Anonymity

John Mullan, the author of How Novels Work, has a new book that, as the previous one, contains Brontë references:

Anonymity
A secret History of English Literature
by John Mullan
Faber & Faber

A fascinatingly rich and entirely original study of why many of the greatest authors of English Literature chose to publish their work anonymously.
We have forgotten that the first readers of Gulliver's Travels or Sense and Sensibility had to guess who their authors might be, and that writers like Sir Walter Scott and Charlotte Brontë went to elaborate lengths to keep secret their authorship of the bestselling books of their times. But in fact anonymity is everywhere and no history of English Literature is complete without it. Donne, Marvell, Defoe, Swift, Fanny Burney, Austen, Byron, Thackeray, Lewis Carroll, Tennyson, George Eliot, Sylvia Plath and Doris Lessing - all chose to conceal their names. Why was it so important to authors to remain unidentified? What was it like to read their books without knowing for certain who had written them?
From the sixteenth century to the present, from Edmund Spenser to Primary Colors, John Mullan explores how the disguises of writers were first used and eventually penetrated, how anonymity teased readers and bamboozled critics - and how, when book reviews were also anonymous, reviewers played tricks in return. With great wit and lucidity, Anonymity presents a new and engaging way of enjoying English Literature.

John Mullan himself presents the book in this article in The Guardian:

From Jonathan Swift to Joe Klein, writers have gone to great lengths to hide their identities and cannily exploited the ensuing public speculation. John Mullan on how anonymity is often a sure route to notoriety
Many of the great books of English literature were originally published without their authors' names. It is one of the most frequent facts about literary works from before the 20th century, yet it is rarely thought worth a comment. We have forgotten that the first readers of Gulliver's Travels or Sense and Sensibility had to guess who their authors might be, and that writers like Sir Walter Scott and Charlotte Brontë went to elaborate lengths to keep secret their authorship of the bestselling books of their times. From Spenser and Donne to Dickens and Tennyson, most of the great names of English fiction and poetry used anonymity at some time.

Anonymity is not necessarily a matter of literal namelessness. Often it is difficult to distinguish between an anonymous and a pseudonymous work. Robinson Crusoe was published in 1719 without an author's name, but its title page declared it to be "Written by Himself", so we might say that it appeared under the pseudonym "Robinson Crusoe". When Thackeray used a pseudonym like Michael Angelo Titmarsh on a title page he was advertising the fact of a disguise to his readers, almost prodding them to imagine who the author might really be. If a pseudonym like "Currer Bell", used by Charlotte Brontë, signals that the true author is in hiding, you might say that the work is anonymous.

The Observer has published a review:

Mullan notes correctly that many of the greatest writers - all women - in the English literary canon (Jane Austen, the Brontes, George Eliot) at first all published anonymously or pseudonymously. 'Guessing the gender of an unknown author,' he writes, 'became part of the pleasure of reading.' (Robert McCrum)

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A brand-new copy of Wuthering Heights and much more

Lately we seem to be specialising in detecting blunders or inaccuracies in the Brontë mentions in the press. It seems that journalists are getting more and more lazy when it comes to checking their sources and rely on memory or on the (not-always-reliable) internet (with the obvious exception of ...erm... this blog :P). From a review in The Guardian of John Mullan's Anonymity:

The flipside of anonymous publication was, though, a fascination with authorship. Contemporary readers excitedly asked who was "a Lady", or "Lewis Carroll", or "Currer Bell". (...) In the 19th century reviewers would play Sherlock Holmes, inferring that the author of Jane Eyre was a northerner from the frequency of dialect words. (...)
Authorial identities smell of the marketplace, and even in the age of anonymous publication printers and authors were keen to build on the success of a previous novel by the way they presented their latest. Austen's second published novel, Pride and Prejudice, was presented to the world as "by the Author of Sense and Sensibility". The publisher who printed Jane Eyre under the pseudonym of Currer Bell was keen to advertise the works of Anne and Emily Brontë as by "Mr Bell", rather than as the products of Acton and Ellis Bell. (Colin Burrow)

Mr Burrow seems to be confusing two different stories, because we doubt this is the way John Mullan explains it. It was Mr Newby - Emily and Anne's publisher - who wanted to cash in on the Currer Bell phenomenon by advertising Wuthering Heights and Agnes Grey as Mr Bell's previous novels. Mr Newby had accepted both novels to be published (partly at the authors' expense) even before Smith, Elder & Co got Jane Eyre. It was only when Jane Eyre was a success that he decided to send them to the press and profit from it. This lead to some confusion with an American publisher. It was for this reason that Charlotte and Anne made their trip to London in July 1848: to have a word with Mr Newby - nothing is known of this meeting - and to show Mr Smith that the Bells were not a sole author. Clearer now?

The Scotsman also publishes its own review of John Mullan's book:

Then Mullan tackles women being men, and men being women. For Charlotte Brontë, maintaining her ambiguous identity as "Currer Bell" was a creative principle that allowed her to make her life into fiction, says Mullan. Brontë herself disdained reviewers who guessed at her gender: "To such critics I would say: 'To you I am neither man nor woman, I come before you as an author only – it is the sole standard by which you have a right to judge me, the sole ground on which I accept your judgment.'" (David Sexton)

The Times in its Critic's Chart publishes Christina Koning's selection of top romance novels

2. Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë
The sexy beast Heathcliff still makes pulses race in this tale of doomed love.

3. Jane Eyre, by Charlotte Brontë
Plain Jane falls for Older Man with a past and wins him - eventually.

Also in The Times, Amanda Craig writes about naughty children in books and the Just William series and a Jane Eyre reference comes out:

Long before kids could be told off by bogus television nannies or given ASBOs, the Victorians grappled with dis-obedient children in a variety of unpleasant ways, as the opening of Jane Eyre testifies.

Among the many obituaries and tributes published since the tragic death of Heath Ledger we have selected these two which go a bit further than quoting the origin of his name.

In Los Angeles Times:

Like his namesake, Heathcliff, the brooding hero of Emily Brontë's archetypal Gothic novel "Wuthering Heights," Ledger gave vent to obsessive, over-the-top emotional states that Western popular culture, since at least the Romantic period, has more commonly assigned to women. (Reed Johnson)

From MTV:

Outside the building, flowers, candles, and handmade tributes blanketed the sidewalk as mourners paid their respects and passersby stopped to observe the makeshift memorial. A brand-new copy of Emily Brontë's novel "Wuthering Heights" — which inspired Ledger's first name — was among the items here. (Conor Bezane and James Montgomery)

An alert from Jacksonville, Florida. If you'd like to listen to an orchestral arrangement of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights, the current season of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra gives you the chance:

Music of Fleetwood Mac --Women Who Rock
Saturday, January 26, 2008 at 8:00 p.m.

Grant Cooper, conductor
Lis Soderberg and Rique Franks, special guest vocalists

Two power-packed female vocalists rock out with the songs of Stevie Nicks, Annie Lennox (Eurythmics) and Kate Bush. “Rumor” has it you’ll have “Sweet Dreams” as the emotion and energy run high with hits like “Rhiannon,” “Who’s That Girl” and “Wuthering Heights.”

On the blogosphere, Risky Business discusses the "death wish" of Heathcliff and Rochester among others. A Southern Missive interviews author Rosemary Poole-Carter who chooses the Brontë sisters as one of her favourite authors. Salome's Corner talks about Jane Eyre 2006. Petits Fragments posts about Emily Brontë and Cims Borrascosos, that is Wuthering Heights in Catalan.

Finally, Paul Thompson, owner and webmaster of The Reader's Guide to Wuthering Heights posts on The Brontë Parsonage Blog about what the perfect Cathy in a Wuthering Heights TV/film adaptation would be like for him:

In the book, Catherine is 15 when Heathcliff runs away and just 18 when she dies. (...)
If you think of Catherine as a slightly immature teenager rather than an adult, it brings a whole new aspect to the story. Her spitefulness towards Isabella, the "dashing her head against the arm of the sofa", her attempts to make herself ill: these become more believable if we imagine a younger teenager performing them. There is also a deeper pathos to the scene in chapter 12 where Catherine in her delirium wishes she were back in Wuthering Heights. If we think of her as a child then rather than a spoilt adult, we can have more sympathy for her. We could feel the loneliness and sadness of a child forced into an adult's world.
It would be fascinating to see a version of Wuthering Heights with Catherine played by a teenage actress (or one who could pass as teenage).

We wholeheartedly agree.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Wuthering Heights

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The Brontë era

The New Yorker briefly mentions John Mullan's Anonymity:

In England, the use of the word “anonymous” to describe a literary work dates only from the sixteenth century, but by the end of the eighteenth seventy per cent of all novels were published “in secret.” Mullan traces the flourishing of the practice in this detailed history, arguing that concealment was only rarely the aim. Anonymity and pseudonymity might be invoked out of fear or diffidence: in 1555, one punishment for treasonous writings was the loss of the right hand; “modest” women authors were long identified simply as “A Lady.” But anonymity could also incite interest: Jonathan Swift constructed elaborate hoaxes, “more promotional than shy,” to veil his authorship of “Gulliver’s Travels,” and the guessing game surrounding the true identity of Currer Bell, the professed author of “Jane Eyre,” was such that, in its first year of publication, reviews outnumbered copies sold.

The Boston Globe interviews singer Laura Marling:

"I did lock myself away and read for a long time," says Marling, on the phone from her flat in London's Shepherd's Bush neighborhood. "My favorite escape is the Bronte era, that dark, graceful, elegant old English way of life that I wish I was born into, and in a way believe I should have been born into." (Joan Anderman)

The Independent reviews Britain Since 1918 by David Marquand and concludes the article with a reference to the Heathcliffgate:

But perhaps there is hope. During Gordon Brown's first days in power, the "Governance of Britain" green paper proposed democratic reforms, over war powers, treaty-making, free speech and the rule of law, to nurture a new sense of British identity. The select committee scrutinising the draft Constitutional Renewal Bill saw it as an incoherent retreat. But it still conveys impetus for reform, notably its attack on the royal prerogative, that Berlin Wall against active citizenship. Just possibly, Brown – democratic collectivist in his socialism, Whig imperialist in his prudence, nationalist in his unionism, Scottish republican as Jimmy Maxton's biographer – could reconcile all these ancient traditions. Perhaps the doomed hero of Marquand's crusade is not Heath but Heathcliff. (Kenneth O'Morgan)

The North County Times presents the San Diego's Old Globe Theatre new season which includes:

The summer's in-the-round production will be Charles Ludlam's gothic English comedy "The Mystery of Irma Vep," which spoofs British literary classics from "Jane Eyre" and "Wuthering Heights" to "Rebecca." Director Henry Wischamper will make his Globe debut. (Pam Kragen)

The Cumberland News publishes one of those seasonal beginning-of-a-new-school-year articlesec :

To the best of our ability, we did too – fretting over apostrophes, distinguishing their from there, principle from principal, advise from advice, whether writing essays on sexual tensions in Wuthering Heights or forging a note from Mum to seal a skive from hockey. (Anne Pickles)

Trashionista interviews author Jane Beaton:

Do you have a theme song?
Oh, Wuthering Heights. Does everyone say that?
What question have you never been asked in an interview, but think you should have been? (Tell us the question and answer it too, if you like!)
Well, this is my first interview, so I suppose anything! I suppose people would want to know if I actually did my research at a real boarding school, and I would have to say no - I did my research reading Enid Blyton, Elinor Brent-Dyer, Susan Coolidge, Antonia White, JK Rowling, and Charlotte Bronte!

On the blogosphere, Letras en el Tiempo briefly posts about Charlotte Brontë in Spanish.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

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Villette: not a bonnet in sight

Yorkshire Post reviews the stage production of Villette at the West Yorkshire Playhouse.

Part of West Yorkshire Playhouse’s Brontë season, this bold reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s final novel may not appeal to the purists – there isn’t a bonnet in sight – but as a piece of powerful new writing it certainly gets my vote. [...]
The play remains true to many of the themes of Brontë’s original – isolation, longing, unrequited love – and here Lucy’s social awkwardness is neatly explained by the fact that she is a clone, the sole survivor of three ‘sisters’. (In a nod to the grief-stricken state in which Charlotte wrote Villette, following the deaths of Emily and Anne, the clone siblings are called ‘Esme’ and ‘Ashe’). Laura Elsworthy’s eye-catching central performance – at turns forthright, watchful, hesitant and vulnerable – conveys Lucy’s inner turmoil brilliantly and a strong ensemble cast – Philip Cairns, Nana Amoo-Gottfied, Amelia Donkor and Catherine Cusack – lend excellent support. Mark Rosenblatt’s accomplished production draws the audience in to an engaging narrative that contains enough references to events and characters in the novel to add a satisfying extra layer for those who have read it and may well inspire newcomers to the story to seek it out. (Yvette Huddleston)

Inspired by this production, The Guardian discusses the 'relocation' of classics.

I’d be surprised if there’s a more unlikely attempt to update a classic text this year than Linda Marshall Griffiths’s take on Villette at West Yorkshire Playhouse, which relocates Charlotte Brontë’s novel to an archaeological dig in the future and recasts Lucy Snowe as a clone. If some reimaginings are mere nudges, this is an almighty kick. Marshall Griffiths’s attempt to reinvent a 19th-century novel that seems firmly set in the past may not quite come off, but it’s part of an honourable theatrical tradition.
As Simon Stone observed in the programme for his own updated version of Yerma at the Young Vic: “There’s a moment, about 100 years after the work of an artist, when you can either say, ‘You are now condemned to the ranks of a footnote’ or ‘We are going to make you the centre of an international culture by keeping on telling your stories.’” Stone suggested that it is in the act of reinvention that “you liberate someone from their original cultural context and elevate them to the level of myth-maker”. It was a point explored in Anne Washburn’s brilliant Mr Burns, which asks what might endure in a post-apocalyptic world: Homer? Or perhaps Homer Simpson, from the TV series that itself so cleverly steals from everything from Shakespeare to B-movies? (Lyn Gardner)

Spenborough Guardian has a letter from a reader on the closure of the Red House Museum.

I paid a short visit on Saturday to the Scarecrow festival held at St Mary’s Church in Gomersal. But my main purpose was to find the grave of Mary Taylor who is buried in the grounds of the church. Mary was a feminist, successful businesswoman and a very close friend of the novelist Charlotte Brontë, whom she first met at Roe Head School in Mirfield. The Taylor family built the Red House in Gomersal in 1660 which the family owned until 1920. In 1969 Spenborough Corporation acquired the house and turned it into a museum. Whatever the future holds for the museum, it is imperative that the building is preserved as it represents a very important part of history in the Spen Valley. John Appleyard, Liversedge

Evening Standard discusses the unmasking of Elena Ferrante and quotes John Mullan and his book  Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature.

In the 18th and 19th centuries publishing anonymously was considered “good manners” by some, according to Mullan, “to try to keep the gap between your life as an author and the rest of your life. It wasn’t just women: Sir Walter Scott was the best-selling novelist in Europe but went to great lengths to keep his identity concealed.”
Mullan sees “an echo of Charlotte Brontë in Ferrante”: “Brontë wanted to avoid anyone thinking her novels were autobiographical — or even particularly ‘feminine’. Even when her identity was known, she wouldn’t play the author.”
“Curiosity about the authorship of a book is always good for its sales,” adds Mullan. There has been a spike in Ferrante’s sales, along with the spotlight going on the Rose Theatre Kingston, which is showing the first adaptation of the Neapolitan novels next year. (Susannah Butter)

Left (Italy) also has an article on the subject.

Meno misteriosi, invece, sono rimasti i nomi scelti dalle sorelle Brontë per la pubblicazione dei loro primi libri: Charlotte, l’autrice di “Jane Eyre”, ha scelto Currer Bell, Emily di “Cime tempestose” ha scelto Ellis Bell e la più giovane Anne, di “Agnes Grey”, Acton Bell. Il segreto è durato poco più di un anno, perché le sorelle hanno dovuto, dopo poco, convincere l’editore di essere persone diverse. (Viola Brancatella) (Translation)

And Bustle has selected '15 Author Pseudonyms That Show There's A Long Literary History Of Using Pen Names' including of course

3. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë a.k.a. Curror, Ellis, and Acton Bell
The Brontë sisters published some of their poetry under male names in order to avoid sexism aimed toward their work. (Melissa Ragsdale)

Première (France) recommends watching Jane Eyre 2011 before The Light between Oceans.

Jane Eyre (Cary Fukunaga, 2011)
Michael Fassbender en héros romantique ? La dernière fois, c’était dans cette étrange adaptation du roman de Charlotte Brontë par Cary « True Detective » Fukunaga.
"Pas vu non plus. La vérité, c’est que je ne regarde pas beaucoup de films contemporains. Des documentaires de Wiseman ou Oppenheimer à la limite. Je trouve la vie tellement plus intéressante… Quant à Michael Fassbender, j’ai surtout l’habitude de le voir jouer des types très cérébraux, toujours en contrôle. Quand il fait Magneto dans X-Men, je n’ai aucun mal à croire qu’il arrive à tordre du métal par la pensée ! C’est pour ça que j’avais envie de le voir jouer avec son cœur, qu’il montre sa vulnérabilité. C’est l’histoire d’un homme qui fait un choix par amour, mais est ensuite torturé par sa raison. Ce conflit entre l’amour et la vérité, je crois bien que c’est le sujet de tous mes films." (Frederic Foubert) (Translation)

Encore claims that,

Jane Austen, George Elliot and the Brontës all wrote what would now be considered variations on the romance novel. But their books continue to capture the human imagination and express part of the human experience that is accessible, I think, mainly because of the form the story takes. We need to recognize ourselves on the page because that is how we find context for our own experiences. (Gwenyfar Rohler)

ABC (Spain) reviews La casa del reloj, a novel by Álvaro Pombo.

Es una trama que adopta la forma truculenta de las novelas inglesas del XIX, con fincas rurales, herencias y odios familiares, que representó Jane Austen en «Orgullo y prejuicio» o, mejor aún, Emily Brontë en «Cumbres borrascosas» (por momentos Alfonso me parecía Heathcliff). (José María Pozuelo Yvancos) (Translation)

Hull Daily Mail features the  Beverley Literature Festival which opens today.

The festival is celebrating the 200th anniversary of Charlotte Brontë's birth with a number of events, including the Beverley Big Read with Rachel Joyce, and New Responses, a project between Beverley Literature Festival, Ilkley Literature Festival and Off the Shelf to commission three new writers to produce new work inspired by the remarkable Bronte family. Award-winning poet Andrew McMillan, singer-songwriter Nat Johnson and playwright Zodwa Nyoni will be putting their own individual spin on classic works – who knows what they'll come up with? (T Davidson)

Los Angeles Review of Books features Aldous Huxley and mentions, in passing, his script for Jane Eyre 1944. Tish Farrell tries to find the real life locations of some of Jane Eyre's most memorable scenes. English Symphony Orchestra/English String Orchestra interviews John Joubert on 'opera and Jane Eyre'.

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There are so many graves to visit

We have reported several times before Patti Smith's passion for Charlotte Brontë. The Observer interviews the songwriter and poet who says the following:

As human beings, I find them interesting and they teach me a lot. I don't drive, I don't use a cell phone. But my kids have taught me how to use a computer. They have helped to shepherd me into the 21st century because this is not my century. (...)
It's not my time but I'm certainly happy to be alive. There's always something to look forward to. I don't watch TV, I don't even own one, but I'm always looking for a new book or film. My sister loves Charlotte Brontë. We are like the Brontë sisters in our own way. For almost a decade, we've had this plan to go to Charlotte Brontë country wearing matching brown, boiled wool dresses. We're going to get nice steamer coats, the brown dresses, our notebooks and cameras and go visit the moors. And there are so many graves to visit, too. (Interview by Amy Raphael)

Another Charlotte Brontë follower seems to be the actress Catherine Deneuve who is interviewed in the Russian newspaper Труд:

Хотя в детстве и молодости я больше любила английские романы, особенно Шарлотту Бронте, чем французские. Google translation->
Although when I was younger, I loved more English novels, especially Charlotte Bronte, than the French ones. (Interview by Заозерская Анжелика)

Los Angeles Times reviews John Mullan's Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature now published in the US:

In "Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature," John Mullan cites a whole pantheon of illustrious names. Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë and George Meredith concealed their identities, sometimes with a pseudonym. So did Laurence Sterne, Jonathan Swift, Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding and Alexander Pope. (Richard Eder)

Newsday reviews the young adults novel Little Audrey by Ruth White:

She takes refuge in reading ("Jane Eyre" is a favorite) and savors the happy moments: when Daddy takes down his guitar to sing; when Mommy sends each girl to a different neighbor to bring home the ingredients for a cake. (Tom Beer)

We are afraid that Charles B. Pierce, columnist of The Boston Globe, will never join our ranks as he is a firm contender to the Best Show-off of Militant Illiteracy:

Rest assured, I'm not one of those culture-warrior types who's going to look at the course you teach at Bates College -- Red Sox Nation: Baseball and American Culture -- and rage against the decline of standards, the dumbing-down of academia, and the general lack of respect paid now to the Bronte sisters. (Heck, to me, forcing anyone born after 1907 to read Wuthering Heights is a violation of the Geneva Conventions.)

Probably an ugly fastball head accident is the cause of the present state of the journalist. A pity.

Fortunately, Chris Bancells is not afraid of breaking the Geneva Conventions and publishes his second part of the BlogCritics review of Wuthering Heights. An overall positive one with some nuances.

At the end of things, I think this book is a worthwhile read, but not truly compelling. While there is a fascinating level of complexity, and it certainly bucks the trend of other Victorian novels I've read (which, I'll be the first to admit, is not many), there are simply too many unanswered questions. Too much of Heatcliff's life and thoughts goes unrevealed.

On the blogosphere, Voyager...Lire (in French) posts about Jane Eyre and Nexus Torch Archives posts about Marriage as a Critique on Victorian Gender Roles in Jane Eyre.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights

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A work in progress

A review of the current Seattle performances of Jane Eyre. The Musical can be read today in The Seattle Times:

Paul Linnes heads a vigorous five-piece band that's always in sync with a strong cast of singers. Carl Bronsdon's stark deep-blue set, which suggests both a crypt and a chapel, seems to have settled Sleeping Beauty's castle in an enchanted but tangled forest.
Best of all, there's chemistry in the casting of the two leads. In the title role, playing a much-abused orphan who becomes a governess, Danielle Barnum is reserved yet always compelling. The attraction between Jane and her employer, Edward Rochester (James Padilla), is established at their first meeting, and it only grows as they find themselves defying convention and contemplating marriage.
Keaton Whittaker plays the young Jane, who frequently shares the stage with Barnum. What could have been a gimmick becomes a legitimate way of suggesting the power of memory; director Gregory Magyar uses it to create the play's most touching moments. Standouts in the comic-relief department are Walayn Sharples as the housekeeper, Mrs. Fairfax; and Jenny Shotwell as Jane's romantic rival, Blanche Ingram.
Still, there's only so much the actors can do with a collection of songs that, especially during the second half, become plot-heavy and overwritten. "Forgiveness," sung by Jane's doomed childhood friend, Helen, is handled with conviction by Olivia Spokoiny (Barnum's reprise of it is equally affecting), and Shotwell does yank some laughs out of the rowdy "The Finer Things."
The composer, Paul Gordon, who more recently created a musical based on Jane Austen's "Emma," once claimed he's never stopped rewriting "Jane Eyre." Consider this a work in progress. (John Hartl)

The Harvard Crimson has an article about John Mullan's Anonymity:

Mullan begins his book by seeking patterns to explain the psychology behind various author’s motives for publishing without attribution. His case studies read like a Who’s Who of English literature—from anonymous authors like Jane Austen, Jonathan Swift, Alexander Pope, and Walter Scott to those like Charles Dodgson (better known as Lewis Carroll) and the Brontë sisters, who used psudonyms. Mullan profiled authors who concealed their identities for social propriety, literary promotion, or mere mischief. (Manning Ding)

The Oregonian reviews the debut novel of Miriam Gershow, The Local News:

"The Local News" has a teen protagonist, but it's not young adult literature. The narrator barely relates to other teens, and not just in the normal socially awkward ways of adolescence. She is one who "had always enjoyed summers ... teaching [herself] the tenets of Buddhism, learning conversational Italian, reading the Bronte sisters." She takes high school classes with dissertation-style names, recites obscure facts involving geographical straits or former presidents, quotes chaos theory and cleans like a housewife to manage her anxious restlessness. (Monica Drake)

The exhibit The Book as Art. Artists' Books from the National Museum of Women in the Arts at the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College is discussed in The Daily News Tribute. Jane Eyre is quoted as a 'traditional book':

Unlike traditional books from "Jane Eyre" to "The Female Eunuch" where the contents almost always matters more than packaging, the artful books in this show ask viewers to equally regard form and content. (Chris Bergeron)

The Guardian, which recently compiled a list of 1000 novels everyone must read, now publishes some of its readers' suggestions on love stories:

Before She Met Me by Julian Barnes (1982)
Although it is very short and a trifle unsettling, this novel is a wonderful evocation of the extremes of love, encompassing adoration, indifference, desperation and infatuation in a similar way to Wuthering Heights, but with a 20th-century twist. It all ends in a shocking and brutal manner.
Ian Gray, Beverley, East Yorkshire

Completely Insane posts about her love for Jane Eyre, mental_floss selects a list of literary heroines including Jane Eyre, Lo que me gusta en cine talks about Jane Eyre 1944 in Spanish (where it was premiered as Alma Rebelde). Finally, a couple of curious youtube videos, with Amharic translations of poems by Charlotte Brontë (Parting, Passion).

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music,Poetry, References, Theatre, Translations

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Let's say... Brontë's addiction

The Times Literary Supplement reviews John Mullan's Anonymity. In the book John Mullan tells this well-known story:

Charlotte Brontë’s friend Ellen Nussey watched the proofs of Jane Eyre being corrected in her own house without ever being so intrusive as to ask what was going on. Not only that, but she “passed them to the house letter bag without glancing at the address; perceiving that confidence was not volunteered, it was not sought”. A few years later, when Brontë was enjoying literary society in London, she kept up the pretence that she had no connection to the brilliant Currer Bell – and so did others: “Most people know me I think”, Brontë wrote in a letter; “but they are far too well-bred to show that they know me”. (Matthew Arnold)

In the same TLS issue we found this rather arbitrary Jane Eyre appearance in a review of Rudolf Nureyev: A Biography by Julie Kavanagh:

The fact that he survived his childhood at all was sufficient proof that Rudolf Nureyev was, as Mr Rochester said of Jane Eyre, tenacious of life. (Sarah Churchwell)

The Town Crier announces the Huntingdon performances (next February 29) of the Heartbreak Productions tour with Wuthering Heights:

A brand new adaptation of a wild tale of ill-fated love and vengeance set in the county of Yorkshire - Wuthering Heights - is coming to Huntingdon's Commemoration Hall.
The Emily Bronte classic, adapted by Ros Wehner, is performed by Heartbreak Productions who are returning to the venue after their visit last year with Jamaica Inn.
From the turbulent, sometimes brutal behaviour of Heathcliff to the all-encompassing and passionate, yet thwarted, love of free-spirited Cathy, Heartbreak promise to evoke the bleak, windswept landscape of the Yorkshire moors and heighten the emotional extremes of each characters' tortured journey.
Using live music and audience interaction, the production guarantees an impassioned and moving evening entertainment to warm the winter nights. (Hazel Slade)

The Portland Mercury reviews the film The Bucket List and includes a bad taste comment:

Soon they've got rich asshole Jack Nicholson (who, frankly, looks like he might actually be dying) coughing blood into a handkerchief like he's one of the Brontë sisters or something, and then rattling off Nicholsonisms that lost their cool about the time that he started to look like Mickey Rooney. (Zac Pennington)

Dysfunctional families as inpiration for literature is the subject of a post on The Guardian's Book Blog. The Reed family is mentioned:

But for every anomaly, there are countless more whose brilliance derives from the author's insight into what goes on between spouses, parents, children. Think of Middlemarch, or Pride and Prejudice, or Jane Eyre: would they be quite as breathtaking, as true, without the self-delusion of the Vincys, or the ambition of the Bennets, or the cruel complacency of the Reeds? (Charlotte Mendelson)

Today we have a news site talking about Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë without confronting them, for a change:

Fans should also consider Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre starring Toby Stephens (who knew a cocky villain from a Bond movie could pull off the darkly brooding Rochester?). It is a lush and evolving film, perfect for viewers who are enthralled by the nuance and design of the Masterpiece series.
Jane Eyre the book makes a good readalike for Austen. Brontë, while darker, had the same wit and rhythm and set her book firmly in a social world she did not hesitate to comment upon. (Neil Wyatt in Library Journal)

Birstall News makes a brief reminder of the Brontë connections of Birstall (through Ellen Nussey's homes there: The Rydings and Brookroyd):

Folk were taken from the Joseph Priestley statue in the market place to various places including The Rydings in the Kalon premises which has connections with the Bronte sisters, the old court room at the Black Bull in Kirkgate, St Peter's graveyard and Oakwell Hall.

Litchfield County Times presents the book by Anna Mae Duane Hope Is the Great First Blessing: Leaves from the African Free School Examination Book with a Jane Eyre reference:

No one can contest that literature has had great effect on the course of history. Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," was "the little lady that caused this great war," according to Abraham Lincoln, while Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens shook Victorian complacency to the core, setting the way for, among other things, the liberation of women and the end of sweatshop labor for children. (Kathryn Boughton)

More Jane Eyre references, this time through Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit by Jeanette Winterson, which inspired Los Campesinos!'s Just Don't Read Jane Eyre song:

And Hold on Now, Youngster...'s masterful update of indie tropes goes as far as embracing indie pop's bookish wimpiness for both boys and girls, from the Jane Eyre disses of the colorfully chiming "Don't Tell Me to Do the Math(s)" to the "damn extended metaphors" of "My Year in Lists" to, well, there's a song called "We Are All Accelerated Readers". (Marc Hogan in Pitchfork)

This Wuthering Heights reference is a paradigmatic example of its use as a 'romantic' cliché:

The truth is that I fell for someone who prefers a blue toilet bowl to, oh, I don't know, let's say "Wuthering Heights." (Lisa Kogan in Ophra.com)

Some blogs: My .02¢ reviews Jane Eyre:

Charlotte Brontë is amazing. Her prose is the most beautiful I have ever read (and this is no way a diss to Charlotte, but I haven't read many classics, so my fare of prose is fairly low) and the rhythm of the book was spectacular. (Butcept)

Portfolio Pessoal de Juliana briefly comments Abismos de Pasión 1953 in Portuguese.

Finally, via The New Zealand Herald, we have found the following wordplay game with names of bands and books, Booking Bands, on Coudal Partners:

Jane Eyre's Addiction (Michelle Caplan)

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

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How could Emily Brontë know all that?

A lovely article about writer's houses appears today in The New York Times. The Haworth Parsonage makes an appearance:

But the place I most want to see is the Brontës’ home in Haworth in the north of England. I’m sure that when I stand on the moors, I’ll hear not just Cathy’s voice calling for Heathcliff, but Heathcliff’s own, crying out for Emily Brontë to bring him to life, and Emily’s, too, whispering in my ear. (Pamela Redmon Satran)

The Independent reviews today John Mullan's Anonymity:

Some writers change name but not identity. They slough off a problematic surname or adorn themselves[:] (...) the Rev Patrick Brunty becomes Brontë; his three daughters become "Bells". (...) For Charlotte Brontë, anonymity provided a crucial freedom. She was a woman, a provincial, a Yorkshirewoman: each identity invited preconceptions. "I wished critics would judge me as an author not as a woman." (Michael Schmidt)

The Chicago Tribune has a reminder of the ongoing performances of Written on the Body by the Dance COLEctive company:

Margi Cole and her Dance COLEctive are performing through Saturday at the Dance Center of Columbia College, 1306 S. Michigan Ave. The program includes "Written on the Body," exploring gender and identity by means of the Bronte sisters, along with a solo for Cole by Ellie Klopp. For tickets, 312-344-6600. (Sid Smith)

It seems that The Stanford Daily journalists don't have much work to do, so they have decided to find who's the biggest literary badass:

I’m concerned with finding out which character, in all of world literature, is the biggest badass of them all. And what, you say, makes a literary badass? Is it heroic deeds? Sexual prowess? A cool disability? Don’t turn that page, dear reader — your answers are right here.

2. Mr. Darcy vs. 15. Mr. Rochester
Darcy set frustratingly unrealistic standards for men. He’s somehow convinced womankind that all guys look like young Colin Firth, ooze with cash and secretly love them. Meanwhile, Jane Eyre’s Edward Rochester knows the two secrets to being a badass: 1. Get blinded in a fire. 2. Lock your crazy wife in the attic and pretend she doesn’t exist. EDGE: Rochester.

Regrettaby our hero gets beaten by Dean (from Jack Kerouac's On the Road):

7. Dean vs. 15. Rochester
Nine. Nine. Nine! EDGE: Dean. (Teddy Steinkellner)

If you have read Kerouac's book you will understand the joke (if not, read the complete article).

The Washington Post reviews the current exhibition of Paula Rego in the National Museum of Women in the Arts which includes some of her Jane Eyre lithographs.

The Greater Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin suggests Brontë theraphy for the mid-winter blues:

The library
Yep. You heard it right. Walk in (It's FREE! You can't beat that.) and browse. Read an article in the newest New Yorker, check out a really juicy book (a Jane Austen or Bronte book always does well this time of year). (Elizabeth Cohen)

The Puppini Sisters explain to The Villager how they presented their swing version of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights to an A&R executive:

We got up in front of him and we started doing our version of “Wuthering Heights” [by Kate Bush] and he just cracked up. We couldn’t tell if that was a good thing or really, really bad - but he loved it and he wanted to sign us then and there.” (Lee Ann Westover)

On the blogosphere: The Dark Phantom Review interviews Camille Marchetta, author of The River by Moonlight:

What is your favorite book of all time? Why?
I don't have one favorite. I have lots of them. And each time I'm asked that question a different book pops into my head. At the moment, it's WUTHERING HEIGHTS demanding a mention. Every time I read it, it just blows my mind. The power of the prose, the mastery of the story-telling, the violence of the emotions. How could Emily Bronte, a nineteenth-century vicar's daughter living in a remote Yorkshire village, know all that?

Fidget reviews The Tenant of Wildfell Hall:

The Tenant is a real gem. I think the thing I like most about it is the depth and believability of the characters. They are intense, passionate, but not idealistic or overly sentimental. You feel that if you lived in their time and place, you’d know them just the way they are presented in the book.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Music, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Wuthering Heights

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The lyrical character of long black coats

The Elena Ferrante affair continues to trigger articles on anonymity. In The Guardian:

The earlier review is quoted in a brilliant study by John Mullan, Anonymity: A Secret History of English Literature, in which context Ferrante’s reticence and the avid response to it look far more like a return to literary convention than a rebuke to celebrity culture. As with Charlotte Brontë, it was a matter of time, given the sales and adulation, before Elena Ferrante was identified. (...)
In his time, Thackeray was not above biographical speculation. “I have been exceedingly moved and pleased by Jane Eyre. It is a woman’s writing, but whose?” The English reading world, Elizabeth Gaskell wrote in her biography of Brontë, “was in a ferment to discover the unknown author.” (Catherine Bennett) 

The New Statesman:

Although I sympathise with the desire for privacy, I cannot quite bring myself to join the outrage over the revelation of the true identity of the Italian novelist Elena Ferrante. Speculation about successful artists and who they “really are” goes back at least to the Brontës, whose identity emerged in considerably less time than the two decades that Ferrante kept hers a secret. (Peter Wilby)

And The Hindu (India):

Some women writers wrote under male pseudonyms in order to avoid prejudice associated with their gender. Charlotte Brontë said the Brontë sisters thought their “mode of writing and thinking was not what is called ‘feminine’...” And because publishers simply wouldn’t allow Richard Bachmann to turn out books at such a frenetic pace, he adopted the name Stephen King. (Radhika Santhanam)

Or DNA (India):

The world of books and publishing has not been very accepting of women writers — the reason Mary Ann Evans chose to publish as George Eliot, Charlotte and Emily Brontë (initially) as Charles and Acton Bell, respectively, not to forget Joanne Rowling as JK Rowling and Robert Galbraith. (Gargi Gupta)

Ripley & Heanor News links the Peak District and Jane Eyre:

Charlotte Brontë knew the Peak District well, as in 1845 she stayed there when she visited a friend Ellen Nussey, at the rectory in Hathersage. Ellen’s brother Henry was the vicar there.
She arrived at The George Hotel coaching inn and during her visit the history and buildings of the area started her creative thoughts flowing.
Eyre is a common name in these parts and when Charlotte was here she visited North Lees Hall, on the outskirts of Hathersage, which was owned by the Eyre family at that time.
No doubt she also frequented the beautiful old Hathersage Church too, where many Eyre gravestones populate the churchyard.
Thornfield Hall – Mr Rochester’s home in the story – is very likely to have been based on North Lees Hall. ‘Thorn’ is an anagram of North and ‘lees’ means pastures or fields.
Jane’s description of Rochester’s place in the novel fits North Lees too: “Three stories high, of proportions not vast, though considerable – a gentleman’s residence, not a nobleman’s seat – battlements round the top gave it a picturesque look.”
When making this epic tale into film and television adaptations, many nearby locations have been used. The 2011 film version used North Lees Hall, as well as Chatsworth House, Darley Dale, Froggatt, Stanage Edge, Hathersage Moor and White Edge Lodge. This version used Haddon Hall as Thornfield Hall.
In Charlotte’s story, Rochester’s house is burned down by his secret wife hidden in the attic. To portray Thornfield Hall after the fire, Haddon had a ‘stunt double’ in the film – the ruins of Wingfield Manor.
So maybe you can decide for yourself where you can most picture Jane and Rochester succumbing to Cupid’s darts – Haddon or North Lees? Both are certainly settings made for romance.

The New Yorker has an article on Andrea Arnold, director of Wuthering Heights 2011:

In Arnold’s adaption of Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights” (2011), a semi-feral Cathy licks the blood from Heathcliff’s wounds after he’s been beaten for misbehavior. (...)
While shooting her Brontë adaptation, Arnold went through a period of wearing long black coats. (Sophie Elmhirst)

 In Radio Times, Alison Graham loves 'uncomplicated' romances:

I love big blustery tales of windswept adoration and bewitched glances. As a girl I adored Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre and like every daft Yorkshire youngster before and since I ran around murky moors on school trips yelling “Heathcliff! Heathcliff!”

Well, we find Wuhering Heights and Jane Eyre pretty complicated as romances, though.

A century ago in The Observer:

Key quote
“Their writings had a unique, priceless quality among novelists, which sprang from the passionate intensity of inward experiences and bore an essentially lyrical character.”
A Mr de Selincourt, of Oxford, speaking about Charlotte and Emily Brontë. (‘The Genius of the Brontës’, News in brief, p4)

As a matter of fact the article is an Address delivered at Haworth, October 7th, 1905, in commemoration of the Fiftieth year after the death of Charlotte Bronte, by Mr. Ernest de Selincourt, M.A., of Oxford University (Brontë Society Transactions Vol. 2 , Iss. 15,1906).

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel compares the play Dracula Vs. the Nazis to The Mystery of Irma Vep:

Funnier than “Irma Vep”? Chris Flieller is on record opining that Neville’s play is funnier than Charles Ludlam’s “The Mystery of Irma Vep,” which sends up Daphne DuMaurier’s “Rebecca” as well as Shakespeare, both Brontë sisters, Poe, Victorian melodrama and gothic thrillers. (Mike Fischer)

Les Inrocks (France) talks about Michael Fassbender's filmography:

Jane Eyre, de Cary Fukunaga (2011) : un amant épris d’absolu
Avec ce film en costumes adapté du roman de Charlotte Brontë, l’un des monuments de la littérature anglaise, par signé Cary Fukunaga, qui réalisera plus tard la première saison de True Détective, Michael Fassbender se glisse dans les habits du mystérieux et tourmenté Edward Rochester. La mise en scène ne prend ni le parti de la transposition académique du texte, ni celui de la modernisation à outrance, naviguant dans un entre-deux fragile au plus près des corps de ses interprètes, comme pour scruter leurs esprits épris d’absolu et leurs âmes enflammées. Fassbender règne dans son manoir en prince gothique tour à tour charmeur et manipulateur, traînant un corps légèrement voûté, comme affaibli par le poids du destin – tragique, comme à son habitude. (Alexandre Buyukodabas) (Translation)

Franciscanmom reviews the second part of Erin McCole Cupp's Jane_E. Friendless Orphan: Nameless. 

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Charades in Rajasthan

The Telegraph (Calcutta) publishes details about the next production of Tamasha Theatre Company which revamps Wuthering Heights as a Bollywood musical: (Picture: Sudha Bhuchar (left) with Rajneet Sidhu. Source)

“Our next production will be Wuthering Heights,” I am told by Sudha Bhuchar, artistic co-director of the Tamasha Theatre Company.
She adds: “It will be a Bollywood musical.”
By that she means it will be a song and dance affair but in English for a British audience. Perhaps the spirit of Emily Brontë should not be too perturbed at this Indianisation of her 1847 novel, but Tamasha is transposing her classic to somewhere not a million miles from the Lake Palace Hotel in Udaipur.
Instead of Heathcliff searching the windswept moors of Yorkshire for his Cathy, “the scorched desert landscape of Rajasthan is the setting for this musical interpretation of Emily Brontë’s classic tale of passion, jealousy and revenge. Shakuntala, headstrong daughter of spice merchant Singh, falls for Krishan, a street urchin that Singh brings home after one of his trips to the market.”
The big question is: “Can their adolescent love withstand India’s rigid social hierarchies?”
Tamasha is at its best when doing popular stuff but 10 years have passed since it did the hugely enjoyable Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral, based on the Bollywood blockbuster, Hum Aapke Hain Kaun. Andrew Lloyd Webber came to see the musical, left at the interval and then did his own thing — Bombay Dreams — with music by A.R. Rahman.
Tamasha has been good at nurturing young talent. So this is a time of hope for Rajneet Sidhu, a 27-year-old actress who is bidding to play Shakuntala in Wuthering Heights and who is part of the new generation of British-born Indians, Pakistanis and Bangladeshis who have all been bitten by the acting bug.
She has just played the central role of Tazeen, a runaway Pakistani teenager in Sweet Cider, Tamasha’s current offering which presents an exceedingly bleak picture of young Muslims in a northern English town.
“I have read Wuthering Heights a long time ago,” Rajneet tells me, after the last night of Sweet Cider in London last week.
The Brits don’t go in for lip synch — the lucky ones picked for Wuthering Heights will have to act, sing and dance.
“We are starting to cast,” reveals Sudha. (Amit Roy)

The Guardian explains the origins of playing charades and how to play them. A mention to the ones in Thornfield Hall is mandatory:

Charades originated in 16th-century France where parlour games were the popular way to spice up an evening. In Britain, the game was embraced by the Victorians and the Edwardians, and became a fashionable source of after dinner entertainment.
Charlotte Brontë uses a game involving Mr Rochester and Miss Ingram as a narrative device in Jane Eyre. (Carlene Thomas-Bailey)

The Daily Star (Malaysia) reviews John Mullan's Anonymity and quotes several Charlotte Brontë/Currer Bell anecdotes:

And it seems Charlotte Brontë was also reluctant to admit that she was Currer Bell, author of Jane Eyre. She was so determined to maintain her anonymity that when, at a dinner party, the novelist W.M. Thackeray addressed her as “Currer Bell”, Brontë said she knew there were books by that person but that she was “Miss Brontë”, and that she saw no connection between the two. And yet, it must have been clear to Brontë that she had been invited to Thackeray’s party only because she was the author of a famous book. Perhaps, while she desired public recognition and the rewards that came with it – such as being invited into literary society – she was also leery of how the knowledge of her sex would affect public opinion of her novels.
At that point in time (Jane Eyre was published in 1847) in Britain, it was still not considered wholly respectable for a woman to write books unless they were edifying and moralistic texts. George Henry Lewes, on realising that Currer Bell was a woman, commented in his review of Brontë’s Shirley, on the book’s “over-masculine vigour”, which “often amounts to coarseness”, and accused Brontë of attempting to “escape her femininity”. No wonder the poor woman wished that Currer Bell should be the only name “mentioned in connection with my writings”. (Daphne Lee)

And now a Jane Eyre-meets-something/someone sighting. The Independent reviews Michael Faber's The Fire Gospel:

Faber's signature preoccupation with extreme grottiness, established in The Crimson Petal and the White (think Jane Eyre rewritten by William Vollmann) remains intact: The Fire Gospel's brief duration is fit to burst with seedy dwellings, open wounds and post-coital slumps. (Ed Lake)

The Portuguese Jornal de Notícias discovers another Brontëite, author António Lobo Antunes:

O homem para quem o "Monte dos Vendavais" de Emily Brontë, é o livro, um daqueles que retrata o silêncio e provoca um ruído inquietante e insónias, as características que mais aprecia e o desafiam numa obra, disse que aos 13 anos tinha sonhos de glória. (Lucínia Girão) (Google translation)

The German magazine Cicero interviews author Donna Leon who, we are afraid, will never join our ranks:

"Ich hasse Jane Eyre. So eine schleimige Gestalt!“ Als sei das keine Romanfigur, sondern eine höchst aufdringliche Bekannte. (Carla Woter) (Google translation)

Finally, Eclipse Magazine publishes a brief review of the Studio One Anthology DVD release which includes Wuthering Heights 1950, Gondal-girl talks about Justine Picardie's Daphne:

Daphne is an mysterious story wrapped up in another mysterious story. Sometimes I am not sure what is fact and what is writerly invention, which is at times clever and sometimes frustrating, for I want to get to that kernal of the truth. Sometimes as I read, I wonder would this story have been better told as a kind of biography - for Justine looks at her modern character who looks at Daphne who looks at Branwell, and I feel I am trapped in a hall of mirrors - where writers are being haunted by their characters and the mystery deepens.

and Frames/sing publishes a scholar article entitled Piranesi and Bronte: Gothic Constructed Haunting, a move toward eternity:

This is a pragmatic study of the narrative strategies employed by Emily Brontë in her opening scenes of Wuthering Heights. I say pragmatic because it seeks to examine the constitutive effects brought about through her treatment of two classes of figurative language, those of “space” and those of “sound”, with the aim of showing how Brontë in the her initial three chapters constructed a signifying machine, that is, a juxtaposition of readerly effects, such that allowed her to present an unpresentable: a space that speaks. (kvond) (Read more)

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Scholar, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

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Jane Eyre meets Robert Smith

Let's open with a new Brontë fashion victim. From the New York Fashion Week coverage in The Moment (NYT Blogs):

Derek Lam

The dead bride of The Cure’s Robert Smith. The girls looked very Victorian — lots of black, layers, ribbons and bows. Funereal. Jane Eyre reinterpreted by a Goth girl in love with Robert Smith. We saw more of the French-twist bouffant hair, with ruby lips and a yellow wash on the eye. The music, Goth anthems from the vampire movie “The Horror,” I believe, was especially great. I need to find it on iTunes.” (Melissa Ventosa Martin)

One award went to the Stagecoach production of Jane Eyre - The Musical (Gordon & Caird) in the 6th Annual New Hampshire Theatre Awards:

Best Supporting Actress (Musical)
Joan Storey - Jane Eyre (Stagecoach Productions)

More details and pictures of the event in The Nashua Telegraph.

John Mullan himself writes in The New Statesman about his new book Anonymity:

When Jane Eyre first appeared, under the name "Currer Bell" - gender uncertain - reviewers argued about whether it had been written by a man or a woman. The descriptions of cookery and women's clothing were scrutinised: more than a man could know? Or not accurate enough for a woman?

Some days ago we posted about the premiere of the latest play by George Packer: Betrayed, in New York. The New York Times and the New York Sun publish today reviews and once again its Brontë references are highlighted. From the NYT:

The reflective Adnan speaks of his lifelong sense of “nonbelonging.” Laith is a Metallica fan with a dry sense of humor and a rich collection of American slang. Their female colleague, Intisar (Aadya Bedi), an Emily Brontë fan whose courage is born of an innate sense of defiance, maintains that her dearest wish has always been to ride a bike through the streets of Baghdad, an activity forbidden girls and women. (Charles Isherwood)

From the New York Sun:

Intisar (Aadya Bedi), a frustrated feminist who refuses to wear the hijab, honed her English by rereading "Wuthering Heights." (Joy Goodwin)

The York County Coast Star recommends some Valentine's presents. Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights apparently qualifies as a good one:

If your taste runs more toward the classics, you can't do better than "Emma," Jane Austen's story of gossip and love in a small village ($8) or Emily Bronte's classic "Wuthering Heights" ($7). (Laura Dolce)

Laudator Temporis Acti posts an excerpt of Branwell Brontë's translation of Horace's Odes:

Virgins, sing the Virgin Huntress;
Youths, the youthful Phoebus, sing;
Sing Latona, she who bore them
Dearest to the eternal King:
Sing the heavenly maid who roves
Joyous, through the mountain groves;
She who winding waters loves;
Let her haunts her praises ring!

Sing the vale of Peneus' river
Sing the Delian deity;
The shoulder glorious with its quiver;
And the Lyre of Mercury.
From our country, at our prayer —
Famine, plague, and tearful war
These, benign, shall drive afar
To Persias plains or Britains sea.

Y yo que me la llevé al río reviews Ancho Mar de los Sargazos (Wide Sargasso Sea) in Spanish. But there’s no sign of warning in the siren’s call talks about Jane Eyre in French. Colortrend surprises us with an imaginative use of Jane Eyre.

Categories: Branwell Brontë, Jane Eyre, References, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights

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The dangers of e-book readers

It looks like Princeton University Press is now releasing John Mullan's Anonymity in the USA. The Wall Street Journal reviews it today.

Charlotte Brontë enjoyed attending literary parties when she visited London but insisted on keeping up the pretense that she hadn't written "Jane Eyre" -- the only reason why she had been invited. (John Gross)

Again, this way of condensing in a nutshell portrays things rather different than they actually were. Charlotte Brontë didn't exactly 'enjoy' attending these parties, and George Smith - her publisher - was quite okay with the fact that she attended incognito (which was a cover that didn't last that long anyway).

Many newspapers - among them the Miami Herald - publish a review of The Magicians and Mrs. Quent by Galen M. Beckett. According to the reviewer,

Fans of Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters will be in a familiar landscape reading "The Magicians and Mrs. Quent." (Robert Folsom)

Bearing in mind that Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters don't actually share a familiar landscape we guess that's just becase on the fact that the book takes place when women wore longs skirts or something. But the publisher itself insists on the connection:

What if there was a fantastical cause underlying the social constraints and limited choices confronting a heroine in a novel by Jane Austen or Charlotte Brontë? Galen Beckett began writing The Magicians and Mrs. Quent to answer that question.

Here's the synopsis, in case you are wondering:

In this enchanting debut novel, Galen Beckett weaves a dazzling spell of adventure and suspense, evoking a world of high magick and genteel society—a world where one young woman discovers that her modest life is far more extraordinary than she ever imagined.
Of the three Lockwell sisters—romantic Lily, prophetic Rose, and studious Ivy—all agree that it’s the eldest, the book-loving Ivy, who has held the family together ever since their father’s retreat into his silent vigil in the library upstairs. Everyone blames Mr. Lockwell’s malady on his magickal studies, but Ivy alone still believes—both in magic and in its power to bring her father back.
But there are others in the world who believe in magick as well. Over the years, Ivy has glimpsed them—the strangers in black topcoats and hats who appear at the door, strangers of whom their mother will never speak. Ivy once thought them secret benefactors, but now she’s not so certain.
After tragedy strikes, Ivy takes a job with the reclusive Mr. Quent in a desperate effort to preserve her family. It’s only then that she discovers the fate she shares with a jaded young nobleman named Dashton Rafferdy, his ambitious friend Eldyn Garritt, and a secret society of highwaymen, revolutionaries, illusionists, and spies who populate the island nation of Altania.
For there is far more to Altania than meets the eye and more to magick than mere fashion. And in the act of saving her father, Ivy will determine whether the world faces a new dawn—or an everlasting night. . . .

Another book reviewed is What Happened to Anna K., by Irina Reyn. From the Pittsburgh City Paper:

Reyn's Anna K. is a Russian-Jewish immigrant who works in publishing. She has a history of Bronte-obsession and, generally, likes nice things -- good books, expensive clothing, New York food -- that serve only to catapult her wanting to eventually disastrous extremes. Anna's marriage to the bloodless Alex K. predictably detonates, leaving her with David Zuckerman (the new Vronsky), an adjunct writing instructor and enthusiast of Russian literature. This doesn't last, either. (Adam Colman)

Author Kathy Lette, interviewed by Sky News, points out something we had overlooked about e-book readers.

On the negative side reading a book that relies on batteries or electrictiy has one fatal flaw, what if there's a blackout and you never get to find out if Jane Eyre marries Mr Rochester or if Lizzie Bennett discovers her altar ego with Mr Darcy or whodunnit in the whodunnit. It could be a case of creative intercourse interruptus.

Ooh, scary (and we mean it).

The reviewer of the New York Times mentions Jane Eyre when reviewing the new TV series Privileged.

Megan is more Baby Jane Holzer than Jane Eyre; she’s a lovely, refined Yale graduate who was raised in nearby Fort Lauderdale but seems quite at ease in high society. (Alessandra Stanley)

A couple of blogs today: Reading, Writing, Working, Playing posts about the first episode of the miniseries The Brontës of Haworth. If you liked the article on Fritz Eichenberg that we linked to yesterday, you might be interested in seeing more of his work courtesy of Caustic Cover Critic.

Categories: Books, References

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That's what you get for saying 'yes, sir'

John Mullan, author of Anonymity, selects the best episodes of drunkenness in English literature in The Guardian. And Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall gets a mention:

Helen Graham tells of her marriage to a charming man who turns out to be an alcoholic. Worse still, his gentleman friends are fellow imbibers, and she must endure their flushed faces and drunken badinage. We must see how alcohol makes privileged chaps behave like beasts. In one hellish soirée, abuse turns into fighting as the claret flows.

Joe Queenan writes in The New York Times about the the current trend among reviewers of being generally too nice or too servile. The faithful readers of BrontëBlog will laugh reading this paragraph:

Authors are described as a cross between Madame de Staël and Arthur Conan Doyle, or are said to write like Charlotte Brontë on acid, or have out-Dostoyevskied Dostoyevsky and checkmated Euripides, when they are more of a cross between Candace Bushnell and Ngaio Marsh, or write like Willa Cather on Robitussin-DM, or have been narrowly out-Mavis Gallanted by Mavis Gallant, and were lucky to play Edna Ferber to a draw.

The Telegraph publishes a conversation between Elton John and Sam-Taylor Wood. Her current exhibition on London, Yes I Know is mentioned:

EJ: She's done a short film, photo shoots of people, two or three new series of videos, a new series of photographs, all in the last nine months. That's an awful lot of work. I think there is a deep-rooted drive in her that is fuelled by the fear of the cancer coming back.
STW: Yes, totally. You can see it with the Wuthering Heights [series of Brontë-inspired photographs, now on show at London's White Cube gallery]. Knowing how I felt when I did those pictures, being in that barren, disturbing landscape - there is a base level that definitely comes from what I've been through.

If some days ago we posted about a graffiti in Amsterdam with Brontë echoes, today Cherwell (Oxford's student newspaper) explores the Oxford's English Faculty toilets:

The same cubicle [Cubicle II] also showcases everyone's favourite: Jane Eyre. The famous line of ‘Reader I married him' receives the response that, unfortunately, ‘He ruined me' and the comment ‘well, that's what you get for saying ‘yes, sir' when he asked. Look it up'. Ah, Jane Eyre banter. It's underrated. (Gini Sharvill)

Patrick Brontë being a Cambridge man, we hope that the Cambridge toilets are up to scratch.

Now a (very) easy question from today's quiz at The Ottawa Citizen:

10. Who is the Charlotte Brontë character sent to Lowood Academy by her cruel aunt before becoming a governess at Thornfield Manor?

Precisely, Jane Eyre is one of the readers' picks of the Christian Science Monitor. The Mexican La Jornada Guerrero talks about the Cuban poet Pablo Armando who mentions his Brontëite origins:

Fui poseído por una voz que me alertaba que había seres abandonados, que sufrían, que carecían de voz y rostro y de los medios para sobrevivir; pero esa voz me llegaba en inglés”, narró.
Su interés por la literatura se arreció cuando escuchó en la radio Cumbres Borrascosas, de Emily Brontë. (Marisol Wences Mina)

Finally, Die Welt reviews in German Anne Donovan's Being Emily.

The blogosphere contains a review in Swedish of Wuthering Heights on Tiitis böcker. Cardiff to Catalonia! discusses the ending of Jane Eyre.

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

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Mr Currer Bell goes to a spa

John Mullan's recently published Anonymity is the star of today's news. The Bell Brothers/Brontë sisters references are constant. The Telegraph goes so far to entitle its article: No woman could have penned Jane Eyre:

Charlotte Bronte, who wrote as Currer Bell, insisted: “I am neither Man nor Woman – I come before you as an Author only.” Yet readers of Jane Eyre became obsessed with determining its author’s gender, poring over incidental detail to bolster their case. “Although ladies have written histories and travels and warlike novels… no woman could have penned the ‘Autobiography of Jane Eyre’,” announced one. (Robert Colvile)

Charlotte's quote comes from a letter to William Smith Williams from August 16th, 1849. And the mentioned review was published in Era (14 November 1847) by a, most appropriately, anonymous reviewer. The complete paragraph reads:

Bulwer, James, D'Israeli, and all the serious novel writers of the day lose in comparison with Currer Bell, for we must presume the work to be his. It is no woman's writing. Although ladies have written histories and travels and warlike novels, to say nothing of books upon the different arts and sciences, no woman could have penned "The Autobiography of Jane Eyre". It is all that one of the other sex might invent, and much more ... The tale is one of the heart and the working out of a moral through the natural affections; it is the victory of mind over matter; the mastery of reason over feeling, without unnatural sacrifices. The writer dives deep into human life, and possesses the gift of being able to write as he thinks and feels. There is a vigour in all he says, a power which fixes the reader's attention, and a charm about his "style" and "diction" which fascinates while it edifies.

Another review can be found in The Brisbane Times.

Jane Campion writes in The Guardian a fascinating account of how she met Janet Frame (from whom she adapted for the screen the very gripping An Angel At My Table). It seems that the author of Owls Do Cry was a Brontëite:

I met her on December 24 1982. (...)
"Are you doing anything special for Christmas?" I asked.
"Yes, I am going to spend it with some very old friends," she replied: "I am going to have Christmas with the Brontë sisters, Emily and Charlotte."

More brief news. The Washington Post reviews The Pig Did It by Joseph Caldwell, a book already mentioned on BrontëBlog. Bookstack talks about Maureen Adams's Shaggy Muses. In attesa dell'alba praises Helen Burns in Italian.

Finally, The Guardian's travel section seems to think that the Heathcliff-Cathy couple can be a paradigm of fierce lovemaking:

Ah, romantic breaks! What a wealth of optimistic nuance is concealed in such an innocent little phrase: candles, champagne, dinner à deux, sunsets, moonlight, seashores, camiknickers, shared baths, swooning kisses, Barry White, a man in a balaclava abseiling through your window with a box of Milk Tray. All these things leading inexorably to the bedroom where - freed from the shackles of domestic routine - elemental lovemaking on a par with Cathy and Heathcliff will splice your tremulous souls forever. (Rowan Pelling)

Categories: Books, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights

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