The Spenborough Guardian publishes an article about the Brontë talk given by Christa Ackroyd at St Peter’s Church, Hartshead:The landscape that inspired the Brontë sisters to pen some of English literature's most enduring works is now the centre of a brewing storm over wind power.Thornton Moor near Haworth in West Yorkshire is the subject of an application by Banks Renewables.
On moorland owned by Yorkshire Water, the company want to build four wind turbines.
Each one would be 100 metres tall, and the four together would provide power for approximately 4,400 homes.
Those opposed to the scheme include local residents and the Brontë Society, who think the moorland should remain untouched.
Anthea Orchard, chair of the Thornton Moor Wind Farm Action group, told Sky News she was not being a "nimby".
"We're used to windfarms here," she said. "But these will be twice the size and much nearer the houses.
"It will also affect tourism, putting them on either side of the Brontë Way walk."
The talk was on Saturday – the 157th anniversary of Charlotte Brontë’s death.
John Appleyard, who was in the audience, said: “Christa asked if anyone had a favourite quote from the Brontë books.
“My favourite quote, and one which she read out is from Charlotte’s book, Shirley, in which she talks about the Luddites in the Spen Valley area. ‘Misery generates hate. These sufferers hated the machines which they believed took their bread from them; they hated the buildings which contained those machines; they hated the manufacturers who owned those buildings.’
“Those words are as relevant today as when Charlotte first wrote them.”
Christa gave her talk at the table from which Patrick spoke from while he was curate at the church.
John said: “Christa believed Patrick was a much maligned character, and wished to put the record straight regarding his life. He was born in Ireland of poor and humble birth. Due to his background it was a remarkable achievement for him to be admitted to Cambridge university.
Wuthering HeightsThe Observer asks several witers about rereading:
by Emily Brontë
The first book I ever read where I got an inkling of what they meant by passion. I took an acting class at Northwestern where we had to create scenes from a favorite book. I chose this and got so caught up in the moment in one scene, I hauled off and smacked my teacher! I got gold stars for it. She probably saw stars, too! (Barbara Hoffman)
Julie Myerson.Also in The Observer, a review of The Brothers by Asko Sahlberg:
I almost never reread. Life just seems too short – there's so much out there I still haven't read. But I'm also reluctant to try to repeat experiences. What if the magic isn't there a second time? I think there are only four novels that I've gone back to – Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, Le Grand Meaulnes by Henri Alain-Fournier, The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald and The Magus by John Fowles – and my reason for rereading was quite surgically precise. I first read them as a teenager and was dazzled; now, as a writer, I wanted to try to unpick them, unlock the mystery, see how it worked. I failed completely, of course. They're still brilliant and dazzling, and they all still remain as tightly furled and secret as they ever were. (Chris Fenn)
Returning to seek his revenge, Henrik's plans are thrown into disarray when a usurping relative takes over the farm in the same cunning fashion as Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, forcing out all the tenants. News of their destitution is greeted with dour resilience – "things just happen sometimes". (JS Tennant)The Record (New Jersey) talks about the Fifty Shades of Grey phenomenon:
Flipping through the pages of the book, I search for the "Red Room of Pain," but happen, instead, upon the graphic description of an enigmatic billionaire deflowering the college-student heroine.The Minneapolis Pioneer Press announces that Wuthering Heights 2011 will be screened at the upcoming Minneapolis/St Paul International Film Festival (April 28) (another festival where the film will be screened is the RiverRun Film Festival, Winston-Salem, NC -April 19, 21 and 22). The film gets a review in The Arts Desk:
Not precisely Catherine and Heathcliff declaring their love upon the moors, is it? (Virginia Rohan)
Socialist realism meets 19th-century Romanticism in Andrea Arnold's raw adaptation. (...)Cool Mom Picks reviews Little Miss Brontë: Jane Eyre:
Evocatively photographed by Robert Ryan, Wuthering Heights goes much further in its invoking of pathetic fallacy. There are times when the rainy, wind-whipped Yorkshire moors, with their mists and murks and teeming wildlife, are as animalistic a psychological backdrop for the adolescent love of Heathcliff (Solomon Glave) and Cathy Earnshaw (Shannon Beer) as the storm-blasted heath was for King Lear's madness. (...)
Partially because Howson is stiff and, as the grown Cathy, Kaya Scodelario is ethereal compared with the earthbound Beer, the movie is less passionate in its second half than in its first. But Arnold sustains her poetic blend of 19th-century Romanticism and the social-realist style that made her Red Road and Fish Tank such authentic feminist revenge dramas. (Graham Fuller)
When I look through the Little Miss Brontë board book of Jane Eyre: A Counting Primer, I'm struck by the way the colors communicate the moods of the actual book and how the artist includes a bird on every page in homage to one of the main themes of Charlotte Brontë's classic work. I especially love how the items counted aren't apples or balls; they're important objects from the text that evoke scenes of the very adult story. From the eight drawings that show subjects like Adèle, Mr. Rochester, and Pilot to the ten books in the library, this baby book is clearly working on a lot of levels. (Delilah)The Times quotes Joseph O'Connor saying:
“The challenge is always to write about now,” he says. “The novelists who are in the pantheon do that. Wuthering Heights is about now. If it weren’t, nobody would read it. The thousands of Victorian novelists who have all disappeared whose names we wouldn’t know, they might have been good storytellers and able to write a beautiful description of a moon going down over a lake, but they’ve been forgotten because they didn’t achieve the alchemy that every novelist has to." (Eithne Shortall)A very curious story in The Scranton Times-Tribune:
North Pocono's Jenn Slagus has become a force as a discus thrower on the track and field team. (...)The Sheffield Telegraph is concerned about the future of Stanage Edge:
Choosing to broaden her horizons, she took her same dedication and work ethic to the Poetry Out Loud competition in January at North Pocono. Working tirelessly with drama coach Geraldine Featherby, Slagus studied and rehearsed, perfecting three of her favorite poems. (...)
At the regional competition, Slagus recited "Candles" by Carl Dennis, "Ah! Why Because the Dazzling Sun" by Emily Jane Brontë and "The Cross of Snow" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. (Joby Fawcett)
But there is another iconic place on the doorstep of Sheffield, Stanage Edge. It, too, has witnessed trespass walks in the distant past where gamekeepers tried to keep people of the edges and moorland. It too challenges and inspires (nor forgetting Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë) with its unbroken skyline of vertical rocks. Today most of Stanage in owned by the Peak District National Park Authority so is its future secure? (Terry Howard)The Sunday Observer (Sri Lanka) discusses isolation in Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea:
The theme isolation is vividly portrayed in the two novels, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (1847) and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys (1966). These two novels are well known throughout the world.The Telegraph on travelling and ebooks:
They are classics. The characters, Jane, Rochester and Antoinette of these two novels are written so as to utilise the theme of isolation to provide a particular aspect of their identities.
All three characters have experienced loneliness since early childhood. This brings forth a result of isolation from society and inner isolation to the three. The reality in which these people lived is so harsh they isolate themselves from the rest of the world. (...)
Jane Eyre and Antoinette Cosway, the principal characters of Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea are entirely isolated personalities, who, despite the different backgrounds and different living conditions experience similar loneliness and despair. Jane, an orphan treated cruelly by her relations is sent to Lowood Institution to live and school. (...) (Shireen Senadhira)
And I admit I'm intrigued by Sony Readers, Kindles and the soon-to-launch iPad, because books are a problem for me on trips. If I take a stack I never do any reading, but if I don't take any I pace around miserably, yearning for a good thriller. I'd still prefer a book that I could read in direct sunlight and take on a Li-lo and not have to recharge: I'm just saying that I am not 100 per cent averse to the idea. They'll get you somehow, though: I bet as you scroll feverishly past "Heathcliff! It's me, Cathy!" a pop-up will appear offering used copies of Wuthering Heights for 54p or Kate Bush's greatest hits on Amazon. (Sophie Campbell)We have to add that only iPads have a problem with reading under direct sunlight.
Our thanks to Ashgate Publishing for sending us a review copy of this book.Translation, Authorship and the Victorian Professional WomanContemporary translation studies redefine the concept of translation as a form of textual transformation. The role of the translator can be addressed from several points of view which evaluate the different shapes and approaches that the translator uses negotiating the tensions between the original text and context and the society and time when the translation is introduced. Post-colonial and gender studies are particularly fitting when the time and context is the England of the nineteenth century(1).
Charlotte Brontë, Harriet Martineau and George Eliot
Lesa Scholl, The University of Queensland, Australia
Ashgate
September 2011
ISBN: 978-1-4094-2653-0
This is mostly due to Brontë's conscious avoidance of the periodical press and her geographical isolation in Haworth. Yet while she did not write for periodicals as a professional author, she was highly aware of the workings of the press, due to reading many journals along with her family from childhood, and creating her own forms of private journalism with her siblings. Interestingly, she participated in the wider literary sphere by being a private reader for her publishers, Smith, Elder & Co. (...) Brontë was also, like Martineau, a strong businesswoman, as seen in her letters to publishers: she understood the business of writing.Which, of course, are true but still doesn't dissipate the doubt that dealing with the subject studied in the book, Charlotte Brontë was not in the same league as Martineau or Elliot. Of course this doesn't mean that many of the presented discussions are relevant and equally thought-provoking.
Brontë's exposure to French language and literature thus shape[d] her future English writing, but in a way marked as her own, not in imitation of Heger. (p. 50)The second part is concerned with the ways in which George Elliot's translations or Martineau's were pathways to a different kind of literary recognition and how these authors dealt with the business of writing. Charlotte Brontë's ambition to be a writer is traced back to the juvenilia with her and Branwell's tensions when they 'edited' the Blackwood's Young Men's Magazine. The business dealings associated with the literary profession and Charlotte Brontë's role as a businesswoman are explored in connection with fragments from Shirley.
Campaigners against a plan to build giant wind turbines on moors associated with the Brontë sisters are making a final attempt to convince councillors and planners to ditch the proposal. People living close to Thornton Moor, west of Bradford, are hoping to stop the development in its tracks at a meeting next week. The moor is a few of miles from the famous parsonage at Haworth, where the Brontë sisters and their family lived, now preserved as a museum.The Press Association / The Scotsman:
Campaigners against a plan to build giant wind turbines on moors associated with the Brontë sisters are making a final attempt to convince councillors and planners to ditch the proposal.British Life Examiner:
People living close to Thornton Moor, west of Bradford, are hoping to stop the development in its tracks at a meeting next week. The moor is a couple of miles from the famous parsonage at Haworth where the Brontë sisters and their family lived, and which is now preserved as a museum.
Experts say their work - including Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights - was heavily influenced by the moorland landscape of the area. The Brontë Way footpath also runs straight across Thornton Moor.
Developers want to build four turbines next to the route of the footpath. Councillors are due to meet on Wednesday to decide whether to allow the first stage of the plan - a 200ft high wind monitoring mast.
Anthea Orchard, who lives in nearby Denholm Gate and chairs the Thornton Moor Windfarm Action Group, said the Brontë connection is only part of their objection.
She said: "It's too close to a Site of Special Scientific Interest and it's too close to other important sites. It's also too close to many houses in the area. Quite simply, the site is totally inappropriate and we're determined to fight it."
Phil Dyke, development director at developer Banks Renewables, said the test mast would have minimal visual impact as it was so slender. He told the Bradford Telegraph & Argus: "World populations are growing and many historically less-affluent countries are now yielding greater financial strength.
The Haworth-area turbine project can't help but take away some of the pristine charm of the popular tourist spot and romantic authors' heritage area. Voting is set for next week; if it's approved, the turbines could go up by September 2013. (Linda Gentile)And The Shropshire Star, Belfast Telegraph, Bury Free Press, The Huffington Post, The Herald, The Telegraph (Australia), MSNBC (US), The Courier Mail (Australia), ...
Meticulously directed by Cary Fukunaga from a neat script by Moira Buffini, the film captures the truly haunting life of Jane and follows her growth in a subtle but powerful way. Son of a Japanese father and a Swedish mother, Fukunaga shows just how to embark upon the intimidating task of turning a beloved work of classic literature into a movie. (...)FemPop recaps the latest episode of Grey's Anatomy and describes like this the evolution of the Owen Hunt character:
Brontë's Jane Eyre may not be rich and glamorous, but she possesses rare virtues like honesty, courage, compassion and humility, the kind of person every reader imagines himself to be deep inside.
It is hardly surprising that this book has inspired so many film adaptations over the last century, the latest of which was directed by Fukunaga.
He has reincarnated a classic for a new generation, letting Jane Eyre breathe in her new avatar. (Afsana Tazreen)
Who has gone from the tortured Brontë hero to the biggest dude on television. (Alex Cranz)The college newspaper The Bowdoin Orient reviews The Flight of Gemma Hardy. The review is full of comments like this:
Having never successfully finished any work by a Brontë sister, however, my experience reading Livesey's "The Flight of Gemma Hardy" felt highly akin to reading Harry Potter. (...)Sometimes ignorance is so bold.
Less deft is her handling of the philosophical questions her story raises: Is all love conditional? Is it possible to happily lead a double life? The efforts "Gemma Hardy" devotes to grappling with these inquiries is packaged about as cleanly as a Philly cheese steak. She writes these questions off about as quickly as she writes off my favorite character, an intellectual named Archie whose motives seem to elude him as much as they do to the reader. (Peter Griesmer)
Where Your Mouth is Lovely echoed the tones of Tolstoy, Babel and Brontë, the new novel finds Richler confidently inhabiting her own voice. A native Montrealer, she elucidates a compassionate, complex vision of her beloved community. (Donna Bailey Nurse)The Tyee lists the ten novels every aspiring writer should read:
2. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë (1847).DVD Talk reviews the edition of Dark Shadows: The Complete Original Series:
Brontë wrote a love story so intense we'd all get radiation poisoning if she'd made Kathy (sic) or Heathcliff the narrator. Instead, the dim-witted Mr. Lockwood tells the story as he's been told it by Kathy's (sic) old servant. That's enough insulation to keep us safely distant from events while still believing in the lovers' passion for one another. (Crawford Kilian)
The show evokes a feeling more of Wuthering Heights than General Hospital. (John Sinnott)The Times talks about Tim Burton's film version of the series:
“The show went from Jane Eyre to Dorian Gray to Rebecca, Wuthering Heights and The Turn of the Screw. And the kids who were watching it may not have got the references, but they recognised a good story, which was what really mattered.” (Kevin Maher)The Wall Street Journal talks about Seth Grahame-Smith, who is also the screenwriter of Tim Burton's version of Dark Shadows, and the brief history of the mash-up genre:
[Pride and Prejudice and Zombies] was an unexpected hit that spawned a micro-genre of knockoffs by other writers, including "Android Karenina" and "Wuthering Bites." (Alexandra Alter)Paranormal Literature Examiner reviews Dhariya: Prelude to a Dark Legacy by Karrellelyn Brae Wade:
It is a true traditional gothic story with a feel of the writing of Jane Eyre. (Bertena Varney)Boxoffice Magazine suggests sequels for teen films of the 90s. Like Clueless 1995 which was loosely based on Jane Austen's Emma:
And while it couldn't be based on any other Austen work without some seriously weird plot developments, there's plenty from the canon of classic British lit to choose from. We suggest Wuthering Heights. (Ross A. Lincoln)Hannie Rayson in The Age has made the British Coast to Coast walk:
I will be in conversation with the literary figures I knew at Melbourne University in the '70s: Coleridge, Shelley, Keats. Mad-bad-and-dangerous-to-know Lord Byron, William Blake, Mary Wollstonecraft, Virginia Woolf, the Brontës.Wuthering Heights 2011 continues polarizing the Spanish press:
En La inquilina de Wildfell Hall, Anne Brontë da un tratamiento a la violencia doméstica en 1848 que ríete tú de lo que podamos hacer ahora. Para eso sirven los clásicos. (Isabel Bugallal) (Translation)The Ledger Independent includes a fragment of a poem by Emily Brontë among a selection of Easter thoughts; michreviewstheworld reviews Jane Eyre; In the mood for cinema... (in Turkish), À Voir, À Lire (in French) and Kino Blog (in German) post about Jane Eyre 2011; Rosie's Chronicles does the same with Jane Eyre 1983; Open Space has just read Villette; See Michelle Read posts about Little Miss Brontë.
Jane Eyreand a special performance in December 28th.
Adapted by Martina Montelius. Translation by Jana Hallberg
Directed by Brigitte Obermeier
With: Jens Gärtner, Martin Hanns, Horst Kiss, Brigitte Obermeier, Johanna Trahndorff, Luise Weber.
Theater Sommerhaus
Sommerhausen, Bavaria, Germany
Als Jane Eyre ihre Stelle als Gouvernante auf Schloss Thornfield Hall antritt, ahnt sie nicht, dass in ihrem Leben nichts mehr so sein wird wie zuvor. Bisher war ihr Leben bestimmt von Armut und der Suche nach Geborgenheit und Liebe. Jane Eyre ist weder schön noch vermögend. Doch vom ersten Augenblick an fühlt sie sich zu ihrem charismatischen Arbeitgeber hingezogen. Aber gerade als sie endlich glücklich zu werden scheint, stellt das düstere Geheimnis von Thornfield Hall ihre Liebe auf eine harte Probe.
„Jane Eyre“ ist eine der schönsten Liebesgeschichten der Literatur, mit starken Charakteren, und darüber hinaus ein frühes Zeugnis für Gleichberechtigung.
With: Jens Gärtner, Martin Hanns, Horst Kiss, Brigitte Obermeier, Johanna Trahndorff, Luise Weber.
Theater Sommerhaus
Sommerhausen, Bavaria, Germany
07.04.2012 20:00
14.04.2012 20:00
15.04.2012 20:00
18.05.2012 20:00
A new Wuthering Heights study guide has just been published in Australia:Emily Brontë's Wuthering HeightsThe first ten pages can be read here.
Grace Moore
Insight Publications
ISBN: 9781921411861
February 2012
Insight Text Guides – Wuthering Heights is designed to help secondary English students understand and analyse the text. This comprehensive study guide to Emily Brontë's novel contains detailed character and chapter analysis and explores genre, structure, themes and language. Essay questions and sample answers help to prepare students for creating written responses to the text.
About the writer:
Grace Moore’s Dickens and Empire (Ashgate, 2004) was shortlisted for the 2006 NSW Premier’s Award for Literary Scholarship. She is the editor of Pirates and Mutineers of the Nineteenth Century (Ashgate, 2011) and the co-editor (with Andrew Maunder) of Victorian Crime, Madness and Sensation, as well as a number of articles on Victorian and Neo-Victorian literature. She is at present working on a guide to the Victorian novel (Continuum, 2012) and a book-length study of bushfires in nineteenth-century settler literature. She teaches at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
Plans to build a £12 million wind farm on the "wild and wonderful" moorland that inspired Wuthering Heights have enraged conservationists and locals.The Independent uses Jane Eyre instead of Wuthering Heights:
Thornton Moor at Howarth was a source of inspiration to all three Bronte sisters who enjoyed its breath-taking views during their frequent walks from the Parsonage.
Now the Brontë Society and local villagers have been devastated by moves to build four 328ft high wind turbines on the beauty spot - flanking both sides of the Brontë Way tourist trail.
Bradford councillors are due to vote on an application to install a data-gathering mast next week and objectors fear the full £12m scheme could go to planning by September and be built within 12 months.
Thornton Moor is less than five miles from Howarth and the Brontë Parsonage Museum where the Brontës spent most of their lives and part of landscape steeped in literary history.
Sally McDonald, chairman of the Brontë Society board of trustees, said: "These moors should continue undisturbed for generations to come and for the swathes of visitors from the UK and overseas drawn to Haworth and Yorkshire by their interest in the lives and works of the Brontës.
"We are concerned it is more skyline pollution in an area of international historical interest.
"Howarth is regarded as a heritage at risk area in its own right. The Brontës were passionate about the landscape and the moorland hugely influenced the writing of all three sisters.
"Wuthering Heights was set in and around that area. You cannot see the moor from the parsonage window but it would be a view they knew from their walks.
"They thought nothing about scampering out for a seven or eight mile on the moor.
"Four one hundred meter tall turbines will have a huge visual impact. Preserving the nature of the moor is very important.
"The heather is beautiful, and the wild flowers are lovely to see. It would be awful if they were lost. There is also birdlife such as lapwings.
"The moorland is undulating, providing a wonderful open vista of unbroken landscape which sweeps up and down in beautiful banks and falls.
"It is wild and wonderful place. It is a very special part of the Yorkshire landscape which draws a huge number of visitors to Yorkshire every year including visitors who want to see what is represented in the writings of the Brontës - and I don't think that includes wind masts."
And the Daily Mail talks about Wuthering Frights (and includes a cartoon):
The opening line of Jane Eyre – "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day" – has been savoured over and over again by fans of the Brontë sisters. Now, locals in the literary family's home village of Haworth are concerned about their own hikes being spoiled by a very modern hazard.
Anger has erupted over plans to build a £12m wind farm in the middle of the "wild and wonderful" moorland that inspired all three sisters. Thornton Moor at Haworth was a source of inspiration to Emily, Charlotte and Anne, who enjoyed its exceptional views during their frequent walks from the Parsonage, where they lived. (Mark Branagan)
With its wild and windswept beauty, it was the perfect setting for Wuthering Heights’ story of doomed romance.If you don't recognize the phrase it's normal because it doesn't belong to Emily Brontë's novel (the Daily Mail does not check its sources, how shocking!), it comes from the 1939 film version, written by Charles MacArthur and Ben Hecht.
‘Make the moors never change and you and I never change,’ Cathy begs Heathcliff in a declaration of love for both him and the untamed landscape against which their passion is played out in Emily Brontë’s novel.
Now furious campaigners are echoing her cry for preservation with equal fervour as they battle plans to place four 328ft high turbines right next to a hugely popular tourist trail through the rugged moor which so inspired Emily. (David Wilkes and Naza Parveen)
This brutish Wuthering Heights doesn't match their intensity but the handheld camerawork yields a menacing atmosphere and it's an astute move to have a black Heathcliff who is incessantly abused. Solomon Glave plays a young Heathcliff, taken in by a Christian family, and Shannon Beer is a young Cathy, and their virtually dialogue-free scenes feel fresh and authentic. However, it's the older versions (James Howson and Kaya Scodelario) that don't quite gel. A strong first half but it becomes an ordeal by the end. (Ben Walsh)The f word blog talks about recent women (British) filmmakers, including Andrea Arnold:
Wuthering Heights explodes the romantic misapprehensions around Emily Brontë's classic novel to create a stirring cry for freedom by casting two black actors as Heathcliff and thus putting images of slavery at the heart of the Eng. Lit. canon. (Sophie Mayer)Lorna Bradbury recommends Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and other classics to young readers in The Telegraph:
If you've made your way through Twilight, says Lorna Bradbury, you can set your sights on some classic novels such as Wuthering Heights.The Chicago Sun-Times reviews the local production of The Turn of the Screw we mentioned yesterday:
Think “The Exorcist” meets “The Bad Seed” meets Jane Eyre’s mad woman in the attic and you’ve got some small idea of just how deliciously disturbing things have gotten at First Folio. (Catey Sullivan)The Jane Eyre View is reading (obviously) Jane Eyre; A Tale of Three Cities reviews Agnes Grey; Susan Coventry and ma petite bibliothèque (in French) review Wuthering Heights.
A YA self-published novel with strong Jane Eyre references:Jane Eyre, Beware
Carolyne Chambers Clark & Anthony Auriemma
Publication date: July 2011
Format: eBook
If you like tales of romance, revenge and too much root beer and French fries, this book's for you.
In this coming of age story, high school senior, Jane Lloyd, is forced to try out for the school play and take a part-time job as a car hop. As the year progresses, she becomes a hero for the girls in her school when she stops gropers. She goes too far when she plots to use the play as a vehicle to reveal the secret the class hottie's been keeping. Now she faces a major decision: play Jane Eyre as written, get into Columbia U and carry on the family tradition, or stop the class hottie .
Includes Jane's mottos for each chapter.
To express just what film history has happened here would take hours. In addition to silent film classics like Son of the Sheik, Sparrows and Thief of Bagdad films like Wuthering Heights (1939), Guys and Dolls, Some Like It Hot (1959), and West Side Story (1959) were also shot there. (Kevin Roderick)The Charlotte Observer discusses why so many romantic movies end in drama:
“Gone With the Wind,” “Casablanca,” “Brief Encounter,” “Wuthering Heights” – the list of memorable, ill-matched film couples stretches on and on. (And not just straight couples, either: Think of the power of “Brokeback Mountain.”) (Lawrence Toppman)The Guardian's Music Blog describes Loreen's song Euphoria like this:
Euphoria, Sweden's entry to this year's Eurovision, is the best kind of melodramatic nonsense: wrought declarations of love in the verses leading into - yes - euphoric house chords in the chorus. The live performance is probably better than the record itself, with Loreen doing some slightly Wuthering Heights-esque dancing in the wind before fake snow comes down and she does a weird kind of exaggerated 'belly laugh' motion and then a man comes on and starts dancing with her and it's all rather amazing. (Scott Mildenhall)More Kate Bush references. The New York Times reviews a concert devoted to Kate Bush's music performed at the Lincoln Center (last January!) by Theo Bleckmann:
Dapper in a tri-tone sports jacket, vest and turquoise dress shirt, Mr. Bleckmann sang “Wuthering Heights,” a song from Ms. Bush’s debut LP, “The Kick Inside,” which channels Emily Brontë’s heroine Catherine, and here featured an angular piano solo by Henry Hey. (Will Hermes)Curiously, the Liverpool Daily Post announces that:
A homage to Kate Bush, starring Dutch singer Maaike Breijma, starts its national tour at the Philharmonic Hall next week.New York Jazz Diary added:
The show is created by Liverpool promoter Spike Beecham, who discovered Breijma after a close friend saw her perform as Kate Bush at a festival in Belfast.
Fittingly, Bush’s only tour of UK and Europe, in 1979, was launched in the city.
Beecham says: “Kate’s fans have waited over 30 years to see what we believe will be the next best thing to the real thing. It seems only fitting to launch the show in Liverpool.”
Breijma resembles the Wuthering Heights singer as well as sharing her birthday. She will be backed by a band of top local musicians and dancers in a production designed by the team behind Lord of the Dance. (Laura Davis)
As a listener I was really grateful how well Theo Bleckmann also introduced the songs: it added a lot to my growing fascination with the wonder of Kate Bush. For example, he mentioned how Bush wrote the hit tune Wuthering Heights without never having read the book (just having watched the TV show)?? (Ines)The Daily Herald (Illinois) reviews a local production of The Turn of the Screw:
Fancying herself another Jane Eyre and fueled by romantic fantasies involving her employer, the woman sets off to “seduce” young Flora (a mute character whom the audience never sees), and her canny elder brother, 10-year-old Miles (the enigmatic, wonderfully boyish Sandys), who arrives home having been expelled from boarding school for a reason neither he nor his headmaster will explain. (Barbara Vitello)The Chicago Tribune reviews the same production:
[Jeffrey] Hatcher [(the author of the play)] takes plenty of liberties with the original. But by splitting the roles between two actors, he also provides a cunning narrative hook for the audience. It's the governess onstage against the actor who plays everyone else, making us wonder whether she's the plucky heir to Jane Eyre she imagines herself to be, or if everything we hear is from a crazy woman. (Kerry Reid)Another adaptation of the Henry James's novel is running in Dallas. The Dallas Observer says:
With hints of Jane Eyre in its depiction of childcare among apathetic landed gentry, The Turn of the Screw is also a cautionary tale about what happens when people can't talk freely about sex. (Elaine Liner)Gulf News talks about Wilkie Collins:
By 1857, the literary journalist Edmund Yates would place Collins fourth among contemporary English novelists, just behind Dickens, Thackeray and Charlotte Brontë. "As a storyteller he has no equal," Yates declared and readers have agreed: The Moonstone (1868) has never gone out of print, while The Woman in White remains as thrilling to read today as it did when first published in 1860. Until recently, Collins' other novels have fared less well, but many of them have now been reissued in the Oxford World's Classics series. (Peter Parker)Socialist Worker quotes Karl Marx on Charles Dickens:
And how have Dickens and Thackeray, Miss Brontë and Mrs. Gaskell painted them [the middle class]? As full of presumption, affectation, petty tyranny and ignorance; and the civilized world have confirmed their verdict with the damning epigram that it has fixed to this class, that "they are servile to those above, and tyrannical to those beneath them. (New York Tribune on August 1, 1854)Emerald Barnes' Dreaming Awake Blog interviews the author Barbara Taylor Sissel:
When did you decide you wanted to be a writer and published author? What kept you pushing towards your dream?Another Ebook vs traditional book article in the Galesburg Register Mail; Bookanalia recommends Jane Eyre for book groups; Winnetka-Glencoe Patch shares a stenography anecdote quoting Wuthering Heights; Página tras Página (in Spanish) reviews Jane Eyre; Literary Arcadia and The Briarfield Chronicles post about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall; Guardiã da Meia Noite (in Portuguese) reviews Being Emily (we refuse to write the ineffable Portuguese title) by Anne Donovan; Kaya Scodelario Web has uploaded over a thousand screen captures of Wuthering Heights 2011; The Rumpus reviews The Flight of Gemma Hardy; Cendrillon (in Italian) compares Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë; jonnybraun posts a poem with Jane Eyre as subject; Kehoe78 uploads an original song inspired by Wuthering Heights for his school project.
I was around eleven, reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë when a scene in the book moved me to tears, Catherine and Heathcliff, their hopeless situation. Their whole world was so alive for me, as if I was there. The sensation was almost out-of-body and it thrilled me that a story could have such power. I’d had the sensation before through reading and many times since, but that particular time, I popped up my head and thought: I want to do this. I want to take readers out of themselves this way. I want to create a world where they can live for a while. I wanted to somehow pay forward the joy I found in reading books. That urge never really left me. I took detours from it, but the desire was there, a whisper in my ear.
A Breath of Eyre
Eve Marie Mont
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: K-Teen/Dafina; Original edition (March 27, 2012)
ISBN-10: 075826948X
ISBN-13: 978-0758269485
In this stunning, imaginative novel, Eve Marie Mont transports her modern-day heroine into the life of Jane Eyre to create a mesmerizing story of love, longing, and finding your place in the world. . .
Emma Townsend has always believed in stories--the ones she reads voraciously, and the ones she creates. Perhaps it's because she feels like an outsider at her exclusive prep school, or because her stepmother doesn't come close to filling the void left by her mother's death. And her only romantic prospect--apart from a crush on her English teacher--is Gray Newman, a long-time friend who just adds to Emma's confusion. But escape soon arrives in an old leather-bound copy of Jane Eyre. . .
Reading of Jane's isolation sparks a deep sense of kinship. Then fate takes things a leap further when a lightning storm catapults Emma right into Jane's body and her nineteenth-century world. As governess at Thornfield, Emma has a sense of belonging she's never known--and an attraction to the brooding Mr. Rochester. Now, moving between her two realities and uncovering secrets in both, Emma must decide whether her destiny lies in the pages of Jane's story, or in the unwritten chapters of her own. . .
"Captivating and heartrending. . . Definitely one for the favorites shelf." --Kelly Creagh, author of Nevermore
"A rich, wonderful, smart adventure, steeped in romance. I fell into this book in the same way Emma falls into Jane Eyre and I didn't want to fall back out again." --Lesley Livingston, author of Once Every Never and the Wondrous Strange trilogy.
The author herself writes about her novel for our readers:Ever since I read Jane Eyre in high school, I’ve been obsessed with Jane and Rochester’s story. Like many girls, I fell for the romance first, but Jane Eyre is so much more than a romance. It’s a coming of age story about a girl who must learn to trust and love herself before she can give her heart to another. The book also
touches on issues of morality and religion, gender relations, class distinctions, child abuse, mental illness, education, and personal autonomy. It is rich and complex and moving, and that’s one of the reasons I love it.
A few years ago, I began writing A Breath of Eyre because I wanted an excuse to linger in Jane Eyre’s pages, to consider the characters and their decisions from a modern perspective. And what better way to do that than to send a modern girl, literally, into the novel? There is a danger, however, in taking a universally adored story and using it for your own purposes; readers will either love you or hate you for it. And often it will be the most ardent fans of the original who become the most ardent critics of the remake.
Consequently, it took me a long time to give myself permission to take Brontë’s story and make it my own, but once I added an element of magic, I let myself loose and the writing became a joy. While I use some of Brontë’s text verbatim, most of the Jane Eyre scenes have been recreated to show a modern girl’s reaction to being thrust into a nineteenth-century world: how does she respond to using a chamber pot, being without cell phone or computer or electricity, being wooed by a much older man with some very outdated attitudes toward women? And what does Emma learn by stepping into the shoes of Jane, a heroine who is strong, intelligent, moral, and unafraid to speak her mind?
The result is not so much a time travel novel as a coming of age story with a paranormal twist. While Jane Eyre plays a large role, it doesn’t overshadow Emma’s own story. In fact, two thirds of the book takes place in Emma’s contemporary world. Jane Eyre serves as more of a vehicle for Emma’s growth and self-actualization, and her time spent in Jane’s body causes her to reflect on the issues in her own life as she determines the kind of person she wants to be.
I sincerely hope that fans of Jane Eyre will find my book a satisfying and respectful tribute to one of my favorite novels. And for those who haven’t read Brontë’s masterpiece, I hope my book might send them into its pages and that they may fall as head-over-heels in love with it as I did.
6. Wuthering Heights.Broadway World announces the upcoming Off Broadway performances of William Luce's Brontë by the Alloy Theatre Company:
The desire to "get even" is as ancient as it is childish. Scratch the surface of an ongoing feud, and like as not you'll find a youngster with hurt feelings. Emily Brontë's densely-layered narrative is famous for the love story at its centre. But it's driven by acts of tit-for-tat retribution between Heathcliff and various members of the Earnshaw and Linton families that have their genesis in irremediable childhood grievances.
The Alloy Theater Company, a not-for-profit, performing arts organization, is staging a new production of award winning playwright William Luce’s, Brontë. The limited run engagement opens in May Off-Broadway at Theater 511. (...)
This new production of Brontë features Irish-born actress Maxine Linehan who was most recently seen in the first national tour of Bartlett Sher’s Tony award-winning revival of South Pacific. Directing this one-woman powerhouse piece is veteran theater leader Timothy Douglas, whose long list of credits includes the world premier of August Wilson’s Radio Golf. (...)
“This story of Charlotte Brontë speaks to me in a very personal way,” she says. “I read the play one night and by the time I’d reached the final page I knew I had to bring this woman to life on stage”, she adds. In researching the role, what jumped out at Maxine were the many similarities she and the famed author shared – both grew up in Irish homes with loving but stern fathers named Patrick. Both were elder daughters who lost one parent early on, and both had an overwhelming desire to pursue an unpopular and challenging dream. (...)
The limited run production of Brontë. A Portrait of Charlotte will start at Theater 511 (511 West 54th Street), a unique bastion for a new generation of artists. Previews start May 3 - 5, with opening night performances beginning on May 8 – 25. (BWW News Desk)
The Telegraph & Argus reports the current status of the plans to put up a windfarm in the Thornton moors:Campaigners have vowed to “fight to the death” plans to put up a wind farm on the moors which inspired the Brontë sisters’ famous novels.The Halifax Courier reviews the Halifax performance of Philip Wilby's A Brontë Mass last Sunday:
Bradford councillors are set to make a decision next week on whether to allow developers Banks Renewables to put up a test mast on Thornton Moor, Denholme, just yards from the Brontë Way. (...)
Campaigners from Thornton Moor Windfarm Action Group are preparing a fighting fund to pay for professional legal advice and battle the developers’ plans at any future public inquiry. (...)
Mrs Orchard, of Denholme Gate, said: “We are prepared to fight this to the death. That is how strongly I feel about it. This is a huge project on an unsuitable site, close to a site of special scientific interest and other important wildlife sites such as the reservoir with wetland birds’ sites.
“It is only 600 metres from homes in Denholme Gate and the damage of the moor during construction will be phenomenal.
“The bigger project will mean two turbines each side of Black Edge Lane, running right through the middle of the Brontë Way.”
The Brontë Parsonage Museum has also objected to Banks’s proposals for a 60-metre wind monitoring mast, which will go before the Shipley Area Planning panel at a meeting on Wednesday next week.
In a letter of objection, the Brontë Society has objected to any moves which would spoil the “international cultural and historical significance” of the area.
Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus and Black Dyke Band joined Halifax Choral Society for a concert to showcase Pontefract-born Philip Wilby’s Brontë Mass.Why so many reviews of E.L.James's Fifty Shades of Grey keep quoting Brontë? Now, Vulture:
Conducted with great commitment by John Pryce-Jones, the work was commissioned by Leeds Philharmonic Choir as a memorial tribute to that choir’s former chairman, John Brodwell, receiving its premiere in 2007.
It unpredictably interweaves four Brontë poems with excerpts from the Latin mass. Whether this unusual combination works conceptually or musically will probably be a matter of opinion, pleasing some people, puzzling others. It certainly had its moments.
Baritone William Robert Allenby sang eloquently, particularly the last verse of Emily’s fearless No Coward Soul Is Mine. The choir, unfazed by the formidable technical difficulties, was expressive, particularly in the concluding Gloria, which John Pryce-Jones insisted on playing twice.
The band was superb, evoking every contrasting mood with its distinctive and unrivalled musicianship and artistry. (Julia Anderson)
I realize that I might be alone in my dim view of fan fiction: Jean Rhys's Jane Eyre prequel The Wide Sargasso Sea is required reading in a lot of middle schools. (Julieanne Smolinski)And The Milllions:
Some post-colonial literature could easily be categorized as fan fiction. The most famous of these is Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, which follows Jane Eyre’s “madwoman in the attic” all the way back to the Caribbean. (Elizabeth Minkel)ABC's Religion and Ethics (Australia) discusses the future of Anglicanism after Rowan Williams:
Indeed, it is important to remember that Methodism derived from the work of a High Churchman - John Wesley - to whom is largely traceable also the spirit behind evangelicalism. This movement - despite unfortunate Calvinistic regressions - sometimes also sustained a radical Toryism critical of industrial exploitation, and a romantic celebration of the imagination as revealing the truth of nature and participating in the creative mind of God. (One thinks here especially of the Brontë sisters.) The same tendencies were yet more evidenced by the various heirs of the Oxford Movement, several of whom migrated to the political left. (John Milbank)The Music Network reviews the latest album by Robyn Loau, Only Human:
When Robyn Loau first saw Kate Bush scampering on the marshes on the video for Wuthering Heights, it was 1978. She was too young to suss the song’s message about coming back from the grave to haunt her ex-lover. “I remember thinking, This is the weirdest lady I've ever seen.” A few decades later, Loau by chance happened on a Kate Bush album at a friend’s house, and listened to it throughout. “I was completely blown away by the genius and individuality of this artist. I then realised how ahead of her time Ms Bush was.” She worked Wuthering Heights into the set as the encore. The first time she played it, the audience was dead quiet. Loau panicked thinking they hated it. At the end of the song, the crowd “let out this almighty roar. I gave two bows, the first from me, the second for Kate Bush.” There are two versions of the song on her Only Human album. The first with Josh Abrahams and Davide Carbone (S:amplify) in Melbourne was a grandiose, cinematic explosion. The second, with Stu Hunter in Sydney, was stark and eerie. “I approached this vocal like an ice maiden, much breathier & closer to the mic, so the listener can almost hear my breath fogging up the glass window as I haunt Heathcliff.”Victorian Swag, Urania Fashion & Beauty post about Jane Eyre; Vintage by Lou Lou, The Blog of Udolpho, Critica Letteraria (in Italian) and a few good things do the same with Wuthering Heights; Książkozaur na tropie... reviews in Polish The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
The Flight of Gemma HardyMargot Livesey's promotion of her previous novel, The House on Fortune Street, showed us that she was quite a Brontëite and she recently told how she came to write The Flight of Gemma Hardy.
Margot Livesey
Harper Collins
February 2012
ISBN: 978-0062064226
We did not go for a walk on the first day of the year.
THERE was the usual Sunday carvery fare on offer in the pub, but I knew what I wanted -- the roast beef with Yorkshire pudding -- because this wasn't just any old pub. We were in the village of Haworth in West Yorkshire, and the pub was the Black Bull, favourite haunt of wayward Brontë brother Branwell. (...)The Derby Telegraph reports a case of counterfeit DVDs:
The first thing that you notice about Haworth is the quietness. Even in the depths of winter, the quaint narrow streets of the village are thronged with tourists, come to pay homage to the world's most famous literary family, but there is still an air of calm and peace about the place.
The parsonage at the top of this solid Yorkshire town is where the sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne, wrote some of the best-loved novels in the English language, while brother Branwell, when he wasn't supping in the Black Bull, tried to make a name for himself as a portrait painter, all watched over by their Irish father Patrick. The parsonage is now a museum where you can discover first hand what the lives of these extraordinary writers must have been like, and see the rooms where they lived and wrote their novels. The picturesque village, with its fine stone houses and sloping cobbled streets, is rather beautiful today -- parts of the film The Railway Children were filmed there -- but in the Brontës' day it was not the most healthy of places, with open sewers and an average life expectancy of only 25 years. (Willy Brennan)
P.L., 38, of Blackstone Close, Alfreton, was caught with more than 700 fake DVDs at a car boot sale in Hucknall in September last year.Deadline mentions the Edinburgh Science Festival talk about Madwomen in Literature:
He was spotted during a routine inspection by trading standards officers from Nottinghamshire County Council.
One of them paid L. £2 for a counterfeit copy of Jane Eyre – a DVD that would normally retail for around £13.
Dr Dillon, a lecturer in contemporary fiction at St Andrews, said, “The figure of the mad woman is a familiar one in some of our favourite literary classics, from the famously locked away Bertha Rochester in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre to Flaubert’s frustrated Madame Bovary. (...)The Huffington Post thinks that Joyce Carol Oates's Mudwoman is similar to
“Many professional women, including myself, might have been locked up if we’d lived in the Victorian age.”
Drs Dillon and Persaud will examine literary characters including Mrs Rochester, Emma Bovary and Anne Catherick, Wilkie Collins’s Woman in White, taking into account current medical knowledge.
According to Dr Dillon, the famously tormented heroines were more likely to be suffering from sexual repression and stress rather than mental illness. (...)
“In Jane Eyre, Mr Rochester alludes to sexual promiscuity in his first wife, identifying that, rather than her madness, as what brought shame upon him and their marriage.
“But these are all women who want to break free from the soft image of women, and they are punished for their desires. Madness was a very useful label in those days to cover up something even more undesirable.
“There is a famous quote in Jane Eyre, in which she says that ‘women feel just as men feel; they need exercise for their faculties, and a field for their efforts, as much as their brothers do; they suffer from too rigid a restraint, too absolute a stagnation, precisely as men would suffer; and it is narrow-minded in their more privileged fellow-creatures to say that they ought to confine themselves to making puddings and knitting stockings….It is thoughtless to condemn them, or laugh at them, if they seek to do more or learn more than custom has pronounced necessary for their sex.’” (Kirsty Topping)
James Joyce's "Ulysses" for its raw narration blended with bouts of surrealism; Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" for its gothic nature and strong female protagonist with a troubled childhood.The Hindu interviews the writer Dacia Maraini:
What are the authors you read?The New York Times reviews Fifty Shades of Grey by E.L. James:
Jane Austen, the Brontë sisters, I love their. Also, the American poet, Emily Dickinson. I also admire Sylvia Plath. I don't know about influence, but I love these writers. (Swati Daftuar)
This S-and-M story about a virginal college student and the handsome young billionaire who binds her sounds racier than it is. Mostly it’s an updated throwback to scandalous novels of the past, including “Jane Eyre” and the 1920s desert rape fantasy “The Sheik.” (Alessandra Stanley)Rummage sales on Florida Today:
Most importantly, we developed a bond, unity born of shared time spent plowing through someone else’s jewelry and junk and finding a nice copy of “Wuthering Heights.” (Britt Kennerly)The Binghamton Books Examiner talks about The Hunger Games and mentions the recent Wuthering Heights adaptation:
This situation is similar to the recent adaptation of Wuthering Heights by director Andrea Arnold, who cast an African American actor to play Heathcliff. This is a first in the history of film adaptations of Emily Brontë’s novel, although the character is described in what can be interpreted as non-white terms. As a fan of Brontë’s novel, I think it adds an interesting dimension to the story, a fresh perspective. What’s new or interesting about a strictly homogenous, white interpretation of literature? (Sasha Hoffman)TrekEarth uploads a picture of Wycoller Hall and Ponden Kirk has been added to the UKClimbing logbook; OperaNews publishes an obituary of the soprano Patricia Neway who was Catherine Earnshaw in the 1959 revision of Carlisle Floyd's Wuthering Heights; Will Knit for Cake thinks Jane Eyre rocks; Kate O'Keefe uploads a Jane Eyre drawing; A Breathless Trail posts about Wuthering Heights 2011; Ian M. Emberson describes the Brontë Parsonage Franklin exhibition (The Garden of Oblivion) at the Brontë Parsonage Blog; Shabbyblogs (in German) posts about Jane Eyre; The Compulsive Reader interviews Eve Marie Mont, athor of A Breath of Eyre; A Lonely Quiet Concert reviews The Flight of Gemma Hardy; the Brontë Sisters posts about the fascinating life of Benjamin Herschel Babbage.
Io sono HeathcliffThe first chapter can be read here, the latest book trailer can be seen here. A very favourable review can be read on Old Friends & New Fancies.
Desy Giuffrè
Fazi Collana
ISBN-13: 9788876250996
Elena Ray è una ragazza ricca e viziata, la sua apparente superficialità nasconde però le tipiche sofferenze adolescenziali. Damian Ludeschi è un affascinante ladro di strada, amante del pericolo e romantico sognatore, incapace di accettare l’abbandono del padre e di assecondare i voleri di uno zio violento e avido di potere. Le loro vite sembrano non avere nulla in comune, se non fosse per un’antica maledizione che lega entrambi alla vecchia tenuta conosciuta con il nome di Wuthering Heights, e ai loro storici proprietari: Catherine Earnshaw e il suo amato Heathcliff. Abbiamo imparato a conoscerli e ad amarli nel classico senza tempo Cime tempestose, che ha fatto palpitare tanti cuori, e ora li ritroviamo come spiriti disposti a tutto, anche ad appropriarsi delle vite dei due giovani protagonisti pur di avere una seconda possibilità di vivere il loro sfortunato e triste amore. Non sarà il destino a decidere per loro, ma il segreto custodito nell’epitaffio di una tomba, che dà vita al sequel fantasy di una delle storie più amate della letteratura inglese: «Le rocce ne saranno custodi. La brughiera prigione. Finché una Figlia di Sangue non giungerà per ridare il sale alle loro ossa. E la terra non griderà più i loro nomi».
The spunky, resourceful orphan who overcomes seemingly insurmountable odds is a familiar fictional character (see Sara Crewe, Jane Eyre, Oliver Twist). That's not always a good thing. Familiarity can breed contempt, and also uninspired writing. (Debby Waldman)Salon reviews another novel with Jane Eyre echoes: Coral Glynn by Peter Cameron:
There’s a way stories like this are supposed to go, and “Coral Glynn” both does and doesn’t play by the old rules. Unlike Jane Eyre, who is in some respects her fictional ancestor, Coral does not know what she wants — or is entitled to expect — from life. Although her thoughts and feelings are rarely kept from the reader, they are in some respects unknown to their owner, so she is both visible and hidden, a puzzle trying to solve itself. (Laura Miller)This school correspondent on The Guardian complains about his generation's reading habits:
Nowadays people my age are more likely to pick up the latest copy of Hello magazine or Twilight rather than Great Expectations or Jane Eyre.On Très Sugar we read the following confession:
I have always been a firm believer in the fact that looks meaning nothing in a relationship (perhaps due to the fact my favorite book is Jane Eyre) but now that I'm in the situation I find myself very confused.Rachael Claire posts about Wuthering Heights; Laura's Review Bookshelf recommends April Lindner's Jane.
Madwomen in the Attic
Venue: Ghillie Dhu
April 2, 5:30 PM
The violent and feral Bertha Rochester in Jane Eyre, the mysterious Woman in White whose escape from an asylum begins Wilkie Collins’s gripping thriller, and the terminally delusional Emma in Madame Bovary... All famed for their dubious grasp on sanity but were they really mad? Would we today recognise them as mentally ill or were our heroines merely misunderstood, not to mention a tad inconvenient?
Journalist and broadcaster Vivienne Parry, lecturer in contemporary fiction Sarah Dillon and psychiatrist Dr Raj Persaud diagnose our troubled heroines in an evening of scientific and literary detective work.
Where do outsider musicians go if the mainstream never lets them in? They stay outside, clawing at the window panes like Emily Brontë ghosts. (Simon Price)The Daily Mirror recommends Haworth's Youth Hostel:
Set in Brontë country, the YHA Haworth, was built in 1884 as a private home. Décor is seriously upmarket with a grand stone portico leading through stained-glass doors into a soaring lobby, while up the grand oak staircase is a carved upper gallery.The New York Times doesn't like EL James's Fifty Shades of Grey:
Don’t expect the rooms (singles to eight-bed dorms) to have the same level of luxury, but they still have a certain faded grandeur with high ceilings and tiled fireplaces.
On the ground-floor is the only double bedroom, with bunk above, and private disabled-access bathroom; otherwise the only en-suite is one of the six-bed dorms.
An upper floor has more rooms in the old servants’ quarters with mind-your-head black beams and views over the village and moors beyond. Breakfast is served in the large dining room, bistro meals offered nightly, though it’s worth a walk into cute Haworth village. (Marjorie Yue)
Even though James writes like a Brontë devoid of talent, her saga is the first smash hit in the era of “Mommy’s naughty reader,” as a 10-year-old dubbed it in The Wall Street Journal. (...) Anne Rice,In a Hole, Under the Hill... and Un Lector Indiscreto (in Spanish) review Jane Eyre; Emoções à flor da pele (in Portuguese) reviews Wuthering Heights; Le Blog de l'École des lettres is reviewing the recent French edition of Emily Brontë's poems; Strambergare (in Swedish) and Heldinne's Reis (in Dutch) review Wuthering Heights 2011; Zvirzdins at Large posts about Jane Eyre 2011; Confessions of a Psychotic Housewife reviews BabyLit's Jane Eyre: Little Miss Brontë; Rebekah Loper, Writer reviews A Breath of Eyre.
the godmother of vampire and SM fantasies, told me that “Twilight is like Jane Eyre”. Or Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca. As is Fifty Shades of Grey. A mousy, virginal girl, who is spirited beneath her shy demeanour, falls in love with a rich, arrogant man. She learns that he’s damaged, but decides to persevere and heal him through her transforming love. HEA, as they say in romantica: Happily Ever After.(Maureen Dowd)
Today, April 1, there is a new chance to listen to Philip Wilby's A Brontë Mass as performed by the Black Dyke Band in Halifax:Halifax Choral Society
A Brontë Mass
Philip Wilby
Conductor: John Pryce-Jones
Main Auditorium, Victoria Theatre, Halifax
Sunday 1 April 7.30 pm
Celebrating the essence of Yorkshire the poetry of the Brontës is combined with the text of the Latin Mass. The Halifax Choral Society are joined by Black Dyke Band and Sheffield Philharmonic Chorus.
The concert also features Bruckner's Four Sacred Motets and a very special band-only work.
The concert will have some special guests as Diane Lawrenson's Three Sisters bronze sculptures will be at the theatre. Keighley News reports:Charlotte, Emily and Anne Bronte will be special guests at a concert in their honour on April 1.There will be another chance to listen to the Black Dyke Band and the Halifax Choral Society performing A Brontë Mass next April 28 in Sheffield.
Life-size sculptures of the three famous writers will greet the audience as they arrive to hear the Bronte Mass.
Diane Lawrenson’s bronze sculptures, entitled Three Sisters, will be at the Victoria Theatre, Halifax, from the previous day.
Unless explicitly said
