The Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth has an exhibition of costumes from the upcoming ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, a newly-refurbished exhibition focusing on the Brontes’ lives with interactive displays and arts and crafts drop-in workshops. The event runs from Tuesday to Thursday.But as if that wasn't enough of a hint, the same newspaper also features a stand-alone piece on said exhibition:
An exhibition of costumes from the forthcoming ITV adaptation of Wuthering Heights is just one of the activities for visitors to the Bronte Parsonage Museum during half-term week.Publishers Weekly publishes a short notice of a forthcoming biography of Jean Rhys.
The week will also feature a newly-refurbished exhibition focusing on the Brontes’ lives with interactive displays for families, and arts and crafts drop-in workshops.
Bafta-winning costume designer Amy Roberts has worked with the museum to display several of the costumes that she designed for ITV’s adaptation.
The drama, which will be broadcast later in 2009, stars Tom Hardy, Sarah Lancashire and Charlotte Riley and was filmed in Yorkshire last year.
On Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, Education Officer Susan Newby will be running free drop-in arts and crafts activities for families.
Visitors to Haworth should look out for special entry coupons in the town’s cafes and shops during half-term week offering special entry prices to the museum from today.
The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean RhysYou thought the Valentine's Day mentions were over and done with until next year? Well, we are sorry to have to post one that passed us by when it was published on the day in question on NY Examiner, which introduced its list of the 'most romantic reads' with a quote by Charlotte Brontë:
Lillian Pizzichini. Norton, $29.95 (384p) ISBN 978-0-393-05803-1
The genius of novelist Jean Rhys (1890–1979) is painfully depicted in this compelling short biography, exploring what it was like to live such a tortured life. Rhys was overlooked for decades until Wide Sargasso Sea, her postmodern shift of emphasis on Jane Eyre, became an instant sensation in 1966. Three times married to ne’er-do-wells and enduring an unhappy dollop of motherhood, Rhys was better known as the lover of Ford Maddox Ford. According to British author Pizzichini (Dead Man’s Wages), both Ford’s “predatory paternalism” and his novelist’s flattery attracted and repelled her, as did the criminal element of society. Pizzichini searches Rhys’s background for clues to her self-destructive judgments. Born in Dominica as Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams, she was later a free-spirited young outsider in starchy, empirical England and elsewhere in Europe. Stuck with men who couldn’t make ends meet, Rhys had a brief career in prostitution and also worked as a chorus girl. Evocative and empathetic, Pizzichini still offers no fully satisfactory explanation for the explosiveness of Rhys’s interior life: “She found life difficult because she found it hard to be herself.” 20 photos. (Apr. 29)
As Charlotte Bronte wrote in Jane Eyre, “human beings must love something.” In that spirit, here are some of my favorite books about romantic love. (Katie Henderson)As for the blogs: Points of View writes about Jane, Rochester and the treatment of Bertha; My Curate's Egg Blog has been to see the Seattle production of Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre. The Musical. And nothing.future has uploaded a Wordle mosaic of Jane Eyre to Flickr. All Things posts about Wuthering Heights and Children's books for grown-ups writes about the recent documentary Why Reading Matters.
Had she been alive today Jean Rhys (1890-1976) would certainly have been diagnosed with a personality disorder. Or as hovering on the very edge of the Asperger's spectrum. Poor woman.The same Daily Mail publishes a profile of Samantha Morton which highlights her performances of Jane Eyre in 1997:
As Lilian Pizzichini's excellent biography makes clear, Rhys, author of such troubling novels as Quartet, Good Morning, Midnight and the radiantly brilliant Wide Sargasso Sea, was an absolute nightmare. And, of course, such a volatile personality is God's gift to a biographer. (...)
How she managed to write Wide Sargasso Sea (the Jane Eyre prequel about the first MrsRochester) is one of the great literary mysteries of our time. Pizzichini describes the original draft as being 'stained with grief, sweat and face powder' - as well as splashes of whisky, we must assume, as by now Rhys was getting through at least a bottle a day. (Val Hennessy)
It was her performance as Jane Eyre in 1997, in ITV's adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte classic, which established her as leading lady material. (Tim Oglethorpe)The Star (Malaysia) recommends a visit to Haworth and the Brontë country:
If you’ve read The Canterbury Tales or Wuthering Heights and wondered what it must be like to be in the landscapes that inspired the story, why not take a look yourself? (...)Two early Brontëites. Author Hilary Mantel is interviewed in The Financial Times:
At the opposite end of the country, and of no less literary significance, is the town of Haworth in the bleak but beautiful Yorkshire Dales. It was here that some of the great romantic novels of the 19th century were written.
Inspired by their surroundings, three of the five daughters of Patrick Bronte became some of the most famous literary figures of all time. Known as the Bronte sisters, Charlotte is famous for writing Jane Eyre, Ann, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Emily, one of the classic romantic tales Wuthering Heights.
Haworth is a former industrial mill town, but is now given over almost entirely to tourism, with its main street consisting of numerous gift shops, pubs, restaurants and bed-and-breakfast accommodation. However, it is not a tacky place and retains its charm, mainly due to the lack of modern buildings and its dramatic location on the Yorkshire Moors.
It is these windswept, rugged grasslands which fired the imagination of the sisters while they gazed out of the windows of their house. The Parsonage (priest’s home), where they spent most of their adult lives, is now maintained as a museum to the family.
It has kept many of its original features, including, rather macabrely, the sofa on which Emily died. In fact, ill health dogged most of their lives, as it did many people in this area in the 19th century. It was their frail compositions which led them to spend much of their time indoors or around the Parsonage — with their energies being put to literary pursuits.
Of less morbid interest, there is an interactive exhibition based on the family’s life and works, and each room is decorated authentically and full of information about the sisters.
Many people opt to take the Bronte walk, which leads from the Parsonage and past the graveyard (don’t take this walk at night if you are easily spooked) and down a well-used footpath to the picturesque but not very big, Bronte Falls. On a hot day (unfortunately not very common on the moors), it is great to just sit here with a picnic and admire the beauty of the scenery.
In fact, this is what the Brontes were said to have done in the so-called Bronte Chair, a large stone on which the sisters allegedly sat in and took turns writing their novels. For those who are feeling a little fitter, the walk continues uphill to a ruined cottage called Top Withens, which is apparently the setting for Heathcliffe’s (sic) home in Wuthering Heights.
Gazing down from here at the undulating expanse of moorland, you could easily lose yourself in the story and imagine Heathcliffe frantically searching the moors and calling out for his beloved Kathy (sic).
Back in the town, Haworth has many attractions in its own right, but it is also the centre of what is known as the Brontë Country, which includes sites of scenic beauty, 19th century railroads, castles and thriving market towns.
Indeed, after spending some time in this harsh but inspiring area, one can see how the sisters were inspired to write what they did. (Wayne Johnson)
Which literary character most resembles you?And Guillaume Musso in Nice Matin:
When I was a child I empathised with Jane Eyre, as women writers often do. Since then I haven’t thought of books in that way: I know me and I know the character and the two don’t merge. (Anna Metcalfe)
Les livres, une affaire de famille ? L'écrivain confirme : « Mes parents m'ont appris à être éclectique. Vers 10-11 ans, je passais mes étés dans la réserve de la bibliothèque et je dévorais tout ce qui me tombait sous la main. C'est comme ça que j'ai découvert Les Hauts de Hurlevent d'Emily Brontë. Un choc. » (Google translation)He insists on his passion for Wuthering Heights in Metro:
Quels classiques vous inspirent ?Les Echos reviews Sam Savage's Firmin:
Mes deux romans cultes sont "Belle du Seigneur" d'Albert Cohen ainsi que "Les hauts de hurlevent" d'Emily Brontë. (Google translation)
La première fois qu'il sortira avec sa mère et ses frères et soeurs (douze crétins incultes) et qu'il goûtera une feuille de laitue, il aura cette réflexion profonde : « Elle a le goût de Jane Eyre. » « Firmin », sous-titré « Autobiographie d'un grignoteur de livres », est le roman singulier d'un écrivain philosophe excentrique, Sam Savage - devenu, grâce au bouche-à-oreille, un best-seller outre-Atlantique. (Philippe Chevilley) (Google translation)The Globe and Mail talks with Margaret Trudeau who seems a little bit confused about who lived at Thornfield Hall's attic:
And after the Trudeaus' 1977 separation, she “lived in the attic at 24 Sussex and at Stornoway, like Jane Eyre,” for two to three years before buying her own house. (Sarah Hampson)Briefer news: an impersonation of Emily Brontë in a flowing, blue dress in The Burlington Hawk Eye. Sufi mystics and Wuthering Heights in the Denver Examiner. The Australian celebrates that Penguin mugs (including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights) are finally available in Australia. The Bethel College (Indiana) announces a production of Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre: The Musical scheduled for February 2010. Bella Online remembers how Vivien Leigh was offered the role of Isabella in Wuthering Heights 1939 and how she turned it down for Gone With the Wind. Finally, Le Journal de Dimanche (in French) links together once again Wuthering Heights and the Twilight saga.
Let's start today's newsround with Paul Auster's reading recommendation to a child. Today in The Financial Times:What novel would you give a child to introduce them to literature?This Saturday's Walking Holidays section of The Guardian is devoted to the Brontë moors:
I gave my daughter Wuthering Heights when she was 11 or 12. (Anna Metcalfe)
Walk in a nutshellMore information a map and step-by-step instructions here.
This walk takes you out of Haworth, the village where the Brontë sisters lived and wrote, along pathways they walked and through the moorland that inspired them. Beginning near the church that holds the family vault, you walk up to the Brontë waterfalls, described by Charlotte Brontë as "fine indeed; a perfect torrent racing over the rocks, white and beautiful," then up again to Top Withens, the supposed setting of Wuthering Heights. The Pennine Way is followed for part of the return and the walk ends at the parsonage where the Brontës lived and wrote, now an excellent museum.
Why it's special
The Brontë sisters lived most of their short but fruitful lives in Haworth. In 1847, Charlotte published Jane Eyre, Anne published Agnes Grey and Emily published Wuthering Heights, but within eight years all three had died, outlived by their father. This walk, especially combined with a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, really brings their milieu to life. Although there is no evidence that the now ruined farmhouse on Top Withens was the inspiration for Heathcliff's dwelling, locals and the Brontë Society say Emily was most likely thinking of its moorland setting when she wrote about Wuthering Heights. Describing it, she wrote: "One may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge, by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house; and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun."
Keep your eyes peeled for
A stone at the waterfalls known locally as the Brontë chair. Also, part of the open moorland on the way to the falls is renowned for the birds that breed here, including curlews, golden plover peregrines and merlins. Between mid-March and mid-July the birds court, make nests in the heather and grass, lay eggs and raise chicks.
The talented writerly sisters make their way through 19th Century England. (Kristin Kloberdanz)The Huntington Newsday talks with the fantasy and S/F author Christie Golden, also known as Jadrien Bell:
You’ve also written under the pen name Jadrien Bell. Does it have a special meaning?Another Brontëite is the writer Adriana Trigiani as we previously posted. The Scotsman confirms it once more:
“Bell” is a nod to the Bronte sisters, who each chose that for their pen name. “Jadrien” because, well, I once saw a British production of “The Secret Garden” and one of the actors was named Jadrien and I thought it was cool. (Mary Beth Foley)
"One day a teacher hands me, Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh. I probably read it 150 times. I'm obsessive like that. I re-read Jane Eyre every year." (Lee Randall)Also in The Scotsman there is a review (by Claire Harman, author of Jane's Fame) of Lilian Pizzichini's biography of Jean Rhys: The Blue Hour:
Was Wide Sargasso Sea, published in 1966, a "modernist masterpiece", as Ms Pizzichini keeps saying? Not at all, though Rhys's much better books, Good Morning, Midnight, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie and the passive-aggressive Smile, Please are tremendous. Rhys was ill-read, preferring to pass out over a thriller rather than Proust or Trollope. She wasn't interested in other people's books, just as she wasn't interested in other people (part of the reason she was so impressed by Jane Eyre – to the extent of writing its prequel – was that she had read so little like it). This leaves her a singularly uncommunicative, even chilly writer.The Quincy Patriot-Ledger recommends The Mystery of Irma Vep's performances in Cape Cod:
Those headed to the Cape can catch the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater production of “The Mystery of Irma Veep.” This fast-paced show throws together elements of Hitchcock's "Rebecca," the novels of the Bronte sisters and a slew of monster movies to create one very clever comedyAnd The Reading Chronicle talks about the recent launch of the British Literary Manuscripts Online c1660-1900:
There are also documents from Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Robbie Burns and early drafts of some of Charles Dickens’ work.Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Angel's Game is now published in Australia. The Courier Mail talks about its Brontë references:
The collection is called the British Literary Manuscripts Online c1660-1900, launched on Tuesday by Gale Cengage Learning, an e-research and educational publishing firm.
It is available from subscribing schools, colleges and libraries, and eventually through a pay-per-view service. (Annabel Williams)
Zafon litters The Angel's Game with references from literary classics such as Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. He covers a range of eras and subjects such as mythology, nature, film noir and even comic books. (Fiona Purdon)The Fort-Wayne News Sentinel interviews Roxanne Gregg, director of the Upward Bound programme at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne:
“If I had to pick a favorite, I think it would be one of Jane Austen's books - probably ‘Pride and Prejudice.' I've seen every version on ‘Masterpiece Theatre' and think it is fabulous! I first read Jane Austen in school but annually watch the productions on PBS. ‘Jane Eyre' is also a favorite, and I've watched it on television, too. Timothy Dalton was my favorite Rochester. (Betty E. Stein)La Gaceta and other Argentinian outlets report the death of the actress Fanny Dupré who performed Wuthering Heights in an Argentinian radio adaptation. AgoraVox compares the Brontës and the Anguissola family, BD sélection reviews Yann & Édith's Les Hauts de Hurlevent comic:
Le crayon acéré d’Edith y fait merveille : croquant des personnages aux trognes savoureuses qui évoluent sur les landes balayées par les vents du nord, tout en proposant des ambiances colorées dans des tons bleu-nuit. Quant à la narration, très fluide, elle est significative du style romantique du prolifique Yann, incorrigible scénariste qui n’a pas pu s’empêcher de rajouter un petit fond caustique et cruel : et c’est ce qui fait l’originalité de ce bel ouvrage nous racontant le destin tragique de cette famille prise dans les tourments violents de la passion et de la vengeance ! (Gilles) (Google translation)The Little Professor reviews Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger, arteyliteratura reviews Jane Eyre 1944 (in Spanish), Red Curtain publishes (a lot of) Wuthering Heights 2009 screencaps and Insert exciting blog title here talks about Wuthering Heights (the novel). Jane Learmonth posts a video reading of Charlotte Brontë's Evening Solace.
On Thursday evening the new exhibition Sex, Drugs and Literature: The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë was viewed by an appreciative crowd. Branwell's life is presented in a balanced way, with recent research appropriately incorporated. (Read more)Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontëites, Comics, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry, References, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights
Not so long ago, high schoolers had to lug heavy beach bags brimming with tomes by Bronte, Steinbeck, and Tolstoy. These days, they’re more likely to carry sprightly fare by contemporary authors like Dan Brown, Mitch Albom, and Bill Bryson.A Brontë reference in the Washington Times review of Richard Flanagan's Wanting:
With apologies to Kafka, the summer reading list is undergoing a metamorphosis.
While area schools constantly tweak their lists and debate what deserves a spot, a consensus is growing that students should be enticed to read, even if that leads them to books that haven’t yet stood the test of time.
So instead of reading about Heathcliff’s romantic misfortune at Wuthering Heights circa 1800, students can laugh over Bryson’s present-day attempt to conquer the Appalachian Trail, while riffing on his hiking buddy’s more annoying habits. (Lisa Kocian)
Given her faith in continuous improvement, it is perhaps not surprising that she hit on the idea of adopting an aboriginal child and educating it like an English child to prove that aborigines can be brought into the modern world. She chooses Mathinna, who charms almost everyone with her spritely spontaneity. But while spriteliness appeals, it is not what is required, so Lady Jane subjects Mathinna to the kind of Victorian education shown in Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." (Claire Hopley)Bloomberg interviews writer (and Brontëite) Alice Hoffman:
Zinta Lundborg: What’s your reaction to being described as a “magical” writer?Los Angeles Times reviews Jean Rhys's biography The Blue Hour by Lilian Pizzichini:
Hoffman: I like to write about real people in mythic ways because I see them that way. The tradition of literature is magic, whether it’s fairy tales or Kafka, Shakespeare or the Brontes, and the whole idea of realism is a new and not-so- interesting idea.
Rhys was thought to be dead, but she was living, precariously, the town drunk in constant squabbles with her neighbors and with her third husband, Max. The news that she was alive reached the ears of a sympathetic publisher who in 1958 signed her to finish the novel she was working on. When her masterpiece, "Wide Sargasso Sea," was published in 1966, and her four previous novels returned to print, she was hailed as the great lost writer of prewar England -- indeed, one of the finest and most original writers of the century. (...)The Sunday Observer (Sri Lanka) talks with the actress Anarkali Akarsha who mentions her role as Jane Eyre in the local TV production Kula Kumariya (2007):
Pizzichini seems bored by Rhys' post-"Wide Sargasso Sea" life as an irascible demi-celebrity (nightclub impresario George Melly compared her to a septuagenarian Johnny Rotten in a pink wig). But her book -- more a "portrait" of Rhys than a full-blown biography -- largely achieves its aim: to "present the fact of Rhys's life in such a way that the reader is left with an impression of what it was like to have lived such a life." (Eric Banks)
The actress with a charming personality chose ‘Iti Pahan’ by Somaratna Dissanayaka, ‘Arunoda Kalapaya’ by Senesh Bandara Dissanayake and Bermin Fernando’s ‘Kulakumari’ (playing her favourite Jane Eyre) as tele-dramas which made an impact among her fans. (Jatila Karawita)Stacy's Bookblog posts about Jane Eyre 2006, The World According to Sam and Searching My Soul (in Greek) talk about Charlotte Brontë's novel.
Wednesday 1 April, 7pmCuriously the Elle Magazine's April book recommendations include Lilian Pizzichini’s The Blue Hour:
BOOK LOVERS GROUP
Venue: Sheraton Hotel, Exchange Bar
Join us at the popular SBC Book Club. Enjoy lively discussions over a drink or two. Whether you are an avid reader or would love to read more, you'll love our relaxed group.
Our book next month is Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. "Wide Sargasso Sea is a great novel, it is many brilliant books in one. Multi-layered and complex, Jean Rhys's prelude to Jane Eyre vividly illustrates how accounts and understanding differ, and creates a sense of the characters' past being inescapable." The Independent.
Optional light dinner available for just £10 (decide on the day).
Biographer Lilian Pizzichini’s The Blue Hour (Norton) delves into the turbulent life of Dominicaborn, Europegrafted Jean Rhys, whose groundbreaking 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea—a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre that was published when Rhys was 76 years old—made her a poster-fem for women writing in obscurity, dislocation, and fragile circumstances. (Lisa Shea)2. At the Cinémathèque Française in Paris:
Retrospective André Téchiné:3. And belatedly we report some performances of Charles Vance's adaptation of W
Wednesday, April 1 - 21h30 - SALLE GEORGES FRANJU - 35mm
LES SOEURS BRONTË
France - 1979 - 115’
Avec Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier, Pascal Grégory, Patrick Magee, Hélène Surgère, Roland Bertin, Alice Sapritch, Roland Barthes.
With the presence of the screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer.
uthering Heights in Bangalore, India:Orange Sky Productions presentsA flyer can be seen here.
Wuthering Heights
Directed by Kanak Narayan Sen
Playwright: Charles Vance
(based on the novel by Emily Bronte)
With: Sonu Sonkar, Dhanya Menon, Kartik Iyer, Pulkit Bhuwalka, Parthasarathy Devarajan, Aparna Warrier, Madhubanti Banerjee, Ratish Mani, Salil Lal Ahamed and Vidya Belman.
Lights: Mohammed Mustafa A.
Music: Siddhartha Chattopadhyay
Speech Consultant: Nazu Tonse
Productions Managers: Irene Daniel, Ameya Sarda
27th March 2009 at 7.30 p.m.
28th March at 3.30 p.m & 7.30 p.m.
At the Alliance Française de Bangalore, India.
The Ultimate Romantic Hero:Darcy or Rochester?
with Fay Weldon, Grainne Maguire, Lilian Pizzichini & Professor John Mullan. Chaired by Melvyn Bragg
London Jewish Cultural Center
Wednesday 25 June 2014, 8pm
£12 in advance (£15 on the door)
Darcy and Rochester represent the epitome of the romantic hero. But what would they really have been like to live with? Are they better on the page? We debate the desirability - and the horror - of two of the greatest figures in English literature.
Melvyn Bragg has edited, produced and presented a wealth of award-winning documentaries and programmes across the cultural spectrum.
Grainne Maguire is a stand up comedian, comedy writer and columnist. She writes for the Evening Standard and the Independent.
Fay Weldon CBE, is a novelist, screenwriter and essayist, whose work over the decades has been translated into most world languages. Her novels include, most notably, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Puffball, She May Not Leave, Chalcot Crescent and Kehua! She has recently enjoyed success with the publication of her Edwardian trilogy: Habits of the House, Long Live the King and The New Countess. Her novels and stories serve as despatches from the ever changing battleground between the sexes. The least didactic of contemporary chroniclers, she is one of the few authors whose every new novel or story provokes discussion, surprise and argument.
Lilian Pizzichini is a writer and journalist. Her first book, Dead Men's Wages, about her conman grandfather, won the 2002 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-fiction. Her second, The Blue Hour: A Portrait of Jean Rhys, was published in 2009 to critical acclaim. Her latest book is Music Night at the Apollo: A Memoir of Drifting published by Bloomsbury in April 2014. Lilian has also been writer-in-residence in prisons. She has taught at universities and is a Creative Writing Mentor and Coach.
Professor John Mullan is a Professor of English at University College London. He specialises in 18th century fiction. He is currently working on the 18th-century section of the new Oxford English Literary History.
Yes. Well. Hmm. A curio, Victorian or otherwise. The blurbs seem to promise something that was seldom seen in this evening, which was in equal parts frustrating, unique and, at times, unintentionally entertaining. What is this new Victorian manifesto? Not a clue, unless it was vocalist-keyboardist Nick Pagan's dictum that true poets and artists must continue to aspire in the face of adversity - something he banged on a bit more than his Casio. I went expecting this singular soul, who speaks in an accent somewhere between Mid-Atlantic and Liberace, and who has worked with Siouxsie and the Banshees, to meld contemporary music with the verse of Thomas Hardy, Emily Bronte, Matthew Arnold, et al. And, while there were two examples of this at the top of the program, the rest of the hour was spent being forced to acknowledge Pagan's own versifying (a song about Prozac was particularly forgettable) or find him creatively trying to shoe-horn the Beatles and John Cale into this vague Victorian manifesto. The oddity of the evening was enhanced by a startling time-warp in the room. There was Pagan, mop-topped and passionately attacking his keyboard, as if still auditioning three decades ago for a chance to open for Spandau Ballet. But to his left were two sleek, elegant French musicians (Catherine Lubatti on electric violin and Damien Soupizet on eclectic [sic] guitar), both brilliant, and both seemingly visitors from a more promising future. Under what circumstances did these people meet? It's one of the hour's greatest questions. Still, STILL, Pagan is unlike anyone else. He is his own man, complete with his own loves and manias, and more power to him. He's a true original, and, in this dull age of stifling conformity, I salute him. (Steffen Silvis)The Provincetown Banner reviews a local production of The Mystery of Irma Vep (at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater):
The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater jumps into its 25th season with this Charles Ludlam play, subtitled “A Penny Dreadful.” It is, and is intended to be, an over-the-top send-up of everything from “Jane Eyre” and especially “Rebecca” to Edgar Allen Poe and every other book, poem and movie of the genre. (Sue Harrison)Broadway World presents yet another production of the Charles Ludlam's play by The Atlanta Shakespeare Company at The New American Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta, Georgia. And The Arizona Daily Star talks about another one by the Live Theatre Workshop in Tucson:
"It's a wonderful spoof of movies like 'Rebecca' and 'Wuthering Heights,' " said [Leslie J. ] Miller, adding that puns are plentiful, too. (Kathleen Allen)Amanda Ash in The Times-Colonist gets a nomination for this most unBrontëite of references. Reviewing Jumpin' Jack by Lyle Victor:
The play is filled with witty one-liners and laugh-worthy expressions, but as a whole, it feels like reading Jane Eyre. An 80 minute one-man play is simply too long.The Chicago Tribune reviews Lilian Pizzichini's biography of Jean Rhys: The Blue Hour:
Yet she was holed up in a bungalow in Cornwall working for decades on what would be considered her masterpiece, "Wide Sargasso Sea," which evokes Rhys' childhood and rewrites one of the most famous screeching mutes in literary history, Charlotte Bronte's lunatic Bertha Mason in "Jane Eyre."A local musician competing in the Edmonton Provincial Music Festival (Canada):
"I wanted to write her a life," Rhys said of Antoinette Cosway, her tragic Creole heiress. Lilian Pizzichini's goal in her new biography, "The Blue Hour," is also to rescue Rhys from the caricature of a life of ill repute and drunken dissolution. (Kate Zambreno)
Jordyn Appleby is competing in the musical theatre category, which includes singing and dancing in costume from a stage production. Her piece is a song called Forgiveness from the musical Jane Eyre. (Crowsnest Pass Promoter)And in Xalapa, México at the Festival de la Lectura:
Hoy, los estudiantes volverán a estar en el Festival de la Lectura, de 12:00 a 14:00 horas en la Casa del Lago, mostrando está técnica de grabado y regalando a los asistentes grabados de las portadas de la Biblioteca del Universitario.And even more students with Brontë leanings. In Volgograd, Russia, the winner of the regional competition Герой нашего времени (The hero of our time) is Надежда Дружинина which devoted her work to Jane Eyre according to Volgograd.ru.
Algunos de los autores de los grabados de la colección son los siguientes: (...)Cumbres borrascosas de Emily Brontë. (Juan Carlos Plata in Diario de Xalapa) (Google translation)
Die Schwestern Anne, Charlotte und Emily Bronte faszinieren ihre Leser seit anderthalb Jahrhunderten und bereits seit 1850 interessieren sich Literaturtouristen für die Orte, an denen die Familie lebte und die in ihren Romanwelten beschrieben wird. Der Bildband „Die Welt der Brontes“ zeigt auf wunderschönen Fotos Häuser und Orte, die mit der Familie verknüpft sind. Das Pfarrhaus in Haworth, in dem die Brontes den größten Teil ihres Lebens verbrachten, ist selbstverständlich zu sehen, aber auch die Apotheke, in der sich ihr Bruder Branwell mit Opium versorgte, ist noch erhalten und die von ihrem Vater, dem Reverend, erbaute Sonntagsschule. Hinzu kommen Orte, die in den Texten beschrieben werden, und für die es – mal gesichert, mal wahrscheinlich - ein Pendant in der Realität gibt. Charlotte beschreibt in Jane Eyre das Dorf Morton, und man darf annehmen, dass sie dabei den Ort Hathersage vor Orten hatte. Wo Wuthering Heights liegt, das bleibt allerdings weiter ungeklärt.And hearing aids and Jane Eyre in the Bemidji Pioneer, Cornucopia of Books reviews Wuthering Heights, Concursori (Romania) invites you to win a copy of Charlotte Brontë's The Professor in Romanian just by answering a very easy question.
Nun kann man sich fragen, warum man einen Bildband braucht, wenn in den Romanen doch alles dargestellt wird - reicht das nicht? Schon. Aber irgendwann möchte man eben genauer wissen, wie ein Herrenhaus beschaffen ist, das „nicht gerade riesig, aber doch von stattlichem Ausmaß“ ist, wie die karge Heidelandschaft aussieht und die Bilder von den engen Dorfgässchen geben sowieso vor, die Zeit sei stehen geblieben. (Pia Helfferich) (Google translation)
We have a good and a bad review for Tamasha's Wuthering Heights. The good one (more or less) comes from The Guardian:This Wuthering Heights has something which never overburdened Emily Brontë: a sense of humour. At the same time, the melodrama of the moors - its wails, its glowers, its gnashings and thunderings - translates perfectly into Bollywood's eye-rolling, breast-heaving extravagance; Kristine Landon-Smith's production takes its cue from the 1939 movie with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, and wind-whipped, nostril-quivering profiles.The bad one comes from The Independent:
The choreography is limited: the lovers spend an awful lot of time running from side to side of the stage to show their entrapped passion; the dialogue is occasionally slurred; the stage is sometimes - and this is India? - underpopulated; the prevailing mood is alluring rather than alarming. But Felix Cross and Sheema Mukherjee's music expands the emotional vocabulary, with its big strings, its drummings and its sidling rhythms. A patina of irony is added by everyone lipsynching, Bollywood-style. Pushpinder Chani and Youkti Patel shimmer as the lovers. It's 13 years since Tamasha produced East is East; 11 years since they helped to propel Parminder Nagra towards stardom with Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings And A Funeral. Wuthering Heights is less surprising, but equally buoyant. (Susannah Clapp)
From this silly romp we bound away to the tempestuous romance of Wuthering Heights, turned into a Bolly- wood-tinged musical by the British-Asian troupe, Tamasha.The Independent talks about Jean Rhys now that Lilian Pizzichini's biography of her, The Blue Hour, is going to be published:
It must be said, Kristine Landon-Smith's touring production has its risibly cheesy moments as Heathcliff and Cathy – renamed Krishan and Shakuntala – lipsynch to pre-recorded songs. Burning ardour loses all conviction when your hero and heroine are visibly just mouthing along. And there is more unwitting bathos in Felix Cross's lyrics. "She walks across the sand, like she's floating on air," croons the smitten Vijay – Krishan's wealthy rival – even as Youkti Patel's Shakuntala hobbles out of a wheelchair, recovering from a gunshot wound to the calf. I know love is blind, but this is ridiculous.
That said, adaptor Deepak Verma's concept, translating Emily Brontë's 1840s tale from the Yorkshire moors to the desert landscape of Rajasthan, is seductive. The ensemble spin in beautiful scarlet turbans and green saris on the zigzagging slopes of a golden dune (design by Sue Mayes). The Indian setting, moreover, enriches the tragedy, as the caste system proves a devastating barrier between the ragged Krishan and his socially superior childhood sweetheart.
A couple of the songs, jointly composed by Cross, Sheema Mukherjee and Chandru of Bollywood Strings, prove haunting, too, with echoing ululations, a husky bamboo flute and pulsing tablas. (Kate Bassett)
She carried on, in a third unhappy marriage and drinking ever more heavily, until 1949, when a writer and actress called Selma Vaz Dias placed an ad in a newspaper looking for her. She wanted to adapt some of Rhys's work for the BBC; an editor, Francis Wyndham, wanted more work from Rhys. She had, she told him, a novel under way. It was Wide Sargasso Sea, the story of Bertha Mason, the first wife of Mr Rochester in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.And yet another article from The Independent. Talking about the Poet Laureates, a mention is made to Robert Southey and his infamous 'advice' to Charlotte Brontë:
It's perhaps not surprising that Rhys's greatest work was about a woman who is rejected by the man she loves and goes on to destroy herself. Rhys constantly felt abandoned, yet was constantly searching for the man who could take care of her and, finally, make it all right. Yet, as Pizzichini rightly says, her writing was her true partner. It is possible that Rhys never fully realised this, or didn't want to realise it, perhaps: the path of the artist is often by necessity a lonely one, and Rhys drank not to feel lonely.
And so, her response to the sudden fame and fortune that Wide Sargasso Sea brought was classically self-pitying and the lament of the ingénue: "It has come too late." Rhys, ever the contradiction, wouldn't let it happen for her, however much she wanted it to. The truth of Jean Rhys's genius is contained within that contradiction, however: the little girl who wouldn't grow up, yet whose work depended, ultimately, upon the maturity of experience. I believe that she understood that contradiction. She knew what lay "deep and primitive" in her own soul. In her writing she was able to use it, and it was a relationship with a male writer that taught her how. (Lesley McDowell)
The first Poet Laureate to receive a salary was Henry James Pye (1790), who was given £27 a year and was not widely held to deserve it. The post in relation to women was defined by Robert Southey (1813), who in 1837 received a letter from Charlotte Brontë, asking for his advice about her poetry. He replied, discouraging her from writing anything further and advising her that "literature cannot be the business of a woman's life". (Katy Guest)Finally, students who love Jane Eyre in Neighborhood Star, plays on words with Wuthering Heights in The Independent (Ireland) and Wuthering Heights evocations in Alaska in the Sunday Herald.
One of those cads, writer Ford Madox Ford, encouraged her to write. And in her writing Jean found the outlet for her pain. Her novels and short stories distilled her life-long, and growing, sense of alienation. She was 76 when her masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, was published. Writing it took her nine years, during which time she was in and out of hospitals and prisons; she often subsisted on a bottle of whisky a day. The novel, in turn, brims with what Pizzichini calls the “triumphant poetry of despair”. (Ángel Gurría-Quintana)Appropriately enough, The Boston Globe has an article on 'Why movie-goers love a good back-story' (and perhaps not just movie-goers as readers also like their back-stories).
Jean Rhys' 1966 novel "Wide Sargasso Sea" (and the fine 1993 movie adapted from it) envisions what Rochester and the missus were up to before "Jane Eyre." (Ty Burr)And a passing comment on PopMatters in a review of the novel The Servants' Quarters by Lynn Freed goes along those lines as well.
There are no new stories under the sun, only creative reworkings of a few plotlines: love, loss, revenge, redemption. That’s four. The fifth may be classified as variations on Victoriana, in this case, Jane Eyre. [...]Sandra Howard mourns the loss of her sister in the Daily Mail and reminisces about other famous sisters in history:
The Servant’s Quarters is clearly the work of a seasoned writer, elegantly written, compact, flowing. Yet it is utterly predictable—Brontë combined with Beauty and the Beast, leavened with Cinderella’s witless, nasty relatives. (Diane Leach)
The Bronte sisters, too, were in competition, all writing powerful stories about doomed passionate love, yet remained intensely loyal and tight-knit. Jane Austen similarly revered sisterhood in Pride And Prejudice and in her own life.The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article on music band the Avetts where one of their tracks is described as follows:
"Salina," off the band's 2007 album Emotionalism, became a winding suite that evolved from slow waltz to jiving jig to melancholic cello showcase, with a cinematic tone worthy of Wuthering Heights. (A.D. Amorosi)A couple of things from the blogosphere: Normblog has rererad Jane Eyre and A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore has been reading an advanced review copy of the forthcoming novel by Denise Giardina, Emily's Ghost.
A little late for a reminder, but you might catch it: on Radio 4 this evening (19.45) - in the Writing the Century programme - Linton Andrews holds forth. He was Editor of the Yorkshire Post - and Chairman of the Brontë Society half a century ago. 1954 is the year for today.... (Richard Wilcocks)
Elaine Showalter discusses the enormous impact of the Brontës – through Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Villette and Mrs Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë – on American women’s writing in the 19th century: writers black and white, novelists and poets, from Emily Dickinson to Sarah Orne Jewett, who used the lives and novels of the Brontës as inspirations for American stories. A professor emerita at Princeton and former chair of the judges of the Man Booker International Prize, Elaine Showalter has just completed a new book, A Jury of Her Peers: American women writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx, published by Virago Press in May. Her previous books include A Literature of Their Own: British women novelists from Brontë to Lessing.Categories: Alert, Audio-Radio, Books, Jane Eyre, Music, Wide Sargasso Sea
The talk will be held, as usual, in the Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre at the Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, WC2, and will begin at 7pm, with doors opening at 6pm. (Rachel Page)
Think Brontemania and you’re likely to think of a windswept parsonage standing against bleak moorland, overlooking the cobbled streets of Haworth. The Brontes’ former home has been a museum for more than 80 years, and attracts thousands of visitors from around the world.Also The Telegraph and Argus reports that East Riddleden Hall will be open to the public as part of this year's Heritage Open Days:
Numbers have been boosted by the ITV adaptation of Emily Bronte’s classic Wuthering Heights, shown last week. Costumes from the drama, including dresses worn by actress Charlotte Riley as Cathy and a long black coat worn by Tom Hardy as Heathcliff, are on display at the museum until the end of the year.
But the Bronte trail doesn’t just lead to Haworth. The literary family left a mark across the district, from Thornton, where the sisters’ birthplace stands in Market Street, to Apperley Bridge, where Charlotte taught, to the Spen Valley, which provided much of the inspiration for her novel, Shirley.
In the TV adaptation of Wuthering Heights, also starring Andrew Lincoln and Sarah Lancashire, both East Riddlesden Hall and Oakwell Hall had a starring role as the Earnshaw family’s moorland home.
Exterior shots of East Riddlesden’s imposing facade were featured, and filming at Oakwell Hall took place in the kitchen, with its huge stone fireplace, parlour, wood-panelled dining-room, used as Mr Earnshaw’s study, the painted chamber and a servant’s room upstairs. Artefacts from the TV drama currently on display at Oakwell Hall include a signed script, a portrait of Cathy, a headboard carved with the names Cathy and Heathcliff, and the deeds to Wuthering Heights which Heathcliff made a drunken Hindley sign.
There was already a Bronte connection to Oakwell Hall long before the Wuthering Heights film crew rolled up. Charlotte Bronte visited the house in the 19th century and it was the inspiration for Fieldhead in Shirley.
Built in 1583, the manor house is set out as it would have been in the 1690s, when it was home to the Batt family. A mix of original and reproduction furnishings provide an insight into late 17th century life. Outside, dotted around a pretty courtyard, is a visitor centre, shop, cafe and ‘Discover Oakwell’ gallery.
The house is set in 110 acres of country park, with delightful walks, nature trails, a period garden and a wildlife area.
Over at Gomersal, an 1830s former cloth merchant’s home, Red House, also has a Bronte link. The home of Charlotte’s friend Mary Taylor, it is featured as Briarmains in Shirley.
“There was no splendour, but taste was everywhere,” wrote Charlotte about the pretty red-brick house, which looks much as it did in her day. Each room brings you closer to the 1830s, from the elegant parlour to the stone-flagged kitchen with its old range and jelly moulds, to the stained glass windows, described in the novel. Charlotte’s Spen connections and friendship with Mary are explored in an exhibition in the barn.
Wandering around the Parsonage Museum, with the sound of crows outside, there’s a fascinating flavour of the Brontes’ domestic and creative lives.
Items on display include Charlotte’s writing materials and their father Patrick’s magnifying glass.
Pre-booked guided tours allow visitors to see treasures from the Bronte Society’s world-famous collections not always on display, including miniature books, made from sugar paper stitched together, which the siblings created as children.
Outdoor activities include guided walks around Haworth, starting in the Parsonage garden, which remains pretty much as it was during the Brontes’ time. A Cyprus Pine tree has grown from saplings planted by Charlotte acquired on honeymoon in Ireland.
Peter Bowker, screenwriter of ITV’s Wuthering Heights, will be at West Lane Baptist Church, Haworth, on September 24 to talk about the process of adapting a classic novel for television.
Next Saturday, novellist Barbara Taylor Bradford will be at Haworth’s Old Schoolroom talking about her love of the Brontes.
Factfile The Bronte Parsonage Museum, Haworth, is open from April to September, 10am-5.30pm and October to March, 11am-5pm. For more, ring (01535) 642323 or bronte.org Oakwell Hall, Nutter Lane, Birstall, is open weekdays, 11am-5pm, and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01924) 326240 or visit kirklees.gov.uk East Riddlesden Hall, Bradford Road, Riddlesden, is open Saturday to Wednesday, 11am-5pm. Ring (01535) 607075 or visit eastriddlesdenhall.co.uk Red House Museum, Oxford Road, Gomersal, is open Monday to Friday, 11am-5pm and Saturdays and Sundays, noon-5pm. Ring (01274) 335100. (Emma Clayton)
East Riddlesden Hall, near Keighley, owned by the National Trust, was one of eight of the charity’s Yorkshire properties taking part in Heritage Open Days programme.Don't forget that Holy Trinity Church at Little Ouseburn - the church Anne attended while working for the Robinson family - will also be open as part of the same initiative.
The 17th century manor house, which has a country garden, grass maze and duck pond, also has links to the Civil War and was the location for the 1992 film adaptation of Wuthering Heights. (Hannah Baker)
SIR – Haworth is a lovely place, I go there often. There’s nothing better than strolling up Main Street to the Bronte Parsonage, and then back down to The Fleece, where on a nice afternoon one can sit outside with a pint of Timmy Taylors, chill out, and watch the world go by.After all this (excepting the hateful clamper, of course), the following article from the Keighley News is hardly surprising, is it?
Just one thing spoils it. Why can’t Bradford Council replace the modern imitation gas lamp, opposite the pub, with a genuine ‘proper’ Victorian gas lamp (adapted to electric of course).
For a few hundred quid it would look much better and more in keeping with the street.
Just one more thing while talking of improvements; get rid of the wheel-clamping ‘Dick Turpin’ – he gives Haworth a bad name.
I Dickinson, Cooper Lane, Horton Bank Top
Keighley and Haworth are helping Yorkshire in its role as one of the most popular tourist destinations in the UK.A town on the other side of the pond - in Texas - also has a Brontë connection, according to the San Angelo Standard Times:
Bradford district comes out as a top spot in a visitor survey which reveals how the county is bucking tourism trends.
And the Brontë Parsonage Museum and Keighley and Worth Valley Railway are among the tourist hotspots.
The city and surrounding area was praised for its “good atmosphere”.
The majority of visitors — 84 per cent — planned to attend museums or other cultural attractions, according to the survey.
Almost 11,000 people visiting the county were quizzed about their opinions, between May 2008 and April this year.
The survey was funded by Yorkshire Forward and managed by Welcome to Yorkshire.
Its aim was to give a breakdown of visitor habits and the results revealed high scores for feeling welcome, customer service and atmosphere and value for money.
Bradford was said to be full of character and had lovely countryside and the Haworth area was good for walking and visiting.
Jim Shipley, of the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway, said the survey was in line with what the heritage line was experiencing.
“We have noticed that the number of visitors midweek is higher — last year we suffered a drop,” he said. “And there is a distinct increase in the number of foreign visitors. All this is very gratifying. Keeping visitors and ensuring they return involves giving them extra value when they get here — not just a trip on a steam locomotive.”
Gary Verity, chief executive of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “This is the first time that such in-depth visitor information has been collated.
“Headline results show that 96 per cent of visitors would recommend to a friend and 88 per cent are likely to return, which is excellent.”
Folklore has it that the town of Bronte was named after the author of “Wuthering Heights” when it was founded in the 1880s. . . (Laurel L. Scott)Western Mail reviews The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini.
She left the Caribbean in 1907 for a convent school in England, already by this time a lover of the works of Dickens and the Brontes. [...]The Monthly Review discusses 'a new edition of Jonah Raskin’s The Mythology of Imperialism: A Revolutionary Critique of British Literature and Society in the Modern Age', making a brief reference to Emily Brontë.
But it was Wide Sargasso Sea, published in 1966 after she spent many years as a recluse in Devon, which is best remembered.
The book was written as a prequel to Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 classic Jane Eyre.
In the novel, set in the Caribbean, Rhys invents a dark and disturbing history for the unfortunate first bride of Edward Rochester, known as Bertha Mason.
Pizzichini said: “Written more than 40 years ago, Wide Sargasso Sea clearly mined Rhys’s memories of life in the lush backwaters and steamy heat of Dominica in her attempt to explain how Bronte’s dishevelled figure locked in the attic came to lose her mind.”
Bethan Jenkins, Plaid Cymru AM for South Wales West, has listed Wide Sargasso Sea as one of her favourite books. She described it as a “strong critique of colonialism with a vibrant feminist edge”. (Robin Turner)
As a big fan of Victorian novels, even the stay-at-home kind, I’m tempted to object that some of what Raskin says about the Victorians (not all of which is negative—he does see important virtues in Dickens, Emily Bronte, and even George Eliot) is tendentiously arranged to make the contrasting case for the modernists who came afterward. Is there too much resolution in the endings of Victorian novels? Well, maybe, but it depends on how good you are at recognizing loose ends, so to speak, that carry the logic of the novel beyond its final distribution of reward and punishment. These novels invest a lot of energy in issues that they cannot finally resolve, and that they all but admit they cannot resolve. In this sense, they do what Raskin’s book also does: teach readers to recognize the contradictions in their lives by following out the contradictions lived by literary characters, even if no one can imagine any immediate or likely resolution to those contradictions. (Bruce Robbins)And it looks like we're in for another ride in the 'Austen-meets-Brontë' review type, as shown by this article from The Telegraph on the BBC's forthcoming Emma adaptation.
Producers seem to believe that passion is good and appeals to modern audiences, while emotional restraint is a distortion of natural impulses therefore bad. Perhaps this is what is behind the new BBC adaptation. It sounds as if what they're going to create is a strange kind of hybrid: Austen crossed with the Brontes or Bridget Jones in a bonnet.Crafty people on the blogs today: Love and Friendship has created several Jane Eyre 2006 icons and Carol's Crafty Creations has pictures of her Wuthering Heights quilt.
In some ways the aim to make Emma alive and readable is laudable but you have to work out how much you can change Austen for it to still be Austen. (Judith Hawley)
The bonds issued by British governments are called gilts by investors not because they were once printed on gilt-edged paper – that is a myth – but because they have a reputation for being secure and trustworthy. Gilts were originally called Consolidated Funds, or consols. They paid a coupon of 3 or 5 per cent and you will find references to them throughout Victorian literature. In Vanity Fair, for instance, Becky Sharpe is envious of the £50,000 the “great, rich Miss Crawley” has in the funds. In Jane Eyre, when the heroine finally inherits her fortune from her uncle, her cousin reassures her that “your money is invested in the English funds”. (George Trefgarne)The Times publishes a brief review of the latest CD by Kate Royal: Midsummer Night which includes a track from Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights opera:
The fast-rising British soprano makes adventurous choices for her second EMI album. (...) Solos from Britten’s Paul Bunyan, Peter Grimes and The Turn of the Screw are dotted among extracts from Alwyn’s Miss Julie, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, Walton’s Troilus and Bernard Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights. If Royal’s voice sounds squeezed at the top of her range, she revels in this lush music. (Hugh Canning)A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter is also reviewed in The Times.
Authorial insecurity was reinforced by comparisons with British cousins such as Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, who benefited from working in a nation that did not so greatly favour “outdoor” male virtues. In fact, so great was Eliot’s sway over American female writers that several saw her death “as the exorcism of an oppressive ghost”. (Stephen Amidon)The Boston Globe reviews The Family Man by Elinor Lipman. The presence of an orphan girl in the story is a perfect excuse to mention Jane Eyre:
And like Jane Eyre or any other favorite orphan, our girl seems both intact and self created, so this story is actually that of Henry charting his transformation from solitaire to bustling family man. (Jane Vandenburgh)A couple of reviews mention Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. Obviously, The Washington Post's on The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini but also The Chronicle Herald on Diana Athill's Somewhere Towards the End:
Athill quickly disabuses any reader of the notion that the memoir might be a sympathy saga. Authors Jean Rhys (Wide Sargasso Sea), and Nobel laureate, Elias Canetti (Auto-da-Fé ), both of whom Athill knew for a number of years, were models "demonstrating how not to think about getting old." (Mary Jo Anderson)The high-school graduation season is just started and The Goldsboro News-Argus quotes a part of the commencement speech at the Wayne Country Day School:
"Reading makes you smarter -- you have more brain cells right now than before taking that journey with Jane Eyre or running along the fence with Benji," she said. "Reading increases the capacity of the brain. Think of all the characters you have met in books." (Diane Price, quoted by Phyllis Moore)AnoisNI has uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube with two of their song adaptations of Emily Brontë's poems included in their new CD 'Emily Brontë': The Wanderer, How Clear She Shines, Song and Stars.
e pseudonyms of Janet Louise Roberts), a satanic gothic retelling of Jane Eyre published in 1972: Published by Avon press in 1972, Lord Satan does little to disguise its relationship to Jane Eyre, even attributing the manuscript to a "Louisa Bronte," who one assumes the reader is supposed to take as a distant relative of some kind, perhaps even a long-lost fourth sister. All the elements are here for the titillation that comes with fantasizing about courting a mysteriously threatening (and possibily half-goat) man: the 17-year-old Adrienne, "Lord Satan" himself, and the apparent ghost of Lord Satan's mother wandering the halls of "Castle Caudill." As in the original, much of the book would appear to involve Adrienne attempting to understand the mysterious personal and domestic relationships around her. Despite her marriage to a man known as LORD SATAN, Adrienne is unsure if her vivid memories of satanic rituals and black masses are real or only dreams. Eventually she begins to suspect her husband (again, LORD SATAN) might be a witch. Plucky Jane she is not, it would seem. (Jeffrey Sconce)Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Poetry, References, Sequels, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights
But these analogies gradually become stretched and overly literal, with biotech shares being compared to the guy who “wears a lab coat and protective eyewear during business hours”, telecoms shares to men who are “always on the phone, the internet” and the enterprise collapses entirely when the authors compare art and other collectable investments to “ahh, the dreamy, mysterious artist. The dark horse. Jane Eyre’s Heathcliff.” There’s a book called Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Brontë. There’s also a book called Wuthering Heights written by Emily Brontë. The latter, when I last read it, featured a character called Heathcliff. But, if memory serves, Jane Eyre and Heathcliff have never featured in the same major literary work. [...]Fortunately, other people are capable of remembering who's in which book. The Mormon Times carries an article on Sister Ann M. Dibb:
But the Heathcliff/Jane Eyre clanger is a symptom of a bigger intellectual problem with Flirting with Finance: ultimately, romance and investment are completely dissimilar. And to compare them (to make another comparison) is like drawing an analogy between Michael Jackson’s discography and the output of a Midlands sponge factory. (Sathnam Sanghera)
One of her favorite examples of virtue is the character Jane Eyre, when she refuses to marry Mr. Rochester after she finds out his first wife is still alive. "It is because she is a virtuous woman" that she stays true to the laws of God, Sister Dibb said. (Christine Rappleye)And it is one of our favourite examples of Jane Eyre's versatility and how it will be considered religious, not religious, Christian, unChristian, etc.
As a reader, Wennick said she likes many types of books, including classics such as “Jane Eyre” and “Oliver Twist.” (Andrew Schotz)We wonder if due to that Nora Roberts will treat her to a night at her inn's Jane Eyre room.
(...) If Charlotte is all culture, all humanity, then Emily is all passion, all animality. Charlotte is compelled by animals’ helplessness; Emily is lured by their “fierce, wild, intractability.” Gaskell’s Emily is otherworldly, more animal than human, a woman who embraces the unfettered passions of nature’s inhabitants. If Emily, like Keeper, is an animal, then their relationship is one of animalistic kinship, formed in canine hierarchy, not human empathy. Emily’s animal justice might seem unfathomable to cultured urbanites, but Keeper understood. She alone spoke his language.You can also read the Gawker discussion about the article.
What if we took Charlotte’s hints and Gaskell’s animal metaphor and ran with it? What if we thought of Emily as animalistic? What if we situated her intellectual life outside the drab walls of Haworth and let her loose inside the animal kingdom? In that space, a very different Emily Brontë emerges, a writer who is deeply uncomfortable with the cultural order, reveling instead in her deep affinity for the animals of the wilds. (Read more) (Stassa Edwards)
Your holiday will begin with a private coach trip that takes you to the quaint Yorkshire village of Haworth where the cobbled streets and alleyways helped inspire the Brontë sisters to write Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.The Yorkshire Post highlights the release of a 'quirky' tourist guide to Yorkshire with the Tour in mind:
First-time visitors to Yorkshire are being pointed in the direction of Keighley and to Chapeltown in Leeds in a slightly quirky guide to the county’s heritage tourism sites.Wharfedale & Aireborough Observer insists on the Tour's visit:
Managers at the Heritage Lottery Fund have drawn up a ‘top 20’ guide to Yorkshire for those visiting for the Tour de France on July 5 and 6. (...)
Meanwhile, a Banksy-style street artist has been creating a stir with life-size stencils depicting famous folk on buildings across West and South Yorkshire. Bristol-based ‘Stewy’ depict David Hockney, Jarvis Cocker, Sylvia Plath and the Brontë sisters.
The work appeared on the Tour de France route with the blessing of building owners. (Andrew Robinson)
"While the Grand Départ has attracted attention, it is the world-class attractions and hospitality that make visitors stay longer and keep coming back - places like the National Media Museum, City Park, the Alhambra, Brontë Country, Keighley and Worth Valley Railway and many more really play a part in this.Ham & High recommends tomorrow's literary talk in London:
“The Tour is estimated to inject £100 million into Yorkshire’s economy. Its value for business is immense."
Mr Darcy and Mr Rochester – two heart-throb characters penned by Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë – have long represented the epitome of the romantic hero. But what would they really have been like to live with?Country Life summarises recent sales and auctions:
A panel of writers, novelists and broadcasters debates the desirability – and horrors – of these two characters and whether they will always be better left on the page.
The panel includes author Lilian Pizzichini, Guardian journalist Tanya Gold, professor of English at University College London John Mullan, and novelist Fay Weldon. Chaired by broadcaster Melvyn Bragg. (Paul Wright)
On May 19, a book and manuscript auction at Bloomsbury featured a complete set of first editions of the Brontë sisters' novels, sent for sale from America. Estimated to £80,000, the set reached £111,600. (Huon Mallalieu)The New Yorker's Page-Turner interviews the author Rebecca Curtis:
Are there ghost stories that you’re particularly fond of, either by other writers or ones you’ve heard by the campfire?The Independent talks about the exhibition The Wonder of Birds at the Norwich Castle Museum:
I love ghost stories. As a kid, I read collections of ghost stories. I loved “Wait Till Martin Comes,” for example, which is about a man taking refuge in an old hut and getting his head bitten off by the largest of a series of three black cats that appear. I loved the Headless Horseman—stuff like that—and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which are ghosty, in that many feature “spirits” who appear and harm or help out. I love classic ghost novels like “Wuthering Heights,” “Dracula,” “The Turn of the Screw,” and of course Shakespeare’s ghosty plays. (Willing Davidson)
More taxidermied birds peer down from high ledges throughout the exhibition, seemingly accusing us humans from beyond the grave. There is a plump-breasted white cockatoo, a blue and gold macaw, a domestic turkey, a chicken, and a magnificent Berwick’s Swan, named after the Enlightenment natural history author Thomas Bewick, whose History of British Birds (1804) became a classic. It is read by a young Jane Eyre in the first chapter of Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel. A 19th-century edition of Bewick’s book is displayed here. (Zoe Pilger)The Boston Herald celebrates the release of the Acorn Classic Drama Collection on DVD which includes Jane Eyre 1997:
Samantha Morton tops almost any list of the world’s greatest English-speaking actors and she is wonderful as Jane Eyre, as is the better known Kate Beckinsale as Austen’s meddlesome Emma. (Stephen Schaefer)She has been called a mystic, Asperger-like, lesbian, incestous, anorexic (and in this same post animal-lover and animal-abuser)... asexual is not the most far-edged we have read:
What do T.E. Lawrence, Isaac Newton, Janeane Garofalo, and Emily Brontë have in common? They identify and identified as asexuals. Like these people, I am also asexual. (Katrina Trask on The Peak)Kaite Welsh in The Huffington Post doesn't like the 'reading-is-sexy' type of literary advertisement:
Men aren't the target of this misplaced, cross-brand advertising campaign because it's assumed that they read, they don't need to wear it on their sleeve or across their tits. For every Scrabble tile cufflink, there are hundreds of bracelets quoting Jane Eyre and earrings with quotes from Pride and Prejudice and the real kicker -- the A Room of Her Own tea-towel. Somehow, I don't think the kitchen was the room Virginia was talking about.The Telegraph interviews Cheryl Hickman, artistic director of the Opera on the Avalon:
Newfoundland has unique characteristics that attract established composers and directors, she believes, including weather that we might consider lousy, but to some, offers a mysterious, “Wuthering Heights” feel. (Tara Bradbury)Le Vif (Belgium) begins an article about summer festivals like this
Manon, 23 ans, évoque davantage une héroïne d'Emily Brontë (Les Hauts de Hurlevent) que la festivalière tout-terrain standard. (Philippe Cornet) (Translation)Ziarul de iaşi (Romania) announces that next July 26, they will give a Romanian translation of Jane Eyre with the newspaper; The News & Observer traces an exclusive book club between a father and a daughter which began with a reading of Wide Sargasso Sea; Homo Literatus (in Portuguese) posts about Anne Brontë; Thany's Thoughts reviews Jane by April Lindner and Jane Eyre 2011; Pa(i)ge Turners has not enjoyed fully a re-reading of Jane Eyre; Prickiga Paula Och Böckerna (in Swedish) posts about Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault's Jane, the Fox and Me; the Brontë Parsonage tweets this 1836 drawing by Charlotte Brontë, The Cross of Rivaulx.
Unless explicitly said
