And regardless of what you made of Emerald Fennell’s controversial take on Wuthering Heights, the news that another Brontë sister classic is coming to our screens is surely an exciting one.According to reports, Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre is being adapted for TV, with Aimee Lou Wood set to star in the title role. And as someone who loved her warm and witty performance in Film Club (which was also her writing debut), I couldn’t be more thrilled. We know from her previous characters that she can be both bold and demanding, while still tender and gentle. Whether she’s portraying an outspoken schoolgirl in Sex Education or a free-spirited hotel guest in The White Lotus, she’s able to bring so much expression and intensity to her roles that she feels more than well-equipped to play such a steely heroine. [...]Regardless, I can’t wait to see Wood shine in such a classic role, one I have no doubt she’ll really make her own. (Amy Beecham)
A few days after Emerald Fennell’s film adaptation of “Wuthering Heights” came out, a friend sent me an Onion headline about a bookseller frantically pulling classics off the shelf before Fennell enters the store. No beloved novel could be safe from the dangers of the director introducing anachronistic costumes, original songs by Charli XCX, selectively color-blind casting, and explicit B.D.S.M. scenes for its Byronic hero.In the case of “Wuthering Heights,” though, there was no further need to worry. The books had already flown off the shelves. In mid-February, Publishers Weekly reported that a hundred thousand copies of Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel had sold in the first two months of this year, compared with a hundred and eighty thousand total last year, attributing the increase to book clubs and influencers of all stripes embracing it. People I spoke to who’d never read it before confessed their omission as a sin tantamount to not yet having watched “Heated Rivalry.” My own confession was that I’d never much liked “Wuthering Heights.” The nihilistic attachment between its doomed lovers, Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, was too stormy and unruly for my tastes. But in rereading it for my own Substack book club, in advance of the release of Fennell’s film, I came to respect both its discipline and its perversity, though not in the way Fennell’s movie might make you think.In a certain light, “Wuthering Heights” is a respectable, conservative tale. (Hear me out.) At the beginning of the novel, we meet the cantankerous middle-aged Heathcliff and his two wards, Hareton Earnshaw and Catherine Heathcliff. The relationships eventually become clear: Hareton is the son of Hindley Earnshaw, Heathcliff’s chief childhood tormentor (and the original Cathy Earnshaw’s brother); Catherine is Cathy’s daughter and the young widow of Heathcliff’s son. The novel closes with the news that Hareton and Catherine will marry, united by a bond of true affection. Thus, the Earnshaw line survives and thrives, and the social order remains much the same at the end as it ever was.But, to get there, Brontë enlists some of the ubiquitous tropes of her time—the foundling hero, for example—only to ruthlessly unravel them. The orphan is a Chekhov’s gun of Victorian fiction: if there’s an unattached child, expect an eventual reunion with a long-lost relative, or a sudden serendipitous inheritance that enfolds the orphan into a family line. Both of those things happen in “Jane Eyre,” also published in 1847, by Emily’s sister Charlotte Brontë. Jane stumbles upon three kind people who turn out to be her cousins, and into a fortuitous bequest of twenty thousand pounds from their shared late uncle. Emily Brontë resists such a dénouement for Heathcliff. He is introduced when Mr. Earnshaw, Cathy’s father, deposits him unceremoniously in front of his wife and his two children at Wuthering Heights, having picked the boy up off the streets of Liverpool and bundled him into his coat: “a gift of God; though it’s as dark almost as if it came from the devil.” (“It,” to be clear, refers to Heathcliff.) His origins are unknown, and they stay that way. There’s no explanation for his heritage, no clarity as to the nature of his darkness. As a young adult, he disappears after Cathy declares her intention to marry Edgar Linton, the son of their wealthy neighbors at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff comes back three years later a gentleman, in affect and appearance if not at heart. But that time away and the source of his changed fortune also remain a mystery.There’s no ending for Heathcliff that reconciles him to the cruelty shown to him by Hindley Earnshaw, who hates him from the moment that his father brings him home. (Some fault lies with Mr. Earnshaw, who had favored Heathcliff when the children were growing up but failed to legitimatize him within the family.) There’s no one left in the novel’s closing chapters to apologize to Heathcliff for the abuse that he suffered—Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley, Cathy, and Edgar are all dead—nor does he apologize to those he brutalizes in turn: his wife Isabella, whom he marries to spite her brother, Edgar, and their poor, fretful son, Linton, whom he simply abhors on principle. There’s no language for him to fully acknowledge or profit from the genuine love that his ward, Hindley’s son, Hareton, feels for him. The happiest state Heathcliff can achieve is being haunted by the ghost of Cathy, and when, at the end of the novel, he recognizes her trademark Earnshaw eyes in the two young people of his household (not surprisingly, given that they are her daughter and her nephew), the best he can do is send them out of the room, as they cause him “pain, amounting to agony.”If Victorian fiction ordinarily treats the orphan as an engine of social mobility, whose path involves finding his place in the world, “Wuthering Heights” asserts that any such progress is temporary. At the end, Heathcliff stands alone and “unredeemed,” as Charlotte Brontë wrote of him in 1850. He destroys all his relationships, such that he can’t think of how to write his will and bequeath all the property he’s spent his life vengefully acquiring. Emily Brontë, instead, writes him out of it altogether. He has nothing to show for all of his actions. His sole biological heir predeceases him, and, once he has gone, the two homes in question, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, will pass to Hareton and young Catherine, who continue the Earnshaw family lineage. By the standards of the Victorian novel, Heathcliff, who leaves neither descendants nor legacy behind him, is a dead end.In this way, Brontë demonstrates that not all trauma has a resolution, that belonging is a gift that not even the most powerful of novelists can readily bestow. She does not tame, contain, or tidy Heathcliff’s wild energy. It shapes his outlook even in death. When Nelly, the Earnshaw family’s longtime servant, finds his body, his eyes are wide open, with a stare both “keen and fierce.” She says, “I tried to close his eyes: to extinguish, if possible, that frightful, life-like gaze of exultation, before any one else beheld it. They would not shut.” His tombstone reminds us one last time of how little we know him. “As he had no surname, and we could not tell his age,” Nelly says, “we were obliged to content ourselves with the single word, ‘Heathcliff.’ ”Whenever a fuss arises over the adaptation of a literary text to screen, I think of what James M. Cain told an interviewer for The Paris Review who asked him what he thought of the film that Billy Wilder and Raymond Chandler made of his novel “Double Indemnity.” Their version made significant changes to the plot. Cain replied that he didn’t like movies. “I don’t go,” he said. “People tell me, don’t you care what they’ve done to your book? I tell them, they haven’t done anything to my book. It’s right there on the shelf.”“Double Indemnity” ’s plot was reworked, in part, to sanitize the story for screen audiences. The Hays Code, a precursor to the motion-picture rating system that gave Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” an R for its depictions of violence, sex, and death, required that Hollywood movies eschew profanity, obscenity, and other indicators of low morals, and also stipulated that “the sympathy of the audience shall never be thrown to the side of crime, wrongdoing, evil, or sin.” Among other potential issues, in Cain’s ending, the lovers who commit the insurance fraud at the center of the story escape the country, with plans for a double suicide. The film closes, instead, with a confession scene.It’s hard these days to imagine a situation in which, through a self-imposed agreement among all the major studios, movies and television series would need to be tamer than their source material specifically so as not to corrupt the audience. If anything, in our visual culture, we tend to expect—indeed, anticipate—the opposite. But the impulse behind the Hays Code aligns with a truism of nineteenth-century fiction that its successful writers well knew: that characters who transgress within the pages of a novel could not be allowed to prosper without punishment. It doesn’t take a literary scholar to notice, for example, that adulterous women in nineteenth-century novels—English, French, Russian—meet tragic ends, no matter how sympathetically or charismatically their creators portray them. Even the men must square their accounts. In “Jane Eyre,” Mr. Rochester, Jane’s employer at Thornfield Hall, where she goes to work as a governess, fails in his initial attempt to marry her when the existence of his first wife, Bertha, locked up in the attic, is revealed. He gets Jane in the end, but only after being maimed and partially blinded in a fire set by Bertha, in which she perishes. It’s not exactly an eye for an eye, but it reflects the belief that actions have moral consequences.“Wuthering Heights” abides by that convention. Heathcliff and Cathy both must suffer and die, lest readers make the mistake of believing it’s acceptable to profess undying love for your childhood companion while you’re seven months pregnant and married to another man (as Cathy does) or to try to kill your wife’s dog (as Heathcliff does), to name but two of their many offenses. The placid romance of Hareton and young Catherine leaves us, superficially, in a peaceful, even hopeful place.But it is Heathcliff’s passionate declarations and shocking acts that stay in the mind and color our lasting impression of “Wuthering Heights” as strange and uncontainable. They will outlive the blood-red, entertaining raunch of Fennell’s movie, too, in spite of the recency bias that kicks in when we’re confronted with contemporary interpretations of classics. It’s humbling to admit that an isolated nineteenth-century Yorkshirewoman, of whom her sister wrote that “she had scarcely more practical knowledge of the peasantry amongst whom she lived, than a nun has of the country people who sometimes pass her convent gates,” could possibly harbor thoughts as wild or knowing or kinky as we do now. But Brontë’s novel easily checks the first and third of those R-rated boxes. (As for the second, we can make our own assumptions.)In Fennell’s previous film, “Saltburn,” she cemented her reputation as a provocateur with a sequence in which the main character strips down and humps his former friend’s grave. I see that scene and counter it with this one from Brontë: seventeen years after Cathy’s death, as her husband, Edgar, is being laid to rest beside her, Heathcliff persuades the sexton to open up Cathy’s grave, ascertains that she has not yet begun to decompose (“I saw her face again—it is hers yet . . . but he said it would change, if the air blew on it”), and then bribes the sexton to remove a side from each of their coffins once he is buried there, too, so that they can commingle for eternity. It’s a deliciously subversive image, and diabolically timeless. (Radhika Jones)
When Emily Brontë published “Wuthering Heights,” in 1847, critics were baffled, alarmed, and mostly unimpressed. James Lorimer, writing in the North British Review, promised that the novel would “never be generally read.” Nearly two centuries later, it’s regarded as one of the great works of English literature. In a live taping of Critics at Large at the 92nd Street Y, Vinson Cunningham, Naomi Fry, and Alexandra Schwartz discuss the staying power of the original text and the countless adaptations it’s inspired, from the 1939 film featuring Laurence Olivier to Andrea Arnold’s 2011 version. The most recent attempt comes from the director Emerald Fennell, whose new “Wuthering Heights,” starring Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, reads as a romantic fever dream. The movie has been polarizing in part for the way it excises some of the weirder and wilder aspects of its source material. But what’s discarded—or emphasized—can also be revealing. “It’s an audacious proposition to adapt a great novel . . . I don’t think it needs to be faithful, necessarily,” Fry says. “The adaptation itself becomes a portrait of the time in which it’s made.”
A fresh wave of "Brontëmania" has swept through the historic home of the literary sisters, following the release of a new film adaptation of Wuthering Heights.The Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, West Yorkshire, a global hub for enthusiasts, reports a "mind-blowing" response to Emerald Fennell’s take on Emily Brontë's classic. [...]Mia Ferullo, the museum’s digital engagement officer, said that this surge is the most recent in a long line of renewed fascinations with the lives and works of Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë.With discussions now circulating about an international television adaptation of Jane Eyre, starring Aimee Lou Wood, Ms Ferullo sees no sign of the literary fervour abating.“I’ve never seen so many people talk about Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights,” she said.“It’s been quite mind-blowing – really, very surreal.“We talk about the Brontës every day and everyone else is kind of joining in on this conversation, and it is everywhere.“So many people are picking up the book for the first time and discovering the Brontës for the first time.“It does feel like a very big, special, special moment.”Ms Ferullo has been giving talks over the last two weeks at the museum on Brontëmania, the literary pilgrimages to the sisters’ home in Haworth which began in the late 19th century – even when the sisters’ father, the Reverend Patrick Bronte, who outlived them, was still living in the building.he said: “People from as far as America were coming to Haworth to try and see the place where Charlotte Brontë wrote Jane Eyre and lived.“So it kind of started really early on, before the museum was actually at the parsonage.”She said: “Even when Patrick was still living there, people would come, and he would take out Charlotte’s signature from letters and stuff to give to people as souvenirs.“People would go into the church to look at the marriage register book where Charlotte had written in.“So, there was a lot of interest.“And, I think that’s partly why the church decided to sell the parsonage, because people were getting bothered too much by by tourists.”Fellow literary great Virginia Woolf visited the house in 1904 and remarked on how understanding where the books were written added to readers’ appreciation of the works.Ms Ferullo said the influx of new visitors is partly down to the long-standing phenomenon of people wanting to see where literary and movie works are created.Few writers are as rooted to a specific place as the Brontës are with Haworth and its surrounding moors, she said.“People come to the house because they want to learn about the Brontës’ lives but, actually, it’s the moors surrounding them that make people feel as if they’re stepping into the novels themselves.“I don’t think they would have written things like Wuthering Heights without living in this area.”Ms Ferullo said: “With the film, it’s obviously prompted a lot of people to buy the book, and we’ve sold a lot of copies of Wuthering Heights in the shop.“But I think, as well, people want to feel like they’re getting a bit closer.“And, it’s more of an authentic experience of visiting the actual place where everything started, where this novel was written.”She said: “There’s definitely a lot of people who love the books, and that is what’s motivated them to visit.“A lot of people read them when they’re teenagers, and kind of grow up with them.“But we do have people who are just visiting Haworth for a day out, and the museum’s here, and they visit and, hopefully, learn more.”She said: “What we quite like is that it starts the conversation, allows us to talk to people and then, hopefully, they’ll learn more.“It’s kind of like an entry point into the Brontës.” (Dave Higgens)
I am sure you have heard the discourse surrounding Emerald Fennell’s now infamous, “Wuthering Heights”: ‘As a fan of the novel I could never enjoy this film,’ ‘This film is a disgrace to Emily Brontë,’ and so on. Dr Claire O’Callaghan, literary scholar and Senior Lecturer in English at Loughborough University, is one of the most qualified people to address these concerns. Claire specialises in the Brontës, being Editor-In-Chief of the official journal of the Brontë Society and even publishing an extensive biography of Emily Brontë herself, Emily Brontë Reappraised. It is safe to say that Dr O’Callaghan is far more than simply a fan of the novel, she is an expert, and here is what she had to say.Upon viewing the film immediately on the Friday morning of its release, Dr O’Callaghan detailed her initial reaction, ‘I just couldn’t stop laughing’, stating that her overall opinion of the film was that it was extremely entertaining and refreshing in comparison to the myriads of bad adaptations of the novel that exist. Talking of the film’s striking opening sequence, O’Callaghan stated that ‘it was just so tongue in cheek, setting the tone for the whole film’ being a ‘visual feast for the eyes’ that she was still processing when I came to speak to her the following Wednesday after the films release.One of the most divisive elements surrounding Fennell’s adaptation is the issue of casting. Dr O’Callaghan stated, ‘I have read and written about a million spin offs of ‘Wuthering Heights’, I don’t take them in this very pure way that people seem to, particularly with the Brontës…people get very protective over it and their Cathy and Heathcliff is the only Cathy and Heathcliff…I went in with a really open mind.’ Despite this open mindedness, on the issues of race surrounding the casting of Heathcliff, Claire stated that she can definitely see why people are upset, ‘In the book he is described by and large ambiguously but as a person of colour, that is what the commonality is between the descriptions of him.’ Claire suggested that the public reaction to the casting of Heathcliff is reflective of the time in which we are living and she agrees that there have not been enough diverse representations of Heathcliff on screen.On the widely shared viewpoint that Fennell’s film disgraces Emily Brontë herself, Claire stated that she believes that making that comment in and of itself is slightly disrespectful taking Emily’s name in vain due to one’s own dislike of a film adaptation. O’Callaghan, also being a scholar of the Victorians more broadly, suggested that one of the reasons for people’s strong reactions towards the adaptation is people’s views of the Victorian era as strictly puritan even though elements like what is included in Fennell’s adaptation were encoded within the original work.On the more provocative elements of the film, Claire stated that the fish scene was the only thing that made her feel sick, all the rest between Cathy and Heathcliff got repetitive, however getting to listen to the Charlie XCX soundtrack overlayed in the background made it all worth it. To conclude on her opinions surrounding the strong reactions to this adaptation, Claire stated, ‘It’s a kind of echo…of how horrified the Victorians were about this book…there’s a complete correlation between what we are seeing now and what we were seeing then and that’s what is fascinating.’Another topic that fans of the novel have been divided by is the representation and different interpretation of such beloved characters. Claire remarked on Isabella’s characterisation, ‘Isabella was interesting…I have got some research that’s not published…on representations of Isabella on screen…she has always been presented as this naïve character…Fennell does this…’ however she also stated that she ‘kind of liked the fact that Fennell gave agency to Isabella…it was really different…I was left a bit like, I’m not sure what to think here’. On the character of Cathy, Claire approved of Margot Robbie’s performance stating that ‘she really brought out the kind of brat like Cathy.’ The main issue that O’Callaghan shared surrounding the film was to do with the characterisation of Heathcliff, ‘The only thing I didn’t like about this film is that we are told in the book that Heathcliff is a man who will love and hate in equal measure, his emotional engine is grief, misery and sorrow but I felt that in the film he was a bit more of a romantic…that’s less interesting than something a bit more emotionally complex’. Claire also stated that so many adaptations cut off the second part of the book as well as moving around and condensing characters, ‘I think it’s really hard to adapt a complex, layered book like ‘Wuthering Heights’, it moves about in time… it’s hard to do that.’ She went on to suggest that ‘Wuthering Heights’ is full of ‘competing plotlines and ambiguity … with screen, adaptation can’t deal with ambiguity, it has to disambiguate,’ this being the reason for many of Fennell’s choices to condense elements of the novel.Overall, Dr Claire O’Callaghan shared a viewpoint that I myself am inclined to agree with, ‘If you’re going to do an adaptation…you can’t just keep doing the same thing…this is hopefully opening up a whole new world of readers to that book…take it with a pinch of salt and just enjoy the madness for a couple of hours.’ (Malise Johnson)
UNG Gainesville English Professor Shannon Gilstrap has read “Wuthering Heights” countless times and plans to see the movie at some point. He finds that modernization isn’t necessarily a negative thing, “a long as the strength of the story remains in the characters and not in how ‘hip’ the movie can be.” [...]As a reader, Gilstrap says, “It’s a story of emotional manipulation, emotional and physical abuse, abduction, forced marriages, child abuse, stealing, greed, revenge, the persistence of emotional memory. And, of course, one realizes that the “love story” story between Catherine and Heathcliff…Brontë forces us to think – Good lord, what did we – and these characters – have to go through to get it?” That is translated quite well into the film, and Fennell did a great job translating those feelings and themes onto screen. The audience leaves the theater concerned and saddened about what these characters endured in the time span of 2 hours, 16 min.Go check out the film “Wuthering Heights” and read the book to compare and contrast the difference between Brontë’s written words and Fennell’s adaptation. Decide among yourselves if the modernization was taken too far or if it adds depth to the story. (Amelia Anderson)
But Emily has had historical payback after those disapproving reviews. “Wuthering Heights” stays reliably in print, thanks to people like me, who teach it, and thanks to the film makers, who periodically boost it lucratively into the headlines.The new film beckons. But I hope that moviegoers will turn again to the book: a real Gothic shocker, which entertains while inviting us to ponder the dangerous and wonderful strength of human feeling, to consider the possibility that individual human identity is permeable, and that we may really be able to live in each other’s hearts and minds – perhaps forever. (Rosemary Haskell)
As a great and eternal admirer of the Brontë sisters, with the novel “Wuthering Heights” in my heart, I went to the cinema to watch the 2026 film “Wuthering Heights” expecting nothing other than “an Emerald Fennell”: a film by the director of “Promising Young Woman” and “Saltburn,” a mad, transgressive, decidedly pop film. I entered the theater expecting crazy costumes and a more exciting-than-ever Jacob Elordi. I entered the theater expecting a very sad love story, but also slightly ironic and mischievous. I entered the theater expecting to laugh and mock and not think for a couple of hours. The result is that I left the theater satisfied to have rediscovered the characters of one of my adolescent novels, to have visualized them more beautiful than I had imagined them, to have amusingly confirmed my belief that Jacob Elordi is as tall as he is, let’s say, still learning; I left the theater with beautiful shots and set designs in my eyes and in my head several thoughts about the general difficulty of living love fully. I left that cinema having seen a film that entertained me, without killing a single neuron.A film, in short, a “phenomenon” in the best sense of the word: saturated colors, iconic costumes, quotable, parodyable, and ultimately shareable by women and men who can equally ask themselves: “I wonder if they will manage to love each other (I wonder if we will manage to love each other?).” (Maria Luisa Fasano)
Nonetheless, one thing is uncontestedly certain — Fennell’s version will be the one solidified in history as the adaptation with its own original Charli XCX original soundtrack. (Tessa Kang)
Overall, this movie is well worth watching. Local Wimbledon resident Ada Onur comments that: "This movie skilfully conveyed the ambiguous darkness of Emily Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' through a new and modern angle, making it fast-paced and gripping. Despite the unexpected nature of certain scenes, I enjoyed the movie immensely!" (Marisa Shand)
Don’t get me wrong, Fennell’s cinematography is nothing short of breathtaking. But an abundance of style can only compensate so much for what is an utter dearth of substance.Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” uses the guise of interpretation as an excuse to circumvent grappling with the actual issues of what is otherwise one of the most emotionally fraught and bleak stories ever written. Vaguely referencing a couple of plot points and throwing in some direct quotes isn’t enough to capture the colliding forces of class, race, gender, recurrence, civilization and nature at the core of the novel.The only thing tragic about this story is that it takes 136 minutes to realize there isn’t one. (Isabella Garcia)
“Wuthering Heights” is neither a good adaptation nor a good film. It is a confusing, erratic and gratuitously sex-filled disaster that does no justice to Brontë’s masterpiece. However, if you want a dumb movie to watch with friends, Fennell’s “Wuthering Heights” just might be for you. (Augusta Cooper)
The aesthetics and visual symbolism become increasingly absurd as the film progresses — in one scene, comically high stacks of empty green liquor bottles indicate the depths of Mr. Earnshaw’s alcoholism. Choices like these emphasize the importance of hedonism and over-indulgence in Fennell’s characters. I’ve seen criticism that her characters, especially Heathcliff and Catherine, are lacking in depth, and while I think this is fair, I worry it misses the rather blunt thesis Fennell presents about humanity as a whole: every person is essentially amoral and even cruel in the pursuit of pleasure. To this end, her characters do not require individuality or even unique motivations, since it is taken for granted that they are all driven by the universal primal instincts.This is one of the reasons I struggle to take the film’s romance seriously, and I almost wonder whether, through no intention of the director's, it could subvert the romance genre entirely. Catherine and Heathcliff’s relationship perfectly demonstrates the kind of emotionally hollow but sexually driven and possessive ‘romance’ that is so archetypal at the moment. In this way, the film seems to agree more with the work of the more moralistic Brontë sister, Charlotte (I say that as someone who prefers “Jane Eyre”) than the nuanced character examinations of Emily’s novel.There are, however, two scenes that challenge this reading. In childhood, Heathcliff lies beside Catherine as she pretends to sleep, and he swears that he will always love her. Later, Heathcliff lies over a dead Catherine and begs her not to leave him, to ‘haunt’ him even in death (this does come from the book). These instances of tenderness might imply that the real tragedy of their relationship is that, beyond pleasure-driven and destructive exchanges, there was an unselfish love that was never fully realized. (Virginia Frau)
The movie has an immersive quality; however, viewers must accept one fact before they watch: Whatever their souls are made of, Brontë’s novel and Fennell’s film adaptation are not the same. (Amelie Galbraith)
I’m looking forward to Fennell’s next effort, and if you’re wondering if I watched it all the way through, I did. But it was a major slog. (Don Morton)
The movie left me with a heavy heart and intense sadness. It broke my heart that their love story was doomed from the start.If you’re in the mood for a devastating love story with hints of disturbing gothic literature, this is still worth a watch or two. Just know it has some weird scenes littered throughout. (Yosselyn Garcia Rodas)
I have so many conflicting feelings about “Wuthering Heights” that it’s hard to know whether I even liked it or not. Visually dazzling, emotionally inert. Maximalist production, minimalist writing. Prurient and chaste. Decadent, but hollow. Messy and mannered. I know I was entertained, but I’m not sure it’s actually a good movie or says anything about romance, obsessive love, or the human condition.The film is like a deceptively shallow pool. You’ll break your neck trying to dive in because the water looks refreshing and sure seems deep from far away. But maybe you’ll die with a smile. (Jared Rasic)
I need hardly remind you that Emily Brontë was not a Catholic, nor was she particularly fond of us. We have inherited no writing from her year teaching young ladies in Brussels, but her refusal to return there while her sister Charlotte did suggests she despised the spell. If Emily did not hate the foreignness of what her elder sister termed the “Romish system”, she was far from charmed by it. It’s no surprise then that the sole novel she produced before her death, aged just 30, has become synonymous with the mystical, windswept moors adjacent to the West Yorkshire home she so hated to be away from.Emerald Fennell’s new film adaptation of this classic – inspired by her half-remembered teenage encounter with it – does not so much take liberties with Brontë’s material as indulge in full-scaled libertinism. Fennell hasn’t just edited Wuthering Heights – she’s murdered it, and like some deranged criminal is now wearing its skin as a mask. (...)Brontë’s story is at once more enchanting and more moral. Fennell’s sterile, soapy sexcapade will be quickly forgotten, while Brontë’s genius never will, at least while men roam this Earth. Still, if this lavish charade encourages at least a few viewers to interrogate the original novel and its deep Christian themes, perhaps it has served some upright purpose. (Georgia L. Gilholy)
The time has come to revisit the evidence and set the record straight, for Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell, in tribute to the spirit of those truth-tellers who ought to be heard long after their detractors have worked to silence them.
It’s Not Wholesome. It’s Not Healthy. But ‘Wuthering Heights’ Is Incredibly Romantic.
What was once shocking becomes quaint: That’s how it goes. The Charleston now looks like a silly dance, Elvis is just a sweaty guy, nobody’s fainting while watching screenings of “The Exorcist” anymore and jazz is now the province of turtlenecked nerds. We’re assured there was a time when van Gogh’s paintings horrified audiences, but today reproductions of them hang in college dorm rooms. This process is not tragic; as these things lose their power to shock, they reveal new virtues. Nothing stays boundary-pushing forever — except “Wuthering Heights.”If Heathcliff and Catherine are too wicked for heaven, at least they will not be alone in hell. Their love destroys everything in its path, but it is also their redemption. Neither can live among other human beings without lashing out at them, but they can live together in the wilderness. Brontë gives them as happy an ending as they can stand, implying that their ghosts are reunited in death.Is this story healthy? No. But is it romantic? Very. (B.D. McClay)
To unpack the Saltburn director’s take on Wuthering Heights, as well as the role of decadence in the novel and why it is so misunderstood, Georgina Godwin was joined on Monocle on Saturday by Dr Jessica Gossling and Dr Alice Condé of the Decadence Research Centre at Goldsmiths, University of London. (...)Mariella Bevan and Georgina Godwin: How true is the film to the book? And does it matter?Jessica Gossling (JG): Adaptations are really interesting because of what they tell us about their cultural moment, and so what Fennell has decided to leave out or keep in is quite fascinating. If you’re going to watch this film because you love the novel, you’ll be disappointed. But if you want to watch it because you love the vibes and the essence of what we think of as Victorian – this kind of oversexed, bodice-ripping lusciousness – then I think it’s a great film.Alice Condé: I agree. It’s not a faithful adaptation, and I don’t think Fennell has claimed it is such. But she says that she was trying to adapt the novel to correspond with her first reading of it at age 14. It’s a complex, nuanced novel, which actually at its heart is not a romance. It’s incredibly harrowing to read. Every page you turn, something more horrible happens to the characters. But what Fennell has done is take forward the enduring romantic appeal of Heathcliff and Cathy’s doomed relationship, and that is something that many younger people might respond to on first reading.M.V & G.G.: Do you think the novel is capable of doing psychological damage to little girls or teenagers who found Heathcliff incredibly sexy and the story just compelling?AC: That trope has persisted. Personally, that wasn’t what I took from it at all. What endured with me was the ghost scene at the very beginning of the novel, where what we see is Heathcliff’s outpouring of emotion. For a century very much known for its [particular] kind of emotional restraint, it’s incredibly groundbreaking and quite sensitively done on Brontë’s part.M.V & G.G.:What about the controversial race-blind casting?JG: It’s so different to the novel that the casting decision is the easiest thing to latch on to in terms of what’s problematic about this adaptation. But also, Fennell strips out the sibling rivalry, incest and animal abuse, so there are lots of other important topics that are also removed. The only thing that remains [of the novel] in the film are some Sparknotes quotes and everything else is very much about how we feel Wuthering Heights should be. For example, there are references to Kate Bush in there. Fennell’s Heathcliff is completely chastised; he’s not the wolfish creature that Brontë describes at all.
It was Lovesong by Ted Hughes that helped the Australian actor Jacob Elordi perfect his Yorkshire accent. The poem in question is not an account of soft affection: this love is all-consuming, violent, dysfunctional. (Xavier Greenwood)
Locals like poet Mark Ward and dialect experts praise the film's accent work for capturing Yorkshire essence without overly broad dialect that might alienate viewers, noting historical shifts from industrial grimness to modern tourism spots like the Brontë Balti House. Ultimately, it argues that passion trumps accent authenticity in the story's enduring appeal of lust, jealousy, and betrayal.
Emily Brontë’s only novel, Wuthering Heights (1847) is one of the great one-offs of English literature — a ferocious story of all-consuming childish love, told in fierce, attacking prose. This gothic melodrama set on the Yorkshire moors has inspired generations of rich reveries and wild interpretations, from Laurence Olivier to Kate Bush to the latest by the director Emerald Fennell, whose screeching bodice-ripper will surely send a new wave of drama girls north in the footsteps of Cathy and Heathcliff.
Wuthering Heights was the book that made me a serious reader. My English teacher gave it to me when I was 11 years old, and I was intoxicated by this account of love as a terminal illness. Yet that’s not what I remember drawing me in; it was the picture conjured of two families, the Earnshaws and Lintons, separated by four miles of moorland but entangled — for generation after generation — in a web of revenge. I devoured the book in three days, relishing its landscape of sweeping heather, blanket bog and acid grassland.
More than thirty years later, on a wet and foggy January day, I climb the steep cobbles of Haworth, the little market town near Bradford in West Yorkshire that formed the Brontë sisters’ imaginations. One of Emily’s great achievements is to have forever transformed the grotty weather here. Conditions that elsewhere may be deemed a bit drab, if not depressing, feel the ideal romantic backdrop. (Johanna Thomas-Corr)
Stylist goes for the Brontë blonde, which apparently " is the low-maintenance shade you need to save for your next appointment". Bustle lists "Chic Items To Channel The Margot Robbie-Approved Brontë-Core Trend". Travel and Tour World sings the wonders of Hawort, "a hidden gem you must visit". Well, not so hidden, really. The Daily Telegraph has more pictures of Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi and the Australian promotion of the film. Deadline publishes a box office update of the film:“Wuthering Heights,” originally published under the male-sounding pseudonym Ellis Bell, was slammed by reviewers, who denounced it as coarse, brutal and irreligious. After her death at 30, Emily was "defended" by her older sister Charlotte, who resorted to claiming that her sister was just a child of nature, living secluded in rural Yorkshire. She really "didn’t get" polite society.But Emily has had historical payback after those disapproving reviews. “Wuthering Heights” stays reliably in print, thanks to people like me, who teach it, and thanks to the filmmakers, who periodically boost it lucratively into the headlines.The new film beckons. But I hope that moviegoers will turn again to the book: a real Gothic shocker, which entertains while inviting us to ponder the dangerous and wonderful strength of human feeling, to consider the possibility that individual human identity is permeable, and that we may really be able to live in each other’s hearts and minds — perhaps forever. (Rosemary Haskell)
SATURDAY AM UPDATE: Warner Bros/MRC’s Wuthering Heights is heading to an $80M opening around the globe. On the foreign side with an expected $40M in 79 territories, that’s slightly ahead of the likes-for-likes start of The Housemaid‘s ($34.8M) in its first foreign weekends. Some rivals believe the Emerald Fennell-directed take of the Emily Brontë novel will fall into the mid $30M range at the end of four days stateside, but the see-saw between domestic and foreign is expected to land at $80M, which is the same exact price that Warners won the Margot Robbie-Jacob Elordi package for over Netflix. Last night was $11M (including $3M previews). Warners sees a path to $40M in four days. The question in North America remains walk-up business and an expansion of the audience as 55% of the audience bought their tickets in advance. Also, men only gave the pic a 39% definite recommend next to 54% women. (Anthony D'Alessandro)
Alex Ritman: Had you read the book already?C.M.: I had not read the book. I probably should’ve. I got a copy of it but I think I started the first page and my eyes started to swim. But it’s Emerald’s version of “Wuthering Heights.”A.R.: Have you read it now?C.M.: Ha! No. But when I was auditioning I did try to watch some of the other on-screen versions!
The Wrap lists all the songs in the film.
The Brontë sisters—Charlotte, Emily, and Anne—were responsible for writing some of the most celebrated novels in English literature. Acknowledged as literary geniuses for works such as 'Jane Ayre,' (sic) 'Wuthering Heights,' and 'The Tenant of Wildfell Hall,' the siblings honed their craft at a young age, creating imaginary worlds vividly described in poetry and in plays. As adults, they quickly found success, drawing on life experiences—good and bad—to produce the classics we know and admire today. But the career of each author was also desperately short.
There’s no silly hope for “the good rich man,” the benevolent capitalist good capitalist in an amazing novel that came out one year before The Communist Manifesto. A brazen lack of sentiment and a daring affront to Victorian morality is no small part of what makes Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights a better novel than anything Dickens ever wrote. There are no decent bourgeois to pat on the back in Bronte’s masterful tale, where we confront a very different orphan than the passive Oliver. Heathcliff is a Liverpool waif who grows up to take bitter revenge on his class oppressors and the love of his life, Catherine, his childhood ally against Christian capitalist tyranny. Catherine, born to a propertied family whose moral hypocrisy and whose vicious classist oppression of her beloved Heathcliff she despises. She has a special relationship with the proletarian servant boy Heathcliff, forged in common rebellion against her older brother’s regime at Wuthering Heights. But after Heathcliff is forced to leave in the face of recurrent class humiliation, Catherine betrays both him and herself by marrying into bourgeois comfort over at a different and propertied estate, Thrushcross Grange. The betrayal proves fatal, sparking a suicidal depression when Heathcliff returns as a new and vicious bourgeois. Heathcliff’s retribution comes not through proletarian revolution but through a climb into wealth that permits him to sadistically use his former class oppressors’ own weapons – money and property – against them. His payback is complete but it brings no relief. Near the end of the novel, one of the finest ever penned in English, (Paul Street)
There’s a central, almost callous, irony to the film. In its first minutes, her sister asks, “Why did you write Wuthering Heights?” And in the final minutes, we return to that question. But the film’s never really concerned with the why and how of novel-writing — plenty of boring movies have been there and done that. Everything between those scenes is a study of this woman who was never allowed to achieve the things she wanted to. Emily Brontë was born in the wrong time to be a human being with freedom, rights, and happiness, but she was born at the right time to be a good writer. Ain’t that a kick in the head?
Accompanying [Francis William] Dry to Aotearoa was his wife Florence Wilson Swinton, who studied the Brontë sisters. The couple’s research interests had more in common than it might seem: Emily Brontë’s great anti-hero Heathcliff was a sheep farmer. (Russell Poole)
There are two main takeaways from 1973’s Papillon. The first is — don’t trust nuns (and after watching Spotlight, maybe the entire Catholic Church). The second — a man is nothing without his freedom, or as Charlotte Brontë wrote in her seminal novel, Jane Eyre, “I am no bird, and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.” (Patrick Hayes)
We will never know for sure, but inclement weather is a frequent presence in their stories.Imagine King Lear without the storm, or how much less compelling Heathcliff would have been in Wuthering Heights were it not for the backdrop of the “wily, windy moors”.That, of course, was Kate Bush’s description rather than Emily Brontë’s, reminding us this little island has for long periods also dominated music. (Patrick O'Flynn)
“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë – We follow the narrative of a young governess, Jane Eyre, and her tumultuous relationship with her employer, Mr. Rochester. With themes of love, morality, and societal norms, this novel is a must-read for any fan of Victorian literature.
Of course, you don't absolutely have to do anything new on spring break. If you're feeling a bit of nostalgia this year, it could be time to revisit an old favorite book. Maybe you read a classic in high school that you've been dying to read again, like "Atonement" or "Jane Eyre." ( Emily Hunt)
The book or author I came back toI had a hard time with the Brontës. I adored Jane Eyre up to the line “Reader, I married him”; she lost me after that. I read Wuthering Heights twice and on both occasions found it demented.
Il 31 marzo 1855 si spegneva, incinta del primo figlio, la scrittrice Charlotte Brontë. Ricordiamo le protagoniste rivoluzionarie dei suoi romanzi: da Jane Eyre a Lucy Snowe, voce narrante di Villette. Scopriamo analogie e differenze tra le eroine create dalla penna di “Currer Bell” alias Charlotte Brontë. (Alice Figini) (Translation)
Parece una investigación noir sobre un cuadro famoso desaparecido como en La tabla de Flandes de Arturo Pérez Reverte, y una historia de fantasmas durante la Guerra Civil como en El Orfanato de Guillermo del Toro, y una intriga sobre sociedades esotéricas como Inferno de Dam Brown, y una novela gótica con caserón encantado e historias de amor a lo Cumbres borrascosas de Emily Brontë, y una novela política y sociológica sobre cómo se gestó se activó y sucedió la guerra civil española como Los cipreses creen en Dios de José María Gironella, y una novela sobre luchas intestinas de bando como La novela numero 13 de Wenceslao Fernández Flórez y, en suma, una muy entretenida y tenebrosa alegoría sobre nuestro oscurantismo nacional… (Luis Artigue) (Translation)
There was a tranche of silence between us. We’d suddenly found ourselves at God’s right hand and had no idea how to behave. I was happy for the fact of this new maestro, but sad for myself. If I could write stories better than those written by Twain, Dickens and the Brontës I’d have written them. I can’t. This person had. I reread the novel, Iratus Avis, and it confirmed my obsolescence, Twain’s irrelevance, and the Brontes as a trio of cheap masochists. (Anson Cameron)
I love reading! Whether that’s novels or plays. My favourite book of all time is Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights”. Heathcliff is my dream role.
La sua lettura e il suo autore preferiti?Ho sempre avuto una passione sconfinata per Jane Austen e le sorelle Brontë, dalle quali mi sono lasciata ispirare per l’ambientazione e i balli di società. (Translation)
The University News celebrates the Women's History Month listing female writers who used male pen names, including the Brontës. The best spring walks in Yorkshire according to The Yorkshire Post include "A walk on the moors above Haworth in the Brontë countryside". Playcrazygame talks about Emily and shows the wonders of automatic translation when Wuthering Heights became Whirlwind Mountain or Whirlwind Hill.
The Brontë Sisters regularly hitched up their tweeds and strolled over the Brontë Moors, seeking inspiration from the (at times) bleak landscape. They will have undoubted climbed Penistone Hill on many of these walks and here we follow in their footsteps.There are a number of car parks in Haworth. Choose one and head towards the church and the Brontë Parsonage. It is worth visiting the Parsonage before the walk to gain a feel for the tough upbringing they had. In turn this will bring a greater appreciation to the walk. The path heads up the south side of St Michael and All Angels Church, an impressive building where the father of the Brontë sisters was Reverend for 41 years (and rather sadly outlived all three daughters). Beyond the church the path bears left for 200 metres, passing a car park on the left. After 200m take the signed lane to the right which climbs steeply for a further 250 metres before meeting a minor road. Cross the road and take the footpath heading south west. (...)This path picks its way through the heather until it meets a wider track. Turn left and follow the track to the Brontë Bridge and Brontë Seat. It is a fine spot. Turn left/south at the bridge and head up on the narrow path past the waterfall. (Jonathan Smith)
Read if you like: Dodie Smith’s “I Capture the Castle,” the film “Picnic at Hanging Rock,” “Wuthering Heights,” by Emily Brontë OR Kate Bush. (Molly Young)
When I finally careered into the right place, 30 minutes late, he was sitting alone, looking sharp in a Timothy Everest navy wool suit, eating an appetizer, which he called “a chickpea thing” and drinking a glass of Sancerre. He did not give me a brooding Heathcliff look (though he perfected it in 1992’s “Wuthering Heights”). (Maureen Dowd)
There’s something quite apt about Bush’s voice summoning the hands of pilled-up hedonists at warehouse parties and a kind of payback too. For an artist who sampled Emily Brontë on Wuthering Heights – to be sampled back herself in return must have seemed hilarious in many ways. Bush to her eternal credit cleared the sample anyway. (...)From Emily Brontë to Acid House to internet zeitgeist, the truth is Kate Bush has travelled to places other artists can only dream of and perhaps, just perhaps, she isn’t done shape-shifting yet. (Craig Campbell)
La primera obra en solitario que publicó la británica Emily Jane Brontë fue Cumbres borrascosas. Primera novela y última, pues murió al año siguiente, en diciembre de 1848, enferma de tuberculosis. Solo contaba con 30 años y dos obras en su haber, la citada novela y una colección de poemas que había escrito junto a sus dos hermanas, Charlotte Brontë y Anne Brontë. El poemario apenas vendió dos ejemplares, pero la confianza que ellas mismas tenían en su escritura hizo que publicaran una novela en solitario cada una. La de Charlotte fue Jane Eyre y la de Anne Agnes Grey. Las tres vieron la luz en 1847 bajo los pseudónimos de Ellis Bell, Currer Bell y Acton Bell respectivamente, y tuvieron resultados comerciales desiguales. La obra más vendida fue Jane Eyre, éxito inmediato y hoy día reconocida como una de las mejores novelas británicas de todos los tiempos. Misma situación en el olimpo literario ocupa Cumbres borrascosas, pero en cambio, en su año fue recibida como una obra tosca, salvaje, inmoral, de estructura confusa. Agnes Grey —escrita por Anne Brontë, la pequeña de la familia— no obtuvo la fama de su hermana Charlotte pero tampoco la exacerbada indignación que recibió Emily. Anne falleció también a causa de la tuberculosis con 29 años de edad. Antes de fallecer tuvo tiempo de escribir su segunda novela, La inquilina de Wildfell Hall. Tanto su primera obra como esta segunda son consideradas hoy obras imprescindibles para comprender la época victoriana y clásicos de la literatura en inglés. (Álvaro de Luna) (Translation)
Por ejemplo, los protagonistas no hablan mucho en Friday night (2002), donde el tráfico parisino provoca que una mujer conozca a un extraño seductor con quien pasa una noche de estrujones y desnudez. El tono y los temas son como una fantasía femenina escrita por alguna de las hermanas Brontë, pero la forma dramática evade por completo lo convencional: hay poco diálogo, una trama escasa y unos delirios inexplicables. Basta ver a Vincent Lindon parado en medio de los coches mientras mira con deseo hacia la nada para entender lo que le despierta a la protagonista. (Alonso Díaz De La Vega) (Translation)
Por su parte, Maria de la Pau Janer reconoce que «si hubiese sido una escritora romántica, inglesa y victoriana, me hubiese encantado escribir Cumbres borrascosas». «Curiosamente, fue la única novela que escribió Emily Brönte y tuvo un recibimiento editorial más bien tibio. La pasión que destila, el retrato de la amargura de los personajes, la narración de encuentros y desencuentros que nos describe, y las escenas que nos llevan al límite de las emociones siempre me han encantado. En su aparentemente tranquila existencia en los páramos ingleses, las hermanas Brontë crearon universos literarios de una riqueza y singularidad apasionantes». (Clara Ferrer) (Translation)
Entre estas piezas, a priori, desubicadas, han estado el sorprendentemente solvente y agradable biopic victoriano 'Emily', centrado en la autora de 'Cumbres borrascosas' y carente de cualquier conexión con el fantástico. (Víctor López G.) (Translation)
El debut en la dirección de la maravillosa actriz Frances O’Connor es una auténtica joya. La película, que relata la vida de Emily Brontë, se podría utilizar como un acertado manual de cómo se deben hacer las cosas en el cine.
Emily es una preciosa, misteriosa y excelente película en la que todos sus departamentos están de diez, y, por si fuera poco, su guion nos atrapa desde el principio hasta el final. Su reparto también está de órdago.
Es cierto que excepto una (magistral) escena, la película no da miedo, pero aún así, conocer o imaginar la vida de la autora de la oscura novela Cumbres borrascosas, si nos la cuentan como lo ha hecho Frances O’Connor, vale mucho la pena. (Xesco Simón) (Translation)
Grupo La Provincia (Argentina), El Espectador (Colombia) and The Wom (Italy) also talk about the film.
Con el romanticismo de Cumbres borrascosas y la geografía del sur de la ciudad porque la conocía y, sobre todo, porque por ahí transitan Martín y Alejandra en Sobre héroes y tumbas (Facundo es un poco Alejandra, también, y el trío que acecha a Narval es un poco la Secta de los Ciegos). Cumbres borrascosas y Sobre héroes y tumbas eran mis novelas favoritas aquellos años. (Translation)
A painting acquired “by mistake” after an auction house mix-up has sold for £50,000 after it was identified as the earliest known portrait of the Bronte sisters.Actually it was £40,550 (£50,038 including buyers premium).
Landseer is thought to have met Charlotte, Anne and Emily in 1833 when they visited Bolton Abbey in North Yorkshire, where he was an artist in residence. At the time he was a young painter, yet to become a favourite of Queen Victoria. The portrait is dated 1834.This is pure speculation and it has never been substantiated in fact.
Clues in the picture include the detail of “Charlotte’s protruding front tooth” and jewellery that matches objects on display in the Brontë Parsonage in Haworth, Mr Humbert said.Again, this is wishful thinking at its best.
“We are never going to be able to prove anything 100 per cent because this is a cold case,” he said.Not widely and decidedly not by the Brontë experts and institutions.
“But it has been widely accepted by the establishment as a Landseer portrait of the Brontës, as shown by the fact that it came from nowhere and sold for £50,000.” (Anita Singh)
"The evidence was compelling that this is the Brontes as painted by Landseer and its successful sale has proved that research and factual evidence will overcome apathy and negativity." (...)On Keighley News we also read:
There's too many details for naysayers to say this is not right.
Brontë Parsonage Museum executive director Kitty Wright declined to comment on the sale of the painting.Of course, solid proof, no mere speculation or wishful thinking aka 'alternative facts', has nothing to do when there is a successful sale. Paraphrasing naysayer Carl Sagan: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary (apathetic and negative as it may be) evidence. It speaks volumes that the most extraordinary evidence supplied is that someone has paid 50000 GBP.
A centre for women’s writing could be built in an underground former reservoir above the Brontë Parsonage Museum.Also in Keighley News, great news for the Parsonage:
And a long-lost barn could be rebuilt alongside the Haworth attraction to house a visitor centre dedicated to the famous literary family.
The proposed projects – both in the very early stages – have been revealed in interviews this month by Brontë Society executive director Kitty Wright. (...)
The ideas for new buildings on land owned by the Brontë Society near the museum were put forward in the Brontë Society’s recent successful bid to become an Arts Council National Portfolio Organisation.
Kitty said that such accreditation with the Arts Council allowed the society spend time and money looking at the feasibility of such projects, but stressed major funding would have to be found to actually carry them out.
She said the large Victorian underground reservoir lay on land behind the parsonage.
She said: “It was built after Patrick Brontë commissioned the Babbage report into public health in Haworth. The village needed a fresh water supply.
“It’s fantastic to have the reservoir for its own historical reasons, with its links with Patrick Brontë."
Kitty said the Brontë Society would have to carry out detailed investigations into utility supplies, engineering, drainage and access, as well as environmental surveys and extensive consultation with local people. (...)
“We have to keep looking to secure or future but we have to be very clear about preserving the things that make us special. It’s absolutely about being true to our heritage and finding a way of expressing that.”
Kitty stressed that the other idea, rebuilding the barn, was only a tentative suggestion at the moment.
During the Brontës’ lifetimes the barn stood on a small hill between the Parsonage Museum and the car park, but there are now mature trees on the land. (David Knights)
The international popularity of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth is expanding across the entire county.More Haworth news. The Haworth Primary School has collaborated in the Claire Twomey Wuthering Heights - A Manuscript project:
Yorkshire saw a 30 per cent increase in overseas visitors in the first three months of 2017, with 267,000 people spending £99 million.
International spend in Yorkshire is almost double the national average which is up 16 per cent year on year.
The Brontë museum recently reported a 24 per cent increase in visitors during the Easter weekend including its busiest Easter Saturday to 10 years.
This was blamed on the ‘Brontë buzz’ both locally and around the world from the ongoing five-year bicentennial celebrations for the births of Charlotte, Branwell, Emily and Anne.
Pupils at the school visited the Haworth museum this month to each write a line with support from volunteer Stuart Davies.Haworth's foot-paths have been cleaned:
Sue Newby, the museum Learning Officer, said ‘Wuthering Heights – A Manuscript’ had captured the imagination of visitors from all over the world.
She said: “We were really pleased to offer pupils from our local primary school the opportunity to sit in the house where Emily wrote her famous novel and take their turn to copy out a line.
“All the children seemed to relish the sense of occasion and we hope they will return next year with their families to see the finished manuscript.” (David Knights in Keighley News)
Parish councillors have spearheaded the clearing of footpaths around Haworth.The Hindu's Book Shelf includes today Wuthering Heights:
Work has been carried out to improve access to footpaths that become impassable due to poor grounding and overgrown weeds.
Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council worked with Bradford Council and Community Payback to carry out the work.
The footpath at North Street, leading from the Sun Inn car park behind the West Lane churches, was strimmed.
Work on the footpath from Cold Street to Woodlands Rise has included weedkiller treatment, and footpaths from Heathcliff flats to the Bronte Parsonage Museum have also been improved. (David Knights in Keighley News)
Emily Brontë's magnum opus Wuthering Heights showcased the hypocrisy, social classes and gender inequality in the Victorian Era.Psychology Today on ghosts:
Most of the authors, especially in the 19th century, had to write no fewer than four-five books to create a space for them in the revered literary circles. For some, even 20 books might have not sufficed. But, that is not the case of the daughter of an Irish clergyman, who spent much of her life in Hawthorn (sic), England.
Considered one of the best women authors who have put their thoughts to paper, Emily Bronte was as intense, intellectual and elusive as her solo book Wuthering Heights . Alas, she didn't know the profound legacy she was to leave behind, as she had died suddenly at the age of 30. (Arathi M) (Read more)
When I was seven years old, my aunt Hazel, the youngest of my mother's sisters read me the first two chapters of “Jane Eyre” in the big green nursery with its black board across one wall, at Crossways, the house where my father had just died. You will remember how Jane is carried off unceremoniously and locked in the Red Room where she thinks she sees her uncle’s ghost.Pen names in Jezabel:
It seems a strange choice of lecture for a seven year old, though my sister who was present was two and older than I.
It had a terrifying effect on me, one that has lasted all my life, and perhaps led me, too, to become a writer in an effort to render active what I had submitted to passively. Mr Reed, Jane’s uncle, in the book, like my own father just down the corridor from the nursery in the big bedroom, with the mauve velvet curtains, has died in this somber, silent room with its crimson curtains.Jane believes her uncle has come back to see if his wife, Jane’s cruel aunt, Mrs. Reed, has carried out his death-bed wishes and is taking good care of little Jane, his sister’s child. (Sheila Kohler)
The Wall Street Journal reports that the tides have turned since the Brontë sisters and George Elliot were publishing under manly names. Or perhaps they haven’t turned—for instance, read Catherine Nichols’s Jezebel essay on the different reception she received when submitting her work as somebody named “George”—so much as there is a huge market demand for psychological “Girl Who” thrillers, often featuring dead or missing women, written largely by women for female audiences. And the guys—and their publishers—want in. (Kelly Faircloth)And Daily Star:
Anonymity can be liberating. The pen names Currer and Ellis Bell, respectively, allowed Charlotte and Emily Brontë to use influences from their local neighbourhood to craft Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. George Elliott, the famed writer of Middlemarch, was actually Mary Anne Evans. (Sarah Anjum Bari)Austen vs Brontë tidbits:
Women like Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, and especially the Brontë sisters. Charlotte, Emily and Anne are in the middle of 200th anniversaries of their own, as we remember the bicentenaries of their births in the years 1816 to 1820. Along with Austen they crafted brilliant works of genius that are the equal of any novels written by men, and in the public’s eye the Brontës and Jane have become inextricably linked.
I once asked one of the hard working guides at the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth what question they are asked more than any other. It was ‘Which of the Brontë sisters wrote Pride and Prejudice?’ followed closely by, ‘Is this where Jane Austen wrote her novels?’ (Nick Holland in The History Press) (Read more)
Treinta años después, en 1847, Charlotte Brontë publicaba Cumbres borrascosas y declaraba que no entendía el interés que despertaban las historias de Austen, a las que calificaba peyorativamente de “jardines bellos, cultivados y aseados” (Rodrigo González in La Tercera) (Translation)
The nouns are harsh; it’s the verb, though—be prevailed on—that’s key. Even in its superficial passivity, it understands that Lizzy, at least at this moment, is the one with the power. Charlotte Brontë once scoffed of Austen that “the Passions are perfectly unknown to her”; this was, it seems, a misreading. Austen was acutely aware not merely of such Passions, but also, indeed, of the freedoms they could offer. (Megan Garber in The Atlantic)
Certo, nell’Ottocento [Darcy] ha dovuto vedersela con l’imperfetto Rochester, l’eroe romantico di Charlotte Brontë, ma dalla seconda metà del Novecento regna incontrastato nelle fantasie femminili, anche quelle ormai contaminate dall’hardcore. (Il Dubbio)(Translation)
Para muitos, Austen é a rainha da literatura inglesa. Bem... Melhor deixar esse assunto para outro momento. Não é intenção provocar os fãs das irmãs Brontë com esse fato. Porém, a autora consegue transitar entre a Academia e o grande público, composto pelo leitor comum - para citar o termo de Virginia Woolf, que inclusive era leitora e admiradora de Austen. (Ricelly Jáder in Diário de Nordeste) (Translation)
Anders als etwa die Brontë-Schwestern flüchtet sie sich beim Schreiben nicht in eine Fantasiewelt, sondern bewegt sich dicht an der Realität. Allerdings karikiert und parodiert sie ihre Mitmenschen, deren Beziehungen und auch die herrschenden Verhältnisse nach Herzenslust. (Stephanie Pieper in NDR) (Translation)The death of the film director George A. Romero is reported in this article of Metro which traces a genealogy of zombie films:
George A. Romero didn’t invent the word “zombie,” but he might as well have. Before he unleashed “Night of the Living Dead” upon an unsuspecting world in 1968, the word didn’t instantly conjure up what it would mean from then on out: white terror, hungry corpses, gnawed-upon flesh. “Zombie” simply meant the undead, the deceased reanimated. Sometimes they were bad: Frankenstein’s monster was a zombie. Sometimes they were not: The blank-faced, not-quite-dead wife of Val Lewton’s “I Walked with a Zombie” (a stealth adaptation of “Jane Eyre,” amazingly) was also a zombie. (Matt Prigge)Image Journal interviews film director Rodrigo García:
I was fascinated by the stories in the Bible, and these are stories that live in the realm of stories, in our heads. I think the world where Hitler lives is the same world where Captain Ahab or Jane Eyre live. We don’t know them. We’ve never seen them. I am not trying to say that Ahab is Hitler or that Jesus is like Madame Bovary, just a fiction; but in our heads, they are all stories. (Gareth Higgins and Scott Teems)La Repubblica (Italy) interviews the writer Karin Slaughter:
Come ti sei rapportata all’ondata di thriller psicologici che presentano protagoniste femminili? "Non credo si possa parlare di un’ondata. In realtà si tratta di un fenomeno letterario che ha origini lontane, credo fin da Cime tempestose. (Eva Grippa) (Translation)Linda's BookBag recommends A Secret Sisterhood: The Hidden Friendships of Austen, Brontë, Eliot and Woolf by Emily Midorikjawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. CBC does the same with Worlds of Ink and Shadow by Lena Coakley. The Book Lovers Boudoir hated Wuthering Heights. Vesna Armstrong Photography posts recent pictures of Ponden Hall and Brontë country.
The hunt for three ancient gravestones pinched from a historic cemetery with Brontë links is still ongoing as it was revealed locals have raised £700 to pay for security cameras in the graveyard. (...)The Huddersfield Daily Examiner recommends tonight's Countryfile programme on BBC One:
Churchwarden Steven Stanworth, who said he was left sickened at the gravestone theft, said he hoped the stone would eventually be recovered.
“It is a bit disappointing,” he said.“Police recovered a lot of stone in Keighley, but we won’t know if any of that is ours until January.
“We have raised £700 to buy security cameras, including £500 from Dean Barker Electricals, and have a Community Payback team coming in March to re-do the decking and revarnish in the grounds. So out of that, we have had some good things come out of it and it has been really positive.
“We have created a commemorative plate to try and raise more money to pay for security measures.”
Officers found 50 slabs at an address in Northcliffe Avenue, Thornton, following information on the theft of flags in November.
A 21-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of the theft of stone from the graveyard and remains on bail. (Dolores Cowburn)
Artist Ashley Jackson will be on TV tomorrow – painting the historic ruin he campaigned to save 40 years ago.The Huffington Post's Word & Film publishes a list of the best book adaptations of the year: Wuthering Heights is one of them.
The Holmfirth artist has been painting Top Withens – this time for Countryfile which will be shown on BBC1 on Sunday (7pm).
The ruined cottage on a moor, near Haworth, is widely regarded as the inspiration for the Earnshaw family house, Wuthering Heights, in the novel of the same name by Emily Brontë.
In the 1970s, Ashley battled to save the ruins which had been damaged by vandals, weather and over-enthusiastic Brontë fans.
On Sunday, Ashley will be talking to Countryfile presenter Ellie Harrison about how the Brontë sisters and Top Withens inspired him and continue to stimulate other artists.
Ashley, who first visited Top Withens in 1966 with artist and friend Stanley Chapman, will also be giving the Countryfile presenter a masterclass in sketching.
This is the live and unplugged version of Cathy and Heathcliff’s doomed love affair on the wind-whipped Yorkshire moors. Writer-director Andrea Arnold distilled Emily Brontë’s novel down to its vaporous and visceral essence using sparse dialogue, stark painterly imagery, and an interracial romance whose savage sensuality emerges out of the primal intimacy of early exchanges where Cathy literally licks Heathcliff’s wounds and sidles up to him to ride over the rocky cliffs on the bare back of a horse nearly as wild as they are. (Christine Spines)The Miami Herald reviews several new graphic novels:
The Graphic Canon, Vol. 2: From “Kubla Khan” to the Brontë Sisters to The Picture of Dorian Gray by Russ Kick.The Sunday Express explores heritage trains in Britain and the KWVR is on the list:
This prodigious and astounding collection of literary adaptations is staggering in its ambition, but even more so in its execution and realization. Kick’s anthology, the middle volume of a chronological trilogy, includes graphic iterations of works by Coleridge, Keats, Twain, Blake, Wordsworth and others, by Megan Kelso, S. Clay Wilson, Dame Darcy, Hunt Emerson, Lance Tooks and Kim Deitch, among the superb array of contributors. (Richard Pachter)
Keighley & Worth Valley RailwayHarriet Walker talks about New Year's Eve in New York in The Independent (and in spite of her words we can't but be really jealous):
Transferring at dark-stoned Keighley station from an electric train from Leeds on to a steam train is to step back more than half a century.
This short, five-mile railway (01535 645 214/kwvr.co.uk) will always be associated with the classic 1970 film The Railway Children, starring Jenny Agutter and Bernard Cribbins.
Beside the characterful station at Ingrow is the Museum of Rail Travel, which supplied period carriages for the filming of TV mini-series South Riding, based on Winifred Holtby’s novel.
Another association with female authors is found at the main intermediate station of Haworth, where a walk up cobbled Main Street to the Brontë family parsonage is almost obligatory.
The final mile to the terminus at Oxenhope is the prettiest on the railway as it follows Bridgehouse Beck, crossed by a packhorse bridge on the Railway Children Walk linking the valley’s sites.
For the more intrepid there are walks out on to the moors and Top Withens, thought to have inspired the setting for the Earnshaw home in Wuthering Heights. (Anthony Lambert)
I shouldn't be in this situation. If you believe in karma, I should have every New Year's Eve planned from now until that serene point when you stop caring about feeling bleak if you just stay in and cheer Jonathan Ross from the comfort of your armchair, looking around your empty front-room with all the misanthropic gusto of Heathcliff turfing a houseguest out into the snow.The Asian Age describes the Indian soap opera Phir Subah Hogi like this:
Phir Subah Hogi’s complex story — a Jane Eyre-esque romance against the backdrop of socially sanctioned prostitution in a north Indian village — brought Varun Badola and Narayani Shastri back into the limelight, while a brash, effervescent role was inducement enough for Rakhi Vijan. (Priyanka Kelkar & Rohini Nair)The writer Xu Xi lists 2012 literary highlights for the South China Morning Post:
Cold Light by Frank Moorhouse. Edith Campbell Berry ranks right up there alongside Isabel Archer, Anna Wulf, Jean Brodie, Jane Eyre, Becky Sharp, Wong Chia Chi and other memorable female protagonists who create their own lives (and loves).El País (Uruguay) asks María Fernández (PR of a local casino resort) for her preferences:
Un libro. Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë. Lo leí a los 17 durante mi viaje a clases de inglés y me sumergí de tal manera que viví cada segundo de los personajes principales.
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