Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëAlso in The Guardian a reminder of the upcoming Polly Teale's Brontë revival by Shared Experience which premieres next week in Oxford:
Jane supernaturally hears Rochester's voice calling her back to Thornfield. She returns to find her former "master" blinded in the fire that has destroyed his house and killed the woman who started it, his maddened wife Bertha. Now Jane can look after him (and marry him).
In theatre's new sharing culture, alliances are being made all over the country as buildings fling open their doors and invite collaborators in. The latest marriage comes between touring company Shared Experience and Oxford Playhouse, and their first co-production comes with this revival of Nancy Meckler's take on Polly Teale's exploration of women and creativity. Set in the Yorkshire parsonage home of the Brontës, where the family's great hope – and only son – Branwell has recently returned in disgrace, the play finds his three sisters – Charlotte, Emily and Anne – beginning to eclipse him as they find their own voices. (Mark Cook & Lyn Gardner)The New Jersey Star-Ledger reviews the Martha Graham Dance Company Death and Entrances performances at the Lincoln Ceneter:
Longtime admirers may be disturbed by the current version of “Deaths and Entrances” itself, yet even edited and colorized this work is still a masterpiece gripping in every detail.Lauren Lise Baratz-Logsted publishes an article about Hillary Clinton on The Huffington Post which begins like this:
Though inspired by the life and literature of the Brontë sisters, Graham’s work is all-American. More “Ethan Frome” than “Wuthering Heights,” it is a Spartan dance in which a precious goblet of colored glass must bear all the force of the heroine’s longings. Portrayed with terrific nuance by Miki Orihara, this unnamed heroine (a mix of Graham herself and Emily Brontë) recalls her desperate past. She is torn between the ardor of a Dark Beloved and the ambiguous but less threatening Poetic Beloved, and tortured by the intrigues of her two sisters as they sit beside a chess board that is among several symbolic objects.
When, in a final gesture, Orihara reaches beyond the set that frames the stage in black, Graham signals that by wrestling with her past the heroine has won freedom. (Robert Johnson)
When I was first asked to write a piece on the one woman, living or dead, who has inspired me most as a woman and as a writer, the choice seemed self-servingly obvious: Louisa May Alcott. (...) But then I realized that wouldn't be honest. So immediately I started on a mental list involving The Usual Suspects. For dead ones I had Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë.(...)The New Straits Times (Malaysia) states the obvious when it says:
Finally, I hit on it, the only woman it could be for me:
Hillary Rodham Clinton. (...)
Maybe An Invitation to the White House and Dear Socks, Dear Buddy: Kids' Letters to the First Pets aren't exactly up there, literarily, with Pride & Prejudice and Jane Eyre. But what about the tome of a memoir that is Living History? I've read the thing, and believe me, she's a writer.
You don't need to film Shakespeare's classics or the Brontë sisters' novels to show British-ness.Del Mar Times begins a local story with a Brontë reference:
“Wuthering Heights” had Catherine and Heathcliff, “Casablanca” had Ilsa and Rick, “The Einhorns” had Mae and Harold — all great love stories that transcend time. (Diane Y. Welch)The Guardian reviews some audiobooks including one of To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee:
And some authors are remembered for only one book, but that's enough if, along with Wuthering Heights, Don Quixote, Doctor Zhivago and this, it becomes a classic. (Sue Arnold)Los Andes (Argentina) reviews the poetry book El eco de mi madre by Tamara Kamenszain:
Por eso acá participamos, entre acentos latinos varios, de una charla de vecinas en un patio porteño: la chilena Diamela Eltit, la mexicana Coral Bracho y las argentinas Sylvia Molloy y Lucía Laragione, contando cada una su historia y sin perderle el hilo a la novela, “como las hermanas Brontë imaginadas por Virginia Woolf, en medio de la sala de estar”, mate viene, mate va. (Gastón Ortiz Bandes) (Translation)El Cultural (Spain) reviews the Spanish translation of The Pregnant Widow by Martin Amis:
Esa pérdida de la inocencia que él ha leído en las Brontë, nos sugiere Amis, es la misma que sufrirá la sociedad en aquellos años por mor de lo que vino en denominarse “proceso de liberación de la mujer”. (José Antonio Gurpegui) (Translation)La Tercera (Spain) interviews Martin Amis himself:
Sartre creía que las mujeres no podían ser novelistas porque no llevaban el peso del mundo sobre sus hombros. ¿El peso del mundo? Eso no es verdad, sí lo llevan. Y el mejor novelista de la historia de la literatura inglesa es una mujer, George Elliot. Con Jane Austen pisándole los talones. Y las hermanas Brontë, claro. (Diego Salazar) (Translation)Il Recensore (Italy) reviews an Italian translation of The Rector's Daughter by Flora Macdonald Mayor and mentions its Jane Eyre references:
The Rector’s Daugther dalla copertina azzurro e oro fu pubblicato dall’Hogarth Press la casa editrice di Leonard e Virginia Woolf nel 1924. L’autrice aveva iniziato a comporre la trama cinque anni prima. Il coraggio di Leonard Woolf fu premiato, perché il romanzo di questa sconosciuta zitella di cinquant’anni riscosse subito successo e fu immediatamente ristampato. La storia di Mary da giovane innamorata del Mr Rochester di Jane Eyre e da adulta persa d’amore per il vicario di Lanchester colpì l’immaginazione dei lettori.(Alessandra Stopini) (Translation)Roxy FM (Poland) presents a programme about the most important women in history. We find the Brontës on their top fifteen:
Siostry BrontëZainab Khawaja's Blog, La professora d'inglese (in Italian), Never a Dull Moment and Jessica's Book Blog and Stuff review Jane Eyre; Tracy's Space posts about what she has read so far on a Jane Eyre Read-along; Your Move, Dickens reviews (2 out of 5 stars) Agnes Grey; El Universal (Colombia) discusses Virginia Woolf and mentions Emily Brontë several times. Ukranian children who like Jane Eyre on Cxid.
introwertyczna, drażliwa Emily, delikatna Anne i niespokojna, poszukująca Charlotte. Wszystkie niezbyt urodziwe, nieefektowne. Wszystkie nadwrażliwe i bezkompromisowe w swej twórczości. Popularność tym pisarkom przyniosło przeciwstawianie się moralnym, społecznym i estetycznym stereotypom epoki wiktoriańskiej. Otwartość w sprawach uczuć, indywidualizm, buntowniczość, to najważniejsze elementy ich pisarstwa. W dzieciństwie osierocone przez matkę, wychowywane przez ciotkę i hipochondrycznego, ekscentrycznego ojca-pastora na plebanii w hrabstwie Yorkshire, otoczonej bezmiarem wrzosowisk, gdzie spędziły niemal całe swoje życie, stworzyły sobie baśniowy świat, w którym rozwijała się ich niepospolita wyobraźnia i talent literacki. (Translation)
The Brontë Sisters: Emily, Charlotte, and AnneCategories: Agnes Grey, Alert, Dance, Jane Eyre, References, Talks, Theatre
Join us this Saturday at 5:00pm in East Hampton when Carole Stone, poet and professor of 19th Century literature, explores the sisters' writing and influence.
The BookHampton Winter Lecture Series
Saturday, March 19 at 5:00pm
41 Main Street, East Hampton
Roycroft InnThe emphasis is ours but apart from that we solemnly swear this is real and hasn't been tampered with. The place may be lovely for all we know but we'd like to encourage Ms Scott to read a biography of the supposed sitter before she uses his/her chair. It's only polite, you know.
The Roycroft Inn in East Aurora, New York, helps me get in touch with my artistic side. In keeping with its designation as an U. S. National Landmark, the Inn retains its original Roycroft style. In 1895 writer-philosopher Elbert Hubbard established the Roycroft Arts and Crafts Community, a self-contained community for craftspeople.
Since it opened in 1905, the Roycroft Inn has hosted a plethora of notables including authors Ralph Waldo Emerson, Charlotte Bronte, Steven Crane, and Henry David Thoreau.
I love sit by the fireplace – possibly in the same chair used by Charlotte Bronte – with my pen poised over my notepad, looking pensive, and hoping people wonder, "Who is she? An author? A poet?" They don’t have to know I am only a wannabe writer making an entry in my journal. http://www.roycroftinn.com/ (Sandra Scott)
And, of course, he's never strayed far from the hyperbolic invective that has alienated many of his colleagues from the thinking public - unable, for example, to decide whether to turn Hillary Clinton into a wailing Brontë heroin or a butch, gravelly character actor, remarking of her awkward breakdown on the campaign trail, "She pretended to cry, the women felt sorry for her, and she won." (Nicholas Gamso)ABC Newcastle (Australia) reports the discovery of some new Brontë sisters:
A Newcastle writers centres believes it has discovered Tasmania's own version of the literary Bronte sisters, living and working in Hobart 2000kms away.Categories: Weirdo
Project Director with the Hunter Writers Centre Micky Pinkerton describes entries from Hobart's Macdonald sisters as a stand out because of their wide range of styles and wit.
"We imagined these four girls living on a windswept moor somewhere in Tasmania all furiously scribbling and showing each other their work," Ms Pinkerton said.
The work was submitted to micro-fiction website site Onefifty, run by the Newcastle-based Hunter Writers Centre. (Anthony Scully)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte BrontëSwazi Observer (Swaziland) comments on reading Jane Eyre when young.
One strong woman deserves the company of another, which makes Jane Eyre the perfect bus book for the Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign. As a strong woman who stands her ground ahead of her time, Jane is not only a worthy companion for Clinton but also, quite possibly, a welcome role model. (Hannah Nelson-Teutsch)
It's undoubtedly one of the pleasures of reading, when we are young, to come across characters who feel as we do. Oliver Twist hungry and having to ask for more - why, that was exactly what I wanted to do after every school lunch. Jane Eyre orphaned and demeaned, blamed for crimes she hasn't committed - who ever went through childhood without suffering in that way.Everything But the Girl frontwoman Tracey Thorn has written a book on the art of singing, Naked at the Albert Hall, and The Guardian publishes an extract:
In 1978, when Kate Bush released Wuthering Heights, I was too immersed in my punk records to like it. More than the fact that it featured piano – drippy – and referenced a novel – swotty – I struggled with the singing. That melodramatic, all-over-the-shop approach to vocal melody just screamed “hippy” at me, and seemed to be the aural equivalent of shawls, beads, headdresses and candles, all of which I suspected Kate Bush was wearing or surrounded by while she recorded the vocal. It was this very flamboyance that imprinted itself on people’s minds and made it so appealing to the amateur performer (still imprinted on my eardrums, eyeballs and indeed damaged psyche, is the memory of two friends’ moving rendition at a Christmas karaoke party), but singing in that way, in that voice, steered the song close to the ridiculous. You could contend that the novel itself is somewhat manic and hysterical, so Kate Bush’s vocal is true to the tone of her source material, and yet, what a gamble to take. It paid off, of course – four weeks at No 1 for a debut single about a Victorian novel isn’t bad going – and proved once again that with rock and pop singing it’s probably safe to say that you can never go too far in your quest to find a distinctive voice for yourself.The Economic Times reports that
a Nasa scientist has decided to name an asteroid that she discovered between Mars and Jupiter after Malala Yousufzai, as the Pakistani Nobel laureate will then join a club that includes all four Beatles, Rafael Nadal, Lewis Carroll, Karl Marx and Charlotte Brontë, and some 15,000 others, famous and not-so.Balivernes (in French) reviews Wuthering Heights.
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.We'll never get why it is so difficult to check who wrote what, thus avoiding making a fool of yourself.
Brooks – the "Bridget Jones: Edge of Reason" screenwriter, here directing for the first time since "The Invisible Circus" (2001) – doesn't mean to compare April to the Emily Bronte heroine; in fact, it's Will who has the years-long, Jane-like journey of self. Reynolds, in his most appealing performance to date, has pitch-perfect rapport with each of his female co-stars. (Craig Outhier)
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.From The New York Observer:
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)
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)Changing topics now. You know the Brontës have a long history in the news with both fashion and politics. Indeed, this is actually not the first time Hilary Clinton is linked to them. From The Huffington Post:
The couple has just heard the Ms. Lee speak in passing about her endorsement of Hillary Clinton. Now they want to know the reasons for her support. But Congresswoman Lee can't let go of the spouse issue. He's had his "disappointments," he's had his "troubles," she says, in mitigation of Bill Clinton's behavior. What exactly does she mean? This is unclear, for Ms. Lee, perhaps channeling a nineteenth-century novelist, is characterizing more of a mad spouse from Bronte than a politician from Trollope. (Mayhill Fowler)A new Brontëite discovered via Musings of a Bookish Kitty, who reviews the forthcoming The Translator: A Tribesman's Memoir of Darfur by Daoud Hari.
The author is a reader! One of his favorite books is Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte.In brief: Suburban Journals has what looks like a short story where Charlotte Brontë's name is mentioned in passing. And マダム アンドレ のジュエルな日々writes about Wuthering Heights 1939 in Japanese.
The constant veil of light snow has me thinking "Currier & Ives." If you, too, are feeling your inner Victorian stirring, perhaps you’ll want to hook up the horse and buggy and head out to the Newberry Library for an evening of cultivated conversation. This announcement from the Chicago Seminar on Dance and Performance came too late for our listings, but it’s well worth attending:More information about Written on the Body can be found on these previous posts of ours.
Choreographer Margi Cole and Victorianist scholar Ken Daley discuss the Bronte sisters (who wrote such anguished romances as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights) and the development of Cole’s piece based on their lives, Written on the Body, which will go up at the Dance Center of Columbia College next week.
The free event takes place tonight, Februrary 12 from 6pm to 7:30pm at the Newberry Library, 60 W Walton St
5. Charlotte Brontë, author of Jane Eyre, had a cat called Tiger. (William Hartston)The Telegraph makes a case for Agatha Christie's Devon:
With Emily Brontë, it’s easy. You tick off Wuthering Heights and Haworth. With Jane Austen, there’s Chawton and Bath. Even Dickens’s ghost is easy to locate in and around London.The Independent explores the works of the novelist Shirley Jackson:
But to pay homage to Agatha Christie, where do you go? (Chris Moss)
Much of the golden thread of Gothic and uncanny fiction in English passes through a female line – from Mary Shelley and Charlotte Brontë to Daphne du Maurier, Angela Carter, Susan Hill and Donna Tartt. But Jackson, more than most of her sisters in mystery, lived in and through the vast abyss between untamed imagination and domestic routine. (Boyd Tonkin)Jezebel is not so much exploring but obsessed with the works of Mary Stewart:
Then there are all the literary touches. Nine Coaches Waiting might as well be titled Jane Eyre, But If It Was in France, With More Attempted Murder. This Rough Magic, set on Corfu, is practically a tribute to The Tempest. Every chapter in her books begins with some quote from literature. (Kelly Faircloth)Flagpole (Athens, Georgia) publishes a profiel of the new director of the local library:
She now owns a Nook and counts among her favorite works Jane Eyre and Their Eyes Were Watching God, plus the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon. (Rebecca McCarthy)Camille Paglia is interviewed on Salon. She says a couple of controversial things about Hillary Clinton:
Fifteen years later, that’s still the sad role left for her to play. (David Daley)Francine Prose tries to answer an impossible question (what is canon and who should be in there) in The New York Times:
Yes, it’s like something out of “Wuthering Heights” or “Great Expectations”–some Victorian novel, where a woman turns into this mourning widow who mopes on and on over a man who abused or abandoned her. Hillary has a lot to answer for, because she took an antagonistic and demeaning position toward her husband’s accusers. So it’s hard for me to understand how the generation of Lena Dunham would or could tolerate the actual facts of Hillary’s history.
I do think that there are works that everyone should read because they tell us who we are as human beings living in history. I would start with the Bible, the “Odyssey” and the “Iliad,” the works of Sophocles, Chaucer, Shakespeare. I think everyone should read “David Copperfield,” “Middlemarch,” “Wuthering Heights,” the essays of Virginia Woolf, not only because they will — by a sort of osmosis — improve one’s prose style, but because they can also sharpen one’s ability to think logically, to follow an argument and understand a complex sentence.The Los Angeles Review of Books reviews The Antinomies of Realism by Fredric Jameson:
“Motivation” names, for instance, the entire gamut of Marxism’s relation to the working class. It is something we should not lose, whether in the sense of an entirely de-motivated, lazy affectlessness, or in the sense of demographically automatic “studies show ...” explanations. But motivation was also the achievement and domain of realism. Why does Isabel Archer go back to Rome and her toxic marriage to Osmond at the end of The Portrait of a Lady? Why does Heathcliff, so virile and menacing, fade into a crepuscular shade in Wuthering Heights? (Ben Parker)Forbes India has an article about something totally unusal (irony intended): writers with just one novel:
Emily BrontëConsequence of Sound talks about a Titus Andronicus opera rock project:
Writing under the pen name Ellis Bell, Emily Brontë was the third of four siblings. Her novel Wuthering Heights, which was published in 1847, led many to believe that it was written by a man, given its powerful language, imagery and sexual passion. Brontë died in 1848, and though it was believed that she was working on a second novel, its manuscript was never found. (Jasodhara Banerjee)
Literature tells us that human suffering knows no bounds. We read Plath’s The Bell Jar, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, Brontë’s Villette and come face to face with Orpheus-like characters using art as a means to negate pain. (Lior Phillips)What your literary crushes says about your taste in men? Elite Daily unveils the enigma:
Mr. Rochester is basically the dude with more skeletons in his closet than ties. He’s the kind of guy you date for six months without knowing his last name, occupation or hometown. But let’s be honest, it doesn’t matter because he’s hot as hell and the sex is unbeatable.China Daily briefly mentions the Patrick De Bana Jane Eyre choreography for the Shanghai Ballet:
Tread lightly — trying to weed out information from him will leave you with even more questions, like why he always keeps the guest bedroom door locked. Also, be wary of his crazy-as-f*ck ex. (Izabella Zayndenberg)
He's no stranger to Shanghai Ballet, which invited him to create a dance-theater productionof Jane Eyre in 2012. The result: a particularly impressive presentation of Bertha, the madwife of Rochester, Jane's employer and lover, in the course of the dramatic entanglementbetween the three lead characters. (Zhang Kun)Judith Barrow interviews the writer Carol Lovekin:
Who are your favorite authors and what is it that you love about their work?El Periódico (Spain) recommends summer reading:
(...) Dodie Smith’s I Capture the Castle has the best fictional opening line ever and I reread Jane Eyre every few years.
Un clásico para recuperarSiglo XXI (Spain) interviews the writer Teresa Viejo:
Jane Eyre, de Charlotte Brontë. Cuando encuentro a una chica muy lectora de 13 o 14 años y que ya ha agotado todos los libros de fantasía que hay en el mercado lo recomiendo y en el 75% de los casos tengo éxito. (Xon Pagès) (Translation)
En la manera tuya de narrar, ¿sientes que se esconde algo de realismo mágico? (Herme Cerezo)Mia Wasikowska made a "quietly potent impression" as Jane Eyre in the 2011 film according to Ken Eisner on Georgia Straight; this reader of the Darlington & Stockton Times visited Norton Conyers and shares his opinion.
Un comentario de este tipo me abruma. Yo no busco ese efecto, lo digo con la mano en el corazón. El lenguaje me sale así porque soy una persona que he leído mucho y, si no has leído, no puedes tener un estilo propio. Durante mis veranos, mi única ocupación era leer. Leía cuatro libros a la semana y por mis manos pasaron las colecciones enteras de los Cinco o de Agatha Christie y muchos otros títulos como ‘Cumbres borrascosas’. (Translation)
She has garnered more publicity for cavorting with Reese Witherspoon's ex-husband Ryan Phillipe lately, but it seems Abbie Cornish is about to dust off her acting skills for a part in the screen adaptation of Emily Bronte's Gothic bodice ripper Wuthering Heights (Emily Dunn and Elicia Murray in The Sidney Morning Herald)Channel 4 traces a profile of Rachel Rice (it seems she is one one of the participants of UK's Big Brother 9) and literally says the following:
Because Rachel Rice is nice. Truly nice. She's good in thought and word and deed. She's like one of those Bronte novel characters who would hang around for about four chapters letting the author make a strong point about godliness and 'turning the other cheek', before dying hideously of consumption in a phlegm-strewn bed.Technically only Helen Burns can approach such a profile.
You know her. She's got wild eyes and rumpled hair. At some point she stopped caring about the stains on her blouse. She's hurt, angry, rejected, and she's willing to take the whole damn place down with her. She is Lady Macbeth. She is Jane Eyre's deranged pyromaniac Bertha Mason. (...) And now, to hear the media tell it, she is a Hillary Holdout; she's a PUMA (Party Unity My Ass); and she belongs to 18 Million Voices. (Dahlia Lithwick in Slate)On the blogosphere we found a review of the upcoming book Jane Eyre's Daughter by Elizabeth Newark posted on Book-o-rama. By the way, BrontëBlog has also read the book and we will publish our review next week.
Despite a rocky start, this was an enjoyable book to read. (...) The writing and attention to detail were spot on; in fact, I'd love to see what Newark can do without using famous literary characters in her novel. Jane Eyre's Daughter is a book that can stand on it's own as a fun piece of romantic fiction. (Chris)She's a pink lady posts about Eugene's rendering of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. Via Louis Tinner we have discovered just a new website devoted to the Brontës in Dutch. The website contains, for the moment it seems to be yet in construction, biographies and a news section.
Jane Eyre, who not surprisingly finds herself in the subtitle of this informative book, is in the minds of many people the archetypal governess, yet there could have been few less typical either as to character or destiny. Her creator, Charlotte Bronte, though, knew her stuff on the subject from personal experience: She had herself been a governess at the beggarly salary of 20 pounds per annum. (Martin Rubin)The mention is quite accurate:
(...) I am fairly stablished in my new place. It is the family of Mr. White of Upperwood House, Rawdon. The house is not very large but exceedingly comfortable and well regulated; the grounds are fine and extensive. In taking the place I have made a large sacrifice in the way of salary, in the hope of securing comfort by which word I do not mean to express good eating and drinking, or warm fire, or soft bed, but the society of cheerful faces, and minds and hearts not dug out of a lead of mine, or cut from a marble quarry. My salary is not really more than £16 p.a., though it is nominally £20, but the expense of washing will be deducted therefrom. My pupils are two in number, a girl of eight and a boy of six. (Charlotte Brontë to Ellen Nussey, 3 March 1841)Not to the first time that Hillary Clinton gets compared with the Brontës, but certainly the first time the reference goes deep into Brontë criticism:
In their landmark book of literary criticism "The Madwoman in the Attic: The Woman Writer and the Nineteenth-Century Literary Imagination" (1979), Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar were among the first to spotlight this noxious theme, this isolation and ridicule of powerful women by labeling them crazy, hysterical, perverse, monstrous. To challenge male domination—of the world, or just of oneself—was to be risk being marginalized, ostracized, locked away like Rochester's wife in "Jane Eyre" (1847), the fate that gave the book its title. In real life, behavior that strayed from the polite, demure norm expected of women in the 19th Century was rewarded with psychiatric evaluations and often, imprisonment and death. (Julia Keller in The Chicago Tribune)AudioBookTreasury.com has published an audiobook version of Jane Eyre. Read by several free contributors, you can listen to all the chapters here.
The fillies outnumber the colts in the Gowran Park Rooftop Restaurant Race, in which Summit Surge is highest-rated but must give considerable weight to all his rivals. However, Ger Lyons' charge ran a nice race in better company last Sunday at Leopardstown and should go very close. Charlotte Bronte is hard to assess and her strength in the market will be helpful in determining her prospects. (Johnny Ward in The Independent (Ireland))Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Audio-Radio, Books, Jane Eyre, References, Weirdo
A passionate and dramatic retelling of the Charlotte Bronte's masterpiece Jane Eyre will open at the Octagon Theatre in the new year.Keighley News features Lucy Powrie, Emily Brontë's young ambassador in next year's celebrations:
The new adaptation of the Brontë classic by Janys Chambers and Lorna French, stars familiar faces and a young company
Returning to the Octagon Theatre in the iconic role of Jane Eyre is Jessica Baglow after her triumphant role of Rita in Educating Rita.
Playing her employer and lover interest Mr Rochester is Michael Peavoy, returning to the Octagon after his role as Gilbert Markham in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall.
Claire Hackett, from Line of Duty 2, ITV and Coronation Street, ITV, will make her debut at the Octagon as Mrs Reed and Mrs Fairfax. (...)
Artistic Director and director of Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Newman said: "Jane Eyre has always been one of my all-time favourite stories. It is beautiful. It explores independence in a world where people are often denied autonomy, even an opinion. It examines determination against all odds. It provides hope even in the most desolate situations. We can all learn a lot from Jane and from Mr Rochester, lessons in faith and love, courage and resolve, friendship and freedom.
"We are delighted to have Janys and Lorna creating a magnificent new adaptation of such an iconic, vibrant and intelligent story. We are all very excited to see this production come to life and are eager to share it with audiences both new and returning."
Jane Eyre plays at the Octagon Theatre Bolton from Thursday, January 18 to Saturday, February 10. (Saiqa Chaudhary)
Teenage author and ‘vlogger’ Lucy Powrie has been enlisted by the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Emily Brontë’s birth.Townhall discusses real (in their opinion) feminist goals as seen (again in their opinion) by the Brontës and Jane Austen:
She has been chosen for the new role of Brontë Society Young Ambassador and during 2018 she will present an online Brontë book club on YouTube.
As a vlogger Lucy presents a regular video blog via her YouTube channel, lucythereader.
She said: “I'm so excited to be working with the Brontë Parsonage Museum on the Brontë Book Club for Emily’s bicentenary celebrations.
“Hopefully it will encourage lots of young people to read the books for the first time, and fall in love with them just as I have." (David Knights)
If you want to see just how far gone many modern day feminists are consider the world of Jane Austen, Emily and Charlotte Brontë, in stark contrast to the whining tour of Hillary Clinton and her curIn the world of the Brontë sisters and Jane Austen, women were treated like second-class citizens, whose diminished economic opportunity stemmed from patriarchal inheritance laws, blocked access to education, and crushing societal expectations.Broadway World presents the Dallas performances of the musical Daddy Long Legs:
With potent pens, the authors illustrated that their heroines faced dire circumstances BECAUSE they were women.rent apologists. (...)
Women’s crushing pressures portrayed with Austen’s light touch become darker as the Brontë sisters, who suffered at the hands of their father, explore doom, loss and lack of choice. In Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë writes a painful story of a girl who wants to make her own way, keeping her conscience clear, even as she loves the troubled, married Mr. Rochester. And who can forget Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, a tragic love story in which poverty and family crush the lives of Heathcliff and Catherine and the children that endure them. (Kristan Hawkins)
Based on the classic novel which inspired the 1955 movie starring Fred Astaire-a beloved tale in the spirit of Jane Austen, the Brontë Sisters, and "Downton Abbey"-this heartwarming Cinderella story about a witty and winsome young woman and her mysterious benefactor has charmed audiences of all ages from Los Angeles to London.USA Today lists the best films of 2017:
"Lady Macbeth": Owing more to Brontë and Highsmith than to Shakespeare (in fact, the source is an 1865 novella by Russia's Nikolai Leskov), this rigorously grim moor noir presents its catalog of 19th century parricide, mariticide, infanticide and equine-cide as a consequences of a class and caste system that dehumanizes even those who materially benefit from its design. (John Beifuss)Pasadena Star-News interviews film director Paul Thomas Anderson:
Q: Most of the film [Phantom Thread] takes place in one house, fortunately. It’s like a gothic romance, “Wuthering Heights” or “Rebecca,” exploded and reconfigured from the inside out. (Bob Strauss)El Español (in Spanish) discusses pseudonyms in the case of the writer and Twitter user barbijaputa:
PTA: That idea of it being contained in one house was always on our mind. The downside of this is that it could become a filmed play. That’s not good, it becomes claustrophobic in a bad way and it just becomes kind of like f-ing “Masterpiece Theatre.” We were consciously trying not to do that, always tried to be aware of giving it some scope and some scale, getting outside enough. But at the same time you want to . . . like these great films we all love and were looking at, they’re tightening the screws and they’re staying within a house where the walls keep closing in. At its best, in our theories, it was gonna be that.
Ahí Barbijaputa como las hermanas Brontë, como Jane Austen, como Mary Ann Evans, retrocediendo un par de siglos y escupiendo en la lucha de tantas feministas que se dejaron la vida para que hoy las mujeres sí podamos firmar lo que escribimos -aunque moleste-. (Lorena G. Maldonado) (Translation)La Depeche (France) reviews the performances of Tombés de la nuit in Colomiers:
Construit en un florilège des plus beaux textes patrimoniaux sur le thème de la nuit, découvrez le réveil de Gulliver, le mystérieux cauchemar de Jane Eyre... (Translation)Xaluan (Vietnam) discusses the couple Catherine-Heathcliff. Radio Angulo (Cuba) presents a Brontëite who reads Wuthering Heights each November. Smart Bitches, Trashy Books reviews A Secret Sisterhood by Emily Midorikawa and Emma Claire Sweeney. Mis lecturas y más cositas (in Spanish) reviews Jane Eyre.
(...) There is a satisfying air of authenticity and truthfulness in this reinvention of Mrs Fairfax, thanks largely to Bransgrove’s moving evocation of the haunting events in the widow’s past, her emotional vulnerability and her dilemma as a woman alone and dependent on others.Bustle has a thing with lists. This time it's books with 'steamy male lovers'. But, please, check your posts:
The realities of life in service – the daily chores, the social expectations and domestic responsibilities – are brought to life though Bransgrove’s careful and adept writing.
But it is the clever, penetrating and thoughtful reshaping of Mrs Fairfax that lingers longest in the mind and invites any fan of Jane Eyre to revisit the book and consider whether the rather conventional and kindly housekeeper was secretly just as much ‘in silent revolt’ against her lot as the determined little governess we know so well. (Pam Norfolk)
‘Wuthering Heights’ by Charlotte Brontë (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)The Independent discusses the recent TES list of the books 'every student should read before leaving middle school':
This book is a double whammy of hot dudes. It’s hard to choose who is the steamiest lover in this classic Brontë tale. Heathcliff or Mr. Rochester? I vote both. Both are sexy in their own way and are utterly unforgettable. If you haven’t read this book yet, or you thought you’d skip over it in high school and college, you are missing out on a dramatic and moody love story that still holds up today. (Crissy Van Meter)
Book snobs and aspiring book snobs (a badge I claim) can relax, though, once they’ve recovered from the shock of Full-Frontal Snogging. Wherever your feet stop, any trip through the TES list brings a giddy sense of impending joy: stride from 13 (Jane Eyre) to 23 (The Kite Runner); hop to 24 (A Clockwork Orange); roll down to 59 (My Family and Other Animals) and take a moment at 72 (The Bell Jar). If there’s an agenda here, I don’t see it. It could be that that’s the value of a democratically produced canon: all the agendas cancel each other out. (Memphis Barker)The Stir talks about the latests ads by the Hillary Clinton presidential campaign:
Dorothy Rodham's painful childhood almost sounds like the beginning of Jane Eyre. She was abandoned as an 8-year-old. Her grandparents took her in, but reluctantly. And it wasn't until she went to work for another family at the age of 14 that she discovered what a family looks like when the parents actually love their children. (Adriana Velez)Contra Costa Times is concerned about Kim Kardashian's Selfish sales:
What's wrong with people? Don't they get that Kim Kardashian is, like, a literary, feminist genius on par with the Brontë sisters and Virginia Woolf?The Argentinian edition of Rolling Stone covers the Lollapalooza Festival in Chicago:
And that "Selfish," her 445-page book of selfies is, like, a totally self-aware, ironic yet profound manifesto about fame and the presentation of the female body in a social media age?(Martha Ross)
Finalmente, Florence [+ The Machine] se acercó al micrófono y dijo: "Oh, no, otra vez los truenos me vencen. Vamos a tocar una canción más, la tormenta está muy cerca, los siento mucho". El show de dos horas quedó reducido a 50 minutos que alcanzaron para dejar claro su raro carisma de poetisa pop inglesa, más cerca de Emily Brontë que de Katy Perry. (Juan Morris) (Translation)The Quenn of Teen Fiction interviews the author K.C. Tansley:
I adore stories that feature ghosts! What was it that inspired you to write a story about them?Genteel Arsenal reviews Shirley; Comics Star (in French) is working in a Wuthering Heights 1939 inspired illustration.
Me too! I’ve always been a fan of gothic stories and ghosts stories. My favorite book is Wuthering Heights. I believe in the unbelievables—ghosts, spells, and time travel. I wanted to put my own stamp on ghost lore and it was so fun to have them in the story.
Let's begin today's newsround with an auction of a collection of Brontë novels published in 1905. We read on Live Auctioneers:The Phoenix, the student newspaper of the Loyola University (Chicago), complains about some reforms in the university library and begins the article with a declaration of love:Brontë (Charlotte, Emily & Anne) Novels of the Sisters Brontë,edited by Temple Scott, 12 vol., 'Thornton edition', plates, spotted, original publisher's red morocco-backed cloth, t.e.g., others uncut, gilt art nouveau floral device to spines, spines a little faded, 8vo, Edinburgh, 1905.
- Estimate £800 - £1,200
- Starting Bid £400
Allow me to introduce you to one of my dearest friends - a friend that has been with me through thick and thin, who always knows exactly what to say, and is only about a foot tall.Another student newspaper, North Texas Daily (University of North Texas) publishes an anecdote concerning reading:
Yes, you read that right.
No, it's not a person, but a beloved rare copy of my favorite book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, from the 1940s. Losing myself in its creamy white pages is more than just reading to me - it's a celebration of the deliciously un-technological, an affirmation that in spite of having to live most of my life in front of computer screens, holding printed words in my hands still matters. A lot. (LeAnn Maton)
In high school, we read the classics. The Bronte sisters and Jane Austen taught me about love and romance. Throughout college and later, I grew to revere contemporary writers such as Barbara Kingsolver, Richard Russo, Ann Tyler, Toni Morrison and Joyce Carol Oates. (Tracy Everbach)Another anecdote mentioning Wuthering Heights can be read in Asbury Park Press, in an article about the selling of a box full of romance novels:
To get back to the point, she brought the box of books to one of the meetings, and sold them to the members with the proceeds to benefit Deborah. When she returned home, she said the sight of silver-haired matrons rushing to grab those paperbacks was a shock.Do we have to say again that Romantic doesn't imply romance?
"I wouldn't be caught dead reading that c—p!" were her exact words.
I could have reminded her that "Rebecca," and "Wuthering Heights" also were romance novels, but the pulp fiction in those boxes would have made Daphne DuMaurier and Emily Bronte turn over in their graves.
I recently read A Room of One’s Own, a classic essay by Virginia Woolf based upon a series of lectures Woolf gave to women’s colleges at University of Cambridge. Woolf creates a fictitious sister of William Shakespeare, equal in talent and genius. Unable to go to school or use her gift for poetry, the character kills herself one night, alone and in despair.The Telegraph & Argus talks with Amanda Tyas-Varley, assistant of the Red House Museum in Gomersal (Briarmains in Shirley and once home of the Taylor family), who happens to be also a children's books author.
Woolf ponders the writing of female novelists, such as Charlotte Brontë. “Would the fact of her sex in any way interfere with the integrity of a woman novelist, that integrity which I take to be the backbone of the writer? In [...] Jane Eyre, it is clear that anger was tampering with the integrity of Charlotte Brontë the novelist.” Woolf says that the old and forgotten women novelists take the tone of “meeting criticism”—a female novelist would say things “by way of aggression, or that by way of conciliation. She was admitting that she was ‘only a woman,’ or protesting that she was ‘as good as a man.’” Woolf also bemoans the fact that there were few female writers that could be used as role models to young aspiring women.
Our society has certainly come a long way since the days of Charlotte Brontë. (...) [But] the comments from women’s groups remind me quite poignantly of Woolf’s criticisms of the earlier female writers.
In Alfred Hitchcock’s Rebecca, adapted from the Daphne Du Maurier novel of the same name, the heroine marries a wealthy older man and goes to live with him in Manderley, his estate. She soon realizes all is not as it seems. The book is worth reading — especially if you find the Brontës’ language too stiff; it’s like Jane Eyre on crack — but the heroine is a timid mooncalf. (...)L'Avenir (Belgium) talks about the 2009 film Bright Star by Jane Campion:
Del Toro’s heroines have a bit more gumption and kick more ass than the average Gothic heroine, whether they’re in a Radcliffe or a Brontë narrative. (Lauren Sarner)
«Mes films sont des réactions à l’obsession de la société pour la normalité, sa propension à exclure les déviants», racontait, en 2010, au Monde Jane Campion, passionnée de littérature anglo-saxonne romantique, avec une prédilection pour Emily Brontë et Emily Dickinson, ou encore Virginia Woolf. (Translation)The Criticwire classic of the week is I Walked with a Zombie 1944:
Director Jacques Tourneur brings out the buried complexities of the film's "Jane Eyre"-inspired script, courtesy of Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray, to life through noir shadows and suggestive camera movements, capturing an ugly haunting colonial history without putting too fine a point on it. (Vikram Murthi)The Christian Science Monitor reviews Crooked Heart by Lissa Evans:
The shelves are already crowded with literary orphans, cramming in everyone from Harry Potter and Mowgli, to Huck Finn and Anne Shirley, Oliver Twist and Jane Eyre. But even among literature’s lovable urchins, Noel Bostock is a bit of an odd duck. He was raised by a suffragette, not wolves. He’s not cute or plucky and he doesn’t sing a note. He has jug ears; a bad leg, thanks to polio; and an outsize vocabulary, thanks to his godmother Mattie. (Yvonne Zip)Verve Magazine interviews the writer Kiran Manral:
What are your go-to books?(...) But I would think the book that will always stay with me is Jane Eyre, because it was the first time for me that the heroine was not pretty, not a princess and did not end up with a Prince Charming.”The Austin Chronicle has an article about a local restaurant with a literary twist:
Which literary/fictional romance made you want write love stories?“So many, so many. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Gone with the Wind and Bridget Jones. And all the M&Bs that fuelled my adolescent, burgeoning fascination with the opposite sex.” (Zaral Shah andNatasha Sahjwani)
For example, Weinbrot's favorite characters serve as inspiration for the different recipes. Scheherazade, the storyteller from One Thousand and One Nights (also known as Arabian Nights), influenced the use of Middle Eastern spices in the namesake knish. Dulcinea del Toboso, the true love of Cervantes' Don Quixote, suggested a mix of spicy (chipotle) and sweet (brown sugar, maple syrup). An upcoming chocolate knish will be named after Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Fittingly, it will be dark, brooding, and very alluring. (Serena Yeh)The Irish Times traces the figure of the writer Joseph O'Connor:
To some degree, Star of the Sea can be read as a sustained meditation on the authority of writing itself. One of the leading characters, the American journalist G Grantley Dixon, is an aspiring novelist whose various writings are cleverly stitched into this complex narrative. The inclusion of his newspaper report on the famine in Ireland for the New York Tribune is a clever expositional device deployed by O’Connor. The reliability of his account, however, is undermined by the character, Merridith, who dismisses Dixon as a ‘coffee-house [radical]’ . Further into the book the reader comes upon a fragment of Dixon’s unpublished novel. This extract, combined with Dixon’s spectacularly misguided appraisal of the recently published Wuthering Heights, might lead the reader to incline more towards his proficiency as a journalist than as a novelist. (PJ Matthews)One of the Hillary Clinton's emails released recently contains a Brontë reference, do you remember the Heathcliffgate? In the London Evening Star:
In April 2010, he [Sidney Blumenthal ] told his Democrat friend: “Clegg is a Tony stand-in love object, Cameron a pretender. Alas, poor Gordon, Heathcliff, unloved, unlovable, suffering.”Keighley News reports the arrival of the two watercolours that were bought at a recent Sotheby's auction:
Two of Charlotte Brontë’s watercolours have been delivered to the Brontë Parsonage Museum ready for display next year.Sitepoint discusses the Google change of logo:
The Brontë Society, which runs the Haworth museum, bought the paintings in July during an auction at Sotheby’s.
Experts have attributed both pictures to Charlotte, the writer of classic novel Jane Eyre and the eldest of the tragic Brontë sisters.
The parsonage this week tweeted a picture of the watercolours on a desk at the museum, and said they will be handed to conservation staff so they can be prepared for display in 2016.
One watercolour is a study of a white carnation, and the other depicts a convolvulus, a crocus and an aster. (...)
“We look forward to putting them on display in the Parsonage as part of Charlotte Brontë’s bicentenary celebrations next year.”
The Brontë Society has also announced a major conference in Manchester as part of its celebrations for Charlotte’s 200th birthday.
The event, at the Midland Hotel from August 19 to 21, will focus on the issue that most concerned Charlotte herself – the position of women in the mid-19th century.
Speakers, who include famous feminist Professor Germaine Greer, will address the subject from many different angles,
Other speakers include Prof Sally Shuttleworth, an expert on the medical and mental problems of women in the early Victorian era; Claire Harman, noted author of the new biography Charlotte Brontë, A Life; and Prof Christine Alexander, who is currently working on the first new scholarly edition of Jane Eyre in more than 40 years. (David Knights)
To me, the update to a sans-serif typeface seems to make more sense. Their former serif font — particularly that ‘reading-spectacles g’ — always had an older, bookish feel of romance novels and Brontë sisters. The new geometric sans-serif is much more of a happy engineer’s construction. (Alex Walker)Check out this Art in Yorkshire video on Diane Howse's The Silent Wild exhibition at the Brontë Parsonage.
Helena Favilli and Francesca Cavallo’s Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls (Particular Books, £20) is a collection of 100 potted histories of women who have helped their fellow females to travel one step further along the path to equality.Best Books read by Irish writers in 2017 in The Irish Times:
Each biography is accompanied by a stunning full-page portrait and alongside the household names (Elizabeth I, the Brontë sisters, Hillary Clinton) are a 19th century warrior called Lozen, Japanese empress Jingu and Italian Formula One racer Lella Lombardi. Parents will learn nearly as much as their offspring. A simple idea, brilliantly executed. (Emma-Lee Potter & Charlotte Heathcote)
I love how Lyndall Gordon thinks and I love the clarity and reach of her writing, combining imaginative audacity with scholarly scruple. Her Outsiders, a collection of portraits of George Eliot, Emily Brontë, Virginia Woolf, Olive Schreiner and Mary Shelley, builds into a lucid meditation on how certain writers become lighthouses for each other. (Joseph O'Connor)
[My] highlights were Another Country by James Baldwin, The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth, The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz, Bonjour Tristesse by Françoise Sagan, Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe and Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. (John Kelly)New Republic reviews The Collective Essays of Elizabeth Hardwick, selected by Darryl Pinckney:
Hardwick gave herself some breathing room, herself arguing about the available published evidence of literary greatness, and not necessarily women’s abstract capacity to achieve it, though her dismissiveness of Austen, the Brontës, and George Eliot is unequivocal. (Michelle Dean)The Village Voice talks about the film series Goth(ic) at the Metrograph in New York:
From Frankenstein to Heathcliff, the monthlong “Goth(ic)” portrays the movies’ handling of the sinister literary genre. (...)Wuthering Heights 1939 will be screened on December 23 and December 24.
Instead of writing a “realistic” novel, or an unserious fantastical romance, Walpole tried to do both: How, he wondered, would real people react to ludicrous or fantastic events? Countless authors, from Mary Shelley to the Brontë sisters to Bram Stoker, spent the next 150 years attempting to answer that question. (...)
Indeed, the Gothic movement on the page was largely pioneered by women (Ann Radcliffe, Mary Shelley, Charlotte and Emily Brontë), and has always been concerned with marginalized people. (Morgan Leigh Davies)
Shortly thereafter, she purchased five acres in Marin County that had been a chicken ranch. Honoring her friend the Irish folklorist Ella Young who often dressed like a robed Celtic Druid, and another lesbian writer, Emily Brontë of Wuthering Heights, Gidlow christened this neglected property below the Muir Woods National Monument, Druid Heights. (Gil Troy)Real Simple recommends the Classical Comics take on Wuthering Heights:
John M. Burns' beautiful watercolor artwork tells the heart wrenching story of Heathcliff and Catherine in this visual retelling of Wuthering Heights. Though the book was shortened to fit, it uses much of Brontë's original text and dialogue. (Hannah Norling)Dagens Nyheter (Sweden) chooses books for children:
Men ibland saknar man de vanliga människorna, och jag tänker allt oftare på Charlotte Brontë som skrev ”Jane Eyre” för att visa att en bok kunde ha en hjältinna som inte var strålande vacker. (Lotta Olsson) (Translation)Le Point POP (in French) talks about Alfred Hitchcock and Rebecca 1940:
Signé par la romancière britannique Daphne du Maurier (dont Hitchcock a déjà transposé au cinéma La Taverne de la Jamaïque, édité l'an passé en vidéo par Carlotta), ce récit gothique, dans l'esprit des sœurs Brontë, baigne dans une atmosphère victorienne. (David Mikanowski) (Translation)9Colonne (in Italian) reviews Vite che sono la tua. Il bello dei romanzi in 27 storie by Paolo DiPaolo:
A volte, anche solo una visione o un gesto. Altre volte, una storia che somiglia alla tua. Da Tom Sawyer al giovane Holden, da Jane Eyre a Raskòl’nikov e ai personaggi di Roth, la magia dei grandi libri, guide strane, insolite, spiazzanti: tutto questo in “Vite che sono la tua. Il bello dei romanzi in 27 storie” di Paolo Di Paolo (Laterza). (Translation)Las Provincias (Spain) talks with some writers about their first readings:
Además de los cuentos de toda la vida, incluía relatos más desconocidos que pertenecían a la tradición rusa, a la nórdica... Tenía también cuentos de hadas, de 'Los Cinco', 'Los Hollister'... Recuerdo la ocasión en que me regalaron 'Estudio en escarlata'. Y luego estaban todos los libros de mi madre de la colección Reno: 'Rebeca', 'Cumbres borrascosas', 'Jane Eyre'... En mi casa no había una gran biblioteca, pero todo lo que había, lo leía. (Pilar Adón) (Translation)Twilight Time reviews Wuthering Heights 1970. Quirky Cat's Fat Stacks reviews the Manga edition of Jane Eyre.
Emily is an Emotionally Impactful, Breathtaking Interpretation of Brontë’s Life.Emily, the directorial debut for Mansfield Park and A.I.: Artificial Intelligence star Frances O’Connor, is one of the more remarkably assured first efforts in recent memory. Shot with breathtaking beauty and acted with extraordinary emotion and grace, this exploration of the life and development of Emily Brontë is tremendously enveloping. Emily looks deep into Brontë’s life story for evidence of what that really means. While it is unclear how much of the film is historically accurate and how much is conjecture, O’Connor’s account of the author of Wuthering Heights feels respectful and well-reasoned. (...)It is better to swim in O’Connor’s confident vision than to drown in its verisimilitude.It will undoubtedly prove interesting to hear from Brontë scholars. For a general audience, though, there is no question Emily will prove emotionally impactful. Beautifully shot by Nanu Segal and featuring a wildly innovative score by Abel Korzeniowski, Emily is a noteworthy achievement for all concerned. In particular do Mackey and O’Connor stand tall. Mackey brings one of literature’s most iconic figures to life as deeply passionate and racked with uncertainty; her Emily Brontë is genuinely unpredictable but always believable. A star-making performance, to be sure. (Christopher Schobert In The Film Stage)
“Emily” is packed with elements that can feel like homework – period drama, literary biopic, etc., etc. – but it’s neither stuffy nor drab. In fact, for much of its running time, it’s a film of good humor and high spirits. The cinematography is striking but not flashy, and cinematographer Nanu Segal moves the camera with patience and precision. Yet the snazzy compositions, shock edits, bursts of handheld camera, and furious violins are like something out of a psychological thriller; this is a film that pulses and breathes and feels lived in (the clothing looks worn, the dishes look used, the homes look like homes).
O’Connor uses an intuitive, impressionistic visual approach to craft distinctive style, nimbly positioned between classical storytelling and contemporary aesthetics (for this reason, and not just the obvious one, “Emily” would make a good double feature with Andrea Arnold’s 2011 take on “Wuthering Heights”). The sound design is dazzling, particularly when removing dialogue entirely at key points to bring up the music, sound effects, or silence and allow Mackey to express her pain in her expressions and physicality. And yet it’s very funny, naturally and off-handedly, though watch how deftly O’Connor slips, in one scene, from drunken revelry to raw emotion and wound-opening.
There are occasional missteps, a semi-cringe scene here or there, closing notes that feel a bit too pat and easy. But this is niggling. With “Emily,” Frances O’Connor has crafted a first film that feels like the work of an accomplished master. (Jason Bailey in The Playlist)
To play Emily Brontë, Mackey studied biographies of the writer that were suggested to her by O’Connor.“I like the academic side of reading the biographies that Frances sent to me and the poetry and trying to feed that side of my brain. And then the reality is that when you’re filming, and the script is your bible, that’s what informs us and what makes us do the thing. So, that becomes then the centerpiece. And then you focus on that and hopefully the two intertwine quite nicely.” (Joe Utichi)
Emma Rice’s acclaimed adaptation of Emily Brontë's masterpiece arrives in America after wowing audiences across Europe. Lucy McCormick and Liam Tamnet star in the revenge tragedy involving two doomed lovers from different worlds and the chain of events that take place when they are forced apart. The acclaimed British theatermaker uses music by Ian Ross and dance by Etta Murfitt to bring a new life to the beloved 19th century novel. Performances begin Oct. 14 at St. Ann’s Warehouse (45 Water St. in Brooklyn). (Karu F. Daniels)
The orphan child Heathcliff of Emily Brontë‘s ‘Wuthering Heights’ is a character who is apparently full of vengeance and sinister designs, but deep inside harbors heroic virtues as well. The duality of his persona and transformation from clumsy poor to a rich gentleman leaves the readers baffled. He is an embodiment of paradox, like many of us in this world whose repulsive layers of contradictions are wrapped by a wonderful facade. (Syeda Afshana)
Succede spesso, succede da sempre, da Charlotte Brontë a Miley Cyrus, da Mary Wollstonecraft a Taylor Swift, da Britney Spears a Hillary Clinton, Spezzate racconta la storia di donne che hanno cercato di rompere le catene che le tenevano legate alla società patriarcale e per questo ne hanno pagato le conseguenze, diventando "pazze", "drogate", "ubriacone". (Francesco Raiola) (Translation)
Uno dei libri più avvincenti e inaspettati su Elisabetta II è sicuramente questo romanzo breve del famoso drammaturgo britannico Alan Bennett (The History Boys, The Lady in the Van), che prende spunto da qualche stralcio di attualità per immaginare una regina che, dopo l'incontro fortuito con una libreria mobile, scopre la passione per i libri. Da Jean Genet (che consiglia al presidente della Repubblica francese) alle sorelle Brontë, da Thackeray a Alice Munron, questa storia mostra un lato inedito di questa donna di Stato e ribadisce il potere contagioso della lettura. (Translation)
Orwell, Kafka, Hemingway, Calvino, Dante, Stevenson... Tous les grands auteurs ont connu ces dernières années des liftings. Et sont annoncées, ces jours-ci, de nouvelles traductions d'Agatha Christie, de Charlotte Brontë, de Steinbeck, et même du discours de Martin Luther King. (Marianne Payat) (Translation)
Sebbene Myers dipinga sempre lo Yorkshire con maestria da stilista, la cupa storia di morte, depravazione e degrado narrata in Blu come te rende il paesaggio alquanto allarmante, riportando alla mente, piùche la dorata brughiera di All’orizzonte, i tenebrosi tormenti di Heathcliff e Catherine in Cime tempestose e, ancora di più la macabra quadrilogia di David Peace, Red Riding Quartet, sugli efferati delitti dello Squartatore dello Yorkshire. (Silvia Albertazzi) (Translation)
Powell acknowledges at the end of her novel how much the biographical writing of Juliet Barker informed its writing. If a Brontë enthusiast is keen to separate fact from fiction, then Barker’s source material, or Lucasta Miller’s The Brontë Myth, may serve them better than this fictional foray. What Powell offers with her novel, however, is the opportunity to experience a well-informed reconstruction of a life in a more intimate way.Powell has written into the silences that exist around the facts, extracting meaning from correspondence in the archives, to offer a deeper understanding of the known circumstances of Brontë's life. Although this is Emily’s narrative, Powell offers a plausible reimagining of how this trio of siblings, the daughters of a clergyman, isolated in rural Yorkshire, had within them the power to produce some of the most beloved and acclaimed works in literary history. At its strongest, this novel illuminates the subterranean life that underpinned the writing of Wuthering Heights, delicately foreshadowing the novel to be in the minutiae and emotional landscape of her narration.This novel, recently shortlisted for the Fiction Prize in the new Nero Book Awards, is a graceful account of a life that treats its subject with the meticulous research and thoughtful handling it deserves. The result is a deeply satisfying reading experience that should appeal greatly to all those for whom Brontë holds a special significance in their reading history. (Helen Cullen)
EmilyFrances O’Connor’s directorial debut came and went in limited release earlier this year, and if you’re a literary buff you should be seeking it out like a rare book at the library. Emma Mackey stars as Emily Brontë, the famed author of “Wuthering Heights,” who is presented in the film as a social outcast. Mackey is astounding as the meek Emily, desperate not to be perceived as weird by her family, especially her older sister, Charlotte (Alexandra Dowling). She finds herself drawn to the town’s new curate (Oliver Jackson-Cohen) and the pair soon embark on a relationship that leads to Emily’s greatest work and biggest regret.On the one hand, “Emily” is incredibly sexy, in the vein of other costume dramas like Ang Lee’s work. On the other, it has no qualms with ripping your heart out, as should be expected considering all the Brontë sister’s work. Mackey and Jackson-Cohen have phenomenal chemistry and I just love everything about this film. I’ve watched it several times since it came out and I expect it’ll be in regular rotation from here on out. (Kristen Lopez)
Fennell has also played with genre expectations: this is a period drama, but set in the Noughties. Thanks to a note-perfect soundtrack comprising the decade’s big indie-band and pop hits, featuring Bloc Party, Arcade Fire and Flo Rida, it thunders along (and has an equal-parts exhilarating and embarrassing Proustian effect on those of us who celebrated school exam results then). Fennell herself was a fresher at Oxford at the time, so it is a world she remembers intricately. "But also, in the classic Gothic structure—Wuthering Heights, Brideshead—somebody is recalling something major that happened in the past, so I needed some distance to flash back to," she says. "And wherever you are sitting in time, 15 years back from that point always seems horribly uncool. It’s not historic, it’s not yet retro, and it hasn’t yet come round again in an ironic fashion. It seemed a pleasingly uncomfortable and funny place to set the story." (Harshita Mathur)
1847Wuthering Heights: Gothic close to homeThe classic romantic novel has become synonymous with the idea of the Female Gothic: where women are trapped in a domestic space and dominated by men. In addition it includes many other Gothic traits: stories told within stories, the supernatural, the tyrannical ‘villain’, and Wuthering Heights itself, the imposing building in which much of the story is set. In the character of Heathcliff, Bronte creates the ultimate Byronic hero.
If they lived in our time, Margaret Mitchell and Emily Brontë, who had just one classic in them, would have been press-ganged into three-book deals. (Pratik Kanjilal)
The book is divided into chapters that explore specific qualities attached to women’s voices, such as “overflowing,” “irritation,” or “fatigue.” Each chapter is composed of fragments—personal anecdotes from Schulmann’s life, critical analyses, extracts from interviews or books. Almost every page either quotes a woman or describes her and her work. Few names repeat. Some are internationally famous, like Hillary Clinton, bell hooks, Charlotte Brontë, and Jane Fonda, but most are refreshingly not. (Edmée Lepercq)
Tim Powers, My Brother’s Keeper. Baen, 2023. A return to Powers’ beloved Romantic Era where the Brontë family confronts werewolves and worse on the Yorkshire moors. (Sandra Miesel)
It is a village that possibly pre-dates The Domesday book and was a haven for Quakers.Stanbury is also intrinsically linked to one of the most famous and literary families in the world.Under the borough of the City of Bradford, Stanbury comes under the parish with Haworth – which of course was the former home of the Bronte writing sisters.The parsonage where they lived is now a museum and the whole area is probably more well-known for being called Brontë country.Many natural features and surroundings have also been re-named to reflect the area’s famous residents.Brontë Waterfall on the South Dean Beck is about a mile south-west of Stanbury and below that is Brontë Bridge, an old stone bridge across the beck.Then there is The Brontë Trail, a nature trail which starts in Haworth and crosses the moors to the waterfall.It has made for a huge interest in Stanbury and Haworth and while it has brought a tourist economy to an otherwise rural and isolated area - it hasn’t come without issue.In September a public meeting was called to discuss a number of concerns raised by residents and business owners of Haworth about the village’s annual 1940s Weekend.It has taken place since the 1990s and now attracts around 40,000 visitors – which many locals claim has led to issues with its management and organisation. There were claims of visitors urinating in the churchyard where Patrick Bronte was parish priest as well as issues over parking and anti-social behaviour.Last month it was announced that new organisers would be taking it on following meetings between Bradford Council, West Yorkshire Police and the previous organisers.Stanbury remains sought after, not just because of the literary appeal, but also its location and views. There is a church, school and two pubs - The Friendy, and of course The Wuthering Heights.It dates back to the 1790s and has been re-named down the line.It featured in a Yorkshire Post pub of the week column this summer and punters will be pleased to know it hasn’t succumbed to a Farrow and Ball make-over, has copper kettles hanging from the rafters and wooden stoves - and a decent pint of real ale. (Emma Ryan)
The Brontë Parsonage Museum actually had to put up a ‘No Firearms’ sign to deter the dressing up brigade from bringing their decommissioned weapons into the museum. (Olivia Fortnum, Haworth)
Unless explicitly said
