Audiences can join one of literature’s most iconic heroines on a journey of resilience, romance and redemption as Northern Ballet’s critically acclaimed Jane Eyre heads to Leeds Grand Theatre this spring from March 14 – 22.Based on the novel by Charlotte Brontë, Northern Ballet will bring this beautiful love story to life with heart-stirring choreography and live music that captures the essence of her timeless tale.Experience the unexpected twists and turns of one woman’s life from the dreary school room to a towering manor house and the sweeping Yorkshire moors. The ultimate dramatic tale of romance, jealousy and dark secrets, Jane Eyre is the story of one woman’s indomitable spirit overcoming all boundaries.Jane Eyre was originally premièred by Northern Ballet in May 2016 and nominated for a South Bank Sky Arts Award in 2017. Jane Eyre is choreographed by internationally acclaimed British dance maker Cathy Marston whose recent credits include Snowblind for Atlanta Ballet and The Cellist for Ballet Zürich in 2023.Jane Eyre is set to a score of original compositions and existing work compiled and arranged by composer Philip Feeney. Sets and costumes are designed by Patrick Kinmonth and lighting is designed by Alastair West, whose recent credits include Northern Ballet’s Casanova.Cathy Marston said: "The Brontë's stories are inspiring to translate into dance because of their intense emotional journeys for the protagonists, the backdrop of landscape and elemental forces that seem to amplify these emotions, and in the case of Jane Eyre particularly, the range of wonderful soloist roles that add texture, depth, and warmth to the central narrative."Federico Bonelli, Artistic Director at Northern Ballet said: "What do we all love about Jane Eyre? Her resilience, determination and steadfast knowledge of who she is as she navigates a life filled with turmoil. Combined with her love story with Mr Rochester this story is perfect to be told through ballet, and in our Jane Eyre the dancing, sets, costumes and music fully immerse you in Jane's life. There is so much for any dancer to work with to encapsulate the layered characters and narrative created by Charlotte Brontë and even more for an audience member to enjoy in this beautiful retelling by Cathy Marston.” (Claire Lomax)
Tuberculosis may seem like a historic disease: A scourge of overcrowded, unsanitary European cities of the 19th century, a plot point in La Bohème or Jane Eyre, and an inspiration for mournful paintings by Edvard Munch and Claude Monet. But TB is the world’s deadliest infectious disease (after it was briefly displaced by COVID-19). According to the World Health Organization, 1.25 million people died from TB in 2023 and another 10.8 million were infected. (Nick Keppler)
Vampires aren’t new. Derived from Slavic folklore, the vampire as we know it in popular culture today is a human-like creature that feeds on the blood of others for sustenance. Usually emerging as a seductive and mysterious being, it unleashes chaos upon the communities it infiltrates.The most well-known vampire is the titular character in Bram Stoker’s Gothic novel Dracula, which was published in 1897 and gave rise to onscreen adaptations like F.W. Murnau’s Nosferatu. Dracula was far from the first book in the Gothic canon, built upon works like Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Challenging the rational framework of the Enlightenment era, these novels used imagery to explore mystery and terror. (Stacey Nguyen)
This Early Zombie Film Is Still Controversial TodayI Walked With a Zombie (1943), dir. Jacques TourneurIt is generally accepted that the cinematic zombie was born with 1932's White Zombie, in which Bela Lugosi uses voodoo to create Haitian slaves. However, Jacques Tourneur (Cat People) took the same theme and turned it into a controversial masterpiece that still divides viewers to this day. In I Walked With a Zombie, a naive nurse treats a plantation owner's mysteriously afflicted wife, and discovers that her employer has co-opted Caribbean voodoo practices for sinister purposes.I Walked With a Zombie is partially based on the Charlotte Brontë novel Jane Eyre.Tourneur's main zombie is the towering Carrefour (Darby Jones), whose eerie presence anchors this gothic drama. Some critics feel that the film calls attention to the plight of colonized Caribbeans, while others see it as merely reinforcing harmful stereotypes. Whichever side one takes in this debate — and both critiques may be true — I Walked With a Zombie is well worth a look. (Claire Donner)
Perhaps the most unlikely combination of literary ghost and haunted location is that of Anne Brontë, who was seen on Long Island in 1961. That juxtaposition is less bizarre than it initially seems when you learn that the Long Island house in question contained a staircase from a building where Brontë had worked during her lifetime. Still, the idea of Anne Brontë’s ghost having wacky misadventures on Long Island is an elevator pitch waiting to happen — even if it’s a far cry from all things Gothic. (Tobias Carroll)
AUTHORLINK: Wonderful. The Gothic genre is a unique niche that is experiencing a revival. We love how your book is a mix of psychological suspense, horror, and romance – although it doesn’t fit squarely in this category for a few reasons.Can you tell us a bit about the ideologies behind the classification of ‘Gothic’?MORENO-GARCIA: Gothic fiction is, in its broadest sense, romantic fiction with a prevailing atmosphere of suspense or terror. By romantic it means it derives from the Romantic artistic movement, not that it must be a love story. Its emphasis on melodrama and big feelings is what marks the Gothic. Gothic novels encompass a wide spectrum of works and have recurring tropes that make them identifiable to readers (dark castles, virginal heroines, Byronic men, etc).Gothic fiction has been classified as Female Gothic or Male Gothic. The Female Gothic does not have supernatural elements and the emphasis is on the heroine achieving a happy outcome and establishing a relationship with the hero. Jane Eyre is a good example of this. The Male Gothic has supernatural elements, take place in an uncaring universe, and features explicit elements such as graphic violence or rape. The Monk is a good example of this type of novel.Gothic is interesting precisely because it’s a liminal genre that is constantly bumping against borders. (Anna Roins)
I Walked With A ZombieAn old-school horror flick from 1947 [sic], I Walked With A Zombie loosely retells the story of the classic novel Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, but throws Voodoo and zombies into the mix. The RKO-produced oldie depicts a nurse who travels to the Caribbean to help the wife of a sugar plantation owner who has been reportedly acting strangely.Initially panned when first released, the classic horror movie is now regarded as one of the best zombie films of all time and has influenced countless other movies throughout the years. While I Walked With a Zombie's depiction of female sexuality and race may be far from progressive, the fact that subjects like these were heavily acknowledged in a film from the 1940s at all is incredible in itself. (Jon Mendelsohn)
My old English professors would describe it as a bildungsroman, and I can almost picture some of them gleefully dissecting its feminist themes and literary influences. In the fine tradition of stories such as Jane Eyre and Harry Potter, The Queen’s Gambit is also about an orphan — a chess prodigy named Beth Harmon. The series tells her story from the age of eight to 22, as she evolves from an abandoned misfit into one of the greatest champions the world of chess has ever seen. (Rohan Naahar)
Jane Eyre | Libri da leggere a novembreNovembre è un periodo che per molti può risultare cupo, e questo mese vogliamo farvi rimanere in un’ambientazione cupa perché i titoli che vi consigliamo non hanno bisogno di nessun aiuto per risaltare. Con Jane Eyre, classico intramontabile di Charlotte Brontë, rimaniamo infatti nelle selvagge brughiere inglesi e incontriamo Jane, una bambina che, orfana di entrambi i genitori, va a vivere con gli zii, dove subisce continue angherie dai suoi parenti. Dopo un periodo in un collegio, dove sarà prima studentessa e poi insegnante, Jane arriva a Thornfield Hall, dove lavorerà come istitutrice della piccola Adele, figlia adottiva del burbero Mister Rochester.Jane Eyre è senza dubbio una pietra miliare della letteratura inglese, ma non è solo la sua importanza a rendere questo libro una lettura obbligatoria: la bellezza di Jane, così forte e sensibile allo stesso tempo, e la scrittura della Brontë saranno un piacevole accompagnamento al vostro mese. (Eleonora Fioravanti) (Translation)
From our Halloween kitchen disco after party - just a usual story of a ghost trying to persuade her old lover to let her in through the window, here’s Wuthering Heights pic.twitter.com/LRv9X44ds5
— Sophie Ellis-Bextor (@SophieEB) November 1, 2020
The first was the news that Penguin was calling time on its Popular Classics range. You might have seen them, these snappy paperbacks in green and white jackets (at least in recent years), printed on thin paper but priced very competitively, at about €3. Hard to beat if print is your thing and you want a quick infusion of Twain or Brontë, Verne or, as this is the season for it, Joyce.In the same newspaper we found this review of Terry Eagleton's How To Read Literature:
The company has, unsurprisingly, not abandoned classics altogether. No, Penguin will still publish its Modern Classics series, but it is killing the popular classic at the low price and abandoning this space in the market to Wordsworth Classics, which publishes an extensive list at a similarly low price, and to ebooks.
Riding to the rescue of “slow reading,” a bid Eagleton makes as if it were heroic, is not urgent. But he does well to describe a normal seminar, where a few students sit around a table discussing Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Student A says: “I can’t see what’s so great about Catherine’s relationship with Heathcliff. They’re just a couple of squabbling brats.” Student B: “Well, it’s not really a relationship at all, is it? It’s more like a mystical unity of selves. You can’t talk about it in everyday language.” Student C: “Why not? Heathcliff’s not a mystic, he’s a brute. The guy’s not some kind of Byronic hero; he’s vicious.” Student B retorts: “OK, so who made him like that? The people at the Heights, of course. He was fine when he was a child.” So it continues.
Eagleton asks us: “What is wrong with this discussion?” His answer, much to the point, is that if you were listening to the discussion and had never heard of Wuthering Heights, you would “find nothing to suggest that it was about a novel”. It could be gossip about some friends of the students.
Eagleton’s point is valid. Literature is literature. The only trouble with his intervention is that the way the students talk about Wuthering Heights is the way Eagleton himself writes about every novel he supposedly analyses in the present book and in Heathcliff and the Great Hunger (1999). (Denis Donoghue)
Damn You, Emily BrontëPublishers Weekly reviews the audiobook edition of I.J. Miller's Wuthering Nights:
Oh, the bittersweet pain of it all. I could so easily let myself be consumed by the lovely and ridiculous drama, and just cry. Cry now as I did years ago, and as I will years from now. The words are excruciating. It’s as if Emily Brontë reached inside me, ripped out my heart, threw it on the floor, and stomped on it. And I love her for it. (...)
Reading Wuthering Heights was a turning point for me. It’s when I came to the realization that deep down (and I can admit it now) I crave stories about tormented, passionate, and unrequited love. Love that exists, yet can never be. Love that, with a single touch, can lift you into the clouds, or with a single word, slam you back down to the ground, causing you to ‘take to the bed’ for days, maybe weeks. Love that is without pride... (Read more)
This isn’t quite the beloved Brontë classic you read in high school English class. But it’s not a bad retelling of it either—that is, if you don’t mind adding a healthy dose of erotica. In Miller’s version, the relationship between Catherine and Heathcliff becomes more elicit and a much more sexy. Narrator Joy Pratt brings a distinct femininity to the book, her accented voice ably capturing the spirit of the prose. Pratt’s delivery is flawless; her tone and pronunciation perfect. And, she manages to convey both the newer material and the original text in a similar manner. A Grand Central paperback.
The Times talks about the mystery woman who will fight against Churchill for the new £5/£10 notes:The Bank declined to reveal who the mystery character was, stating that it "would be likely to have the unfortunate effect of prejudicing any future selection process". However, it will commission a design for an alternative banknote to Churchill's.The Telegraph talks about the film World War Z and begins by making an introduction into the zombie genre:
The undisclosed woman is almost certain to be among a list suggested by the public and compiled by the Bank. Among the 83 names are Jane Austen, Emmeline Pankhurst, the Brontë sisters and Ada Lovelace, the world's first computer programmer. The final choice of historical figures rests with the Governor, who is advised by Chris Salmon, the chief cashier, and the Bank's note division. (Alex Ralph)
A decade later, for Val Lewton’s eerie 1943 production of I Walked with a Zombie, directed by Jacques Tourneur, screenwriters Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray updated the plot of Jane Eyre and transposed it to the West Indies, thus demonstrating that mash-ups of 19th-century English literature and zombies didn’t begin with Pride and Prejudice and Zombies. (Anne Billson)The journalist insists on Jacques Tourneur's film:
I Walked with a Zombie: Pride and Prejudice and Zombies isn't the first mash-up of 19th century Eng Lit and zombies. It's 70 years since legendary RKO B-movie producer Val Lewton asked screenwriters Curt Siodmak and Ardel Wray to update and transpose the story of Jane Eyre to a Caribbean island. "There's no beauty here, only death and decay," says a plantation owner to the nurse who has come to the island to care for his sick wife – but Jacques Tourneur's directing ensures this is the most hauntingly beautiful zombie film ever made.Coincidentally, Catholic Online (of all places...) also makes a top ten zombie list with I Walked with a Zombie on number 2:
Described as "Jane Eyre in the West Indies," this subtle - but still effective spooker from producer Val Lewton has a wife investigating some odd goings-on at her husband's island plantation. Her walk through the jungle undergrowth to the sound of voodoo drums is a classic! (Greg Goodsell)Los Angeles Times has its own list:
During the 1940s, Val Lewton produced a series of subtle, brilliantly effective low-budget horror films such as 1942’s “Cat People.” One of his best was this poetic horror film that is a loose variation of “Jane Eyre.” Frances Dee as a Canadian nurse hired to take care of the wife of a sugar plantation owner on a Caribbean island and ends up resorting to voodoo to try to cure her. (Susan King)And Filmoria:
One of the interesting aspects of the zombie movies is how easily it can be fit into other narrativie structures. This 1943 film has more than a few nods to Jane Eyre, including narration by the female protagonist. Oddly, this zombie, called a zombie throughout the film, is not a flesh hungry monster but an unfaithful wife in a catatonic state. When a nurse is brought to the house to care for the wife, she learns of the woman’s history and eventually that the woman has been cursed with a voodoo curse. (Lesley Coffin)The Atlantic explains how reading makes us more human:
From Great Expectations I learned the power the stories we tell ourselves have to do either harm and good, to ourselves and to others; from Death of a Salesman I learned the dangers of a corrupt version of the American Dream; from Madame Bovary, I learned to embrace the real world rather than escaping into flights of fancy; from Gulliver's Travels I learned the profound limitations of my own finite perspective; and from Jane Eyre I learned how to be myself. (Karen Swallow Prior)Whatculture! gives some reasons why Jane Eyre is not suitable to be adapted into a film:
Detailing the life of its title character from childhood through her first love, Jane Eyre is the most famous book to come from the powerhouse Brontë sisters and a classic of English literature. Bringing themes of morality and spirituality to the fore, it helped bridge the gap between poetry and novels. But everyone in the English speaking world already knows that.The Guardian lists some consequences of wet summers:
Why It Shouldn’t Have Been Adapted: The issue here is less with adapting Jane Eyre in general (it has been done well before, such as the 2006 BBC miniseries), but with putting it in cinemas. The story covers a lengthy time period, forcing directors to cut important parts of plot. The book’s most famous elements with Mr Rochester and Thornfield Hall don’t appear until a good way through the tale, but many adaptations will quickly jump there for the typical love story. This also lets in another problem. Jane is written to be rather plain, with Rochester also not overwhelmingly attractive, something a big production couldn’t afford to do. With a good third of the story involving children and unattractive leads, Jane Eyre just isn’t made for Hollywood. (Alex Leadbeater)
If things get really stormy, you could retreat to a rain-battered tent and have a go at Wuthering Heights. (Homa Khaleeli and Emine Saner)The Windsor Star interviews Ken Ludwig Brown, author of How To Teach Your Chilcren Shakespeare:
"You don't understand Jane Austen really well unless you understand Shakespeare. She was a huge Shakespearean fanatic. I'm rereading Wuthering Heights at the moment, and the book is filled with Shakespearean references."Diario de León (Spain) interviews the writer Javier Pérez:
—¿Qué libro no dejarías de leer o leerías por segunda vez?The Shelter Island Reporter has a funny Brontë reference in an article about kitchen remodeling:
—Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brönte (sic); El Gatopardo, de Lampedusa. (Translation)
These Manhattan kitchen remodels are something of a rite of passage in the city. They are nerve-wracking, disrupting, dirty and behind schedule. During ours, I was working during the week in Philadelphia so I would return to find a wife who had been driven wild by the demo and construction. (There is a scene in Jane Eyre that comes to mind.) (James Bornemeier)The Oregonian has a weird metaphor:
Great romances -- "Phantom of the Opera," "The Hunchback of Notre Dame," "Wuthering Heights" -- prove you can't always tell what's inside by looking at the packaging. But who thought that was true for coleslaw or a million other packaged "healthy" foods that fill grocery-store shelves? (Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Mike Roizen)Keighley News talks about the Brontë harness races that will be held in Haworth next June 30; Marina Saegerman and Helen MacEwan write in the Brussels Brontë Blog about their recent experiences at the Brontë Society AGM; Leggere che Passione... (in Italian) and Estante Íntima (in Portuguese) review Wuthering Heights; Coffeebeings reviews Jane Eyre 2011 and John Guy Collick shares his thoughts about Arashi Ga Oka 1988; A Little Shelf of Heaven posts a review and a giveaway of April Lindner's Catherine.
Jacques Tourneur's 1943 masterpiece I Walked with a Zombie appears today, January 29, on DVD in the US as a part of a ravishing boxset devoted to Val Lewton's films. From Digitally Obsessed:Martin Scorsese PresentsUSA Today adds about I Walked with a Zombie:
Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows
Legendary Producer of Classic Horror Films is the Subject of a New Feature Length Documentary Available on DVD January 29th from Warner Home Video
Horror fans will have something new to scream about on January 29, as one screen legend honors another with the Warner Home Video (WHV) release of Martin Scorsese Presents Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows. Scorsese produced and narrates this fascinating study of Val Lewton, the legendary film producer who brought a new perspective to the horror genre at RKO during the 1940s. (...)
The Val Lewton Horror Collection, a follow-up to WHV's best-selling 2005 boxed set, will now consist of six discs: the new Scorsese-produced Lewton documentary and 5 double-feature discs -- Cat People/Curse of the Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie/The Body Snatcher, Isle of the Dead/Bedlam, and The Leopard Man/The Ghost Ship and The Seventh Victim which is double-billed with Warner Home Video's previously produced documentary, Shadows in the Dark: The Val Lewton Legacy which are both exclusive to the collection.
Martin Scorsese Presents Val Lewton: Man in the Shadows will be available as a single disc for $19.97 SRP or as part of The Val Lewton Horror Collection six disc gift set for $59.92 SRP.
Despite a title that suggests Ed Wood, this oft-termed "Jane Eyre in Haiti" has a literate script and (as with Cat People) lots of photographic mood. When RKO reissued it theatrically in the mid-1950s with King Kong, Zombie was the one that spooked me out at age 9. Frances Dee is a nurse hired by planter Tom Conway to care for a wife who may be "one of them"; Tourneur directs again.But the best definition of I Walked with a Zombie from a Brontë perspective comes from The Palm Beach Post:
[A] zombie movie that is actually Jane Eyre in horror-film drag. (Scott Eyman)Categories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV
With “The Secret History of Jane Eyre”, John Pfordresher, a professor at Georgetown University, seeks to provide some answers. His aim is to unearth the real-life people and events that inspired Brontë’s much-loved classic novel.Brontë poetry in a Hamilton chronicle in Los Angeles Times:
Unfortunately, Mr Pfordresher cannot illuminate the writing process itself, save for noting the date that Brontë first put pen to paper. She left “no outlines, notes about characters, drafts scribbled over with revisions and additions” or any other such tantalising clues. So Mr Pfordresher chooses to follow the chronology of the novel and weave in the biographical detail.
Jumping on bandwagons is my least favorite activity. Don’t force me to tell you all the must-see movies I’ve skipped (“Forrest Gump” is all you’ll get out of me), the No. 1 bestsellers I’ve bypassed (I discovered the world of “Harry Potter” only after it became a play) or the platinum records I’ve turned a deaf ear to (Bieber who?).Interlochen Public Radio talks about Sarah Shoemaker's Mr. Rochester:
Some might interpret this as snobbery, but I see it as a form of self-protection. You are what you culturally consume, and I treasure the freedom of serendipitous discovery. Emily Brontë, in the poem “Stanzas,” speaks for many of us who instinctively steer clear from the madding crowd: “I’ll walk where my own nature would be leading:/ It vexes me to choose another guide.” (Charles McNulty)
Mr. Rochester is known as the passionate, difficult and mysterious man who falls in love with her in the story. But little is learned about his background in Brontë’s novel. Now, 170 years after "Jane Eyre" was published, writer Sarah Shoemaker tells his story in a new book called "Mr. Rochester."The Locarno Film Festival describes like this Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With a Zombie 1943, recently screened in a Tourneur retrospective:
"In a lot of ways it is kind of hard to recreate a character, especially a character that people have very varying attitudes towards," says Shoemaker. "Some people really dislike Mr. Rochester. Most people are fond of him or love him." (...)
Shoemaker lives in Northport and is a former University of Michigan librarian. She will be in Traverse City for a National Writers Series event at Kirkbride Hall Thursday at 7 p.m. (Morgan Springer)
What is the best way to end the day? According to Manuel Puig: enjoying a nice movie. Maybe a supernatural story. After about 150 pages of his 1976 novel Kiss of the Spider Woman, one of Puig's characters starts to recall a strange movie he saw many years before, which told the story of a female zombie. It's I walked with a Zombie that Jacques Tourneur made for RKO in 1943 with the supervision of producer Val Lewton. Puig's novel confirms the strange aura that surrounds the movie. Thomas Pynchon quotes it in Inherent Vice. The great rocker Roky Erickson named one of his tracks I Walked with a Zombie. Pedro Costa had it in mind for Casa de Lava. The movie inspired many artists. Tourneur had always considered I Walk with a Zombie one of his best movies, even if it was produced with a very low budget (but the idea of “greatness” had never something to do with money for Tourneur). The movie? Exotic setting, voodoo rituals, a love story that makes us recall Jane Eyre. The cinematography is outstanding, a perfect black and white that completely gives back the underlying tense of the story. A sort of magnificent spell. On the wall of Jessica's room, the sick wife of the rich owner of St. Sebastian’s island, there's a copy of Arnold Böcklin's Isle of the dead. The movie was quite unappreciated, it was considered an unidentified object, but later it became a cult movie. (Rinaldo Censi)The riddle of the self in The Institute of Art and Ideas News:
Questers abound, and I have sufficient space only for an insufficient survey: Inanna in the Underworld, Isis and Osiris, Odysseus, Hercules and his trials, Theseus in the Labyrinth, Jesus in the wilderness, Buddha on his quest for enlightenment, sundry Grail Knights trotting nervously through enchanted forests, Hamlet tasked with avenging his father. Later, we encounter the heroes and heroines of bildungsromans (novels about the ‘building of a self’), including: Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce, Martha Quest by Doris Lessing, The Color Purple by Alice Walker, Valis by Philip K Dick, Never Any End to Paris by Enrique Vila-Matas and so on. (Joanna Kavenna)Metro presents some of the not-to-be-missed productions at the Edinburgh Fringe:
This year comes his highly anticipated new show, Queen of Wolves – a terrifying gothic comedy, in one ridiculous hour: Turn of the Screw meets Jane Eyre meets Rebecca meets Selena Gomez. (Amy Duncan)Inlander recommends the novel Uprooted by Naomi Novik:
With threads that are comfortably familiar to fans of the fantasy genre (the book has even been compared to the literary classic Jane Eyre), Uprooted manages to stay true to its genre roots (no pun intended) while simultaneously presenting a fresh and mesmerizing new realm of magical storytelling. (Chey Scott)Manchester Evening News on a really remote house now for sale:
A spokesperson for Auction House Manchester said: “If you think Wuthering Heights is a bit too accessible and want real seclusion then Keeper’s Cottage in Diggle ticks most of the boxes. (Dominic Smithers)Diario El Zonda lists the most-read books in the digital platform Leamos. Although we don't know really what the are really reading. Not the Jane Eyre we know:
9. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë.Ferloo talks about the writer Maryse Condé:
Esta desgarradora historia de amor fue publicada hace 170 años, pero eso no impide que lectores de todo el mundo se sigan cautivando con la relación de Jane y el señor Reed (!!), el primer gran amor de una de las hermanas Brontë (!!!). (Translation)
Maryse Condé a pratiqué le récit autobiographique, le roman policier, le fantastique, le roman d’amour et le roman historique, ainsi que la réécriture de classique de la littérature comme les Hauts de Hurlevent, un amour fusionnel avec sa mère, le théâtre et la littérature de jeunesse. (Saggo) (Translation)Medium publishes an article about Bertha Mason: The Woman With The Candle. Another perspective on Charlotte Bronte’s famous mad woman in the attic.
Flautist Peter Harrison explores the collection of tunes for flute compiled by Branwell Brontë between 1831 and 1832 in his home The Parsonage in Haworth, Yorkshire, which he shared with his father and famous sisters.
Canada).8. In 1906 parachutist Lily Cove died after her parachute failed. Her spirit is now said to frequent the Old White Lion in Haworth.The Irish Times has selected 'The best horror movies of all time' and one of them is
9. Fans of literature should check out the Black Bull, Haworth, where the spectre of Branwell Brontë with his disheveled red hair and wild eyes has apparently been a regular over the years. (Odele Ayres)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)IGN recommends it too among 10 other 'zombie movies you need to watch'.
The Universal Studios horror movie slackened in the war years with a series of increasingly unlikely “X meets Y” mash-ups that anticipated the Marvel universe by decades. The best work in America was being done by B-movie specialists such as Jacques Tourneur and his producer Val Lewton. Drawing inspiration from Jane Eyre, I Walked With a Zombie follows a nurse’s interaction with the walking dead in the Caribbean. Or is she deceived? Beautiful and ambiguous. (Donald Clarke)
I Walked with a Zombie (1943)Sololibri (Italy) shares ideas on how to dress up as a literary zombie.
Plot: A young nurse travels to Haiti, where peril awaits in the form of local folklore, a wandering singer, and a zombie called Carrefour.
Why It Matters: This is Jane Eyre with zombies, a stylish Val Lewton/Jacques Tourneur production that offers atmosphere and poetry to spare.
Look For: A dark journey along shadowy paths with only the whistling wind to keep you company as two women journey to the houmfort. (Arnold T. Blumberg)
Un’altra opzione è quella di travestirsi da Catherine di Cime Tempestose di Emily Brontë nella sua terrificante versione fantasma: vi servirà una camicia da notte o un vestito bianco, cerone bianco, capelli spettinati. Ricordate: era una bambina, perciò niente rossetto. Ci raccomandiamo: dovete urlare "Heathcliff fammi entrare" per tutta la sera, o vi scambieranno per un fantasma qualunque. (Serena Di Battista) (Translation)Jezebel's Pictorial ranks several Gothic novels according to 'scariness' and 'sexiness', calling Emily 'the most batshit Brontë' along the way.
Wuthering HeightsAccording to The Statesman (India), Wuthering Heights is one of five other books meant to be reread.
It’s no wonder that arguably the most batshit Brontë asks the question: “What sex is bad?” The answer, of course, in the world of the Gothic novel, is that all sex is bad and will eventually kill you. “Therefore,” Brontë wonders, “if all sex is lethal, then how bad is brother sex, really?” To which generations of V.C. Andrews girls who would grow up to become Tom Hardy-as-Heathcliff stans responded, “I’m listening.” Sure, Heathcliff is only maybe Cathy’s brother. I mean, patriarchs bring home orphans from county fairs every day. They can’t all be our brothers. Anyway, it doesn’t matter because we’re all going to die, and if we’re lucky, perhaps our maybe brothers will dig up our rotting corpses and hold them for a while.
Scariness: It depends on how messed up you are.
Sexiness: See above. (Emily Alford)
Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëMid-day (India) has an article on a literary festival which starts tomorrow:
Why would you want to reread a clearly traumatic book about a guy who tries to destroy an entire generation just because he was not allowed to be with his love?
Only one reason, Heathcliff.
Clearly a complex and traumatised character, most people have trouble expressing their feelings with Heathcliff. You dislike him because (quite frankly) he is a devil incarnate but you also love him for his undying devotion to Catherine.
The novel is most remembered for its Gothic setting and its sullen environment. Reread the Wuthering Heights if you want to time-travel to the nineteenth century.
Reread the Wuthering Heights for it’s a tale of almost obsessive love that brings ruination. (Shreya Thapliyal)
The Penguin Classics Festival that opens tomorrow at various bookstores in India will display their diverse classics range under one roof. [...]Palatinate looks at an event from another literary festival: Kate Fox's talk at Durham Book Festival 'Where There’s Muck, There’s Bras'
In Mumbai, Kitab Khana is the sole venue associated with the festival. "I'm planning to go with an open mind. I haven't decided on any particular authors or titles I would like to purchase. I want to be instinctive," Mongia tells us as she reveals her favourites — Pride and Prejudice, Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, and Charlotte's Web. Accompanying her is 18-year-old bookstagrammer Bhoomi Mehta, who is a student of Psychology at Ruia College. "You don't hear of festivals like this happening in Mumbai. I love classics. Jane Austen is always a favourite, and so is JD Salinger's The Catcher in the Rye and Animal Farm by George Orwell. I'm excited to check out new editions and find good deals," she says. (Dalreen Ramos)
[A] show which explicitly deals with the roles Northern women have played in history. [...]Yorkshire Life has an article on 'Why Yorkshire’s diverse landscape attracts filmmakers from across the world'.
Moreover, ignoring the chaos of mixed media, Fox introduced me to some very interesting stories and some very interesting women. Although the poster-women of the North were mentioned, such as the Brontës and the Suffragettes, I found the stories of women I had not heard of much more engaging. (Kate Marsh)
Another iconic natural area is the North York Moors, and no telling of Wuthering Heights would be complete without featuring this majestic landscape. It appears in countless film and TV adaptations; most recently a 2011 version supported through the Screen Yorkshire’s Fund. Dramatic, moody and drenched in mist, the Yorkshire landscape was described by the film’s cinematographer Robbie Ryan as ‘another character’ and ‘as important as Heathcliff’. Filmed exclusively across Yorkshire, the locations for this production also included Thwaite, Cotescue Park, Coverham, Thrushcross Grange [?!], Moor Close Farm, Muker and Swaledale. (Sam Twyman)The Globe and Mail (Canada) also mentions the moors:
Still, I was quite looking forward to my day on the moor. I had a romanticized notion of what moors were like, fuelled by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s great hound and Emily Bronte’s tortured passions. A more astute person would have realized those are both essentially ghost stories. (Domini Clark)Though not fully Brontë-related (except for film adaptations of Jane Eyre), you might still want to read an article in The Telegraph on 'The spooky secrets and strange superstitious markings hidden in 900-year-old Haddon Hall'. Lo Spazio Bianco (in Italian) posts about the upcoming comic Le Sorelle Brontë.
31 Oct. The British School at Rome hosts Learning to imagine: the Brontës and 19th c. ideals of education, a lecture by Dinah Birch, University of Liverpool, at 18.00 on Wednesday 31 October.
The lecture will focus on the writings of the Brontë family in the context of the educational controversies of the 19th century and the Brontës’ commitment to education, in both professional and personal terms.
Jane Eyre is one of the hardest working heroines in all of Victorian literature. She's a cast-iron steam engine of a character who really puts in the hours, shuttling from stage to screen and back again, in countless adaptations.And here she is again, in a new stage version of Charlotte Bronte's classic 19th-century novel, from Bracknell's estimable Blackeyed Theatre company (filmed on stage the day before Lockdown II began).One benefit of Nick Lane's deft and pacy retelling is that it clocks in at under two hours. Nor did I feel there was much missing from the life of hardy orphan Jane, who toughs out childhood neglect, shrugs off school-room bullying — and eventually finds love and independence on her own uncompromising terms. One-part nightmare (like Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale) and one-part Mills & Boon romance, her story is never less than a rollicking ride.So it is again in Adrian McDougall's taut production that matches the story's grim northern ways with sometimes impenetrable gothic lighting and a tumbledown, barn-like set.An upright piano threatens to add the musical austerity of a Methodist church hall, but the Victorian melodrama is instead borne along on the fast-flowing currents of composer George Jennings's lush, rippling Rachmaninov-style score.Some of the characters are a little cartoonish — snarling aunts, pompous pastors and wholesomely doting friends. But despite bustling about in a businesslike grey tartan dress, Kelsey Short's Jane provides a still, stern and steely centre.This is a woman who says she means to dodge Hell 'by not dying', and I'd have liked to see her let her hair down a little more. Luckily, as her beloved Rochester, Ben Warwick is a sufficiently roguish, desirable and inscrutable alpha male who adds a little sauce to the saga. (Patrick Marmion)
I Walked with a ZombieFor Lewton’s next production, RKO provided him with a title; I Walked with a Zombie. He instructed his writers to research Haitian voodoo practices and look to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre for structure purposes. Tourneur and Robson both carried over in director and editor capacity, respectively. In the film, Young Canadian nurse Betsy (Frances Dee) relays how she once walked with a zombie, recounting the tale of her job caring for the wife of a sugar plantation owner on a Caribbean island. The wife, naturally, has been acting very strangely. Voodoo zombies factor into this atmospheric gem in a big way, of course. There’s a dreamlike quality about I Walked with a Zombie, and it was progressive for its time for the somber portrayal of slaves. (Meagan Navarro)
La plus anglaise de romancières australiennes nous revient en poche avec une histoire de fantôme, de secrets de famille et demeures poussiéreuses. Comme dans tout bon roman anglais, comme Rebecca ou Jane Eyre (le nom Thornfield apparaît même au détour des pages, la référence est claire), le point de départ est une incroyable maison, lieu de tous les mystères, Birchwood Manor. (Claire) (Translation)
Andy Fickman has made a deal with Roseblood Movie Company and Twisted Pictures to godfather four remakes from RKO’s horror heyday, including three that were produced by horrormeister Val Lewton. Fickman will direct at least one of the films.The producer Andy Fickman says about the film:
Roseblood is the horror/thriller division of RKO Pictures, and Twisted is the horror division of Evolution Entertainment, financiers and producers of the “Saw” series. The companies will co-finance the films.
The remake properties are the Jacques Tourneur-directed “I Walked With a Zombie” (1943); the Robert Wise-directed Bela Lugosi-Boris Karloff starrer “The Body Snatcher” (1945); the Mark Robson-directed Karloff starrer “Bedlam” (1946); and the John Farrow-directed Lucille Ball-John Carradine starrer “Five Came Back” (1939). (Michael Fleming in Variety)
I'm producing and writing on these RKO remakes with Twisted Pictures of the Val Lewton Library and the first one up, "I Walked with a Zombie" that Adam Marcus is going to direct and I'm producing. We're just getting ready to start going out for casting on that. We'll film that in New Orleans in the spring and just the notion of being on the set and focusing on it as a producer, and trying to give my director as much support as I possibly can. Now I'll start looking at what the next movie will be on my development slate, which one will be ready or is there another one coming up? Hopefully in the summer or the fall I'll start getting back behind the lens. (Edward Douglas in ComingSoon.net)Categories: Movies-DVD-TV
The Brontë Parsonage Museum is to be redecorated so that it looks more like the famous sisters’ home than ever before.The Brontë Weather Project writes - with pictures - about a trip to the Parsonage and the Brussels Brontë Blog posts about a recent talk by Lyndall Gordon called The Hidden Face of Charlotte Brontë.
Decorators will draw on the research of specialists into what the building’s interiors looked like in the mid-19th century.
The “decorative archaeology” was carried out last winter while the museum underwent its annual two-month closure.
After the museum closes at the end of this autumn the restoration work will begin, ready for reopening in February.
The museum, run by the Brontë Society, said it wanted to offer visitors a “more authentic Brontë experience”.
The “new” look will be followed next March by an exhibition in the museum entitled Heaven Is a Home: the Story of the Brontës’ Parsonage.
The museum promises an “exciting” programme of special events throughout 2013 to celebrate the redecoration.
This will include a study day on March 23, at the nearby West Lane Baptist Centre, to explore the concept of houses in the English novel. As well as looking at the Brontes’ creations – including Wuthering Heights, Wildfell Hall and Thornfield Hall – the tutors will look at titles by other authors. Tickets cost £20 including entry to the museum, from jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk.
The discussion that followed was very lively and wide-ranging. Lyndall Gordon told us that in a few days’ time she was to be filmed in the British Museum, talking about the Heger letters, for a documentary on the Brontë sisters to be shown as part of ITV’s Perspective series. The crew will then be coming to Brussels to film with our group. During the discussion we took the opportunity to explore some of the questions the documentary will be raising, such as the factors that may have contributed to producing the phenomenon of the Brontë family. We doubted that the programme would find all the answers in the hour allocated to it!Wuthering Heights 2011 is reviewed today by the Herald Sun (Australia) which gives it three stars.
Brace yourselves, literary purists. And put on your thickest overcoat while you're at it.The Daily Dissident reviews the film as well and ABC's At the Movies with Margaret and David (Australia) also mentions the film in passing in a review of Woody Allen's To Rome with Love:
Otherwise this exhaustive (and exhausting!) re-imagining of the classic Emily Bronte novel will chill you to the bone.
Let me tell you right now: this is not the most talkative of motion pictures.
There are plenty of stares, whispers, glances and growls. And the wind, oh, the wind. How it howls away throughout Wuthering Heights, blowing a never-ending gale across the misty moors of Yorkshire.
But what of Brontë's time-honoured prose, especially all that torrid he-said-she-said banter? Virtually every word is left unsaid. If you can't bear the thought of the book being so radically re-edited, there will be no option but to consider yourself a victim of excessive silence.
DAVID: Margaret?LA Weekly wonders, 'Why Do So Many Good L.A. Novels Have Bad Movie Adaptations?' but praises Jane Eyre 2011.
MARGARET: It's a travesty of a Woody Allen film.
DAVID: Travesty? I wouldn't use that word.
MARGARET: It is. It is. Well, I suppose I'm going overboard in the negative, like you did with Wuthering Heights because...
DAVID: It was impossible to be too negative about that.
It's best not to do a remake of Ask the Dust so soon after Towne's version. But Scottish filmmaker Lynne Ramsay — known for such visually arresting films as Morvern Callar and We Need to Talk About Kevin — could direct the hell out of Play It As It Lays. Like Didion's, her work is airily engaging even as it descends into troubling blends of sex and violence. Cary Fukanaga, whose Jane Eyre is among the best literary adaptations in years and who's currently at work bringing Stephen King's It to screen, would be more than qualified as well. (Michael Nordine)Science 2.0 writes about I Walked with a Zombie.
Now imagine the studio wants a follow-up and the studio head is still picking movie titles based on market research - and so "I Walked With A Zombie" is going on the poster. Who sits in the production meeting and introduces an idea like 'You know what would make a great zombie movie? Jane Eyre'.Books on the House seems to have found a Brontëite in writer Joan Hall Hovey.
Charlotte Brontë's 1847 indictment of Victorian culture wouldn't ordinarily lend itself to a zombie movie but Lewton was seeing bigger picture. It had references to Jamaica and crazy people and the supernatural. "I Walked With A Zombie" uses an unsympathetic married man and a nurse who gradually falls in love with him.
But what makes the movie is the cinematography of Nick Musuraca and the moody direction of Jacques Tourneur. Lacking a special effects budget, they had to suggest horror. They did meticulous amounts of research on Voodoo culture and then introduce the ambiguity of science versus supernatural forces - is the wife really cursed by Voodoo, is it a physical malady caused by a tropical disease, or is she crazy? (Hank Campbell)
BotH: If you could have dinner, coffee, or drinks with a fictional character, who would you choose and where would you go?ExtraConfidencial (in Spanish) uses Heathcliff's initial situation in the novel as a simile for Spain's situation in Europe, mistakenly calling Emily Brontë a man along the way. DL-Online acknowledges - among others - the Brontë influence behind The Mystery of Irma Vep. A Bookish Way of Life and Accro aux mots (in French) both post about Wuthering Heights. Reading Rambo thinks that Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë wouldn't make good roommates.
JHH: Oh, I think it would be wonderful to sit down with Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre over a cup of tea. Because the author has so instilled her character with her own passions and emotions, even after 150 years they rise off the page. Charlotte Brontë lives on through her words.
'One may guess the power of the north wind blowing over the edge by the excessive slant of a few stunted firs at the end of the house, and by a range of gaunt thorns all stretching their limbs one way, as if craving alms of the sun. Happily the architect had foresight to build it strong. The narrow windows are deeply set in the wall, and the corners defended with large jutting stones.'Harper Collins à la Twilight edition:
Wind and clouds in a view from the window of Wuthering Heights, as seen by the designer Celia Birtwell a new edition from White's Books (PR)
'While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly.'Well, as this edition was addressed basically to Twilight fans, the white tulip links together Emily Brontë's noveland Stephenie Meyer saga as it appeared on the cover of New Moon.
HarperCollins focus on the winding stair for the cover of their children's edition, but who does the white tulip stand for? (PR)
'She bounded before me, and returned to my side, and was off again like a young grey-hound; and at first I found plenty of entertainment in listening to the larks singing far and near, and enjoying the sweet, warm sunshine, and watching her, my pet and my delight, with her golden ringlets flying loose behind, and her bright cheek, as soft and pure in its bloom as a wild rose, and her eyes radiant with cloudless pleasure. She was a happy creature, and an angel, in those days. It's a pity she could not be content.'Penguin Red Classics:
No golden ringlets from Oxford World Classics, but is this flame-haired beauty inspired by Cathy or Kate Bush? (PR)
Pen'Cathy stayed at Thrushcross Grange five weeks, till Christmas. By that time her ankle was thoroughly cured, and her manners much improved. The mistress visited her often, in the interval, and commenced her plan of reform by trying to raise her self-respect with fine clothes and flattery, which she took readily: so that, instead of a wild, hatless little savage jumping into the house, and rushing to squeeze us all breathless, there lighted from a handsome black pony a very dignified person, with brown ringlets falling from the cover of a feathered beaver, and a long cloth habit which she was obliged to hold up with both hands that she might sail in.'
A little more refinement from this Penguin Red Classics edition (PR)
guin Classics:'It was a very dark evening for summer. 'Wordsworth Classics
The light fades on the cover of this Penguin Classics edition (PR)
'I walked as if for a wager, mile after mile, till a turn brought me in view of the Heights; but no Catherine could I detect far or near.'
The house lowers at the top of the hill in this Wordsworth Classics edition (PR)
I wish I were out of doors! I wish I were a girl again, half savage and hardy and free, and laughing at injuries, not maddening under them! Why am I so changed? Why does my blood rush into a hell of tumult at a few words? I'm sure I should be myself were I once among the heather on those hills.'
The moor, the house, Cathy and Heathcliff all meet on the cover of this comic version of Wuthering Heights, first published in the 1940s (PR)
The White's Books editions are also mentioned in an interesting article in The Independent about the art of book cover design:
While these four publishers all work in paperback, White's Books is one that is taking on the hardback – at a time when these are fast disappearing from our shelves. They're not quite an endangered species yet: literary imprint Picador announced that they were doing away with hardbacks altogether last year, before quietly backing down. White's stick resolutely to the classics – their list runs to six titles so far, including Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights and Treasure Island – but go all out in design terms, from the thickness of the paper to the exquisite covers.The San Francisco Bay Guardian publishes an extensive article about the zombie frenzy. A reference is made to the upcoming remake of I walked with a zombie 1943 which as readers of this blog know was based partially in Jane Eyre:
White's art director, David Pearson, has commissioned illustrations from such people as textile designer Celia Birtwell and Stanley Donwood, better known for his work with Radiohead. The results stand out a mile in your average bookshop, thanks to the books' use of what Pearson calls "non-repeating narrative pattern" – images that look like a simple pattern from a distance, but which open up when seen at close quarters.(Jonathan Gibbs)
The five-minute video Zombie Apocalypse brings the zombie back to the beach, its eerily effective primary haunting ground in Jacques Tourneur's classic 1943 Val Lewton production I Walked with a Zombie — which, incidentally, is being remade, with Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre now explicitly cited as its source material. (Johnny Ray Huston, Cheryl Eddy and Tony Papanikolas)More summer reading recommendations. From The York Daily:
"Jane Eyre," by Charlotte Bronte (adult). If this is on your list of "books I've meant to read," treat yourself to the stirring tale of an orphaned governess and her mysterious employer. (Kathleen Whalin)Vulpes Libris interviews actor Richard Armitage. Talking about his role in Sparkhouse, he says:
VL: Can I take you back to Sparkhouse for a few minutes? (For those who don’t know, Sparkhouse was a grim but fascinating three-part series written by Sally Wainwright, and loosely inspired by Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights – but with the two lead roles reversed … the ‘Heathcliff’ role was played by Sarah Smart and the ‘Cathy’ role by Joe McFadden.) Your character – John Standring – was a sort of amalgam of Isabella and Hareton. Did you read Wuthering Heights beforehand, and if you did – was it a help or a hindrance?Arteyliteratura reviews (in Spanish) the Jane Eyre Great Literary Classics audiobook read by Lucy Scott, ...not quite write... vindicates Anne Brontë. Led by the Sun analyses Emily Brontë's No Coward Soul is Mine.
RA: I did read the novel, in fact I had read it many times before, and listened to Kate Bush!! The derivation of the character was less interesting in this instance, what was more useful was Brontë’s vision of that landscape, literal and metaphorical, the major themes in the novel, the wilderness and the madness. I didn’t try to locate John in Brontë’s novel and Sally was keen that there were no exact parallels. There was an elemental feeling from the novel, which had most impact on me.
You asked, "did you discover anything surprising about the Brontës?" Everything I learned surprised me, because when I started my research I knew nothing about them! I was astonished to discover the incredible volume of writing the Brontës did as children, and what wonderful artists and poets the sisters were. I was surprised to learn that Charlotte was secretly in love with a married man, and that he was the partial inspiration for many of the heroes in her novels. I was touched to learn that Mr. Nicholls was secretly in love with Charlotte for so many years, before he had the nerve to propose. It's a remarkable story, and the Brontës were a complicated and fascinating family.Jane Austen Today is also giving away a copy of the book among the participants in the Q&A.
The Film Society of the Lincoln Center in New York is making a complete retrospective of the film director Jacques Tourneur. Including, of course, I Walked with a Zombie 1943:I Walked with a Zombie
Jacques Tourneur, USA, 1943, 35mm, 68m
In Tourneur’s second collaboration with producer Val Lewton, a Canadian nurse working on an island in the West Indies turns to voodoo with the hope of curing her patient. Loosely based on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, I Walked with a Zombie features a quite peculiar kind of romance, and is perhaps Tourneur’s most poetic film: a haunting, audacious studio picture that presents a complex meditation on colonialism and our relationship with the past, as seen here through the living’s uncanny connection to the dead. Print preserved by The Library of Congress.
Preceded by:
The King Without a CrownJacques Tourneur, USA, 1937, 35mm, 10m
This MGM “Historical Mystery” considers the possibility that Marie Antoinette’s son Louis XVII fled to the United States during the French Revolution and was raised to be a missionary among Native Americans. Print courtesy of the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
Friday, December 14, 9:00pm*
*Walter Reade Theater, 165 West 65th Street
Saturday, December 22, 7:45pm
Wednesday, January 2, 9:00pm
The World of Apichatpong WeerasethakulJacques TourneurThursday, May 4, 21.30 hThursday, May 11, 16:30 PMWalter Reade TheaterApichatpong Weerasethakul in person for introduction on May 4In Jacques Tourneur’s second collaboration with producer Val Lewton, a Canadian nurse working on an island in the West Indies turns to voodoo with the hope of curing her patient. Loosely based on Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, I Walked with a Zombie features a quite peculiar kind of romance and is perhaps Tourneur’s most poetic film: a haunting, audacious studio picture that presents a complex meditation on colonialism and our relationship with the past, as seen here through the living’s uncanny connection to the dead.For me, this is one of the most beautiful black-and-white films ever made. A white lady in a trance walks through the sugar plantation, drawn by the sound of the drum and the sea waves. Every time I see it, I see something different: a dream of independence, a primitive science fiction, and a fear of others.I also enjoy the film’s silent moments. Previously, they did not need to fill in all of the sound components in order to captivate the audience. —Apichatpong Weerasethakul
On April 21 it will be 200 years since the birth of Charlotte Brontë – she of Jane Eyre fame – and there’s masses of good stuff going on for that too.The Conversation makes an excellent point talking about Pride and Prejudice and Zombies:
I hadn’t been there before and somehow had it in mind the Brontës – Charlotte, Emily, Anne and their wayward brother Branwell – had led sheltered, luxurious lives living in a huge house with their clergyman father.
Not a bit of it. Their home, The Parsonage, has tiny rooms. Good job the home was small. I came away riveted by the fact Charlotte may have had huge talent but was just 4ft 10in tall. You can see the clothes that prove it. And they were also allowed to read anything they liked – the “mad, bad and dangerous to know” poet Lord Byron was a favourite – which would have scandalised their posh neighbours.
The house is now a museum packed with things linked to the family. And if you’re really lucky you get to see some of the rarer items – like a tiny book of words and drawings made by Charlotte when she was just 10. It would fit in the palm of your hand, but such is her fame a similar book that came up for auction fetched nearly £1million.
I liked the town of Haworth – no chain stores on the old main road, just lots of local shops in quaint buildings.
But the “quaintness” hides a dark past. In the Brontës’ time, the death rate, always high in those days, was even worse in Haworth. Turns out the local people were drinking water from a spring that made it’s way to town – through the graveyard.
No danger of anything nasty at my base for the night, Ponden Hall high on the moors outside the town. Mind you, there could have been. This beautifully restored farmhouse, dating to 1634, is said to be the inspiration for Thrushcross Grange in Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.On the east gable end of the house, a tiny single-paned window is, according to local tradition, where Cathy’s ghost scratched furiously at the glass, trying to get in.
Perhaps she was after the warmth. My room (three beds!) had a wonderful log-burning stove and a Victorian rocking horse to keep the kids happy. And breakfast was magnificent. (Sue Jolly)
Putting a zombie spin on a classic novel by Jane Austen might seem like an innovative twist. But it isn’t. In 1943 film director Jacques Tourneur partially based his I Walked With a Zombie on Charlotte Brontë’s 1847 novel Jane Eyre. I Walked With a Zombie, for all its schlock-horror aspirations, is a genuinely haunting piece of film history. But Tourneur’s zombie wasn’t the flesh-eating living dead kind (the kind that, after all, Romero never intended to be zombies). No; his was the original zombie. (Victoria Anderson)John Mullan in The Guardian proposes other mashups with classical novels:
Jane Eyre’s Fifty Shades of GreyWe wonder if he knows that what he's joking about... already exists(and here or here or ...).
Dominance/submission; sadism/masochism; master/servant. It is all there in potentia in Charlotte Brontë’s original. A nice young lady encounters a rich control freak, Christian Rochester, to whom she is inexplicably attracted. At first we think he is gay, but then Jane finds the secret chamber at Thornfield. Jane makes allowances for his interest in BDSM toys (all that apparatus up in the attic) when he tells her that, visiting France as a young man, he was seduced by a heartless actress. But will she sign the weird contract he offers her?
Four years ago I wrote a book called A History of Fiction in 294 Lives. Finishing it, I realised, aged 74, that I had outlived about 260 of the authors I had written about. What could Dickens (died aged 58) or the three Brontës (who between them didn’t have a team score of a century) have done with my superfluous years?The Spectator reviews Pretentiousness: Why it Matters by Dan Fox:
He suggests that a song such as Kate Bush’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ is gloriously pretentious in appropriating a 19th-century novel. But he then says that its proven popularity ‘undermines the position that it’s “pretentious” for musicians to play with ideas’. (Jonathan Beckman)The Anglo-Celt is quite correct when it says:
Hunger Games, Twilight, Bridget Jones Diary, Wuthering Heights... dramas exploring the conflict between love rivals are commonplace; less so when one of the rivals is a cow. (Damien McCarney)The Boston Herald interviews Bethany Consentino from the band Best Coast:
“I like to do the really dramatic songs, like ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush, and I also really like ‘I’m Goin’ Down’ by Mary J. Blige, and a couple of songs by nu metal bands like Limp Bizkit or Korn,” she said. (Pat Healy)The death of Harper Lee triggers one of the favourite topics of newspapers and magazines: one-hit-author lists:
Although the Brontës are well-known writers, Emily Brontë only published one novel — “Wuthering Heights.”
Released in 1847 under an alias, the story of Heathcliff, the Earnshaws and the Lintons is known for its unusual structure and narrative view.
Although it’s a classic now, the book did not become a literary staple until after its author’s death in 1848. (Keri Blakinger in New York Daily News)
To Kill a Mockingbird, her novel of 1960, sat very well alongside Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar and Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. All of the them great novels and unsullied by the existence of other inferior works by the same hand. (Robbie Millen in The Times)Another sad obituary. The film director Andrzej Zulawski is remembered in this article in El Mundo (Spain):
Su película 'Lo importante es amar' (1974) golpeó nuestros corazones y nuestros cerebros, y eso que la vimos minuciosamente cortada por la censura. Aquel trágico trío de amantes, frágil y vulnerable, nos impresionó con fuerza en un tiempo y en una edad en los que las historias de amor y sexo debían tener, a nuestro criterio y gusto, un componente dramático y desquiciado que, en plena línea de romanticismo mayúsculo y exacerbado, no dejara lugar a las pamplinas. El sufrimiento y un horizonte de muerte eran lo ideal. Confieso que mi punto de vista al respecto ha cambiado, aunque estoy dispuesto a examinar una nueva versión de 'Cumbres borrascosas'. (Manuel Hidalgo) (Translation)A late Valentine article with a twist on astrology (birds of a feather...):
Wuthering Heigths (Cumbres borrascosas), de Emily Brontë. Heathcliff y Catherine viven una apasionada historia de amor en una época llena de romanticismo. Ideal para las mujeres Acuario que gustan de estas historias tan intensas y capaces de romper convencionalismos. (Vanidades) (Translation)MilanoPost discusses Federico Moccia's Tre Metri Sopra il Cielo:
Al di là dei Miss Sixty, delle serate in discoteca e dello zainetto Camomilla, la solfa è la stessa di tantissime altre storie antiche e nuovissime: un po’ “Cime tempestose”, un po’ “Twilight”. (Francesca del Boca) (Translation)20 Minutos (Spain) reports of some the events and exhibitions associated to the Brontë200 celebrations.Entre Libros y Tintas (in Spanish) posts about Wuthering Heights. Eric Ruijssenaars discusses on the Brussels Brontë Blog the plausibility of Charlotte Brontë saying to Madame Heger 'Je me vengerai'.
