Eichenberg on Nashville

An exhibition opening today, January 16, in Nashville, TN:

Fritz Eichenberg — Artist of the Book
Vanderbilt Fine Arts Gallery
(January 16 - February 27, 2014)

Fritz Eichenberg’s life was shaped by his firsthand experience of World War I in Cologne, Germany, and his immigration to the United States in 1933 as Germany was preparing for another war. Eichenberg was a highly sensitive person with a quick eye, a sharp wit, a passionate love of literature, and an equally intense commitment to the truth. He combined these qualities to produce several careers’ worth of work as a political cartoonist, book illustrator, religious radical (he was a major contributor to the newspaper of the Catholic Worker, a left-leaning movement founded by Dorothy Day and Peter Marin in 1933), and distinguished educator. His images, published in newspapers, magazines, portfolios, and more than one hundred books, have reached countless numbers of people. He was, in the best sense of the word, a popular artist, one who communicated to a wide audience his unique vision while maintaining the highest technical and ethical standards.

The focus of Fritz Eichenberg—Artist of the Book will be portfolio illustrations Eichenberg created for twelve classic works of literature. A set of original publications will be featured along with a self-portrait of Eichenberg with many of the authors illustrated in this exhibition, thanks to a generous loan from a local collector. Additionally, this loan will include Eichenberg's preparatory drawing, final print, and original woodblock for the cover of The Long Loneliness: The Autobiography of Dorothy Day, along with the book itself, allowing visitors a glimpse into the artist's process. The gallery will also present selections from Eichenberg’s 1972 work In Praise of Folly (Encomium Moriae) from its permanent collection.

Included in the exhibtion are his engravings for Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, like the one above:

Proposal Under the Trees from Jane Eyre
Chapter 23 by Charlotte Brontë
From Fritz Eichenberg, Artist of the Book: 248 Selected Wood Engravings, 1938–1972, 1979
Wood engraving
7-5/6" x 5"

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Under the tree

Heathcliff under the Tree, the wood engraving by Fritz Eichenberg will be exhibited at the Joslyn Art Museum (Omaha, Nebraska), starting today, January 24. The piece belongs to the new Wood exhibition:

Picture: Heathcliff Under the Tree, from Wuthering Heights, wood engraving on japan paper, Museum purchase with Funds Provided by Sally Lusk, Lenore Polack, E. James and Norma Fuller, Sara Foxley, and Bert W. and Renee Mehrer, in honor of Penelope Smith, 2007, Collection of Joslyn Art Museum.

On January 24, Joslyn Art Museum will open Wood, an exhibition celebrating the history and unique characteristics of the woodblock print. The exhibition brims with no less than 80 prints, blocks, and books from the Museum’s collection and private lenders — most on public view for the first time. Wood spans an incredible 550 years of printmaking, from a half-page, hand-colored woodcut from the life of Saint John (from the Apocalypse Blockbook, ca. 1460) and 15th century works by the great German printmaker Albrecht Dürer, his teacher, Michael Wolgemut, and Wilhelm Pleydenwurff, to contemporary works by Americans Brett Anderson, Karen Kunc, and Jay Bolotin. Dozens of artists from the United States and European nations, as well as Japan, Holland, the United Kingdom, and Scandinavia, are represented. The Wood exhibition inaugurates a series of three annual exhibitions — Wood, Metal, and Stone — highlighting the history and aesthetics of woodblock prints, intaglio, and lithographs. Wood will remain on view through May 24 in Joslyn Art Museum’s print gallery. (Artdaily)

More information can be read on The Reader:

[Penelope] Smith, the assistant curator, discussed each print installed in the show in depth, chronicling the changes and fads in prints throughout the ages. Highlights included contributions from Fritz Eichenberg, a political cartoonist who fled Germany after lampooning Hitler. His print “Heathcliff Under the Tree” from Wuthering Heights is an iconic image using dramatic darks and lights. (Sarah Baker)

The Guardian uses Heathcliff for discussing why alcoholic man do well with women (!):

You know what I think? I think some women are alcoholic-oholics. What are they getting out of it? What's their "hit"? Well, there's drama. There's the alluring notion of "rescuing with their love". There's the flood of verbal emotion that men don't do, but drunk men do, do and do again. A skinful turns many a man into that female vote-grabbing romantic hero Heathcliff. True. Read Wuthering Heights. Actually read the book. Heathcliff's a twat. (Anonymous)

Maybe he is... but a sober one.

Modern day Jane Eyres are the subject of an article about tutoring in England in Financial Times:

Some of these, at the top end of the market, may see themselves as the direct descendants of the Jane Eyre-like governesses who took care of the offspring of rich families in previous centuries. (Emma Jacobs and Miranda Green)

Also in the Financial Times we read an interview to the writer Jenny Diski:

What is the first novel you read? Jane Eyre, or the first third of it – repeatedly. (Anna Metcalfe)

The San Mateo County's Daily Journal Know It All section summarises the original Jane Eyre as follows:

In the classic novel “Jane Eyre” (1847), by Charlote Brontë (1816-1855), Jane works as a governess at Thornfield Manor and falls in love with her employer Mr. Rochester. On their wedding day Jane discovers she cannot wed Rochester because he has an insane wife, Bertha Mason, that he hides in the attic. (Kerry McArdle)

Books and Movies has finished reading Wuthering Heights, Porcelain didn't enjoy reading Jane Eyre (in Spanish).

Illustratio posts several illustrations by Jacques Pecnard of a 1967 French translation of Jane Eyre (on the right). Spectatia publishes another illustration from a Swedish edition of Wuthering Heights. The Charleston Stage Company has uploaded to flickr a set of pictures of their last year's production of Polly Teale's Jane Eyre.


Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontëites, Illustrations, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights

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Definitely more reviews

More and more newspapers highlight the Jane Eyre reference in the film Definitely, Maybe that we have featured previously (by the way the Jane Eyre edition mentioned in the film is the 1943 Random House with wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg).
EDIT: The dedication is another Brontë reference. Charlotte Brontë's poem Evening Solace:

To my darling daughter, April.
"The human heart has hidden treasures,
In secret kept, in silence sealed;--
The thoughts, the hopes, the dreams, the pleasures,
Whose charms were broken if revealed."
From your loving father.

At its core, this is a clever whodunit — Brooks feeds his script with abundant clues and red herrings — all leading to how Maya came into this world and why her father is not a happy man. Much like "Jane Eyre,” a novel that figures prominently in the plot, "Definitely, Maybe” is a story of self-development that follows Will from youth to maturity, carrying viewers through the twists that got him there. (George Lang in The Oklahoman)

Instead, Will and "April" become "friends," which is to say she tells him an amazingly tender story about how her dead father gave her an inscribed first edition of "Jane Eyre" (apparently not her real name either!), which "April" has been scouring used bookstores for ever since.
I'm sure there must be something significant about the fact that it's "Jane Eyre," even though "April" isn't a homely Victorian governess, she's smokin' hot, ready or not. Trust me, people, you don't get to tell a story like that in a movie like this unless you're somebody special. (Bruce Newman in San Jose Mercury News)

Definitely, Maybe gets too coy in spots, and Brooks is a sharper writer at this point in his career than he is a director. But for a film with a half-dozen fully-formed characters that spans 15 years and works in a swell detail about a 1943 edition of Jane Eyre - well, it definitely works. No maybes about it. (Steven Rea in The Philadelphia Enquirer)

The third woman in Will's life is April (Isla Fisher), a free spirit who listens to Nirvana, rereads "Jane Eyre" every year and enlivens her just-for-the-money job of working a copy machine for the Clinton campaign by saying things like "Don't make me staple your head." It plays better than it reads. (Kenneth Turan in Los Angeles Times)

Isla Fisher plays the next woman to catch Will’s eye, a free-spirited apolitical vagabond whose romantic notions have been shaped by Jane Eyre and who wants to travel the world unencumbered by romance. (Michael Janusonis in The Providence Journal)

April is also given the adorable trait of collecting used editions of Jane Eyre in a quixotic search for the inscribed copy that was her dead father's last gift. (Pamela Zoslov in The Cleveland Free Times)

Finally, there’s April (“Wedding Crashers” fruit loop Isla Fisher), a bright but aimless Clinton volunteer who collects copies of “Jane Eyre” as a sentimental homage to her dead father. (Craig Outhier in GetOut)

[Elizabeth] Banks still has her lovely hooks in his heart, but Will finds his eye wandering in the direction of a quirky copy girl (Isla Fisher) with twin obsessions for Kurt Cobain and Jane Eyre. (Lance Goldenberg in Tampa Creative Loafing)

While at work on the campaign, Will encounters the apolitical April (Isla Fisher, a speedier version of Amy Adams). Nineties alterna-girl that she is, April longs for the older-fashioned romance, as signposted by her particular quirk: a collection of different editions of Jane Eyre. (Richard von Busack in Metroactive)

This is a winning, very satisfying tale that pulls off the tricky double-act of warming the cockles while avoiding easy answers about matters of the heart, such as break-ups, emotional reconciliation and the timeless appeal of Jane Eyre. (Jim Schembri in The Age)

Fisher casts aside her usual kooky screen persona (Wedding Crashers, Wedding Daze), delivering a lovely, measured performance as the feisty confidante searching for a fragment of her past in a copy of Jane Eyre. (Kim Hu in Londonnet)

Then April (Isla Fisher), the exasperating, apolitical and always confrontational redhead who runs the copy machine, plays Kurt Cobain and haunts second-hand book stores for the lost copy of Jane Eyre her father bought and inscribed for her 13th birthday, a few weeks before he died. (Rex Reed in The New York Observer)

The character of April itself is nicely developed: a complex woman with a penchant for collecting secondhand copies of Jane Eyre. (Gemma English in M/C Reviews)

And we're pretty sure haven't seen the end of it yet.

EDIT

Fortunately, Definitely avoids cutesy clichés of the genre and offers more chuckles and plot turns than you might expect. (Even an obvious payoff involving a copy of Jane Eyre has a bit of a twist.) (Matt Stevens in E!Online)

A subplot involving a lost copy of “Jane Eyre” and the sealed-with-a-kiss climax are mush. With such falseness in play, you can’t feel seriously invested in the pairings that occur. (Anita Katz in The San Francisco Examiner)

[April] listens to Nirvana and has spent a lifetime trying to find a lost copy of "Jane Eyre" that was once lovingly inscribed by a relative. (Mal Vincent in The Virginian-Pilot)

Fisher totally inhabits the character of April, and a scene involving her attachment to the novel Jane Eyre is one of the few three-hankie moments here. (Kevin Renick in Playback:stl)

Even I teared up in one part having to do with a special copy of ‘‘Jane Eyre.” Girls will love it, and guys, if nothing else, can dream of Rachel, Isla and Elizabeth. (Karen Schafer in Maryland Gazette)

At the same time, Will meets and befriends April (Isla Fisher), a copy girl working in the office, who possesses a wry, urbane pragmatism and a ready wit. She also has a hobby of collecting editions of "Jane Eyre" and a fondness for Kurt Cobain. (Ronald Ladick in Your Twinboros)

Then April (Isla Fisher), the exasperating, apolitical and always confrontational redhead who runs the copy machine, plays Kurt Cobain and haunts second-hand book stores for the lost copy of Jane Eyre her father bought and inscribed for her 13th birthday, a few weeks before he died. (Christy Meck in The Daily American)

Now April's always been on the lookout for a specific copy of Jane Eyre signed by her father, which she lost at some point. As a result of this pursuit, she's accumulated numerous copies of the same. William finally discovers the book in question but hesitates to hand it over. Despite a brief kiss and revelation of his feelings for her, they eventually part ways and William goes on with his life, now a divorced, devoted daddy. (Rediff)

Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References

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1943

British Film Institute has selected 'A great horror film from every year, from 1922 to now' and the one for 1943 is

1943: I Walked with a Zombie

Director: Jacques Tourneur

Perhaps the greatest of director Jacques Tourneur’s films for Lewton, I Walked with a Zombie is a loose retelling of Jane Eyre, transposed to the Caribbean island of Saint Sebastian. Not a zombie film in the Romero sense, but one drawn from the rituals of vodou, its metaphors are disquietingly potent. A film about enslavement and the legacies of colonialism, the suggestiveness of the duo’s earlier Cat People is taken to oblique heights. In constant, critical dialogue with its own exoticism, Tourneur’s astonishingly expressive direction often edges towards abstraction in its uncanny diagnoses of its tropical maladies. (Matthew Thrift)

British Film Institute also reviews Zach Cregger’s film Barbarian.

If the ensuing onslaught of stomach-turning subterranean set-pieces signal Cregger’s distance from any obviously lofty artistic intentions, he’s still working from some high-end reference points. An extended flashback sequence boldly quotes the roving camerawork of Gerald Kargl’s indelibly savage 1983 video nasty Angst, while a discarded copy of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre puts a wryly Gothic frame around the action. (Adam Nayman)

Screen Daily and Sussex World both recommend Emily.

StarTribune reviews Sister Novelists: The Trailblazing Porter Sisters, Who Paved the Way for Austen and the Brontës by Devoney Looser.

Britain in the 19th century was a wonderland of inspiration for great novelists. The country's rigid class system, its decadent aristocracy, its yawning extremes between rich and poor — all of this was mined for literary gold by Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Anthony Trollope and the Brontës, writers whose books have never gone out of print.

Arizona State University professor Devoney Looser is a Jane Austen expert and author of several books. She thought she knew this era. Then one day, researching in California's Huntington Library, she happened upon the letters of Jane and Maria Porter, the sister novelists of the title of this book. A new window into the age opened to her, and this biography of two writers of "blazing genius" is the result. (Mary Ann Gwinn)

Let's end this post in the same year it began as the mythic 1943 edition of Jane Eyre illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg makes it onto a column in The Evening Sun.

Last night, I was hunched over Charlotte Brontë’s novel Jane Eyre, enjoying the pleasant feel of the heavy tome on my lap. I had come upon the book years ago in an antique shop Upstate New York, snatched it off the shelf, and paid for it. If it hadn’t been for sale, I probably would have stolen it.

Printed in 1943, the paper has oxidized over the years and become a lovely shade of ... I’m not sure a word exists to describe the creamy color of those gently aging pages. If the book had ever possessed a dust jacket, it is long gone. However, printed on the thick cardboard front is an unforgettable image of a long line of orphans, two in each row, all emaciated, and all wearing dark dresses. They move from the top of the book cover to the bottom, hands clasped modestly before their bodies, eyes downcast, and hollow expressions on their faces.

One of the orphans, of course, is Jane Eyre.

This cover illustration, as well as additional wood engravings throughout the book, were created by Fritz Eichenberg, an artist who fled Nazi Germany in 1933, settled in New York City, and illustrated books written by everyone from Dostoyevsky to Edgar Allan Poe.

And, of course, both Brontë sisters.

All of his engravings for Jane Eyre are evocative, ponderous, and sad. (Shelly Reuben)

British Indians, now that Rishi Sunak is the brand new PM, in The Times:

Occasionally a sinister character would cross the pages of a novel. In Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë is obscure about Heathcliff’s origins; the closest we get is that the child is picked up in the streets of Liverpool, probably the offspring of some “Lascar” — Asian — sailor, an impression reinforced by Nelly’s later speculation about his dark complexion: “Who knows but that . . . your mother was an Indian queen?” (Trevor Phillips)

Die Presse (Germany) reviews Mithu Sanyal über Emily Brontë:

Dass Sanyal, die offenbar wie Goethe vom Mütterchen die Lust zu fabulieren mitbekommen hat („Meine Mutter hatte die Fähigkeit, Bücher spannender nachzuerzählen, als sie waren“), jede dieser Lesarten nachvollziehbar darstellen kann, liegt an ihrer fundierten Kenntnis des Romans durch häufige Lektüre – eine milde Form der Besessenheit, die dazu führt, dass sie zahlreiche Ausgaben besitzt. Sanyal verschenkt „Wuthering Heights“ auch, fordert das Buch aber zurück, wenn die Beschenkten es nicht gebührend zu würdigen wissen, wobei die Würdigung wohl in ebenso eingehender Lektüre bestehen müsste. (Karin S. Wozonik) (Translation)

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Making the Brontë sisters proud

News outlets from Germany and France are still reviewing Jane Eyre 2006. From Germany: RTV, Süddeutsche, Hamburger Abendblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine. From France: Glamour, Le Figaro, Le Parisien, Critictoo.

While Wuthering Heights 2011 is still making it into fall movie preview lists. The New York Times sums it up as follows:

The British filmmaker Andrea Arnold (“Fish Tank”) turns her hyper-realist eye to Emily Brontë’s classic novel, recasting Heathcliff as a black boy taken in by a Yorkshire farmer. With James Howson, Solomon Glave, Paul Hilton, Shannon Beer and Kaya Scodelario. (Dave Kehr)

The Film Stage:

After Cary Fukunaga‘s Jane Eyre last year, Andrea Arnold’s take on Wuthering Heights has set another benchmark for adapting classic literature. The Fish Tank director paints this world with a deft touch, crafting tightly focused close-ups to convey emotion rather than words. Establishing shots only open wide a handful of times, instead opting for a beetle crawling through the grass or a spiderweb oscillating in the cold wind. These little touches build the world more than any sort of exposition could dream to do. Read our TIFF review. (Jordan R.)

And Word and Film says,

Ever since catching a glimpse of an early of clip of writer-director Andrea Arnold’s modernist take on Emily Brontë’s classic staple of high school English class, we’ve been haunted by her feral vision of Cathy and Heathcliff as an interracial couple beset with unquenchable desire. Arnold is on solid ground here thematically: She beautifully captured the intoxicating havoc of forbidden love in her last film “Fish Tank,” which took home Cannes’ Grand Jury Prize in 2009. (Christine Spines)

More on films as more Kath & Kimderella reviews mention its Jane Eyre influences (!). According to The Hollywood Reporter,

Allusions to all manner of princess stories, as well as to Jane Eyre and even Danny Kaye’s The Court Jester, are flung about wildly with nary a laugh to be had, while only a glimmer of a plot can be discerned amid the farcical shenanigans and endless parade of bad 1980s fashions. (Megan Lehmann)

Australia's ABC's At the movies spoils readers about it:

I have to confess that I only saw part of one episode of the TV series Kath and Kim, and didn't think it was very funny. I know it's been hugely successful and that a lot of people love it, and perhaps they'll love the movie spin-off too, which takes the ladies - as well as Prue and Trude, their snobby alter-egos - from their Australian comfort-zone into the world of a European fairy-tale, with a castle, secret passages, duels, mysterious figures, a prince masked like a refugee from Phantom of the Opera, and a madwoman in the turret like the wife in Jane Eyre. Even Dame Edna makes a brief, and not very rewarding, appearance. (David Stratton)

The New Stateman's The Business End finds the trailer for the new season of Downton Abbey very Jane Eyre-ish as

a rent bridal veil falls from a stair case (has Julian Fellows, previously accused of nicking material from Little Women and Mrs Minniver, gone full Jane Eyre?) (Martha Gill)

Lisa Armstrong makes the following comment in passing about Jane Eyre and Fifty Shades of Grey in her Fashion column in the Telegraph:

Jane Eyre turns out to be a forerunner to Fifty Shades … (and a much gutsier and more interesting one at that). 

Now for a round of local news. According to The Telegraph and Argus, there's 'Fury over tourism funding allocation'.

Welcome to Yorkshire has criticised the way funding has been distributed by national body VisitEngland amid claims the region was not recognised as a tourist destination.
It comes as the Regional Growth Fund allocation, which is designed to stimulate employment to grow jobs in the tourism sector in England, was handed out to 14 local organisations, including Visit York and Marketing Leeds, but none to Yorkshire as a whole. [...]
Ann Dinsdale, of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, one of the region’s top tourist destinations, said that while they were an independent museum and relied mainly on visitor numbers, any extra funding that could bring visitors to the region as a whole and the district in particular would have been beneficial.
She said: “We have been quieter during the Olympics and visitor numbers are down. So any extra funding to help draw people into the area would have been welcome.”

The Telegraph and Argus also publishes an important reminder:

Campaigners fighting plans for a wind farm on the moors which inspired the Brontë sisters' novels are warning residents there is only a week left to have their say on proposals to double the size of turbines at a nearby existing windfarm.

Examiner suggested Wuthering Heights as one of its National Read a Book Day (yesterday, September 6th) selection.

4. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
Emily Brontë's tale of doomed love in the English Moors is still a very popular book. It's for those who want to take a break from Austen and for those are looking for a good Gothic romance. It has been made into many film and TV adaptations. (Kellie Haulotte)

And Examiner also wins at the silliest comment of the day.

While these two trends may seem contradictory, they actually fit each other very well. Brides are inspired by the likes of Kate Middleton--as opposed to the late Princess Diana--to choose elegant and classy gowns that would make the Brontë sisters proud. (Jennifer Duann)

Oh, absolutely. Because, you know, the Brontë sisters were, first and foremost, frightfully fashion-minded, known to all and sundry for their 'elegant and classy gowns'.

Wizza and Le 7ème oeil (both in French) both post about Jane Eyre 2011 while Flickr user philteez has uploaded a picture of the costumes exhibition at Haddon Hall. The Briarfield Chronicles discusses Louis Moore from Shirley. My Life is a Notebook reviews Tina Connolly's Ironskin. In So Many Words posts about Fritz Eichenberg's art for Jane Eyre and Cathy Cullis has created a new portrait of the Brontë sisters.

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"The brutality of Jane's rejection is still shocking"

All Things Foe... publishes Catherine Mayer's (check this previous post) reaction about Jamie Bell's portraying of St. John in Jane Eyre 2011:

Jamie Bell is very good. You want to like the character but can't.
The brutality of Jane's rejection is still shocking.

The Huffington Post talks about Elizabeth Gilbert, the author of Eat, Pray, Love (now a film directed by Ryan Murphy with Julia Roberts):

Let's be honest, Elizabeth Gilbert is enviable. Raised on a Connecticut Christmas tree farm, she and her sister got to read and play all the time, like latter-day Brontës, without having their brains turned to blood pudding by cable TV or other pernicious pop influences. (Clay Farris Naff)

Both the Guardian and The Bookseller have articles about Jeanette Winterson's fears for the future of libraries.

Book Chick City interviews author Brenda Novak:

I gained my enthusiasm for reading when I was in the fourth grade and discovered an entire row of classics in the Liberty School library. Previous to this point, I hadn’t liked reading at all. Maybe it was that boring Dick, Jane and Spot stuff, because The Secret Garden, Oliver Twist, Rebecca, Jane Eyre and Gone With the Wind showed me the real possibilities.

Another excellent review for Jude Morgan's The Taste of Sorrow in Royal Reviews (One of the best books I've read this year!); Educators at Home sells a Jane Eyre 1943 edition with wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg; Not Enough Books is very disappointed with Wuthering Heights and La Dolce Vita has contradictory feelings about the book; Read with Style compares Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre and has strong feelings about the quality of the former and the ... trivial, banal, and absolutely boring Jane Eyre; Les Brontë à Paris talks about the men in the life of the Brontës (in French); Pensa Outra Coisa posts about Jane Eyre 2006 (in Portuguese) and Fuera de Servicio reviews Jane Eyre 1944 (in Spanish). Finally, Scribbles & Stories posts about Wide Sargasso Sea.

Categories: Fiction, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights

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The teenage view

Part of today's newsround could be summed up under the title 'the teenage view' or something along those lines. You will see:

The Bismarck Tribune embarks on an ode to snail-mail. An ode we wholeheartedly second, but apparently the new generations do not.

My [14-year-old] daughter, however, looks upon my letters as a quaint Paleolithic affectation, a very late and low-tech echo of something you might read in "Little Women" or a novel by Charlotte Bronte. She senses, I think, that I write these letters as much for me as for her. Maybe she is right. (Clay Jenkinson)

The Hudson Valley Daily Freeman carries an article on the group of students behind the High School's annual student-produced magazine Reason & Rhyme.

For example, in addition to core English classes, students have options like science fiction literature.
“‘Jane Eyre’ is a great book,” noted [senior student Addie] Farr. “But maybe Isaac Asimov has written some great books too.” (Kyle Wind)

Some of the staff members from The Herald reminisce about their favourite books when they were children:

How to pick just one book when as a child my world was one of books and more books? Should it be Eliot's tortuous Mill on the Floss; Emily Bronte's dark, impossibly romantic Wuthering Heights? But then what about Jane Eyre? And then I remembered the books that set my heart racing every time the library produced a new, unread volume - the cover showing the five friends I wished were mine. (Fidelma Cook)

But there is also a sports section in today's newsround. Bleacher Report on the Australian Open 2009 final:

Well I was very pissed off about one guy, who was sleeping so soundly as if it was a Jane Eyre broadway in play, in the front row behind Nadal as he was serving in the fifth set. (Dev Ashish)

Funny how we could have exactly reversed that simile.

The Irish Independent on rally races:

There is a strange intimacy to rally people. They gather on heaths that would send Heathcliff back to bed, waiting for hours to catch a glimpse of the frenzied tussle between man and machine. Through the suspense, strangers chat like cousins, the quiet of the countryside wrapping their voices in church-like solemnity. (Vincent Hogan)

That last one certainly gets to carry home the gratuitous Brontë reference of the day prize in our opinion.

The Cape Cod Times is running a competition:

The love stories we watch in movies often have their beginning in romance-drenched books. Think "Jane Eyre" for a classic example or "Twilight" for a contemporary one. So we ask: "What's the most powerful love story you've ever read?" Tell us in 50 words or fewer the title/author and why the book is so romantic, and we'll randomly choose an entry to win a classic valentine box of candy. Send your entry (with name, address and phone number) to Books Contest, 319 Main St., Hyannis, MA 02601 or e-mail it to mlauwers@capecodonline.com. Deadline for entries: today.

And The Telegraph and Argus publishes a press release on the opening of the newly-refurbished Brontë Parsonage Museum. Surely worth a visit?

Wuthering Heights seems to be the blogs' buzzword: Colleen's Reading Corner, Pagina 69 (in Italian), and Book:blog all review it. Upstate Girl posts some of wood engravings Fritz Eichenberg did for the novel. And Los manuscritos del caos (in Spanish) picks its author, Emily Brontë, as writer of the month.

But there is some variety as well: You're History writes about Agnes Grey, Reading List of a Book Pusher: Year Two reviews briefly Ann Dinsdale's The Brontës at Haworth. Caroline en Voyage is going through a Brontë phase. Both Moomin's Book Blog and matejuvtestblog post about Jane Eyre. Name Calling publishes Part I of a fictional story which begins

The film premiere of Jane Eyre in West Hollywood starring Emily Rivens was to be the gold-plated medallion that defined her otherwise mediocre career.

Flickr user Hicksmade shares a picture of several (beautiful) old editions of Jane Eyre and Abigail709b has uploaded her 'Cathy shot'.

Finally, YouTube user Hotplatearts has a video on an 'Artspotting event for Haworth Arts Festival 2006 by Hotplate Arts '.

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Fiction, Haworth, Illustrations, Jane Eyre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

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Matilda Eyre

Michaela Zamloot compares Jane Eyre with Roald Dahl's Matilda in The SF Young Adult Literature Examiner:

Unbelievable though it may seem, the line between children’s and adult literature is easily dissolved, proven through the discovery of a connection in the most unlikely of places. It’s time to brush off the Bronte sisters’ anthology, because Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre may have been reincarnated as none other than the children’s classic Matilda, by Roald Dahl. Don’t believe me? Keep reading.
Doubters need look no further into Bronte's celebrated novel than to Jane’s stint at Lowood School. The unchallenged dominance of the tyrannical clergyman Mr. Brocklehurst melts seamlessly into terror-inducing Trunchbull of Crunchem Hall Elementary. Both stories present these formidable adversaries as the source of evil in an otherwise sacred institution, terrorizing their students for no discernible reason. Our small, unassuming heroines are personally wronged by these monsters in ways that reveal surprising insight into the maturation of fear. The ‘adult version’ presents a punishment of public humiliation and the accusation of untruth, while in Dahl’s world children are sent to The Chokey – a broom closet of isolation filled only with darkness and protruding nails. Though the young are terrorized by things they can (or cannot) see and physically feel, adults dread the sight and feeling of others, rather than themselves.
If you believe at age five – as most five-year-olds do – that where there’s good, there’s evil, you’re likely to think the same at age 65. Which brings us to our opposition, in the form of two angelic teachers: Miss Temple and Miss Honey. Gently nurturing and protecting the young protagonists, these women are the embodiment of the caring mother that neither girl possesses. More importantly, they serve as the primary representation of what is highly valued by authors Dahl and Bronte: family. Recurrent almost ad nauseum in Jane Eyre is the belief that familial ties, or relationships to those who are alike (and therefore meant to be together) create an almost magical bond, enabling not only health and happiness, but the ability to subconsciously communicate across long distances. This mystical power takes on a more modern form in Matilda’s telekinetic powers, supposedly caused by diverted excess energy in her enormous brain. The cause lies with her neglectful parents, obtuse to the point of completely missing their daughter’s extraordinary prodigy. Her bond with Miss Honey becomes increasingly familial as Matilda involves herself in the personal problems of her caring teacher, finally resulting in their becoming a legal family when Matilda abandons her own.
In constantly encountering parallels between the two novels, what becomes increasingly apparent is the resemblance between Matilda and Jane themselves. Readers will find them both to be quiet misfits who desire little more than to love and be loved in return. They share a relationship to the literary genre as well: Matilda in her use of books as an escape from the tortures of the real world (ironically, Jane Eyre is mentioned), and Jane, in addition to reading herself, in her need to live a life that is ‘readable’. Throughout the course of the novel, she directly addresses readers, explaining to them that she has omitted or altered portions of her own life in order to increase the narrative appeal. Again, the same values are manifested in ways molded only by an increase in age – not a change in values.

The Washington Post reviews Girl in a Blue Dress. A Novel Inspired by the Life & Marriage of Charles Dickens by Gaynor Arnold:

Arnold's novel seems poised to enact a much-deserved act of feminist revenge, something like Jean Rhys's "Wide Sargasso Sea," which exposed the brutishness of Rochester in "Jane Eyre." But Arnold is ultimately too charitable and too attendant to the historical record for anything like that. "Girl in a Blue Dress" is, among many things, the story of one woman's remarkable resistance to bitterness and the blessings that eventually flow from that spirit. (Ron Charles)

Another Brontë reference comes from The Boston Phoenix. A review of the exhibition Butterfly Flight & Other Stories by Anne Siems in Walker Contemporary (Boston):

She mixes in early American stenciled wall decorations and designs that young girls embroidered into samplers. She sets it all atop dreamy soft-focus landscapes rendered with a golden brown patina that makes the paintings look antique. The combination transforms these influences from just a pastiche into something that feels fresh and sweeps you up like ravishing moments from a Brontë sisters novel. (Greg Cook)

The Fuquay-Varina Independent talks about Joyce Hope's book Joy Comes in the Morning:

Lauren MJ Connelly, published freelance writer and blogger at www.puremama.com, says the book “is destined to become an instant classic. This beautiful novel has the potential for being developed into other forms of media a la the works of Laura Ingalls Wilder or the Brontë sisters.”

Fairweather Lewis posts about Fritz Eichenberg's 1943 illustrations for Wuthering Heights and Addicted to Film mentions several Jane Eyre adaptations.

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

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Wuthering X-Men

Wuthering Heights news:

The Guardian reviews Wuthering Heights Naxos Audiobook released last year (check this old post of ours) with Janet McTeer and David Timson.

David Timson is excellent as Lockwood, the narrator, while Janet McTeer takes over as Nelly in the recounting of Catherine's tumultuous story. Perfect listening for a dark winter's night. (Kim Bunce)

On Jill Christine's blog, you can find a Brontëite confession, Wuthering Heights section:

Yes, there are always used bookstores and thrift stores. I’ve been known to prowl both, usually in search of obscure editions of my favorite titles. You don’t want to know how many different copies of Wuthering Heights I have. My favorite’s a hardcover illustrated with Fritz Eichenberg wood engravings. Heathcliff is my precious, okay?

Jane Eyre news:

First, we have a review of the current US tour of The Acting Company with Polly Teale's Jane Eyre. The Indiana Star Press about Muncie's performances:

A select audience of theater-lovers attended Polly Teale's groundbreaking adaptation of Jane Eyre on Tuesday evening at Emens Auditorium. (...)
Director Davis McCallum explains, "Our adaptation frames the story as one woman's containment and release." Bertha also represents the first wife, Bertha Antoinetta Mason, married to a fortune-hunting Rochester and doomed to madness by the strictures of colonial patriarchy. Christopher Oden, the award-winning actor who plays Rochester says, "[Bertha] represents all the sex and rage Jane has to push down in order to make her way in the world."
The stark simplicity of the set contributed to the tone and mood of the play, as did the cellist sitting on stage, who added haunting music to the scenes. The use of
chairs as devices to illuminate scene changes worked well.
The action moved slowly in the first act, but the intensity built steadily until the final denouement. (Delonda Hartmann)

And here we have this very curious post where Jane Grey (from X-Men 3. The Last Stand (2006)) is compared with Jane Eyre! Well, if you read the post closely, what the author compares is Jane Grey/Phoenix duality with Jane Eyre/Bertha Mason:

A couple of weekends ago, I watched X-Men: The Last Stand, the most recent installment in the X-Men movie franchise. On the same night, I finished reading Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. You might think that a 9-month-old superhero movie and a 160-year-old realistic novel don’t have anything in common, but you’d be wrong… Both fictions take on the subject of women and madness, with a special focus on the split personality. The outcomes of the two stories are very different in ways that make me concerned about the direction we young whippersnappers are headed in. (Feminist SF, The Blog!) (Read more)

The Brontës are the subject of this long entry on Alun Clewe's LiveJournal. Although we don't agree with everything said (particularly with the treatment of Anne Brontë's Agnes Grey), it makes an interesting reading.Categories: In the News, Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights

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The madwoman in the east wing

The Guardian review of the musical adaptation of The Secret Garden at The Rep, Birmingham, includes a small burst of Brontë:

With its gothic mansion and dark secret lurking in the east wing à la Jane Eyre, its wild desolate moors like Wuthering Heights, and a miracle scene – crippled boy walks – to rival Heidi, Frances Hodgson Burnett's original novel is quite operatic enough without added songs, however pleasant. (Lyn Gardner)

We believe, though, that the reviewer is mixing together Jane Eyre (where the dark secret actually lurked in the attic) and Rebecca (where the west wing had been the first Mrs de Winter's domain).

The School Library Journal quotes from Jane Eyre when discussing children's difficulties with language when it comes to expressing their feelings:

It’s hard to be a child, having no words to truly describe what you are feeling. Adults—well, some of us, anyway—have learned to talk about our feelings, to analyze them, to come up with reasons for the vast tides of emotion that heave in, foaming, and smack us with oceanic power. But kids, not so much. In Charlotte Brontë’s magnificent book Jane Eyre, a kindly apothecary asks 10-year-old Jane what made her unhappy:
“How much I wished to reply fully to this question! How difficult it was to frame any answer! Children can feel, but they cannot analyze their feelings or express them in words.” (Lynne Jonell)

Anne Rice is interviewed by The New York Magazine and asked about Twilight:

Do you have a take on the way in which Twilight serves Stephenie Meyer’s Mormon beliefs?
I don’t know enough about Mormon beliefs to see it in that context. What I saw there was woman’s romance. And I don’t mean that in a denigrating way. I saw the same thing that works in the work of Charlotte and Emily Brontë, the idea of a young and vulnerable young woman falling in love with essentially an older, stronger, mysterious person. In Jane Eyre, Mr. Rochester is threatening but he’s also protective and loving, and eventually comes around to be totally subdued and tamed by Jane. And that’s really what I saw in Twilight, in the two movies I saw. Young girl falls in love with this boy who’s capable of killing people, he’s a vampire, but he really loves her and protects her. And it was the same old story. Of course, there’s been a lot of writing in the world about why that particular romance functions. Is it about a young girl and her relationship to her father, as people have argued? Is it about the weaker feminine in love with the stronger masculine? It has a lot of deep layers of meaning, and I think Stephenie Meyer hit on that again in the Twilight books. And she did this stroke of genius thing of having these menacing vampires go to high school. (Gwynne Watkins)

The NPR features Mark Twain's Autobiography and recalls the Wuthering Heights anecdote. Man of la Book reviews Jane Eyre and The Memory of Rain is giving away a copy - US only though - of the 1945 version of the novel with wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg. Definitely quite a treat!

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights

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The Heroine's Story

Keighley News reports the publication of the new Brontë Parsonage Museum guide:

The Brontë Parsonage Museum has released its first new guidebook since 1998.
The glossy brochure has been published following last year’s major refurbishment of the parsonage.
The text has been updated so that it takes into account changes to displays at the Haworth museum over the past 15 years.
The new 48-page guidebook also includes the findings from recent research into the history of the Parsonage’s furnishings.
The museum teamed up with specialist publishers Scala to prepare the book, which contains 59 colour photographs.
The 1998 guidebook was written by Kathryn White, a former curator of the museum, and Ann Dinsdale, who is currently the collections manager.
Ann, who extensively revised the original text for the new version, said the book was the museum’s official guide.
She said: “It has been updated to include new images and the new rooms. (...)
The Brontë Parsonage Museum guidebook is on sale in the museum shop. (David Knights)

Nashville Scene talks about the current Fritz Eichenberg exhibition at the Vanderbilt University Fine Arts Gallery:

Cutting his teeth as an American immigrant in the dark years of Weimar Europe, Eichenberg's illustrations of books by Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Poe and the Brontë sisters match the ominous tone of the times. (Laura Hutson)

Musings of a  late bloomer posts about an upcoming publication:

I am delighted to announce that Quest Books is publishing my book, "Jane Eyre's Sisters: How Women Write and Live the Heroine's Story." The book is based on my doctoral dissertation, "She's Leaving Home: Recurrent Motifs in Women's Narratives," but has been rewritten for a wider audience and greatly expanded. My premise is that from the 17th century on, Western women (and a few visionary men) have been writing a story about heroines that differs considerably from the Heroic Quest story. (Jody Gentian Bower)

The Dominion Post (New Zealand) writes about local history with a tiny Brontë connection:

Woodward St was named after Jonas Woodward, one of the English settlers who arrived on the Clifton in 1842.
Woodward was involved with many administrative activities in the new settlement: he was the treasurer of the Provincial Council, was one of the leaders of the temperance movement and was the founder and pastor of the Congregational Church.
Wellingtonian and prominent feminist Mary Taylor commended him in one of her letters to Charlotte Brontë. (Ryan Holder)

Julie Buntin in Cosmopolitan thinks that

If you liked Twilight, read Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë.
Bella and Edward have nothing on Heathcliff and Catherine. Like Edward, broody Heathcliff has a mysterious past. The will-they-won’t-they love story between him and Cathy is as epic ­­— and swoon-worthy — as they come. There would be no Twilight without Wuthering Heights.

Bella in the film adaptations, that is Kristen Stewart, will be in a 'romantic' George Orwell's 1984 film adaptation. Anne Billson, in The Telegraph, thinks it quite a bizarre idea:

Given the ease with which love stories can be integrated into a science fiction story instead of imposed on a plot where it's neither needed nor wanted, you wonder why anyone would choose to give 1984, of all stories, this treatment. If it's an attempt to piggy-back on the high recognition factor of a well-known title, it would surely have been more logical to opt for a "futuristic" Pride and Prejudice, or Wuthering Heights, or Romeo and Juliet.

The Guardian Book Podcast features Samantha Ellis talking about her book How To Be a Heroine:

We also discuss literary heroines with Samantha Ellis, whose new memoir investigates her obsession with some of fiction's most celebrated characters. She explains how she learned to love her inner Jane Eyre, and why Anne of Green Gables turned out to be a terrible disappointment. (Presented by Claire Armitstead and produced by Tim Maby)

The US polar vortex days trigger this article on Bustle about how literary characters deal with winter:

Jane Eyre dons a mantle a muff
Gathering my mantle about me, and sheltering my hands in my muff, I did not feel the cold, though it froze keenly; as was attested by a sheet of ice covering the causeway, where a little brooklet, now congealed, had overflowed after a rapid thaw some days since. —Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë (Claire Luchette)

Refinery29 gives reasons to be a bookworm:

But, don't get too cozy. That literary laziness is fine for an occasional rainy, sleety stretch, but the District offers too many awesome readings, lectures, and signings to justify lounging on your couch for too long. So, instead of camping out with a dog-eared copy of Jane Eyre, get out of your house and learn something new. (Carrie Murphy)

Emily Nussbaum in the New Yorker talks about her re-discovery of V.C. Andrews's Flowers in the Attic:

The older siblings read “Peter Rabbit” to the twins. Christopher reads “Tom Sawyer.” Cathy, the older sister, reads “Jude the Obscure” and “Wuthering Heights” and “Lorna Doone” and “King Arthur,” after which “a door opened I hadn’t known existed before: a beautiful world when knighthood was in flower.”

Weld for Birmingham talks about the England in 1819 band and their song Himmel:

Songs like “Himmel” conjure up images of the foggy moors around the titular farmhouse in Wuthering Heights, spooky fields full of damp dreariness and lingering ghosts. (Walter Lewellyn)

Mediapart (France) talks about Alice in Wonderland and mentioning the Liddell sisters:

Elles ne sont pas donc les magistrales écrivaines des " Hauts de hurle-vent " terrible " Vutherings (sic) Heights ", sublime " Jane Eyre ", et autres talentueux " Agnés grey ", elles ne sont pas donc les trois sœurs Émilie, Charlotte et Anne Brönte (sic) ... (Pierre Guerrini) (Translation)

We are not one hundred per cent sure but, is this Südkurier review of the theatre piece Herein! Herein! Ich atme euch ein! performances in Zurich, Switzerland saying that they perform a sketch with Wuthering Heights in signal flags (à la Monty Python...)?

Wie leicht mag da Langeweile entstehen, wenn Polleschs 80-Minuten-Stück schon Längen zeigt. Dann müssen die Matrosen ran mit Animationseinlagen. Da wird dann Emily Brontees Roman „Sturmhöhe“ ins Flaggen-Alphabet übersetzt und zu den Klängen einer Popschnulze grandios choreografiert. Das verkürzt die Fahrzeit. (Wolfgang Bager ) (Translation)

Several websites celebrate Anne Brontë's birthday: Wine and a book, Michael Thomas Barry, Surviving Transition, the Brontë Sisters, Tara Hanks, Redecorating Middle-Earth in early Lovecraft, the Brontë Parsonage Facebook ...

Zdravakrava (Croatia) quotes Charlotte  Brontë about hypochondria; Biblioteka pod marcepanem (in Polish) reviews The Professor; Nourritures Terrestres et Norritures Espirituelles (in French) posts about Wuthering Heights; The Adventures of Cecelia Bedelia reviews Jenna Starborn.

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A 'new look' for Haworth Main Street and other news

First of all, thank you to the anonymous reader who has alerted us to this Trinity Hospice auction:

Live Auction 2011
Wuthering Heights Film Premier Tickets
Walk the red carpet – this is your chance for 2 people to attend the UK Wuthering Heights film premier. The film starring newcomer James Howson as Heathcliffe (sic), Kaya Scodelario (star of TV show Skins & blockbuster Clash of the Titans) as Catherine Earnshaw. Directed by Oscar winner Andrea Arnold. Produced by Ecosse Films (Sept 2011).

Unfortunately, as we understand it, the auction seems to have already taken place on June 14th. So there are already two lucky winners out there.

As for Jane Eyre 2011, Just Jared and The Daily Telegraph (Australia) post pictures from the Australian premiere of the film.

The Telegraph and Argus has further information on the works being carried out at Haworth:

Further improvements to Haworth’s historic Main Street are expected to be completed this summer.
They will include new seating, plant containers and bins, which will enhance ongoing efforts to restore the road’s surface. Contractors have been removing and relaying large parts of the steep street.
Many of its setts had become damaged and the material in the gaps between the stones had eroded away, leaving hazardous potholes.
The re-surfacing followed fears, raised by members of Haworth, Cross Roads and Stanbury Parish Council in early 2007, for the future of the setts.
The work on the setts is still to be completed. But Worth Valley district councillors have given the go-ahead to the accompanying part of the programme, which mostly relates to street furniture.
Coun Russell Brown said: “[...] The improvements will mean new seats, placed to highlight the vistas across the valley and up Main Street.
“They will also mean new planters to be used by the Haworth in Bloom group, build-out features, new refuse bins and bollards. “The work should hopefully be finished within the next eight to ten weeks.” (Miran Rahman)

PopMatters discusses Christopher Lane's book The Age of Doubt:

The Age of Doubt does tackle the church’s reaction to Lyell’s claims that the earth is just over 6,000 years old, or to Darwin’s assertions about evolution. But Lane provides no more than the most cursory glance at many of these debates. Far more time is spent discussing the theological implications of Victorian literature, and it’s clear that this is where Lane’s true interest lies. Pages upon pages are spent analyzing the works of the Brontës, George Eliot and Alfred, and Lord Tennyson, among others. (Christopher Holden)

And the Torontoist mentions Jeanette Winterson's history with Jane Eyre:

Jeanette Winterson has a complicated relationship with religion. She has every reason to reject it—in her semi-autobiographical first novel Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit (1985), she explains how her Pentecostal Christian adoptive mother was so evangelical that when she read Jane Eyre aloud to a young Winterson, she changed the ending so that Jane married St. John River and went on to become a missionary. (Laura Godfrey)

Andy Buckle's Film Emporium reviews Jane Eyre 2011 and The Life & Random Thoughts of Indigo Montoya takes a look at several adaptations of the novel. Katarina Thorsen Art Blog is thrilled by Fritz Eichenberg's wood engravings for Jane Eyre. Minleseglede posts in Norwegian about Villette and Literature in Letters discusses the ending of Shirley. YouTube user thomasengqvist has uploaded a video of Anne Brontë's blue plaque at the Grand Hotel, Scarborough.

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

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Books, manga, 1940s and other news

A reader of The Telegraph and Argus is not very enthusiastic - to put it mildly - about Sherri Browning Erwin's Jane Slayre:

SIR – My sister sent me a cutting from the T&A (April 14) about the forthcoming issue of a book called Jane Slayre. Knowing of my respect for the writings of Charlotte Bronte, she thought it may be of some interest to me – it certainly was.
In my view, writings of the stature of Jane Eyre, indeed any book, should never me messed about with. In short, if Ms Sheri Browning Erwin feels the need to tell us of so called ‘vampires’ then she must write a book of her own. And let such a book be of the quality of Jane Eyre; most doubtful.
I was much disturbed also to read in your article that a certain Ms Sue Long, a teacher no less, is of the opinion that it (the new book) “will draw young people to the classics and perhaps to read Jane Eyre later” – “perhaps” is the operative word.
In my opinion, children once exposed to the likes of Jane Slayre rarely go back to the original and take the ‘messed about’ version to be the norm.
No, I for one will not be buying – or reading – Ms SBE’s book. I will wait until the film version of her efforts comes out (I am sure that is the real reason for this ‘adaptation’) so I can throw things at the screen – SBE’s book would be just about right for the job.
Clive Pearsall, Triq il-Kavetti, Marsascala, Malta

We will write our own review of the book in a few weeks' time.

Oh, and The Telegraph and Argus also has an article and a video of Haworth's 1940s weekend, which always looks like fun even if it has nothing to do with the Brontës but the setting.

The Financial Times views Maggie O'Farrell's latest book, The Hand That First Held Mine:

By contrast, Lexie’s story starts as an over-familiar narrative – older worldly man dazzles headstrong young woman – seen in everything from Jane Eyre to the recent film An Education. (Ed Wood)

It's not the first time that Maggie O'Farrell's books have been connected to the Brontës.

Anime News Network reviews the manga series Aoi Hana (青い花, Sweet Blue Flowers) (an old friend of BrontëBlog's news), where

The handsome Yasuko, like a future Takarazuka starlet, plays Heathcliff in a school production of Wuthering Heights. (Erin Finnegan)

Dagblog comments on Elena Kagan's nomination to the Supreme Court and a recent article published on The Washington Post:

A female justice apparently has to be a judicial heavyweight and a character in a Bronte novel. (Although if she is openly emotional, or even just a Latina, her emotionalism is suspect.)
And what's truly repellent about Gerhart is her traffic in the ugly saw that childless women lack full emotional lives. Everybody knows, of course, that a woman who doesn't get married and have kids, and most especially a high-achieving woman who doesn't get married and have kids, is entirely out of touch with her inner life, deprived of her full capacities to imagine, intuit, hope, and feel.
You can ask the Brontë sisters about that last one, too.

Paperback Dolls posts about Wuthering Heights, Serenity_books writes about it in connection to the Twilight saga and Illustration poetry shares a Wuthering Heights-inspired illustration. How Do You Measure A Year? posts about Sheila Kohler's Becoming Jane Eyre. And finally Flickr user Hazel and cerulean has uploaded a few pictures of Jane Eyre with wood engravings by Fritz Eichenberg.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights

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Jane Eyre in Texas and other news

First of all, readers from Texas might find this press release interesting:

March 10 – Screening of Jane Eyre at the Alamo Drafthouse, South Lamar. Time TBD. The film is a passionate adaptation of the timeless novel by influential English author Charlotte Brontë. It is directed by two-time AFF Alum Cary Fukunaga and stars Mia Wasikowska, Judi Dench, Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell and Sally Hawkins.

The screening will be part of the joint events organised by the Austin Film Festival and Texas Book Festival.

This reviewer from The Volante is sadly not too keen on April Lindner's Jane.

There are some classic novels that work well when well-meaning authors decide to yank the characters out of their corsets and into the 21st century. Charlotte Brontë's famous Victorian Gothic romance "Jane Eyre" just isn't one of them. (Jessica Kokesh)

About the character of Nico Rathburn she says,

What is with Young Adult authors romanticizing jerks recently? (Jessica Kokesh)

We would just like to point out that the original Mr Rochester is no saint either.

The Boston Phoenix jokes about recent literary trends:

Paranormal romance is the single most important literary movement of our time. To judge by the shelves of Borders, novels about sexy vampires and beefcake mummies are the only things people read or write anymore. In fact, I've begun to outline my own paranormal Gothic-romance masterpiece. Not to give too much away, but it's going to be the Wuthering Heights of hot yetis. And I'd better act fast. (David Thorpe)

Northern Stars reports Danishka Esterhazy's film Black Field 'has been chosen to open the 6th annual Vancouver Women in Film Festival on March 4th' and the Brontë influences of the movie are once again mentioned:

Inspired by the Gothic novels of the Brontë sisters, this suspenseful drama unfolds on a bleak Canadian prairie landscape set in the 19th century.

The Scotsman discusses the new season of Skins and recalls the Charlotte Brontë tattoo moment.

The Scotsman also features singer PJ Harvey and remarks on her Brontë side:

She can look like "Joan Crawford on acid" (her words), a vamp, a drag queen, a serious artist swathed in black, or a Brontë sister. (Chitra Ramaswamy)

Given that her new album - Let England Shake - is coming out in a couple of weeks, we are pretty certain that this won't be the last time we read something along those lines.

Angelic Blogjia writes in Hungarian about Jane Eyre. Tahleen's Mixed-Up Files, This Miss Loves to Read, Loving Books and The Biblio Blogazine all include either Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights among their top ten debut novels. Bring on the Bling recently acquired a copy of Wuthering Heights illustrated by Fritz Eichenberg. And YouTube user katieconnornme has uploaded a video of a trip to Haworth.

Categories: Alert, Books, Humour, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Wuthering Heights

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Wuthering Winds, Winding Paths

Keighley News announces some of the most interesting events that will take place at next month's The South Pennines Walk and Ride Festival:

Brontë Country will feature heavily in a 16-day festival designed to encourage people to make the most of the stunning South Pennine landscape. (...)
On September 11 there will be a three-hour walk starting at 10am from Penistone Hill Country Park to Top Withens and Brontë Bridge. The same day will also feature a short, one-hour ‘health walk’, starting and ending at East Riddlesden Hall. This will begin at 2pm. (...)
On September 22 Brontë fans can take advantage of an eight-mile walk exploring the landscape made famous by the literary sisters. This begins at the Brontë Parsonage Museum at 10.30am. (Miran Rahman)

Other regional newspapers recommend different Yorkshire locations. The Derby Telegraph suggests Haddon Hall:

Described as one of England’s oldest and most romantic houses, Haddon Hall has played the part of Thornfield Hall, the home of Mr Rochester in three adaptations of Charlotte Brontë’s classic Jane Eyre and this summer there’s a special costume exhibition featuring costumes from all three versions. The exhibition runs until September 2 and there are also behind the scene tours on specific days.

Yorkshire Post goes for Mirfield:

The Mirfield Show is held annually at the Huddersfield Road Showground on the third Sunday in August. (...)
Emily, Charlotte and Anne Brontë were educated at Roe Head School in Mirfield. Charlotte was both pupil and mistress there. Anne later became governess to the Ingham children at Blake Hall in Mirfield.

The Stuff gives ten reasons to visit England:

2. The moors and heaths.
The purple heather, the blustering gales (or wuthering winds if you're an Emily Brontë fan) and the winding, intersecting paths that encourage all day dalliance - what's not to love? (Amy Roil)

USA Today's Happy Ever After interviews the author Diana Gaston who talks about her new projects:

My next book after A Not So Respectable Gentleman? will be a December release from Harlequin Historical. Born to Scandal is my homage to Jane Eyre, my governess story complete with secrets and betrayals. And the book I'm working on now will be released in June 2013, if all goes well. And I have two more books to write after that, so I'm not sure when I'll find that time! (Kathy Altman)

We see in this picture at the NorthForkPatch that at the Mattituck Historical Society Annual Antique Show (Long Island), copies of the Fritz Eichenberg illustrated edition of Wuthering Heights could be found:

Book collector Gianna Volpe was stoked to have found historic prints of some of her favorite classic books — "Wuthering Heights," "The Last of the Mohicans," and "Robinson Crusoe."
"I've read them all, I just really love the animations in these," she said. (Erin Schultz)

Examiner is very realistic about being a freelance writer:

Don't even go into the depths of the freelance world with the notion that you're going to be in the next Hemingway or Brontë... ain't gonna happen, buddy. You're a nobody in the writing world and will probably be a nobody at the end of your writing career, so having a few articles published or writing something that you are extremely proud of... that's huge... that's cause enough to celebrate. (Elizabeth Burke)

Teenage Fiction compares Jane Eyre to Twilight:

You would think that after so many decades of feminists and so much fighting for the rights of women (and it goes on!), we'd have stronger female protagonists. You'd think that we'd have made progress from the days of Jane Eyre. But clearly not, and it's kind of shameful that in YA, feminism seems to be going backwards. (...)
Because let's face it: even though Jane is a 19th-century Victorian orphan, she's still way more badass and fun to read about than Bella Swan is.

The Celebrity Cafe compares Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights to Lana Del Rey's Blue Jeans; Julie's Chick Lit reviews Agnes Grey; The Literary Omnivore reviews Sherri Browning Erwin's Jane Slayre (Wordstream, in Danish, seems a bit shocked by the novel's premise); Mr Movies and İyisinek (in Turkish) review Wuthering Heights 2011; Pyxurz is posting screen captures of Jane Eyre 1983; LTC-La Tour Camoufle (in French) reviews Jane Eyre 2011; Grădina cu magnolii (in Romanian) posts about the original novel; kaio113 publishes a video with the rehearsals and behind-the-scenes of  the ballet Stürmische Höhen, premiered last year in Magdeburg.

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