to cover Charles Dickens' Oliver Twist and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. (...)Art Daily talks about the Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant Dinner Service which included a Charlotte Brontë plate:
For starters, the standard of English was sub-par and grammatically all over the place – I’ve sent drunk texts more coherent than what they gave me. The opening sentence reads: “The Victorian era refers to the period when Queen Victoria ruled the British monarchy”. THAT MEANS NOTHING. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? At one point they call Oliver Twist 'Oliver Twists’ and call Jane Eyre character Mr Brocklehurst ‘Mr Blocklehurst’. (Dan Burns)
Honoring the likes of Russian ballerina Anna Pavlova, the ancient Greek poet Sappho, Egypt’s Cleopatra, English novelist Charlotte Brontë, and Bell’s sister Woolf, the plates are thought to have been used occasionally for dinner parties—with extreme care—at the Clark home. At the gallery, they are presented firmly as a work of feminist art. (...)Prof. Charles Sarvan explores 'The Origin of Others' in Groundviews:
“From Omega to Charleston: The Art of Vanessa Bell and Duncan Grant 1910–1934” is on show at Piano Nobile Gallery, 129 Portland Road, London, February 16–April 28, 2018. (Sarah Cascone)
In a fundamental, biological, sense there is “Me” and everyone else is the “Other”, but this does not throw most of us into some kind of existential despair because we build what I would call bridging relationships: with parents, relations, friends, and through romantic and/or sexual love.dvids reminds us how
In the mid-19th century novel, Wuthering Heights, Catherine asserts of Heathcliff that he is more her than she is.
The Brontë sisters who some consider the greatest novelists of our time, first published their works under male pseudonyms to have their stories better heard. (Senior Airman Jessica Smith)The Washington Post reviews The Recovering: Intoxication and Its Aftermath by Leslie Jamison:
Central as they are to Jamison's project, the biographical portions don't progress under their own narrative power (or even, often, chronologically), instead resurfacing whenever they can hold a useful mirror to the central memoir. This can be confusing or even frustrating, as when Jean Rhys begins what will become her book "Wide Sargasso Sea" on Page 243, then pops up almost 200 pages later still at work on the same novel.Vogue Australia and the dark (and gothic) side of fashion:
What’s exciting now is maintaining a veneer of seeming sweetness, while hinting at a darker side. It is Emily Brontë’s Catherine hiding a wild passion foran ill-matched man, wandering romance-stricken in a cotton nightdress. (Alice Birrell)Vice has an article about the Tokyo Fashion Week:
Most romantic show: LirotoThe Huffington Post (France) recommends Jane Eyre:
This is the first collection from Naoki Tomizuka, who was a longtime pattern-maker at Comme des Garçons — so you know it’s going to be beautiful. And it was. There were ruffles, hats tied on with ribbons, lace shoes and models reading books. Very Brontë.
La vie de Jane Eyre n'a rien d'enviable, et on serait facilement tenté de fermer ce livre si sa protagoniste n'était pas dotée de la force morale et du courage qui lui valurent sa notoriété. Une enfance douloureuse, marquée par la perte des parents, l'éducation à la dure délivrée par sa tante et les années de pensionnat. Une vie adulte tout aussi malheureuse, dédiée au noble M. Rochester dont elle est la gouvernante et dont l'amour lui est interdit. C'est un vrai parcours du combattant que celui de Jane Eyre qui affronte les épreuves la tête haute, consciente de sa condition, et accusant les coups sans faire de vague. Loin d'être naïve, sa patience est exemplaire et l'intelligence, la sagesse dont elle fait preuve dans l'adversité sont autant de qualités inspirantes. (Translation)and acasă (Romania) does the same with Wuthering Heights:
Desi cartea a fost scrisa si publicata in anul 1847, a ramas in timp unul dintre titlurile marcante ale literaturii universale. La rascruce de vanturi urmareste povestea a doi tineri, Heathcliff si Catherine, care au impotriva lor pe toata lumea. Domnul Earnshaw, tatal lui Catherine, este un personaj foarte bogat, detinand terenuri si o avere considerabila. Acesta aduce acasa la un moment dat un copil, pe Heathcliff, si are grija de el o perioada indelungata de timp. Dupa moartea domnului Earnshaw, fratele lui Catherine, cel care mosteneste intreaga avere se poarta foarte urat cu Heathcliff. In cele din urma, Heathcliff decide sa plece de acasa, reusind sa-si construiasca propria avere. Ce se intampla mai departe cu cele doua personaje principale pot descoperi cititorii, iar suspansul si actiunea interesanta, cu siguranta, ii va tine cu sufletul la gura! (Translation)VeronaSera (Italy) presents Georgiana, a novel by Deborah Begali:
Il romanzo si ispira ai classici d’amore regency, omaggia il lavoro di Jane Austen, delle sorelle Brontë e, in generale, delle tante pietre miliari della letteratura inglese ottocentesca. (Translation)The Stand News (Hong Kong) mentions the Brontës. Mikey F. (in Spanish) vlogs the reasons why he hates Charlotte Brontë. Finally, the Thornton Brontë Bell Chapel Action Group announces:
This sunday our annual Easter sunrise service at 6.30am. All welcome.
Emily At Home is the title of the first talk on February 6, exploring the domestic side of Emily and her writing.Sheffield Telegraph reviews the novel Elmet by Fiona Mozley.
A spokesman said: “As someone who revelled in the wild extremes of nature, freedom and the outdoors, Emily also seemed to embrace the quieter pleasures of the everyday, of the familiar routine of life with her family at the Parsonage.”
Future talks include the poetry of Emily Brontë (March 6), Heathcliff (April 3), the origins of Wuthering Heights (May 1), and Emily Brontë and nature (June 5).
Brontë Treasures will begin in February 23 at 2pm, focusing as usual on the world’s largest collection of Brontë artefacts, manuscripts and personal belongings.
The spokesman said: “Brontë Treasures offers a unique opportunity to go beyond the security cord into the Parsonage Library for a close-up viewing of some of the items not on display.
“During the special two hour-long sessions, a member of our curatorial team will share facts and stories about a number of carefully-selected objects.
“They will offer a specialist insight into the lives and work of this inspirational family. Fascinating and moving in equal measure, Brontë Treasures is a not-to-be-missed experience.”
Parsonage Unwrapped will begin at February 23 at 7.30pm with Writing The Brontës.
The spokesman said. “Since the publication of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë in 1857, countless biographers have researched, detailed and occasionally embellished the lives of the Brontë family.
“Join principal curator Ann Dinsdale for an evening considering Gaskell, Leyland, Du Maurier, Gerin and Barker and how their perspectives have shipped understanding of Haworth’s most famous family.” (Jim Seton)
The South Pennine landscape is as rugged, brutal and changeable as Daddy, the looming figure at the centre of the novel, whose behaviour is terrifying, and yet tender. And as the novel progresses and the violence within Daddy bubbles and grows, the landscape itself becomes increasingly bleak. Just as the moors drew Danny and Cathy together, it divides them, prompting comparisons with Heathcliff searching for his Cathy on those same moors centuries before. (Anna Caig)Creative Loafing has a bookstore owner reminisce about the time a couple requested books for a literary-themed wedding (as it turned out, they only wanted nice-looking books, regardless of their content).
I immediately thought of those great novels with grooms in morning coats and brides in empire waists, mumbling vicars and stumbling groomsmen, all living happily ever after. In Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen observes, “it is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife.” Books often extol marital bliss for sure, so they must be a good omen for a prospective husband and wife.Now that a bar in NYC's East Village has forbidden the use of the word 'literally' inside its premises, The Cut looks into 'The 300-Year History of Using ‘Literally’ Figuratively'.
But then I began to remember those books with disastrous weddings and marriages. There is that unfortunate business in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre when Jane discovers Rochester’s secret lurking in the attic. Well, “I declare the existence of an impediment,” indeed! (Ben Wiley)
The emphatic “literally” is not a millennial invention; it goes back to the 1700s at least, though Smith gets it right that it’s English. John Dryden, a man who is best known as the founder of literary criticism and the prohibition against the terminal preposition, was an early user of the emphatic “literally.” Charlotte Brontë, Jane Austen, Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, William Thackeray, Vladimir Nabokov, and David Foster Wallace all used the emphatic “literally” in their works. (Kory Stamper)Beware of spoilers - The Loop lists what we know so far about the second season of The Handmaid's Tale:
In the first season Alexis Bledel was only able to appear as a guest star on the show, but the time she had on screen was definitely memorable; she did secure an Emmy for the role, after all. So it seemed like a no-brainer for Miller and co. to promote her to series regular this year and expand on her story. While we don’t know just how much screen time Emily (who was named after Emily Brontë, by the way) will actually get, we do know that we’ll see her in the Colonies when she does reappear. Fingers crossed we’ll also get a good flashback story or two. (Amber Dowling)The Brontë Society Young Ambassador Lucy Powrie offers a few 'Brontë non-fiction recommendations'on her YouTube channel.
She remembers writing and performing “very bad” plays with her four siblings. She studied philosophy at St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, where, despite the lack of creative writing classes offered, she began to submit poetry to various journals. “One summer I sent a poem out every morning. The poems were terrible,” she says. “I can’t remember whether I had particular aspirations or if I chose the journals randomly.” She cites the Brontë sisters, Edith Wharton, and Shirley Jackson as early influences. “As a queer kid, I related to all that repression and unspeakable desire.” (Alana Mohamed)Consequence of Sound reviews the latest album by Vera, Good Job No Conversation:
Lyrically, “Nobody Else” is a tribute to the Caribbean novel Wide Sargasso Sea, by the Creole writer Jean Rhys. The novel is a response to Brontë’s Jane Eyre, in which the landowner keeps his Jamaican wife locked up in the attic, allegedly because she is mad. Wide Sargasso Sea tells the story of the “mad woman of the attic” and with its cool tone of tristesse the book describes the wickedness, the Jamaican landscape, and the eternal drinking of rum. (Eddie Fu)The York Press talks about the play The Book of Dragons:
Juliet [Forster] was drawn to Nesbit's dragons for another reason. "One of the stories is set in Forest Hill, in London, which is where I grew up, and that all came back to me when I read them again," she says. "I remembered the characters, the wit, the craziness of the fantasies, though normally I'd read books again and again as a child – I'd read Jane Eyre seven times by the age of 11; weird child! – but I'd only read The Book Of Dragons once because I'd borrowed it from the library, so the stories must have stayed with me. (Charles Hutchinson)The Manual describes the Metchosin House by architect Marko Semcic:
Six bedrooms and eight bathrooms, including full guest accommodations and a separate caretaker’s cabin, allow enough space and freedom that you could host a full family reunion and hardly ever see your visitors, while extra perks like a tennis court, billiards room, outdoor kitchen, fully automated boat house, library, and home theater mean you can become a total Emily Bronte-style recluse and still never get bored. (Leann Whittemore)AV Club reviews the film Phantom Thread by P.T. Anderson:
Phantom Thread often resembles a kind of relocated Gothic romance (there are faint shades of Jane Eyre), with Alma moving into the film’s equivalent of a grand manor, subjecting herself to the strict rules and eccentricities of a life within The House Of Woodcock. (A.A. Dowd)The Sheffield Telegraph reviews Elmet by Fiona Mozley:
Two of my favourite books are Wuthering Heights and Danny The Champion Of The World. Parallels have been drawn between Elmet and the former (not least in the indomitable figure of Cathy, who is nothing short of magnificent, taking her blazing revenge on behalf of centuries of women, like a naked Carrie.) But I found myself spotting more correlations with the latter. And I mean that as the most sincere of compliments.(Anna Caig)Bollywood HelpLine interview the film director Imtiaz Ali:
When asked imtiaz whether he will adapt a book to make a movie out of it, he said, “I in fact, thought of adapting ‘Wuthering Heights’ but lot of people have done that already. There are many version of it in India that has been made like ‘Dil Diya Dard Liya’ and ‘Muqaddar Ka Sikandar’ had some aspects of it. I was thinking of lot of these classics like ‘A Fairwell (sic) To Arms’ but it will be too expensive so then I am kind of resting that thought for sometime but I would love to do that but the important thing is when you make a film, it has to be your film so it could be somebody else’s story but then what is your story within books like ‘Wuthering Heights’”One strong contender for the title of the most absurd post of the year: what to read next, according to your zodiac sign (sigh). Your Tango has the doubtful honour:
Taurus is set in her ways and live up to everything an earth sign is known for. That’s why Jane Eyre is a must for you.A local literary contest for high school students in Valdemoro, Spain, with Emily Brontë as referent:
Read about the strong and independent woman, Jane (didn't see that coming, did you?), who finds herself and learns to trust her gut above all. Through strife and love and finding out her fiance is already married, she has an interesting life that could keep any Taurus glued to a book.
Cancel drinks for tonight, sit down with some tea and a blanket, and get started on this dramatic account of an orphan in the 1800s. (Sarah Gangraw)
El tema de la prueba de narrativa breve es la mujer, ya que este año se celebra el segundo centenario del nacimiento de Emily Brontë, autora de Cumbres borrascosas, y se la toma como referente. El texto no podrá superar los cinco folios. (José Manuel in Revista de Valdemoro) (Translation)Jouster Courant (in Dutch) reviews the comic Guardian 3: Ophelia by Robbert Damen:
Guardian is een solistisch optredende Scotland Yard- vrouw met bovenzinnelijke gaven, die zo uit de Harry Potter-wereld afkomstig zou kunnen zijn dan wel uit die van de gezusters Brontë. Haar uiterlijk is enigszins gothic dankzij de zwarte kledij en haar indringende ogen. (Koos Schulte) (Translation)El País (Spain) interviews the writer Magela Baudoin:
El regusto es parecido al que deja Jorge Luis Borges en muchas de sus narraciones. Tampoco eso es casual. “Mi abuela era una gran lectora de clásicos, por ella llegué, precoz, a las Brontë, a Jane Austen... Con los años fue perdiendo la vista y entonces memorizaba la poesía que yo le leía en voz alta; como admiraba a Borges, el primer bardo que descubrí fue él; hoy aun le leo reiteradamente”, rememora Baudoin, nacida en Venezuela en 1973, pero boliviana de crianza vital y literaria. (Carles Geli) (Translation)What can possibly have in common a Scottish cliff and Wuthering Heights? According to MeriStation (in Spanish) reviewing he PC game Black Mirror it has:
Encarnamos a Dave Gordon, heredero de el Castillo de Black Mirror situado en un acantilado escocés al más puro estilo de Cumbres Borrascosas. (José Luis López de Garayo Felgueroso) (Translation)Cineseries-Magazine (in French) reviews the film God's Own Country by Francis Lee:
Filmée au printemps, cette terre est hospitalière, contrairement à celle des Hauts de Hurlevent, le film de sa compatriote Andrea Arnold, également dans le Yorkshire, également belle, mais cette fois-là embrumée et inquiétante. (Beatrice Delesalle) (Translation)BookRiot vindicates Anne Brontë vehemently; To Read, Or Not To Read reviews the Thandie Newton's Jane Eyre audiobook; the Brontë Sisters compiles several Christmas pictures of Haworth and the Parsonage.
Emily Brontë, George Eliot, Olive Schreiner, Shelley and Woolf: these are the women Gordon calls “Outsiders”, women who struggled against the conventions of their time to live the lives they wished to live. Gordon is an imaginative and rigorous biographer who has already addressed the lives of Wollstonecraft, Charlotte Brontë and Woolf in full-length books, but the pleasure in this compact volume is the way in which she weaves these lives together, building links across the generations. (...)The Huffington Post interviews the writer Fiona Mozley:
One of Gordon’s strengths is always to recognise the tension inherent in biography’s form: finally, how can we know anything? Evidence of anyone’s life is only ever fragmentary. “Twenty-five years ago a biographer tried to nail Emily Brontë as anorexic; now it’s Asperger’s syndrome. It was ever thus. The personal will remain largely unknown,” she writes. (Erica Wagner)
Place is so key to this narrative; it both sets the tone and helps to build the suspense. How did you decide on the setting for this novel? (Brandi Megan Granett)New Jersey Stage announces a new reading of Stephen Kaplan's Branwell (and the other Brontës) play next January:
The setting for this novel was probably the easiest decision I had to make during its creation. Long before ‘Elmet’ was a novel, and long before it was a collection of poems by Ted Hughes, it was the name of the old Brittonic kingdom that covered the area in the north of England that is now the southern and western parts of Yorkshire, just south of York (that’s the original York, not the new one!). (...) Yorkshire has a grand literary heritage. It was the home of the Brontë sisters, and Dracula washed up in his coffin at Whitby, on the Yorkshire coastline.
Monday, January 15 – “Brandwell (sic) and the Other Bronte” by Stephen Kaplan. The Brontë siblings (Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne) had incredibly vivid imaginations that allowed them to create such masterpieces as Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre. However, it is in their own private fantasy worlds, first invented when they were children, that they find their most inspired outlets. With a clear set of rules, they escape to these worlds whenever fancy pleases them. But when reality threatens to crash in, the siblings start changing the rules in order to avoid the inevitable and fight to keep their cherished worlds alive. Though set in the past, Branwell (and the other Brontës): an autobiography edited by Charlotte Brontë is about how, throughout time, we tell stories that can unite us all together in our humanity.The Lancashire Post recommends some children's books like Girls Who Rocked The World by Michelle Roehm McCann and Amelie Welden:
Whether designing famous monuments, fighting for the freedom of their country or becoming political pioneers, these gutsy girls have changed the way we view the world and ourselves. From Florence Nightingale to Anna Pavlova, Coco Chanel to Eva Perón, and the Brontë Sisters to Indira Gandhi, this book features women from across history and around the globe who have all achieved remarkable things. (Pam Norfolk)Marriage proposals in The Canberra Times:
When someone blithely accepts a man's proposal of marriage (as Ryan Bolger this week famously accepted the public proposal of Tim Wilson MP) how can they be sure that the proposer is not already married? What if, at home, he has a mad spouse locked up in a secret room?The Conversation reviews the recent adaptation of Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace by Sarah Polley:
Well-read readers will recognise at once this reference to Charlotte Brontë's great gothic novel Jane Eyre. This week's great, gothic proposal scene in the House of Representatives has sent me scampering to some of the many websites that celebrate (sometimes with shudders of horror) proposal scenes in great literature.
In Jane Eyre and after Mr Rochester's tortured proposal to Jane (and her tortured acceptance of it) a giant tree is smash-tackled by a bolt of lightning. We find that this is an omen, a display of divine indignation, for it emerges Rochester is already married, albeit to a madwoman locked away in a remote wing of Rochester's lonely mansion. (Ian Warden)
Second, popular costume dramas tend to conclude with the heroine’s marriage to a more affluent man. Although educated, privileged men might initially appear stuffy or difficult (such as Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice or Edward Rochester in Jane Eyre) but they eventually show their softer side by falling in love with the heroine and offering her a better life. (Roberta Garrett)Point Park Globe reviews the play You on the Moors Now:
The plot of “You on the Moors Now” is centered around four of the most well-known female characters in classic literature: Jane Eyre (Aenya Ulke), Jo March (Shannon Donovan), Elizabeth Bennett (Julia Small) and Catherine Earnshaw (Madeline Watkins). But these aren’t exactly like the stories you remember from high school. Instead of romantic garden proposals and “ardent” love, “You on the Moors Now” tells an alternate tale, set in a world where the women said “No.” In doing so, our female protagonists both literally and metaphorically reject the life written for them in favor of choosing the livesthey want to lead. (Erin Hyatt)Keighley News presents the singer and songwriter Isaac Tyler:
Isaac Tyler, 20, will this month show a hometown audience what the fuss is about, as well as guesting on another new recording.Variety reviews the film Asphyxia (خفهگی) by Fereydoun Jeyrani :
Isaac has been described by his publicist as a “modern Heathcliff” with a broody, aching voice and songs to match. (David Knights)
And so a strange dynamic evolves in which the pale-eyed, freckled Sahra, plain under her uniform’s wimple, is the Jane Eyre befriending the apparently mad wife of Masoud’s brooding, glowering Rochester — a Gothic impression born out by the hospital’s frequent power cuts, which necessitate the use of candles and oil lamps in its echoey passageways. (Jessica Kiang)The National (UAE) talks about pseudonyms:
Noms de plumes express other, more politicised concerns. Lest it be forgotten, J K Rowling is also a pen name of sorts, one that conceals the author’s unmistakably female first name, Joanne. This hide-and-seek with male and female has a long tradition. “We veiled our own names under those of Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell; the ambiguous choice being dictated by a sort of conscientious scruple at assuming Christian names positively masculine, while we did not like to declare ourselves women, because – without at that time suspecting that our mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’ – we had a vague impression that authoresses are liable to be looked on with prejudice.” So wrote Charlotte Brontë, explaining why the three Brontë sisters chose pen names: Charlotte was Currer, Emily decided on Ellis and Anne took Acton. The same conclusion about a misogynist literary culture informs Mary Ann Evans’ choice of George Eliot to publish Scenes of Clerical Life. The custom was satirised in the BBC sitcom Blackadder, which re-imagined Jane Austen as a “huge Yorkshireman with a beard like a rhododendron bush”.Daily Collegian on book endings:
Charlotte also notes that pseudonyms suited a trio who were “averse to publicity”, which returns us both to Rowling-Galbraith and chimes with many writers across the Middle East, who have pressing reasons to veil their identity. (James Kidd)
But isn’t it better to have “The Great Gatsby” if you know you can temper it with “Jane Eyre?” Doesn’t “The Bell Jar” add to “The Handmaid’s Tale?” Don’t you think Sylvia would have liked Offred, and Jay Gatsby would have related to Rochester’s crazy twisted romance schemes? (Gabrielle Barone)Dazeba News (in Italian) reviews an Italian translation of The Professor:
“Il professore” è il primo romanzo di Charlotte Brontë. Ruota intorno al giovane William Crimsworth, unico protagonista maschile di tutta la produzione dell’autrice e io narrante della storia. William, ragazzo sensibile e colto, fugge da un’occupazione insoddisfacente nello Yorkshire e si trasferisce in Belgio per insegnare inglese presso un istituto femminile. (Bruna Alasia) (Translation)Courrier International and Benzine (in French) review the film God's Own Country:
Seule la terre (God’s own country), son premier long-métrage, a été tourné au pays des sœurs Brontë : au pied de la chaîne montagneuse des Pennines, dans le Yorkshire. (Marie Béloeil) (Translation)
Francis Lee sait magnifier l’atmosphère et le caractère âpre des collines du Yorkshire (où il a grandi), transformées ici en écrin sauvage, en paysages poétiques propices aux amours clandestines et émois bouillonnants, telles les landes de Wuthering Heights chez Emily Brontë. (Michael Pige) (Translation)lifehasafunnywayofsneakinguponyou posts about the upcoming novel The Heights by Juliet Bell. Arbrealettres is publishing some Emily Brontë poems translated into French by Pierre Leyris. The rules of the De Leo-Brontë 2018 awards have been posted on the Sezione Italiana della Brontë Society Facebook Wall.
Wuthering Heights 2011
6th Dec 2017 - 7:30pm
The Arts Centre
Speaking before the announcement on the BBC News channel, writer and cricit Stephanie Merritt said of Elmet: “It’s a tremendous achievement for a first novel. It’s a book about landscape and our place in the landscape.”Poltrona Nerd (Brazil) reviews John Green's Turtles All the Way Down.
"Echoes of Wuthering Heights and Ted Hughes are all there,” added Sameer Rahim, the books editor of Prospect magazine.
“There are some beautiful landscape descriptions and she really can write.”
Não podemos deixar de mencionar Davis, o filho do empresário desaparecido. Surgindo no momento mais oportuno possível, ele é essencial para compreendermos o que se passa na cabeça de Aza. O menino é diferente da maioria dos garotos de sua idade. Se interessa por escrita, leituras clássicas e autores consagrados na literatura como Shakespeare, Demócrito e Brontë, além de usar a internet para desaguar suas ideias. (Paula Ramos) (Translation)Vanyaland reviews the film England is Mine, based on Morrissey's early years.
I remember when Morrissey’s autobiography came out. We all thought we would get the straight story (minus the apparent homosexual affair that American publishers deleted), and we did get just that: Morrissey’s version. Finally. His life in about 400 pages, written as if he were channeling Oscar Wilde and Emily Brontë. After all the point-of-view books on him and then finally his own, did we really need a movie? (Mark Phinney)
It has many of the facilities associated with small or even medium-sized towns and a profile to match, but the Brontë village of Haworth remains just that... a village.We don't really agree with this comment on Bustle:
Nestled in the Worth Valley in the eastern Pennines, Haworth has a population of just over 6,000, but on a sunny day in summer the number is multiplied several fold as tourists swarm into Main Street. (...)
The attractions are the cobbled Main Street itself and the Brontë Parsonage Museum, the perfectly preserved 18th century house in which Charlotte, Emily and Anne Brontë spent most of their lives. (...)
The village has been gentrified in recent years but retains its period charm. Main Street is a jumble of little cafes and shops, many selling handmade crafts and bric-a-brac and others named after the novels and characters created at the parsonage.
At the peak of the season, the junction by the red telephone box, where Main Street meets West Lane can be as crowded as Piccadilly Circus. And each spring, the village hosts a 1940s-themed “wartime weekend”, which attracts around 25,000, many in period costume.
However, the visitor experience is unlikely to be helped by Bradford Council’s decision to close the village’s two public toilets next year, local councillor Rebecca Poulsen believes.
“It’s absolutely crazy, she said. “The council claims to be fully behind tourism and then it does something like this. They wanted to close the tourist information centre too, but the Brontë Society has agreed to take that over.” (David Behrens)
After all, a lot of our most “pretentious” literature used to be good old fashioned pop culture garbage. Shakespeare was wildly popular with the common folk back in his day, and derided for his lack of education. The Brontë sisters were considered the scandalous authors of trashy romance novels. (Klopa Robin)Pseudonyms in Business Recorder:
A trend reflecting the prevailing sexism of the time saw many accomplished female writers publish their work under masculine names: George Eliot's real name was Mary Ann Evans, George Sand was Aurore Dupin and the Brontë sisters were first published as Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. Lately, partly because of female readers becoming more important to the market for new writing, there has been a trend towards gender neutral pen names. (Franck Iovene)The Hans India on sequels:
Was Phineas Fogg content with his routine lifestyle after his round-the-world trip? What was the subsequent life of Jane Eyre or Elizabeth Bennet like? (Dr K Srinivasa Rao)The Telegraph (India) describes like this the novel Elmet by Fiona Mozley:
The landscape is Wuthering Heights, the setting a post-Thatcher How Green Is My Valley, and the climax as bloody as a Jacobean play.In a way, the same topic is discussed by Berner Zeitung (in German) in an interview with Zadie Smith:
Ähnlich war es bei der britischen Autorin Charlotte Brontë. Als diese Mitte des 19. Jahrhunderts «Jane Eyre» publizierte, zog das Buch eine Welle von Romanen nach sich, die auf die weibliche Erfahrung fokussierten. «Es ist ein grosses Geschenk, das Schreibende einander geben können.» Ein neuer Blickwinkel tue sich auf. (Anne-Sophie Scholl) (Translation)The Sisters' Room interviews Marianna D'Ezio, Italian translator of Jane Eyre. Les Soeurs Brontë (in French) proposes an alternate possibility for the alleged Landseer portrait of the Brontës, she suggests that it may be it the work of the artist's sister Jessica.
A Keighley charity which provides much needed support for people with cancer is preparing an important fundraising walk for its activities this autumn.The Newcastle Chronicle reports the return to England of the only known sketchbook of Thomas Bewick:
Keighley and Airedale Cancer Support is based in New Devonshire House and one of its members, Clare Taylor, is organising a "Withens Welly Walk". (...)
The trek takes place on Saturday November 11, with participants meeting at the Old Sun Hotel, 79 West Lane, Haworth.
There will be two route options. The first is a 7.6 mile walk to Top Withens and back and the second a shorter five-mile walk to the Brontë Waterfalls and back. (Miran Rahman)
The only known sketchbook of the celebrated Northumbrian engraver and naturalist Thomas Bewick has come home after surfacing in San Francisco in the United States. (...)The New York Times asks several journalists and authors about 'what they learnt from horror movies':
The event will be the launch of a new book which reproduces the sketches, with a commentary by leading Bewick scholar and author Nigel Tattersfield, who will be attending. Thomas Bewick: The Sketchbook 1792-99, is published by London antiquarian booksellers Jarndyce at £85 in a limited edition of 200 copies, and has been designed by another prominent Bewick authority, Iain Bain.(...)
A History of British Birds came in two volumes, on land birds and water birds, and is repeatedly mentioned in Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre. (Tony Henderson)
I love how often horror-movie monsters can become allegorical stand-ins for what scares us. Back in high school, I came across the 1943 movie “I Walked With a Zombie,” and was floored by how this suspense movie dealt with repression, fear and racism. It caught my attention because my family is from a Caribbean island, and I grew up with stories about Santería.The Australian discusses the current Man Booker Prize Shortlist, including:
Loosely based on “Jane Eyre,” the movie follows a nurse who is hired to care for the catatonic wife of a wealthy sugar plantation owner in the Caribbean. “I Walked With a Zombie” is upfront about the island’s tragic history of slavery and the slave trade, even as some of its white characters would rather minimize their unsavory past to focus on the romantic melodrama. (Mónica Castillo)
Despite the outward differences between the two books, Elmet draws some of its energy from the same questions about national identity and nationhood that animate Autumn, taking its title from the ancient kingdom that was celebrated by Ted Hughes in The Remains of Elmet, as well as invoking the Brontës and others. (James Bradley)Princeton Times links together WalMart Stores, Jane Eyre and Dracula:
Just last week, I trotted out to purchase fabric. I have been commissioned to create capes for a trip to the local Renaissance Fair. The college teen offered my sewing skills to her friends, and now, I am making crushed-velvet capes for several. I can't really remember when a good cape wasn't in style, though. We had Halloween capes growing up. Count von Count, from Sesame Street has a really, cool cape. All the Dracula movies have capes. Heroines from the Jane Eyre movies have capes in which to pine and swoon. (Fawn Musick)The Sunday Times discusses the latest poetry collection by Jackie Kay, Bantam:
There are poems about war, and our memories of war, channelled through memorials and family stories. There are verses about bereavement, the Brontës, about Brexit, and some very funny lines dedicated to Nigel Farage. (Mike Wade)The Irish Times reviews the novel Devil's Day by Andrew Michael Hurley:
In the same way that Emily Brontë allowed the Yorkshire moors to become a character unto themselves in Wuthering Heights, Hurley’s depiction of the hills and grasslands of Lancashire takes on an anthropomorphic quality, representing a place removed from the outside world, a timeless land with its own rules and laws.BroadwayWorld interviews David Armstrong, director of The Secret Garden, now being performed in Houston:
What was your approach for staging a brand new staging of The Secret Garden? (Alan Henry)BT.com lists several of the Gunpowder filming locations, including:
The design team and I were inspired by the gothic aspects of the original novel. Frances Hodgson Burnett was consciously echoing Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and other gothic stories.
Fans of Wuthering Heights may recognise East Riddlesden Hall (below), a Grade I-listed National Trust-owned property in Keighley, West Yorkshire. The hall has foundations dating as far back as 973 and was used in adaptations of Wuthering Heights in both 1992 and again in 2009. The National Trust took over the deeds of the site in 1934. (Chris Laker)Steinbach opens an article about the Mennonite Heritage Village (Manitoba, Canada) with an Anne Brontë quote from The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:
“A light wind swept over the corn, and all of nature laughed in the sunshine.” - Anne BrontëLa Verdad (Spain) interviews several local writers on the role of women in literature:
El Día de las Escritoras impulsado por la BNE -se festeja el primer lunes posterior al 15 de octubre, onomástica de Santa Teresa de Jesús-, piensan las autoras murcianas, reunidas por 'La Verdad', es una apuesta importante en la lucha por la visibilidad de aquellas autoras olvidadas, pero no debe ser un acto puntual, sino una constante que hay que convertir, apunta Cerezo, en «cotidianeidad». «Hemos avanzado bastante desde las hermanas Brontë, pero queda todavía mucho por hacer», cree [Dionisia] García. (Rosa Martínez) (Translation)And Enpositivo (in Spanish) lists books written by women that should be read by men:
Jane Eyre (1847) – Charlotte BrontëFrom First Page to Last interviews the writer Carol Lovekin:
Mientras en el siglo XIX la figura de la mujer huérfana, soltera y trabajadora siempre era descrita desde la visión paternalista, Charlotte Brontë desvela otra realidad vivida directamente desde la parte femenina. Se ambienta en la Inglaterra victoriana y muestra cómo esta figura en realidad era luchadora y valiente, y no desvalida y victimista. (Aiste Bereckyte) (Translation)
If you could only read one book for the rest of your life which book would it be?The Doctor Who Companion lists several of Peter Davison's guest appearances, including his Lockwood in Wuthering Heights 1998. Guaripete, needabook and Smart Bitches, Trashy Books review the Aline McKenna & Ramón Pérez's Jane graphic novel. Littlebutfierce7 reviews the National Theatre's performances of Jane Eyre.
Wow! Now that is a question! It’s a choice between Jane Eyre and To Kill a Mockingbird. Ideally it would be something by Virginia Woolf – who I admire beyond rubies – but goodness me, she had a thing about paragraphs (the lack thereof!) I’d go blind if all I had to read for the rest of my life was Mrs Dalloway – marvellous though it is.
Unless explicitly said
