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)
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
One of them is the hostel at Haworth, a large Victorian mansion that evokes the era of the Brontë novels. It is among the most popular hostels in Britain with overseas visitors, and after a winter of refurbishment has just reopened.Keighley News also has more information about the new tourist campaign to promote the Pennine areas of West Yorkshire (by the West Yorkshire Tourism Partnership):
Haworth is heavily involved in a new campaign designed to attract visitors to Pennine areas of West Yorkshire.If Novels Could Read is a literary game being played on The Guardian's Book Blog:
Five local authorities – including Bradford, Kirklees and Calderdale – have combined to boost short breaks and increase visitor spending in the area.
Pennine Yorkshire, the rural areas of West Yorkshire, will be promoted via a new website, brochure and marketing campaign.
Two pages of the 20-page guide are dedicated to Haworth and Bronte Country, with the guide picking out the Bronte Parsonage as the first destination for many visitors.
Haworth’s cobbled main street, lined with small independent shops, pubs and tearooms, is also brought to the reader’s attention.
The guide goes on to conjure up inspiring images of puffs of white steam rising over the Worth Valley – the first indication of an approaching train on the Keighley and Worth Valley line.
For a special meal out, the Weavers restaurant in Haworth is recommended as a “popular choice”.
And it adds that Haworth’s Cheese Shop offers a choice of a dozen Yorkshire cheeses.
Under the section labelled ‘attractions for all the family’, the guide picks out East Riddlesden Hall, which has been described as a “brooding mansion” by the National Trust.
Liz Tattersley, manager of West Yorkshire Tourism Partnership, said the economic climate could mean more domestic trips being taken, giving the area a “genuine opportunity” to attract more visitors.
She said: “The new website and marketing campaign will capitalise on this, raising the profile of the Pennine Yorkshire region which is personified by open moorland, wooded valleys and a strong industrial heritage.
“Pennine Yorkshire is renowned for attractions, including the World Heritage Site in Saltaire, Haworth and its Bronte associations, Holmfirth and Last of the Summer Wine, plus Hebden Bridge, voted the fourth funkiest place in the world.”
I'd personally love to give Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus to the likes of Ms Bennet – and I bet Becky Sharp would have had a copy to hand, she knew what was what when it came to men. Perhaps the Kama Sutra might help out poor, repressed Jane Eyre, and she'd realise there's more to life than Mr Rochester. And if Juliet had been following The Rules (wait at least three dates before you sleep with him) would it all have gone so wrong? (Alison Flood)A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers From Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter is reviewed in the Washington Post. A couple of Brontë mentions can be spotted:
As a literature professor at Princeton, she helped pioneer feminist criticism in the 1970s with works like "Toward a Feminist Poetics" and "A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Brontë to Lessing." (...)The Age takes for granted that Stephenie Meyer's Twilight marks the way to discover the Brontës:
Along the way, Showalter raises complicated questions about how art and social circumstances intersect. Crucially, she shows how many talented female writers were discouraged from developing their abilities or died in childbirth before coming to maturity. The demands of housework were a particular trouble. Fanny Fern -- a flowery novelist and columnist -- put it succinctly when she wrote in the mid-19th century, "I am sick, in an age which produced a Brontë . . . of the prate of men who assert that every woman should be a perfect housekeeper." (In fact, "A Jury of Her Peers" is not only a history of women who wrote books but also of women who hated sewing -- "that interminable thing," as Elizabeth Stoddard called it.) (Meghan O'Rourke)
All of which may not be much help to concerned parents who want to guide their daughters in the direction of Great Literature. But take heart. Dark hero? Demon lover? Impossible, dangerous, even lethal liaison? Across the windswept moors lies the throbbing heart of Bronte territory. Before too long, it might be Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights clutched to your daughter's bosom. (Jane Sullivan)WEBReporter (Czech Republic) announces the upcoming premiere of a new production of Jane Eyre (Jana Eyrová) adapted by Věra Mašková and directed by Peter Gábor at the Divadlo ABC in Prague (April 18):
Městská divadla pražská uvedou další českou premiéru. Tentokrát divákům nabídnou jevištní adaptaci světového bestselleru Jana Eyrová. Známý příběh o zapovězené lásce a děsivém tajemství v režii Petera Gábora bude mít premiéru v Divadle ABC 18. dubna. Příběh hlavní hrdinky je nabitý událostmi, překvapivými dějovými zvraty, silnými emocemi, tedy vším, co má dobrý divadelní titul mít.We can include the Spanish writer Laura Freixas to the Brontëite ranks according to El P
Slavná viktoriánská novela Charlotty Brontëové vypráví pět kapitol ze života Jany – její dětství v Gatesheadu, kde je tyranizována svou tetou, nesnadná léta v Lowoodské škole, její první zkušenost guvernantky na zámku Thornfield, kde se seznamuje s mužem svého srdce – záhadným Edwardem Rochesterem, pobyt v rodině faráře Johna Riverse a konečně happy-end, kdy se znovu setkává s milovaným mužem. Román je částečně autobiografický. Už ve své době si získal velkou oblibu, a neztratil ji ani v dalších staletích.
Jana Eyrová je především příběhem o setkání dvou mimořádných jedinců, dvou lidí, které rozděluje původ, věk, prostředí, lidí, kteří naprosto neodpovídají standardní představě mileneckého páru, a přesto je spojí hluboká náklonnost. Není to prchavá touha, ale skutečné souznění duší, o to tragičtější, že děsivé tajemství z minulosti maří jakoukoli naději na naplnění tohoto vztahu. "Jana Eyrová je ale také příběhem o tom, že každý náš skutek má své důsledky, a že všechny dlouhé stíny našich hříchů padají na naše životy ve chvílích, kdy to nejméně čekáme," řekla autorka scénáře, dramaturgyně Věra Mašková a dodala: "Před vlastní vinou, před vlastním špatným svědomím se nemůžeme schovat, život ve lži nám jednoho dne zhořkne, a tento den nás přinutí zaplatit. Ale Jana Eyrová je i příběhem o tom, že přijmeme-li svoje břemeno, a pokusíme se odčinit svou vinu, máme naději na milosrdný soud."
A čím podle představitelky titulní role Evellyn Pacolákové nejvíc přitahuje příběh Jany Eyrové? "Jednak je to samozřejmě působivý příběh lásky, který se tu odehrává. Ale hodně přitahuje i samotná postava Jany Eyrové – její osobní svoboda, její hledání. V době, kdy se příběh odehrává, byla společnost výrazně rozdělená, byly tu velké kastovní rozdíly mezi vládnoucí vrstvou a služebnictvem. Jana, která pocházela z nedobrých poměrů, odmítá tyto rozdíly brát v úvahu. A z toho vlastně vzniká její – možná nevědomá – vzpoura a její cesta ke svobodě."
Jevištní adaptace Jany Eyrové v Divadle ABC nabídne divákům pohled očima Janiných vzpomínek, což dává možnost nerealistického ztvárnění příběhu, v němž se akcentuje, stejně jako ve vzpomínkách určitý výrazný detail.
V roli Jany se představí nová posila Městských divadel pražských Evellyn Pacoláková. Po studiích na JAMU v Brně nastoupila do angažmá v olomoucké činohře, kde se brzy stala výraznou členkou souboru. O jejím výrazném hereckém talentu svědčí Ceny za nejlepší výkon sezony 2000/2001 (Larisa v inscenaci Bez věna), sezony 2003/2004 (Beatrice v Mnoho povyku pro nic) a především Cena Thalie 2005 pro mladého činoherce do 33 let.
Edward Rochester - Hynek Čermák se kromě divadla se objevuje v nejrůznějších filmových a televizních produkcích, zahrál si například v seriálech Zdivočelá země, Nemocnice na kraji města po dvaceti letech, Rodinná pouta, Poslední sezóna, Agentura Puzzle, Četnické humoresky či Eden. Natočil americký film Wrong Mr. Johnson, kde hrál jednu z hlavních rolí. Je autorem asi padesáti písní, které si sám interpretuje s hudební skupinou Provas. Od puberty se aktivně věnuje sportovnímu létání a dalším adrenalinovým aktivitám. (Barbora Bělinová) (Google translation)
aís:Su proceso de vampirización fue un viaje continuo. Siguió en Inglaterra, donde fue lectora de español, y donde se sumió en la lectura de autores especialmente suculentos para un buen festín que deja poso: las hermanas Brontë, Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Virginia Woolf... El amor por la Woolf en cierto modo ha transustanciado a la escritora de Al faro en su propia personalidad, pues es la traductora de sus diarios. Y otra mujer, la brasileña Clarice Lispector, es otro de sus alimentos literarios; Freixas escribe ahora su biografía, una manera de vampirizar, también, la vida. (Juan Cruz) (Google translation)A review on Panorama.it of the Italian translation of Fabrice Gaignault's Dictionnaire de littérature à l'usage des snobs : Et (surtout) de ceux qui ne le sont pas (published in 2007) reveals that Branwell Brontë is one of its entries:
Nel dizionario spunta il sempre taciuto Patrick Branwell Bronte, fratello delle ben più note Charlotte, Emily e Anne. (Antonio Carnevale) (Google translation)On the blogosphere, The World of Cheese reviews Wuthering Heights and Jyusan, Nijyusan, Yonjyuni talks about Jane Eyre 2006. Les soeurs Brontë has uploaded robot portraits of Charlotte, Emily and Anne and a post on Lord Byron, the Gondal Lord of Elbë and Heathcliff. SueWeasley has uploaded a Haworth trip video to youtube.
As well as the Darwin giveaway, the classics publisher received a boost when its edition of D H Lawrence’s infamous novel Lady Chatterley’s Lover appeared on "Eastenders". Bleak House, Cranford and Little Dorrit are also doing well on the back of recent adaptations, and Wordsworth is anticipating adapations [sic] of Frankenstein and Emma later this year, as well as a film about the Bronte sisters. (Catherine Neilan)We sincerely hope that they are also pinning their hopes on the new Wuthering Heights, as the Brontë biopic, from where we stand, looks as remote as ever.
Yet at precisely the same time that layoffs are afflicting the region, when consumer spending is down, and the economy is mired in a recession, used book stores are failing? It doesn't make any sense. Paying a buck for a dog-eared Penguin edition of Jane Eyre is an entertainment bargain. It used to be that used book stores sprouted like mushrooms at every major Metro stop in the city. They were the distressed building owner's best friend: If you couldn't rent a vacant storefront space to, say, the Gap, a used book store could move in its entire inventory, plus cat, and start attracting customers. Secondhand retailers may not pay top-dollar rents, but they keep shoppers on the sidewalk, which helps raise all boats. (Brian Miller)Salon reviews the new book by Elaine Showalter, A Jury of Her Peers. American Women Writers. From Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx:
Why, for example, did Britain produce several women novelists of genius during the 19th century -- Jane Austen, George Eliot and the Brontës, as well as accomplished lesser artists like Elizabeth Gaskell -- while America did not? That question could (and sometimes does) lead to a lot of speculation on the national characters of the English-speaking peoples, but Showalter mentions an equally plausible, practical cause: "While English women novelists, even those as poor as the Brontës, had servants, American women were expected to clean, cook and sew; even in the South, white women in slaveholding families were trained in domestic arts." Quite a few of the short biographical sketches she offers feature women complaining about being compelled by parents to learn to make pies or mend when they would rather write. In 1877, Elizabeth Stuart Phelps made the heroine of her novel, "The Story of Avis," fume, "I hate to make my bed, and I hate, hate to sew chemises, and I hate, hate, hate to go cooking round the kitchen."While we are unable to discuss the matter properly, not knowing much about the Brontës' American counterparts, two things must be said here. The Brontës were poorer than the other women writers mentioned here but they weren't workhouse-poor. They were middle-class. And again while unsure as to how their house chores workloads compare to the American women of the time's, the Brontës were by no means free of responsibilities. They may not have gone down on their knees and scrubbed the floor everyday but they had gentlewomen's tasks as sewing, running the household, the typical parish duties of a parson's daughters, etc. Emily Brontë famously baked bread while studying German and Charlotte Brontë openly declared:
Housework in America has never been an uncomplicated matter. The class system in Britain consigned a certain set of people to this humble labor, while America promised the enterprising among them an opportunity to make something more of their lives. Nevertheless, the cooking and cleaning still had to be done -- especially on the small family farms that were the economic engines of early America -- and so the responsibility for it was transferred from a servant class to the female relatives of the new republic's self-made men. (Laura Miller)
By the way, I have lately discovered I have quite a talent for cleaning, sweeping up hearths, dusting rooms, making beds, etc.; so, if everything else fails, I can turn my hand to that, if anybody will give me good wages for little labour. I won't be a cook; I hate cooking. I won't be a nurserymaid, nor a lady's maid, far less a lady's companion, or a mantua-maker, or a straw-bonnet maker, or a taker-in of plain work. I won't be anything but a housemaid. (15 April 1839)Later in December of that same year:
We are at present, and have been during the last month, rather busy, as, for that space of time, we have been without a servant, except a little girl to run errands. Poor Tabby became so lame that she was at length obliged to leave us. She is residing with her sister, in a little house of her own, which she bought with her savings a year or two since. She is very comfortable, and wants nothing; as she is near we see her very often. In the meantime, Emily and I are sufficiently busy, as you may suppose: I manage the ironing, and keep the rooms clean; Emily does the baking, and attends to the kitchen. We are such odd animals, that we prefer this mode of contrivance to having a new face amongst us. Besides, we do not despair of Tabby's return, and she shall not be supplanted by a stranger in her absence. I excited aunt's wrath very much by burning the clothes, the first time I attempted to iron; but I do better now. Human feelings are queer things; I am much happier black-leading the stoves, making the beds, and sweeping the floors at home, than I should be living like a fine lady anywhere else.So, even if it was temporarily, the Brontës could do - and did - household works as well.
The scholarships are the Sarah Guttesman Lubin Memorial Scholarship and the Donald J. Loff Scholarship for Excellence in English. While both scholarships are for those with an interest in English, each caters to a specific topic in English.And the latest Wuthering Heights is 'working' for the Kansas City Star:
The Sarah Guttesman Lubin Memorial Scholarship is awarded every spring to an undergraduate studying 19th century British and/or American literature. Baruch alumnus Melvin Lubin (’48) created the scholarship to honor his late wife Sarah who passed away in December 2007.
Sarah was very involved in getting young people to enjoy literature, Lubin said. "She was always trying to get young people to read Trollope or Dickens, or the Brontes or Walter Scott, or Mark Twain and Melville, or whatever she was reading at the moment," said Lubin. (Ning Mao)
3. "Masterpiece Classic." I'm not a fan of PBS's long-in-the-tooth British import series, but its current reimaginings of such classics as "Wuthering Heights" and "Little Dorrit" are fresh and even exciting.The novel seems to have worked on the blogosphere as well: Precipice Express writes about it, LitCritique gives it a 3/5 and Babbles of the Critically Sane discusses 'Heathcliff - Monster or Misunderstood?'.
The Telegraph & Argus publishes the following story which is tangentially related to the Brontës:Brontë expert Ann Dinsdale came to the rescue of Dave Foster to help identify the location of one of the paintings by his grandfather, Walter Foster.The Sudbury Times reviews the latest novel by Azar Nafisi, Things I've Been Silent About and a mention to her previous one is mandatory:
Mr Foster, who is researching the history of the Aireville Group of artists at the turn of the 20th century, has had a number of his grandfather’s works of art turned into prints. Among them are seven of the Bronte country by Walter which are for sale at the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
“I was actually under the impression that one was located between Druids and Thwaites Brow near Keighley. But Ann put me right. She recognised it straight away,” said Mr Foster.
Mrs Dinsdale, Bronte Parsonage Museum collections manager, said: “I know it as Rush Isle which overlooks Ponden reservoir and is still there but derelict.”
Walter Foster, who died aged 42 in 1929, was head of Salts School of Art in Saltaire and a graduate of the Royal College of Art.
The Aireville Group worked between 1890 and 1940 and included Augustus Spencer, of Silsden, who became Principal of the Royal College of Art.
In Reading Lolita in Tehran, Nafisi offered a colourful account of eight female friends who threw off the veils demanded by the fundamentalist regime, to discuss Western literature in a private home. It was a daring enterprise, one open to punishment if discovered and Nafisi described, in engaging detail, how Jane Austen, Emily Bronte, Henry James and Vladimir Nabokov allowed her and her students to retain "a firm belief in the portable world of the imagination, and the subversive power of literature, a belief that it is possible, through fiction, to turn anguish into a thing of enduring beauty.'' (Nancy Schiefer)The Daily Herald (Everett, WA) talks about the popularity of graphic novels among teenagers. The article ends like this:
Mukilteo teen librarian Kathleen Fernandes said in quality graphic novels, it's intellectually more challenging than parents realize."We suppose she is referring to the Classical Comics adaptation of Jane Eyre, available in the US since last December.
She's eagerly awaiting the arrival of Charlotte Bronte's 1847 classic "Jane Eyre" as a graphic novel. It's on order. (Eric Stevick)
In the 1970s, Showalter wrote “A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists From Brontë to Lessing,” which established an alternative canon of British women writers at a moment when feminist studies were very much in vogue, and her new book is an attempt to do the same thing for American literature. (Katie Roiphe)Phong Bui interviews artist Lisa Yuskavage in The Brooklyn Rail and the interviewer makes the following statement:
But that’s the thing, I think one of the reasons why Balthus was never fully appreciated was partly because of the strong American puritanical view of sexuality. Very few care to know the reason why Balthus only illustrated the first half of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights for example.Another artist discussed in an article in the news is Kiki Smith, who is compared to the Brontës:
Como las heroínas de Austen o las hermanas Brontë, Smith logra sacar el mejor partido de su reclusión doméstica. (Ángela Molina in El País) (Google translation)Children literature author Jacqueline Wilson is interviewed in The Times:
She wasn't beautiful, rich or popular. Her father was prone to rages. Her diaries, faithfully reproduced, could be those of any mildly bookish teenager discovering the Brontës, film, and the “crass stupidity and insensitivity” of a teacher who shouted at a poor girl in her class who came to school in grubby bedroom slippers. (Amanda Craig)Handbag celebrates the International Women's Day with a selection of inspiring women through the ages, Brontës included:
These three women produced some of the most influential, romantic and poetic literature of the Victorian era. Living in a rectory in Yorkshire with their distant father and alcoholic brother, they were isolated, lonely and suffered frequent bouts of ill health, yet produced a prolific amount of writing. Their works were published initially under the names Ellis (Emily), Currer (Charlotte) and Acton (Anne) Bell, due to the fact that it was considered unseemly at the time for women to write and publish books. Emily's Wuthering Heights and Charlotte's Jane Eyre remain as timeless classics. (EdAssistant3)20 Minutos (Spain) also celebrates the day listing several women writers. We know the Brontës were not the most lively creatures in the world but they were not always hiding:
Hubo muchas escritoras que (...) se vieron obligadas a ocultar manuscritos.Hiding Jane Eyre's manuscript among the peeled potatoes? But how these so-called "journalists" can invent such stupidities?
Es el caso de la obra Jane Eyre, cuya autora, la británica Charlotte Brontë (1816-1855), tenía que esconder entre las patatas que pelaba.
Ella y sus dos hermanas, Emily (1818-1849) y Anne (1820-1849), recurrieron a seudónimos de varón para poder publicar. Charlotte se escondió tras Currer Bell y sus hermanas adoptaron el mismo apellido y alias que mantenían sus iniciales: Ellis (Emily) y Acton (Anne).
A pesar de sus esfuerzos por disfrazar su autoría, las editoriales rechazaban, como si pudieran adivinar la mano que tras las firmas se escondía, sus textos. Persistieron, y en 1846 salían los Poemas de Currer, Ellis y Acton Bell.
Al año siguiente Cumbres borrascosas era aceptada, y Anne lograba también un buen camino para su Agnes Grey. Charlotte tuvo que aguantarse con el rechazo a El profesor, pero consiguió que Jane Eyre viera la luz. (Paula Arenas) (Google translation)
1847 Eyre divina: Firmando con su seudónimo literario, CURRER BELL, para que la tomaran en serio corno escritora, al igual que lo hicieron George Sand y George Eliot, la maestra de es-cuela inglesa CHARLOTTE BRONTÉ actualiza la historia de Cenicienta con su inspiradora Jane Eyre, en la cual una fuerte heroína no convencional triunfa a pesar de sü clase y su sexo... ¡y se queda con su hombre! (Google translation)The Shropshire Star mentions several shootings made recently in the Peak District, including Jane Eyre 2006:
‘Visit Peak District & Derbyshire’ offers its visitors a Movie Map - focusing on Keira Knightley and The Duchess - to help visitors follow in the footsteps of the stars. It also highlights all of the other movies and TV productions, shot on location in and around the region in recent times - including BBC TV’s adaptation of Jane Eyre, the award-winning Pride & Prejudice, and The Other Boleyn Girl.The British soap opera Coronation Street is praised in this article in the Carlisle News & Star, Wuthering Heights reference included:
Ken’s a snob with nothing to be stuck-up about. His principles are dubious, his questionable morals are justified by the romance he’s learned from Wuthering Heights and he justifies his unhappy indiscretions by always playing away with a Salford version of Lady Macbeth. (Anne Pickles)PopMatters discussing the controversial (to put it mildly) Japanese sex game Rapelay seems to think for sure that Heathcliff raped Isabella:
Literature has obviously covered the topic extensively as well, from Wuthering Heights to The Kite Runner. People arguing that these books are superior in their content because they handle the topic maturely are on shaky ground because, frankly, who wants to detail how to tastefully portray rape? (L.B. Jeffries)We read on Globe Newswire about the novel debut of Gege Lambert, The Gateway. Apparently, the author likes the Brontës:
Gege Lambert was born and resides in Toronto, Ontario. She is passionate about romance. Her favorite authors are Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, and Baroness Emmuska Orczy. She greatly admires the poetry of Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Emily Dickinson and finds William Shakespeare's words of love ever timeless. Like Ms. Austen, she has never married but has loved and is loved.A weird Wuthering Heights connection can be traced in this news about a NCAA rules violation by the University of Alabama:
The report went on to stress the “academic nature” of the extra benefits.Helsingborgs Dagblad interviews the Swedish politician Anne Marie Brodén. A new Brontëite:
“In short, it is a case about a semester’s use of Norton Anthologies, “Wuthering Heights,” math answer keys and other materials of an academic nature, all of which were returned [or charged to the student-athlete] when the semester is over,” the response said. (Cecil Hurt in The Tuscaloosa News)
Bästa bok?On the blogosphere: Books for Dummies posts about Jane Eyre and Könyvmolyok reviews Wuthering Heights in Hungarian.
Svårt att säga men en av mina favoriter är Sagan om ringen av Tolkien, en annan är Jane Eyre av Bronte. (Google translation)
Tim [Chadwick] had to do a reading from The Scarecrow, which was written by Hawera author Ronald Hugh Morrieson, who also wrote Came a Hot Friday.Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, References, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights
The reading was in the KFC in Hawera, which was built on the site of Morrieson's old home.
It was the first time Tim had been inside the KFC. In the early 1990s, he had fought against it.
Tim formed the Scarecrow Committee and petitioned the South Taranaki District Council to retain Morrieson's house. But the general feeling was KFC was more important, he says. More people signed a petition wanting KFC than wanting Morrieson's house.
"I think it is stupid, simple as that. I think one day there'll be enlightened people in Hawera who will realise it was wrong to get rid of it."
Tim has visited the Bronte sisters' house in England and Keats' house in London.
"Here was a golden opportunity for Hawera to do something similar and the call of fried chicken was greater." (Helen Harvey)
At first the Brontë sisters tried being governesses — a miserable job, but good for mining material for the novels they would write as “brothers,” using masculine-sounding pseudonyms: Currer Bell for Charlotte (Finn Atkins), who wrote “Jane Eyre”; Ellis Bell for Emily (Chloe Pirrie), the author of “Wuthering Heights”; and Acton Bell for Anne (Charlie Murphy), who wrote “The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.” Sally Wainwright (“Last Tango in Halifax,” “Happy Valley”) is the force behind this movie about the dutiful daughters of an ailing Yorkshire clergyman (Jonathan Pryce) and the ne’er-do-well sibling, Branwell (Adam Nagaitis), who inspired vivid characters in his sisters’ novels. (Kathryn Shattuck)Northwest Arkansas Democratic Gazette:
Masterpiece presents To Walk Invisible: The Brontë Sisters at 8 p.m. today on AETN. The two-hour film highlights the famous literary siblings who, against all odds, "had their genius for writing romantic novels recognized in a male-dominated 19th-century world."The Times Herald-Record clearly has not done a proper research (check the final paragraph):
The film was written and directed by Sally Wainwright (Happy Valley, Last Tango in Halifax) and tells the tale of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, the dutiful clergyman's daughters who became the authors of "the most controversial fiction of the 1840s." (...)
Wainwright based the film largely on Charlotte's letters and concentrates on the three-year period "that saw them rise from ordinary, unmarried women, taking care of the household and their widowed father, to the secret authors of the world's most sensational literature."
"I hope people will be entertained and go away wanting to know more about the Brontës," Wainwright added. (Michael Storey)
"Invisible" is a must for Brontë buffs and "Masterpiece" completists, but even they may find some of the dialogue hard to understand.Neal Justin in the Kansas Star-Tribune is no lover of the new production:
At first I thought this was a matter of local dialects falling deaf on American ears, but apparently many British viewers went on social media to complain about muffled audio.
The film includes a peculiar, unfortunate and blessedly short bookending gimmick, depicting the young Brontë children flush with imagination and playing some fantastic board game of their own devising.
It comes off as a desperate effort to attract "Harry Potter" readers. Equally jarring, the film concludes with a contemporary trip to a Brontë museum, where we all end up in the gift shop.
Charlotte, Emily and Anne may have been the most successful sister act in literary history, but their real-life tale isn’t exactly a page turner. It’s hard to come to any other conclusion after watching “To Walk Invisible: The Brontë Sisters,” a well-meaning but tedious biopic that does little to capture the brilliance and personalities of the women behind “Jane Eyre” and “Wuthering Heights.” Perhaps director/writer Sally Wainwright purposely churned out a yawner in hopes that viewers would switch off their sets and crack open a classic novel.Also in The Vindicator, Detroit Free Press, East Bay Times, ...
Although their names are largely forgotten, many American writers drew from Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre” in the 1850s. And some were successful — very successful.Critic (New Zealand) reviews Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea:
One million copies sold for one novel, “The Wide Wide World” by Susan Warner. Warner had, in fact, started writing her book before “Jane” took the English-reading world by storm. Her sister, Anna, also wrote popular novels and likened the American pair to the Brontë sisters. Between them, they published 21 titles — with most of the money going to pay their father’s debts, writes Elaine Showalter in “A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers From Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx.” (...)
Although “Ruth Hall” was apparently no “Jane Eyre” or “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” Fern’s feminism and professionalism, Showalter writes, “cleared the path for Stowe and the new order of women to come.” (Jane Henderson)
This book lives on my bookshelf, in a case, with a plaque underneath: ‘A Modernist Triumph of Femme Freedom’. In 1969, Jean Rhys published Wide Sargasso Sea, a prequel and intervention to Jane Eyre, much like the prequel and intervention of my flatmate telling me I am cunty vomitty person the day after a party. However, where my flatmate sets a house on fire, Rhys burns it to the ground. This novel deconstructs the hysterical woman, especially as portrayed in the ‘feminist’ gothic text Jane Eyre.The Sunday Times reviews the biography Jane Welsh Carlyle and Her Victorian World by Kathy Chamberlain:
Where Bertha in Jane Eyre is an elusive creature, so too is the tumbling narrative of Wide Sargasso Sea. The way the protagonist’s focus sways from the heave and seethe of the Caribbean jungle to her decomposing marriage lends itself to post-post-colonial dialogue. (...)
This is a baffling read and for such a short novel, it is surprisingly dense. Not because of the content, but because of the space that the narrative is meant to occupy. Wide Sargasso Sea alleviates the limitations of Jane Eyre, and celebrates the existence of a) humans and b) women, no matter their mental state, background or role within society. Like a Lana Del Rey song, Wide Sargasso Sea works to validate and celebrate self-indulgent sadness; it is a love letter to the tides of hedonistic apathy, commiserating the vilification of those who suffer loss without need for redemption or forgiveness. Most importantly, Rhys drives for the continuation of the human voice through dissolution to insanity. In short: it’s a good time. (Zoe Taptiklis)
She herself was rumoured to be the author of the pseudonymously published Jane Eyre. She admired Charlotte Brontë, but disliked Jane Austen (“too washy — watergruel”) and said of George Eliot: “She looks Propriety personified. Oh, so slow!” (Paula Byrne)Also in The Sunday Times, an interview with Reed Hastings founder and CEO of Netflix:
As I wait to meet the CEO and founder of Netflix, Reed Hastings, two PRs are talking about how as children they were obsessed with books. “I used to read under the covers so my mum didn’t know,” says one. “Yes, I set fire to a T-shirt using it to dim my bedside light,” says the other. This, they agree, is how people feel about Netflix. A new episode is like the next chapter: gobbling down the Gilmore Girls is the same as piling through Jane Eyre. I’m not sure whether this conversation is for my benefit. (I wouldn’t be surprised.) (Janice Turner)BuzzFeed lists several classical films 'every woman should see'. Including Jane Eyre 1944 where Orson Welles plays one Mr Rotchester, apparently:
Joan Fontaine plays Jane Eyre who works as governess at Mr. Rotchester's home. She falls in love but struggles under numerous circumstances that keep her apart from Mr. Rotchester. (juldarps)Reading is my Superpower interviews the author Barbara Cameron:
Who is your favorite book character from childhood?El Día de Córdoba (Spain) interviews the writer Rodrigo Fresán who thinks that David Lynch could be a perfect director for a Wuthering Heights film:
Barbara: It’s got to be Jane Eyre. I first read the book when I was about twelve and fell in love with her spirit and her loving kindness. I wore out several copies of that book and loved being able to teach it when I later became a college English instructor.
-En la segunda parte tiene gran importancia la familia Brontë y especialmente Cumbres borrascosas, "un libro tóxico y con alto poder de contagio". (Braulio Ortiz)Vivere Pesaro (Italy) vindicates the work of the writer Grazia Deledda:
-Lynch podría hacer una adaptación maravillosa de ese libro. Estamos ante una novela que, es curioso, por el tema y el tono ya resultaba antigua en la fecha en la que aparece, y sin embargo anticipa muchas de las cosas que vendrán después. Todo lo que hicieron las hermanas Brontë es fascinante. A mí me gusta mucho Jane Eyre, pero también otro libro de Charlotte que se llama Villette, y las dos novelas protofeministas de Anne [La inquilina de Wildfell y Agnes Grey]. Lo interesante de Cumbres borrascosas es que puede verse no tanto como una novela de vampiros como de vampirizados: el vampiro pasó, los mordió a todos y los dejó allí. (Translation)
Le sue tematiche hanno un'impronta verista, tenendo conto che la Deledda è una profonda osservatrice della Sardegna antica, dell'interiorizzazione della sua terra. Ne La Madre, la Deledda recupera il significato dell'Isola del mito, di una certa impronta anglosassone come Cime tempestose di Emily Brontë. Ma la Deledda viene definita anche una scrittrice, anche superficiale, estimatrice di Carolina Invernizio. (Paolo Montanari) (Translation)The Readiness is All reviews Wuthering Heights.
Had Jane Eyre still been in copyright when Jean Rhys published Wide Sargasso Sea, Charlotte Brontë could presumably have prevented publication. But would readers have really wanted her to?The Guardian also mentions sequels and prequels of Jane Eyre in an article about the same subject:
Once well-known figures are out of copyright, they fall very rapidly into other hands. By now, the minority of Sherlock Holmes's appearances are in stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre is neatly book-ended by both a prequel (Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea) and a sequel: DS Thomas's Charlotte. Emma Tennant has been the most active heroine smuggler, transplanting heroines from Jane Austen and Thomas Hardy into her own fiction. (Mark Lawson)The Film Music Society reports about the recent Motion Picture Academy Tribute to the legendary lyricists Alan and Marilyn Bergman:
Michel Legrand flew in from Paris for the event, playing the piano and singing "I Was Born in Love With You" from Wuthering Heights (1970). The evening's highlight for many, however, was the stunning duet of Legrand and Alan Bergman on one of their most famous songs, "The Windmills of Your Mind" from The Thomas Crown Affair that also included footage of Steve McQueen's glider sequence that inspired it. (Jon Burlingname)The New Statesman reviews the latest book by Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger and talks about country-house novels:
There are two main traditions of country-house novel. One of them, the one these novels have in mind, is the Gothic tradition, which extends back to what is usually thought of as the first Gothic novel, Horace Walpole’s preposterous The Castle of Otranto, and takes in Edgar Allan Poe’s House of Usher, Bartram-Haugh in Sheridan Le Fanu’s Uncle Silas, Thornfield Hall in Jane Eyre, Bly House in The Turn of the Screw, Manderley in Rebecca, et al. (John O'Connell)Now, a gem of random thinking. In the Indian Financial Chronicle we find a paragraph which is able to link together running naked (among wolves, sic), Titanic and Wuthering Heights:
For some, passion is running naked with the wolves… it’s so extreme! I remember this one scene from the movie Titanic, when Kate Winslet jumps out of her lifeboat, just as happy to sink or swim with Leonardo Di Caprio. In that moment any woman would have traded places with her. Remember the movie Wuthering heights? Certainly passion gripped the audience hearts as much as the actors. (Bubbles Shabharwal)Also in The Independent Elaine Showalter's latest book (A Jury of Her Peers) is reviewed, The Portsmouth News and The Leamington Spa Courier have a reminder of the current Tamasha Theatre's performances of Wuthering Heights (with a wrong picture, though).
Pensez-vous que si Keats n'avait pas rencontré Fanny, son œuvre en aurait été changée ?The film itself is described on Écranlarge as:
Quand on aime, on baisse les armes, on est complètement vulnérable. C'est une sorte de rite de passage. Il faut être ouvert à la souffrance comme à la grâce. Quand Keats rencontre Fanny, il est assez sarcastique à propos de l'amour. Il pense d'abord que Fanny, à cause de son obsession pour la couture et pour la mode, est frivole et ridicule. Mais il apprécie son esprit vif, frondeur. Lorsque Tom, le jeune frère de Keats, meurt, Fanny lui ouvrira alors vraiment son cœur. Fanny, à mes yeux, est un personnage qui se situe plutôt du côté des héroïnes d'Emily Brontë que de celles de Jane Austen. Les personnages de Jane Austen travaillent pour gagner leur vie et trouver de l'affection alors que ceux d'Emily Brontë font preuve, comme Fanny, de beaucoup plus de volonté et de caractère. Fanny, qui n'avait pas un sens pratique, avait une pensée plus magique. Elle était incapable d'embrasser la réalité. On se trompait sur son compte, dans son entourage, tout le monde pensait qu'elle était destinée à faire un riche mariage. Elle a préféré Keats qui était d'une pauvreté absolue. (Emmanuèle Frois) (cut and paste on Google translation )
[F]ilm au romantisme exacerbé que l'on dirait tout droit sortie d'une adaptation d'un des romans des Sœurs Brontë mais aussi et surtout dans la lignée de La leçon de piano Palme d'or ici en 1993. (Jean-Noël Nicolau) (Google translation)Parutions reviews Édith & Yann's Les Hauts de Hurlevent comic:
La société victorienne, ses hiérarchies rigides, ses rudesses… Tout un monde, cruel pour les pauvres et les délaissés. L’histoire des Hauts de Hurlevent est un classique, le récit d’un enfant Heathcliff, adopté par un brave homme, Mr Earnshaw, qui l’a trouvé dans un caniveau et le ramène chez lui. Mais l’enfant de la rue, bohémien à la peau sombre, regard noir et caractère un peu sauvage à apprivoiser, se heurte à la haine d’une partie de sa nouvelle famille et des proches, à commencer par Hindley, le fils de Mr Earnshaw, peu enclin à le considérer comme un frère, et à peine comme un être humain. Entre les deux enfants, le duel ne fait que commencer, alors que Catherine, la soeur d’Hindley, s’amourache peu à peu du petit sauvageon, devenu un beau jeune homme. Mais la vie est cruelle et se charge d’éloigner, un temps, les deux jeunes gens. Catherine se marie “dans son monde” et Heathcliff, à bout d’humiliations, s’enfuit. La vie reprend sur la lande… jusqu’au retour de Heathcliff, assoiffé de justice…The Guardian reviews Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx mentioning of course the previous scholar milestone in her author's career:
Les Hauts de Hurlevent relèvent quasiment du huis clos : une demeure sombre perdue dans une lande, un face-à-face entre deux enfants que tout oppose, une “bonne” (sic.) société hostile à Heathcliff, perclue de préjugés, plus bête que méchante… mais si idiote ! L’adaptation de Yann est édulcorée, mais efficace : en quelques paroles et quelques images, il a su mettre en scène une ambiance, une atmosphère, une époque même. Le graphisme d’Edith peut, dans un premier temps, surprendre, plus enfantin qu’adulte… On se dit que l’ouvrage est quand même un classique, que c’est une histoire sérieuse… une réaction victorienne ? Puis, très vite, le graphisme convainc, par son attention aux détails, aux personnages, aux allures, aux regards échangés. Le style d’Edith ne dénature pas l’histoire, au contraire, il va à l’essentiel, à savoir l’égarement d’un enfant dans un monde brutal de grandes personnes, et confronté à d’autres petits adultes en réduction, déjà imbus de préjugés. Exploitant les aspects psychologiques du roman, Edith a su individualiser chaque personnage, conférer à chacun une épaisseur. Une belle adaptation, fidèle à l’esprit de la collection Ex-Libris. (Gilles Ferragu) (Google translation)
In other words, the women Showalter surveys were all in need of a room of their own. In one sense, this is a familiar story, told not only by Virginia Woolf, but by Showalter herself 30 years ago, in A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Brontë to Lessing, her pioneering genealogy of British women's fiction within its social, cultural and political contexts. One of the founders of feminist literary theory, Showalter has long insisted that women writers should be taken on their own terms, and joined the chorus of her peers in the 1970s and 80s arguing that many had been unjustly neglected on the basis of their sex. Rebuttals soon followed that these writers had been justly neglected on the basis of merit, and should continue to be neglected. (Sarah Churchwell)A.V. Club reviews the latest installment of Marvel's Cloak & Dagger: Child of Darkness, Child of Light:
They’re odd but resonant characters, locked into a relationship with Catherine-and-Heathcliff levels of angst and determined to save other kids from grim fates, even if they aren’t sure how to go about it without simply killing every criminal they see. (Keith Phipps, Leonard Pierce, Tasha Robinson and Zack Handlen)Another Brontëite: writer Lisa Jackson, who is interviewed in Bookreporter:
Jodie from Commerce City, CO: What are your favorite things to read? Who are some of your favorite authors?Acta Fabula reviews Alain Lescarts's scholar book Splendeurs et misères de la grisette. Évolution d’une figure emblématique:
Lisa Jackson: I read whatever's current and popular. If a book is continually on the bestseller lists, I want to know why. I also read by recommendation. Oh, I have tons of favorite authors. I like Sue Grafton, William Lashner, Harlan Coben, Charlotte Brontë, Steve Martini, Stephen King, Dan Brown, John Grogan, Chris Bohjalian, Sue Monk Kidd, Daphne DuMaurier, Khaled Hosseini, Nelson DeMille, Tami Hoag, Greg Iles, and Dennis Lehane, to name a few.
L’appropriation anglophone de la grisette témoigne de son succès populaire. S’appuyant sur les œuvres de Sterne, de Charlotte Brontë et d’Elizabeth Gaskell, mais aussi sur les comptes-rendus des journaux américains, Alain Lescart montre dans les dernières pages de son livre combien ces écrits contribuent au portrait de la Parisienne en femme romantique, passionnée, aimante, tragique, coquette, futile, superficielle, facile. Mais le personnage permet aussi, comme chez Brontë, de défier la vision classique du mariage et du rôle social des femmes. (Olivier Penot-Lacassagne) (Google translation)Clave digital discusses El amor en los tiempos del cólera by Gabriel García Márquez:
Me recuerda otras grandes y absurdas historias de amor, como la de King Kong, que es quizás la más absurda y tierna de todas, y una de las más trágicas, tan trágica como la del Conde Drácula que persigue y es perseguido por su obsesión más allá de la muerte y de la sangre, algo parecido a lo que ocurre en “Cumbres borrascosas”. (Pedro Conde Sturla) (Google translation)A Wuthering Heights in Rangoon in Foreign Policy Journal, a member of the international jewel thief network Pink Panthers reminds the New York Times of Heathcliff, Fairaudio insists on comparing Soap & Skin and Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights (in German) and an absurd liking of melancholia and (female) readers of Wutheing Heights in El Manifiesto (in Spanish).
When I started reading, I was swept away. The fact now surprises me. I loved reading, but I was wonderfully ignorant, knew nothing of homosexuality or even sexuality, and hadn't yet reached the age of university pretension. I would read anything and everything: Little Women side by side with Jane Eyre; the latest doctor and nurse romance; a comic or cereal packet.The Davidson County Dispatch publishes an article by a local high school student about the pleasures of reading a good book:
In my English class, we just finished reading “Jane Eyre.” I feel that it is Jane herself who has brought about my interest in reading, because even though she dealt with many difficult things in her life, she could always find happiness in a good book. (Molly McGee)The Modesto Bee insists on the same recommendation:
If you are in the mood for a dark, eerie romance and a feminist account of the journey to find oneself, pick up the classic novel "Jane Eyre."The New York Review of Books reviews several compilations of George Orwell's essays. Commenting one of Orwell's boutades, the reviewer says:
The novel focuses on a young orphan who is constantly oppressed by the people in her surroundings. I immediately got swept up in Jane's trials as she attempts to break social barriers, listen to her heart and discover her true identity.
But don't think this book is only for the women, guys. The novel is a beautiful story about overcoming obstacles that may hold you back, as well as learning how to finally become the person you want to be. (Emily Kay Shrader)
Then there is: "A novelist who simply disregards the major public events of the moment is generally either a footler or a plain idiot." Since this dismisses both novelists of the private life and those who (as was common in the nineteenth century) set their stories a generation or two back, out go Austen, the Brontës, Flaubert, James, and so on, and so on. (Julian Barnes)Los Angeles Times reviews the current performances of Dracula at the NoHo Arts Center and finds parallels with Heathcliff:
Bram Stoker's 1897 tale of a parasitic undead aristocrat draining the life from hapless middle-class victims has undergone countless plot transfusions over the decades. But it was Frank Langella's 1977 Broadway performance that put the final stake in the coffin of Stoker's original concept, re-envisioning the vampire count as a brooding romantic figure -- a whiter shade of Heathcliff, as it were. (Philip Brandes)The Economist presents the new book by Elaine Showalter A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. The Independent has an article about Nelson and his (Duke of) Bronte connections.
Itsaso Lozano escribía por gusto, «por evasión, el placer por crear algo». Profesora de piano, enamorada del campo inglés y de las autoras británicas de finales del siglo XIX -como Jane Austen y las hermanas Brontë (Emily y Charlotte)-, Lozano se planteó seguir el modelo de la 'novela de sentimientos' creado por estas mujeres para su primera obra, que permaneció en un cajón durante cuatro años. (Iñaki Esteban) (Google translation)El País (Spain) interviews also Itsaso Lozano who says:
Pese a que el jurado que la premió creyó ver en ella algo de Carmen Martín Gaite, esta escritora novel se considera deudora de la literatura femenina anglosajona. "Jeane Austin (sic) y las hermanas Brontë, también Rosamunde Pilcher. Lo que no está editado en castellano lo leo en inglés". (S. López) (Google translation)Fluctuat traces a history of the X-Men character, Wolverine. Apparently
en 2001, Jenkins et Isanove révèlent le vrai nom de Wolverine (James Howlett) dans la saga Origins qui reste l’un des plus beaux livres associés au personnage. On découvre un Wolverine plus proche de Heathcliff, le héros des Hauts de Hurlevent que d’un superhéros traditionnel. (Google translation) (Benjamin Berton)Expressen interviews the Swedish actor Michael Nyqvist who reveals that in the autumn he will be part of the cast of a new production of Jane Eyre, but he seems somewhat confused about which sister it was by:
Är du fortfarande anställd på Dramaten?Svenska Dagbladet reviews the theatre play Monsterkabinettet by Malin Axelsson (Stockholms Stadsteater). It seems that the author's inspiration came from Gilbert & Gubar's Madwoman in the attic:
- Ja, och jag ska tillbaka i höst. Jag ska då ... (här bli han tvungen att viskande konsultera pr-mannen) ... vara med i Emilie Brontës "Jane Eyre". (Cecilia Hagen)(Google translation) (Check also Nöje)
Att det blev en pjäs i gotisk anda föll sig naturligt. Malin Axelsson har alltid gillat den sorts melankoliska gotik som bland annat finns i Charlotte Brontës Jane Eyre. Just när hon fick frågan att skriva manus läste hon det litteraturvetenskapliga verket The madwoman in the attic, som med ett feministiskt angreppssätt analyserar Jane Eyre. Hon bestämde sig för att skriva som den galna kvinnan på vinden. (Lina Kalmteg) (Google translation)Mark McNulty Photography posts a panorama of the Brontë Bridge and surroundings, Mariakäfer reviews (in German) Jane Eyre 1944, Of Cabbages and Kings... suggests what kind of blog the Brontë sisters would have published (hint: Blathering Hights).
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