Had she been alive today Jean Rhys (1890-1976) would certainly have been diagnosed with a personality disorder. Or as hovering on the very edge of the Asperger's spectrum. Poor woman.The same Daily Mail publishes a profile of Samantha Morton which highlights her performances of Jane Eyre in 1997:
As Lilian Pizzichini's excellent biography makes clear, Rhys, author of such troubling novels as Quartet, Good Morning, Midnight and the radiantly brilliant Wide Sargasso Sea, was an absolute nightmare. And, of course, such a volatile personality is God's gift to a biographer. (...)
How she managed to write Wide Sargasso Sea (the Jane Eyre prequel about the first MrsRochester) is one of the great literary mysteries of our time. Pizzichini describes the original draft as being 'stained with grief, sweat and face powder' - as well as splashes of whisky, we must assume, as by now Rhys was getting through at least a bottle a day. (Val Hennessy)
It was her performance as Jane Eyre in 1997, in ITV's adaptation of the Charlotte Bronte classic, which established her as leading lady material. (Tim Oglethorpe)The Star (Malaysia) recommends a visit to Haworth and the Brontë country:
If you’ve read The Canterbury Tales or Wuthering Heights and wondered what it must be like to be in the landscapes that inspired the story, why not take a look yourself? (...)Two early Brontëites. Author Hilary Mantel is interviewed in The Financial Times:
At the opposite end of the country, and of no less literary significance, is the town of Haworth in the bleak but beautiful Yorkshire Dales. It was here that some of the great romantic novels of the 19th century were written.
Inspired by their surroundings, three of the five daughters of Patrick Bronte became some of the most famous literary figures of all time. Known as the Bronte sisters, Charlotte is famous for writing Jane Eyre, Ann, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and Emily, one of the classic romantic tales Wuthering Heights.
Haworth is a former industrial mill town, but is now given over almost entirely to tourism, with its main street consisting of numerous gift shops, pubs, restaurants and bed-and-breakfast accommodation. However, it is not a tacky place and retains its charm, mainly due to the lack of modern buildings and its dramatic location on the Yorkshire Moors.
It is these windswept, rugged grasslands which fired the imagination of the sisters while they gazed out of the windows of their house. The Parsonage (priest’s home), where they spent most of their adult lives, is now maintained as a museum to the family.
It has kept many of its original features, including, rather macabrely, the sofa on which Emily died. In fact, ill health dogged most of their lives, as it did many people in this area in the 19th century. It was their frail compositions which led them to spend much of their time indoors or around the Parsonage — with their energies being put to literary pursuits.
Of less morbid interest, there is an interactive exhibition based on the family’s life and works, and each room is decorated authentically and full of information about the sisters.
Many people opt to take the Bronte walk, which leads from the Parsonage and past the graveyard (don’t take this walk at night if you are easily spooked) and down a well-used footpath to the picturesque but not very big, Bronte Falls. On a hot day (unfortunately not very common on the moors), it is great to just sit here with a picnic and admire the beauty of the scenery.
In fact, this is what the Brontes were said to have done in the so-called Bronte Chair, a large stone on which the sisters allegedly sat in and took turns writing their novels. For those who are feeling a little fitter, the walk continues uphill to a ruined cottage called Top Withens, which is apparently the setting for Heathcliffe’s (sic) home in Wuthering Heights.
Gazing down from here at the undulating expanse of moorland, you could easily lose yourself in the story and imagine Heathcliffe frantically searching the moors and calling out for his beloved Kathy (sic).
Back in the town, Haworth has many attractions in its own right, but it is also the centre of what is known as the Brontë Country, which includes sites of scenic beauty, 19th century railroads, castles and thriving market towns.
Indeed, after spending some time in this harsh but inspiring area, one can see how the sisters were inspired to write what they did. (Wayne Johnson)
Which literary character most resembles you?And Guillaume Musso in Nice Matin:
When I was a child I empathised with Jane Eyre, as women writers often do. Since then I haven’t thought of books in that way: I know me and I know the character and the two don’t merge. (Anna Metcalfe)
Les livres, une affaire de famille ? L'écrivain confirme : « Mes parents m'ont appris à être éclectique. Vers 10-11 ans, je passais mes étés dans la réserve de la bibliothèque et je dévorais tout ce qui me tombait sous la main. C'est comme ça que j'ai découvert Les Hauts de Hurlevent d'Emily Brontë. Un choc. » (Google translation)He insists on his passion for Wuthering Heights in Metro:
Quels classiques vous inspirent ?Les Echos reviews Sam Savage's Firmin:
Mes deux romans cultes sont "Belle du Seigneur" d'Albert Cohen ainsi que "Les hauts de hurlevent" d'Emily Brontë. (Google translation)
La première fois qu'il sortira avec sa mère et ses frères et soeurs (douze crétins incultes) et qu'il goûtera une feuille de laitue, il aura cette réflexion profonde : « Elle a le goût de Jane Eyre. » « Firmin », sous-titré « Autobiographie d'un grignoteur de livres », est le roman singulier d'un écrivain philosophe excentrique, Sam Savage - devenu, grâce au bouche-à-oreille, un best-seller outre-Atlantique. (Philippe Chevilley) (Google translation)The Globe and Mail talks with Margaret Trudeau who seems a little bit confused about who lived at Thornfield Hall's attic:
And after the Trudeaus' 1977 separation, she “lived in the attic at 24 Sussex and at Stornoway, like Jane Eyre,” for two to three years before buying her own house. (Sarah Hampson)Briefer news: an impersonation of Emily Brontë in a flowing, blue dress in The Burlington Hawk Eye. Sufi mystics and Wuthering Heights in the Denver Examiner. The Australian celebrates that Penguin mugs (including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights) are finally available in Australia. The Bethel College (Indiana) announces a production of Gordon & Caird's Jane Eyre: The Musical scheduled for February 2010. Bella Online remembers how Vivien Leigh was offered the role of Isabella in Wuthering Heights 1939 and how she turned it down for Gone With the Wind. Finally, Le Journal de Dimanche (in French) links together once again Wuthering Heights and the Twilight saga.
The Ultimate Romantic Hero:Darcy or Rochester?
with Fay Weldon, Grainne Maguire, Lilian Pizzichini & Professor John Mullan. Chaired by Melvyn Bragg
London Jewish Cultural Center
Wednesday 25 June 2014, 8pm
£12 in advance (£15 on the door)
Darcy and Rochester represent the epitome of the romantic hero. But what would they really have been like to live with? Are they better on the page? We debate the desirability - and the horror - of two of the greatest figures in English literature.
Melvyn Bragg has edited, produced and presented a wealth of award-winning documentaries and programmes across the cultural spectrum.
Grainne Maguire is a stand up comedian, comedy writer and columnist. She writes for the Evening Standard and the Independent.
Fay Weldon CBE, is a novelist, screenwriter and essayist, whose work over the decades has been translated into most world languages. Her novels include, most notably, The Life and Loves of a She-Devil, Puffball, She May Not Leave, Chalcot Crescent and Kehua! She has recently enjoyed success with the publication of her Edwardian trilogy: Habits of the House, Long Live the King and The New Countess. Her novels and stories serve as despatches from the ever changing battleground between the sexes. The least didactic of contemporary chroniclers, she is one of the few authors whose every new novel or story provokes discussion, surprise and argument.
Lilian Pizzichini is a writer and journalist. Her first book, Dead Men's Wages, about her conman grandfather, won the 2002 Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger for Non-fiction. Her second, The Blue Hour: A Portrait of Jean Rhys, was published in 2009 to critical acclaim. Her latest book is Music Night at the Apollo: A Memoir of Drifting published by Bloomsbury in April 2014. Lilian has also been writer-in-residence in prisons. She has taught at universities and is a Creative Writing Mentor and Coach.
Professor John Mullan is a Professor of English at University College London. He specialises in 18th century fiction. He is currently working on the 18th-century section of the new Oxford English Literary History.
Wednesday 1 April, 7pmCuriously the Elle Magazine's April book recommendations include Lilian Pizzichini’s The Blue Hour:
BOOK LOVERS GROUP
Venue: Sheraton Hotel, Exchange Bar
Join us at the popular SBC Book Club. Enjoy lively discussions over a drink or two. Whether you are an avid reader or would love to read more, you'll love our relaxed group.
Our book next month is Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys. "Wide Sargasso Sea is a great novel, it is many brilliant books in one. Multi-layered and complex, Jean Rhys's prelude to Jane Eyre vividly illustrates how accounts and understanding differ, and creates a sense of the characters' past being inescapable." The Independent.
Optional light dinner available for just £10 (decide on the day).
Biographer Lilian Pizzichini’s The Blue Hour (Norton) delves into the turbulent life of Dominicaborn, Europegrafted Jean Rhys, whose groundbreaking 1966 novel Wide Sargasso Sea—a prequel to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre that was published when Rhys was 76 years old—made her a poster-fem for women writing in obscurity, dislocation, and fragile circumstances. (Lisa Shea)2. At the Cinémathèque Française in Paris:
Retrospective André Téchiné:3. And belatedly we report some performances of Charles Vance's adaptation of W
Wednesday, April 1 - 21h30 - SALLE GEORGES FRANJU - 35mm
LES SOEURS BRONTË
France - 1979 - 115’
Avec Isabelle Huppert, Isabelle Adjani, Marie-France Pisier, Pascal Grégory, Patrick Magee, Hélène Surgère, Roland Bertin, Alice Sapritch, Roland Barthes.
With the presence of the screenwriter Pascal Bonitzer.
uthering Heights in Bangalore, India:Orange Sky Productions presentsA flyer can be seen here.
Wuthering Heights
Directed by Kanak Narayan Sen
Playwright: Charles Vance
(based on the novel by Emily Bronte)
With: Sonu Sonkar, Dhanya Menon, Kartik Iyer, Pulkit Bhuwalka, Parthasarathy Devarajan, Aparna Warrier, Madhubanti Banerjee, Ratish Mani, Salil Lal Ahamed and Vidya Belman.
Lights: Mohammed Mustafa A.
Music: Siddhartha Chattopadhyay
Speech Consultant: Nazu Tonse
Productions Managers: Irene Daniel, Ameya Sarda
27th March 2009 at 7.30 p.m.
28th March at 3.30 p.m & 7.30 p.m.
At the Alliance Française de Bangalore, India.
Yes. Well. Hmm. A curio, Victorian or otherwise. The blurbs seem to promise something that was seldom seen in this evening, which was in equal parts frustrating, unique and, at times, unintentionally entertaining. What is this new Victorian manifesto? Not a clue, unless it was vocalist-keyboardist Nick Pagan's dictum that true poets and artists must continue to aspire in the face of adversity - something he banged on a bit more than his Casio. I went expecting this singular soul, who speaks in an accent somewhere between Mid-Atlantic and Liberace, and who has worked with Siouxsie and the Banshees, to meld contemporary music with the verse of Thomas Hardy, Emily Bronte, Matthew Arnold, et al. And, while there were two examples of this at the top of the program, the rest of the hour was spent being forced to acknowledge Pagan's own versifying (a song about Prozac was particularly forgettable) or find him creatively trying to shoe-horn the Beatles and John Cale into this vague Victorian manifesto. The oddity of the evening was enhanced by a startling time-warp in the room. There was Pagan, mop-topped and passionately attacking his keyboard, as if still auditioning three decades ago for a chance to open for Spandau Ballet. But to his left were two sleek, elegant French musicians (Catherine Lubatti on electric violin and Damien Soupizet on eclectic [sic] guitar), both brilliant, and both seemingly visitors from a more promising future. Under what circumstances did these people meet? It's one of the hour's greatest questions. Still, STILL, Pagan is unlike anyone else. He is his own man, complete with his own loves and manias, and more power to him. He's a true original, and, in this dull age of stifling conformity, I salute him. (Steffen Silvis)The Provincetown Banner reviews a local production of The Mystery of Irma Vep (at the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater):
The Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater jumps into its 25th season with this Charles Ludlam play, subtitled “A Penny Dreadful.” It is, and is intended to be, an over-the-top send-up of everything from “Jane Eyre” and especially “Rebecca” to Edgar Allen Poe and every other book, poem and movie of the genre. (Sue Harrison)Broadway World presents yet another production of the Charles Ludlam's play by The Atlanta Shakespeare Company at The New American Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta, Georgia. And The Arizona Daily Star talks about another one by the Live Theatre Workshop in Tucson:
"It's a wonderful spoof of movies like 'Rebecca' and 'Wuthering Heights,' " said [Leslie J. ] Miller, adding that puns are plentiful, too. (Kathleen Allen)Amanda Ash in The Times-Colonist gets a nomination for this most unBrontëite of references. Reviewing Jumpin' Jack by Lyle Victor:
The play is filled with witty one-liners and laugh-worthy expressions, but as a whole, it feels like reading Jane Eyre. An 80 minute one-man play is simply too long.The Chicago Tribune reviews Lilian Pizzichini's biography of Jean Rhys: The Blue Hour:
Yet she was holed up in a bungalow in Cornwall working for decades on what would be considered her masterpiece, "Wide Sargasso Sea," which evokes Rhys' childhood and rewrites one of the most famous screeching mutes in literary history, Charlotte Bronte's lunatic Bertha Mason in "Jane Eyre."A local musician competing in the Edmonton Provincial Music Festival (Canada):
"I wanted to write her a life," Rhys said of Antoinette Cosway, her tragic Creole heiress. Lilian Pizzichini's goal in her new biography, "The Blue Hour," is also to rescue Rhys from the caricature of a life of ill repute and drunken dissolution. (Kate Zambreno)
Jordyn Appleby is competing in the musical theatre category, which includes singing and dancing in costume from a stage production. Her piece is a song called Forgiveness from the musical Jane Eyre. (Crowsnest Pass Promoter)And in Xalapa, México at the Festival de la Lectura:
Hoy, los estudiantes volverán a estar en el Festival de la Lectura, de 12:00 a 14:00 horas en la Casa del Lago, mostrando está técnica de grabado y regalando a los asistentes grabados de las portadas de la Biblioteca del Universitario.And even more students with Brontë leanings. In Volgograd, Russia, the winner of the regional competition Герой нашего времени (The hero of our time) is Надежда Дружинина which devoted her work to Jane Eyre according to Volgograd.ru.
Algunos de los autores de los grabados de la colección son los siguientes: (...)Cumbres borrascosas de Emily Brontë. (Juan Carlos Plata in Diario de Xalapa) (Google translation)
Die Schwestern Anne, Charlotte und Emily Bronte faszinieren ihre Leser seit anderthalb Jahrhunderten und bereits seit 1850 interessieren sich Literaturtouristen für die Orte, an denen die Familie lebte und die in ihren Romanwelten beschrieben wird. Der Bildband „Die Welt der Brontes“ zeigt auf wunderschönen Fotos Häuser und Orte, die mit der Familie verknüpft sind. Das Pfarrhaus in Haworth, in dem die Brontes den größten Teil ihres Lebens verbrachten, ist selbstverständlich zu sehen, aber auch die Apotheke, in der sich ihr Bruder Branwell mit Opium versorgte, ist noch erhalten und die von ihrem Vater, dem Reverend, erbaute Sonntagsschule. Hinzu kommen Orte, die in den Texten beschrieben werden, und für die es – mal gesichert, mal wahrscheinlich - ein Pendant in der Realität gibt. Charlotte beschreibt in Jane Eyre das Dorf Morton, und man darf annehmen, dass sie dabei den Ort Hathersage vor Orten hatte. Wo Wuthering Heights liegt, das bleibt allerdings weiter ungeklärt.And hearing aids and Jane Eyre in the Bemidji Pioneer, Cornucopia of Books reviews Wuthering Heights, Concursori (Romania) invites you to win a copy of Charlotte Brontë's The Professor in Romanian just by answering a very easy question.
Nun kann man sich fragen, warum man einen Bildband braucht, wenn in den Romanen doch alles dargestellt wird - reicht das nicht? Schon. Aber irgendwann möchte man eben genauer wissen, wie ein Herrenhaus beschaffen ist, das „nicht gerade riesig, aber doch von stattlichem Ausmaß“ ist, wie die karge Heidelandschaft aussieht und die Bilder von den engen Dorfgässchen geben sowieso vor, die Zeit sei stehen geblieben. (Pia Helfferich) (Google translation)
Let's start today's newsround with Paul Auster's reading recommendation to a child. Today in The Financial Times:What novel would you give a child to introduce them to literature?This Saturday's Walking Holidays section of The Guardian is devoted to the Brontë moors:
I gave my daughter Wuthering Heights when she was 11 or 12. (Anna Metcalfe)
Walk in a nutshellMore information a map and step-by-step instructions here.
This walk takes you out of Haworth, the village where the Brontë sisters lived and wrote, along pathways they walked and through the moorland that inspired them. Beginning near the church that holds the family vault, you walk up to the Brontë waterfalls, described by Charlotte Brontë as "fine indeed; a perfect torrent racing over the rocks, white and beautiful," then up again to Top Withens, the supposed setting of Wuthering Heights. The Pennine Way is followed for part of the return and the walk ends at the parsonage where the Brontës lived and wrote, now an excellent museum.
Why it's special
The Brontë sisters lived most of their short but fruitful lives in Haworth. In 1847, Charlotte published Jane Eyre, Anne published Agnes Grey and Emily published Wuthering Heights, but within eight years all three had died, outlived by their father. This walk, especially combined with a visit to the Brontë Parsonage Museum, really brings their milieu to life. Although there is no evidence that the now ruined farmhouse on Top Withens was the inspiration for Heathcliff's dwelling, locals and the Brontë Society say Emily was most likely thinking of its moorland setting when she wrote about Wuthering Heights. Describing it, she wrote: "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."
Keep your eyes peeled for
A stone at the waterfalls known locally as the Brontë chair. Also, part of the open moorland on the way to the falls is renowned for the birds that breed here, including curlews, golden plover peregrines and merlins. Between mid-March and mid-July the birds court, make nests in the heather and grass, lay eggs and raise chicks.
The talented writerly sisters make their way through 19th Century England. (Kristin Kloberdanz)The Huntington Newsday talks with the fantasy and S/F author Christie Golden, also known as Jadrien Bell:
You’ve also written under the pen name Jadrien Bell. Does it have a special meaning?Another Brontëite is the writer Adriana Trigiani as we previously posted. The Scotsman confirms it once more:
“Bell” is a nod to the Bronte sisters, who each chose that for their pen name. “Jadrien” because, well, I once saw a British production of “The Secret Garden” and one of the actors was named Jadrien and I thought it was cool. (Mary Beth Foley)
"One day a teacher hands me, Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh. I probably read it 150 times. I'm obsessive like that. I re-read Jane Eyre every year." (Lee Randall)Also in The Scotsman there is a review (by Claire Harman, author of Jane's Fame) of Lilian Pizzichini's biography of Jean Rhys: The Blue Hour:
Was Wide Sargasso Sea, published in 1966, a "modernist masterpiece", as Ms Pizzichini keeps saying? Not at all, though Rhys's much better books, Good Morning, Midnight, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie and the passive-aggressive Smile, Please are tremendous. Rhys was ill-read, preferring to pass out over a thriller rather than Proust or Trollope. She wasn't interested in other people's books, just as she wasn't interested in other people (part of the reason she was so impressed by Jane Eyre – to the extent of writing its prequel – was that she had read so little like it). This leaves her a singularly uncommunicative, even chilly writer.The Quincy Patriot-Ledger recommends The Mystery of Irma Vep's performances in Cape Cod:
Those headed to the Cape can catch the Wellfleet Harbor Actors Theater production of “The Mystery of Irma Veep.” This fast-paced show throws together elements of Hitchcock's "Rebecca," the novels of the Bronte sisters and a slew of monster movies to create one very clever comedyAnd The Reading Chronicle talks about the recent launch of the British Literary Manuscripts Online c1660-1900:
There are also documents from Charlotte and Emily Brontë, Robbie Burns and early drafts of some of Charles Dickens’ work.Carlos Ruiz Zafón's The Angel's Game is now published in Australia. The Courier Mail talks about its Brontë references:
The collection is called the British Literary Manuscripts Online c1660-1900, launched on Tuesday by Gale Cengage Learning, an e-research and educational publishing firm.
It is available from subscribing schools, colleges and libraries, and eventually through a pay-per-view service. (Annabel Williams)
Zafon litters The Angel's Game with references from literary classics such as Charlotte Bronte, Charles Dickens and Jane Austen. He covers a range of eras and subjects such as mythology, nature, film noir and even comic books. (Fiona Purdon)The Fort-Wayne News Sentinel interviews Roxanne Gregg, director of the Upward Bound programme at Indiana University-Purdue University Fort Wayne:
“If I had to pick a favorite, I think it would be one of Jane Austen's books - probably ‘Pride and Prejudice.' I've seen every version on ‘Masterpiece Theatre' and think it is fabulous! I first read Jane Austen in school but annually watch the productions on PBS. ‘Jane Eyre' is also a favorite, and I've watched it on television, too. Timothy Dalton was my favorite Rochester. (Betty E. Stein)La Gaceta and other Argentinian outlets report the death of the actress Fanny Dupré who performed Wuthering Heights in an Argentinian radio adaptation. AgoraVox compares the Brontës and the Anguissola family, BD sélection reviews Yann & Édith's Les Hauts de Hurlevent comic:
Le crayon acéré d’Edith y fait merveille : croquant des personnages aux trognes savoureuses qui évoluent sur les landes balayées par les vents du nord, tout en proposant des ambiances colorées dans des tons bleu-nuit. Quant à la narration, très fluide, elle est significative du style romantique du prolifique Yann, incorrigible scénariste qui n’a pas pu s’empêcher de rajouter un petit fond caustique et cruel : et c’est ce qui fait l’originalité de ce bel ouvrage nous racontant le destin tragique de cette famille prise dans les tourments violents de la passion et de la vengeance ! (Gilles) (Google translation)The Little Professor reviews Sarah Waters's The Little Stranger, arteyliteratura reviews Jane Eyre 1944 (in Spanish), Red Curtain publishes (a lot of) Wuthering Heights 2009 screencaps and Insert exciting blog title here talks about Wuthering Heights (the novel). Jane Learmonth posts a video reading of Charlotte Brontë's Evening Solace.
On Thursday evening the new exhibition Sex, Drugs and Literature: The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë was viewed by an appreciative crowd. Branwell's life is presented in a balanced way, with recent research appropriately incorporated. (Read more)Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontëites, Comics, Haworth, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry, References, Theatre, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights
Not so long ago, high schoolers had to lug heavy beach bags brimming with tomes by Bronte, Steinbeck, and Tolstoy. These days, they’re more likely to carry sprightly fare by contemporary authors like Dan Brown, Mitch Albom, and Bill Bryson.A Brontë reference in the Washington Times review of Richard Flanagan's Wanting:
With apologies to Kafka, the summer reading list is undergoing a metamorphosis.
While area schools constantly tweak their lists and debate what deserves a spot, a consensus is growing that students should be enticed to read, even if that leads them to books that haven’t yet stood the test of time.
So instead of reading about Heathcliff’s romantic misfortune at Wuthering Heights circa 1800, students can laugh over Bryson’s present-day attempt to conquer the Appalachian Trail, while riffing on his hiking buddy’s more annoying habits. (Lisa Kocian)
Given her faith in continuous improvement, it is perhaps not surprising that she hit on the idea of adopting an aboriginal child and educating it like an English child to prove that aborigines can be brought into the modern world. She chooses Mathinna, who charms almost everyone with her spritely spontaneity. But while spriteliness appeals, it is not what is required, so Lady Jane subjects Mathinna to the kind of Victorian education shown in Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre." (Claire Hopley)Bloomberg interviews writer (and Brontëite) Alice Hoffman:
Zinta Lundborg: What’s your reaction to being described as a “magical” writer?Los Angeles Times reviews Jean Rhys's biography The Blue Hour by Lilian Pizzichini:
Hoffman: I like to write about real people in mythic ways because I see them that way. The tradition of literature is magic, whether it’s fairy tales or Kafka, Shakespeare or the Brontes, and the whole idea of realism is a new and not-so- interesting idea.
Rhys was thought to be dead, but she was living, precariously, the town drunk in constant squabbles with her neighbors and with her third husband, Max. The news that she was alive reached the ears of a sympathetic publisher who in 1958 signed her to finish the novel she was working on. When her masterpiece, "Wide Sargasso Sea," was published in 1966, and her four previous novels returned to print, she was hailed as the great lost writer of prewar England -- indeed, one of the finest and most original writers of the century. (...)The Sunday Observer (Sri Lanka) talks with the actress Anarkali Akarsha who mentions her role as Jane Eyre in the local TV production Kula Kumariya (2007):
Pizzichini seems bored by Rhys' post-"Wide Sargasso Sea" life as an irascible demi-celebrity (nightclub impresario George Melly compared her to a septuagenarian Johnny Rotten in a pink wig). But her book -- more a "portrait" of Rhys than a full-blown biography -- largely achieves its aim: to "present the fact of Rhys's life in such a way that the reader is left with an impression of what it was like to have lived such a life." (Eric Banks)
The actress with a charming personality chose ‘Iti Pahan’ by Somaratna Dissanayaka, ‘Arunoda Kalapaya’ by Senesh Bandara Dissanayake and Bermin Fernando’s ‘Kulakumari’ (playing her favourite Jane Eyre) as tele-dramas which made an impact among her fans. (Jatila Karawita)Stacy's Bookblog posts about Jane Eyre 2006, The World According to Sam and Searching My Soul (in Greek) talk about Charlotte Brontë's novel.
We have a good and a bad review for Tamasha's Wuthering Heights. The good one (more or less) comes from The Guardian:This Wuthering Heights has something which never overburdened Emily Brontë: a sense of humour. At the same time, the melodrama of the moors - its wails, its glowers, its gnashings and thunderings - translates perfectly into Bollywood's eye-rolling, breast-heaving extravagance; Kristine Landon-Smith's production takes its cue from the 1939 movie with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon, and wind-whipped, nostril-quivering profiles.The bad one comes from The Independent:
The choreography is limited: the lovers spend an awful lot of time running from side to side of the stage to show their entrapped passion; the dialogue is occasionally slurred; the stage is sometimes - and this is India? - underpopulated; the prevailing mood is alluring rather than alarming. But Felix Cross and Sheema Mukherjee's music expands the emotional vocabulary, with its big strings, its drummings and its sidling rhythms. A patina of irony is added by everyone lipsynching, Bollywood-style. Pushpinder Chani and Youkti Patel shimmer as the lovers. It's 13 years since Tamasha produced East is East; 11 years since they helped to propel Parminder Nagra towards stardom with Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings And A Funeral. Wuthering Heights is less surprising, but equally buoyant. (Susannah Clapp)
From this silly romp we bound away to the tempestuous romance of Wuthering Heights, turned into a Bolly- wood-tinged musical by the British-Asian troupe, Tamasha.The Independent talks about Jean Rhys now that Lilian Pizzichini's biography of her, The Blue Hour, is going to be published:
It must be said, Kristine Landon-Smith's touring production has its risibly cheesy moments as Heathcliff and Cathy – renamed Krishan and Shakuntala – lipsynch to pre-recorded songs. Burning ardour loses all conviction when your hero and heroine are visibly just mouthing along. And there is more unwitting bathos in Felix Cross's lyrics. "She walks across the sand, like she's floating on air," croons the smitten Vijay – Krishan's wealthy rival – even as Youkti Patel's Shakuntala hobbles out of a wheelchair, recovering from a gunshot wound to the calf. I know love is blind, but this is ridiculous.
That said, adaptor Deepak Verma's concept, translating Emily Brontë's 1840s tale from the Yorkshire moors to the desert landscape of Rajasthan, is seductive. The ensemble spin in beautiful scarlet turbans and green saris on the zigzagging slopes of a golden dune (design by Sue Mayes). The Indian setting, moreover, enriches the tragedy, as the caste system proves a devastating barrier between the ragged Krishan and his socially superior childhood sweetheart.
A couple of the songs, jointly composed by Cross, Sheema Mukherjee and Chandru of Bollywood Strings, prove haunting, too, with echoing ululations, a husky bamboo flute and pulsing tablas. (Kate Bassett)
She carried on, in a third unhappy marriage and drinking ever more heavily, until 1949, when a writer and actress called Selma Vaz Dias placed an ad in a newspaper looking for her. She wanted to adapt some of Rhys's work for the BBC; an editor, Francis Wyndham, wanted more work from Rhys. She had, she told him, a novel under way. It was Wide Sargasso Sea, the story of Bertha Mason, the first wife of Mr Rochester in Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.And yet another article from The Independent. Talking about the Poet Laureates, a mention is made to Robert Southey and his infamous 'advice' to Charlotte Brontë:
It's perhaps not surprising that Rhys's greatest work was about a woman who is rejected by the man she loves and goes on to destroy herself. Rhys constantly felt abandoned, yet was constantly searching for the man who could take care of her and, finally, make it all right. Yet, as Pizzichini rightly says, her writing was her true partner. It is possible that Rhys never fully realised this, or didn't want to realise it, perhaps: the path of the artist is often by necessity a lonely one, and Rhys drank not to feel lonely.
And so, her response to the sudden fame and fortune that Wide Sargasso Sea brought was classically self-pitying and the lament of the ingénue: "It has come too late." Rhys, ever the contradiction, wouldn't let it happen for her, however much she wanted it to. The truth of Jean Rhys's genius is contained within that contradiction, however: the little girl who wouldn't grow up, yet whose work depended, ultimately, upon the maturity of experience. I believe that she understood that contradiction. She knew what lay "deep and primitive" in her own soul. In her writing she was able to use it, and it was a relationship with a male writer that taught her how. (Lesley McDowell)
The first Poet Laureate to receive a salary was Henry James Pye (1790), who was given £27 a year and was not widely held to deserve it. The post in relation to women was defined by Robert Southey (1813), who in 1837 received a letter from Charlotte Brontë, asking for his advice about her poetry. He replied, discouraging her from writing anything further and advising her that "literature cannot be the business of a woman's life". (Katy Guest)Finally, students who love Jane Eyre in Neighborhood Star, plays on words with Wuthering Heights in The Independent (Ireland) and Wuthering Heights evocations in Alaska in the Sunday Herald.
One of those cads, writer Ford Madox Ford, encouraged her to write. And in her writing Jean found the outlet for her pain. Her novels and short stories distilled her life-long, and growing, sense of alienation. She was 76 when her masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, was published. Writing it took her nine years, during which time she was in and out of hospitals and prisons; she often subsisted on a bottle of whisky a day. The novel, in turn, brims with what Pizzichini calls the “triumphant poetry of despair”. (Ángel Gurría-Quintana)Appropriately enough, The Boston Globe has an article on 'Why movie-goers love a good back-story' (and perhaps not just movie-goers as readers also like their back-stories).
Jean Rhys' 1966 novel "Wide Sargasso Sea" (and the fine 1993 movie adapted from it) envisions what Rochester and the missus were up to before "Jane Eyre." (Ty Burr)And a passing comment on PopMatters in a review of the novel The Servants' Quarters by Lynn Freed goes along those lines as well.
There are no new stories under the sun, only creative reworkings of a few plotlines: love, loss, revenge, redemption. That’s four. The fifth may be classified as variations on Victoriana, in this case, Jane Eyre. [...]Sandra Howard mourns the loss of her sister in the Daily Mail and reminisces about other famous sisters in history:
The Servant’s Quarters is clearly the work of a seasoned writer, elegantly written, compact, flowing. Yet it is utterly predictable—Brontë combined with Beauty and the Beast, leavened with Cinderella’s witless, nasty relatives. (Diane Leach)
The Bronte sisters, too, were in competition, all writing powerful stories about doomed passionate love, yet remained intensely loyal and tight-knit. Jane Austen similarly revered sisterhood in Pride And Prejudice and in her own life.The Philadelphia Inquirer has an article on music band the Avetts where one of their tracks is described as follows:
"Salina," off the band's 2007 album Emotionalism, became a winding suite that evolved from slow waltz to jiving jig to melancholic cello showcase, with a cinematic tone worthy of Wuthering Heights. (A.D. Amorosi)A couple of things from the blogosphere: Normblog has rererad Jane Eyre and A Girl Walks Into a Bookstore has been reading an advanced review copy of the forthcoming novel by Denise Giardina, Emily's Ghost.
A little late for a reminder, but you might catch it: on Radio 4 this evening (19.45) - in the Writing the Century programme - Linton Andrews holds forth. He was Editor of the Yorkshire Post - and Chairman of the Brontë Society half a century ago. 1954 is the year for today.... (Richard Wilcocks)
Elaine Showalter discusses the enormous impact of the Brontës – through Jane Eyre, Wuthering Heights, Villette and Mrs Gaskell’s Life of Charlotte Brontë – on American women’s writing in the 19th century: writers black and white, novelists and poets, from Emily Dickinson to Sarah Orne Jewett, who used the lives and novels of the Brontës as inspirations for American stories. A professor emerita at Princeton and former chair of the judges of the Man Booker International Prize, Elaine Showalter has just completed a new book, A Jury of Her Peers: American women writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx, published by Virago Press in May. Her previous books include A Literature of Their Own: British women novelists from Brontë to Lessing.Categories: Alert, Audio-Radio, Books, Jane Eyre, Music, Wide Sargasso Sea
The talk will be held, as usual, in the Kenneth Clark Lecture Theatre at the Courtauld Institute, Somerset House, WC2, and will begin at 7pm, with doors opening at 6pm. (Rachel Page)
The bonds issued by British governments are called gilts by investors not because they were once printed on gilt-edged paper – that is a myth – but because they have a reputation for being secure and trustworthy. Gilts were originally called Consolidated Funds, or consols. They paid a coupon of 3 or 5 per cent and you will find references to them throughout Victorian literature. In Vanity Fair, for instance, Becky Sharpe is envious of the £50,000 the “great, rich Miss Crawley” has in the funds. In Jane Eyre, when the heroine finally inherits her fortune from her uncle, her cousin reassures her that “your money is invested in the English funds”. (George Trefgarne)The Times publishes a brief review of the latest CD by Kate Royal: Midsummer Night which includes a track from Bernard Herrmann's Wuthering Heights opera:
The fast-rising British soprano makes adventurous choices for her second EMI album. (...) Solos from Britten’s Paul Bunyan, Peter Grimes and The Turn of the Screw are dotted among extracts from Alwyn’s Miss Julie, Carlisle Floyd’s Susannah, Walton’s Troilus and Bernard Herrmann’s Wuthering Heights. If Royal’s voice sounds squeezed at the top of her range, she revels in this lush music. (Hugh Canning)A Jury of Her Peers: American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx by Elaine Showalter is also reviewed in The Times.
Authorial insecurity was reinforced by comparisons with British cousins such as Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot, who benefited from working in a nation that did not so greatly favour “outdoor” male virtues. In fact, so great was Eliot’s sway over American female writers that several saw her death “as the exorcism of an oppressive ghost”. (Stephen Amidon)The Boston Globe reviews The Family Man by Elinor Lipman. The presence of an orphan girl in the story is a perfect excuse to mention Jane Eyre:
And like Jane Eyre or any other favorite orphan, our girl seems both intact and self created, so this story is actually that of Henry charting his transformation from solitaire to bustling family man. (Jane Vandenburgh)A couple of reviews mention Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea. Obviously, The Washington Post's on The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini but also The Chronicle Herald on Diana Athill's Somewhere Towards the End:
Athill quickly disabuses any reader of the notion that the memoir might be a sympathy saga. Authors Jean Rhys (Wide Sargasso Sea), and Nobel laureate, Elias Canetti (Auto-da-Fé ), both of whom Athill knew for a number of years, were models "demonstrating how not to think about getting old." (Mary Jo Anderson)The high-school graduation season is just started and The Goldsboro News-Argus quotes a part of the commencement speech at the Wayne Country Day School:
"Reading makes you smarter -- you have more brain cells right now than before taking that journey with Jane Eyre or running along the fence with Benji," she said. "Reading increases the capacity of the brain. Think of all the characters you have met in books." (Diane Price, quoted by Phyllis Moore)AnoisNI has uploaded a couple of videos to YouTube with two of their song adaptations of Emily Brontë's poems included in their new CD 'Emily Brontë': The Wanderer, How Clear She Shines, Song and Stars.
e pseudonyms of Janet Louise Roberts), a satanic gothic retelling of Jane Eyre published in 1972: Published by Avon press in 1972, Lord Satan does little to disguise its relationship to Jane Eyre, even attributing the manuscript to a "Louisa Bronte," who one assumes the reader is supposed to take as a distant relative of some kind, perhaps even a long-lost fourth sister. All the elements are here for the titillation that comes with fantasizing about courting a mysteriously threatening (and possibily half-goat) man: the 17-year-old Adrienne, "Lord Satan" himself, and the apparent ghost of Lord Satan's mother wandering the halls of "Castle Caudill." As in the original, much of the book would appear to involve Adrienne attempting to understand the mysterious personal and domestic relationships around her. Despite her marriage to a man known as LORD SATAN, Adrienne is unsure if her vivid memories of satanic rituals and black masses are real or only dreams. Eventually she begins to suspect her husband (again, LORD SATAN) might be a witch. Plucky Jane she is not, it would seem. (Jeffrey Sconce)Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Poetry, References, Sequels, Weirdo, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights
But these analogies gradually become stretched and overly literal, with biotech shares being compared to the guy who “wears a lab coat and protective eyewear during business hours”, telecoms shares to men who are “always on the phone, the internet” and the enterprise collapses entirely when the authors compare art and other collectable investments to “ahh, the dreamy, mysterious artist. The dark horse. Jane Eyre’s Heathcliff.” There’s a book called Jane Eyre written by Charlotte Brontë. There’s also a book called Wuthering Heights written by Emily Brontë. The latter, when I last read it, featured a character called Heathcliff. But, if memory serves, Jane Eyre and Heathcliff have never featured in the same major literary work. [...]Fortunately, other people are capable of remembering who's in which book. The Mormon Times carries an article on Sister Ann M. Dibb:
But the Heathcliff/Jane Eyre clanger is a symptom of a bigger intellectual problem with Flirting with Finance: ultimately, romance and investment are completely dissimilar. And to compare them (to make another comparison) is like drawing an analogy between Michael Jackson’s discography and the output of a Midlands sponge factory. (Sathnam Sanghera)
One of her favorite examples of virtue is the character Jane Eyre, when she refuses to marry Mr. Rochester after she finds out his first wife is still alive. "It is because she is a virtuous woman" that she stays true to the laws of God, Sister Dibb said. (Christine Rappleye)And it is one of our favourite examples of Jane Eyre's versatility and how it will be considered religious, not religious, Christian, unChristian, etc.
As a reader, Wennick said she likes many types of books, including classics such as “Jane Eyre” and “Oliver Twist.” (Andrew Schotz)We wonder if due to that Nora Roberts will treat her to a night at her inn's Jane Eyre room.
(...) If Charlotte is all culture, all humanity, then Emily is all passion, all animality. Charlotte is compelled by animals’ helplessness; Emily is lured by their “fierce, wild, intractability.” Gaskell’s Emily is otherworldly, more animal than human, a woman who embraces the unfettered passions of nature’s inhabitants. If Emily, like Keeper, is an animal, then their relationship is one of animalistic kinship, formed in canine hierarchy, not human empathy. Emily’s animal justice might seem unfathomable to cultured urbanites, but Keeper understood. She alone spoke his language.You can also read the Gawker discussion about the article.
What if we took Charlotte’s hints and Gaskell’s animal metaphor and ran with it? What if we thought of Emily as animalistic? What if we situated her intellectual life outside the drab walls of Haworth and let her loose inside the animal kingdom? In that space, a very different Emily Brontë emerges, a writer who is deeply uncomfortable with the cultural order, reveling instead in her deep affinity for the animals of the wilds. (Read more) (Stassa Edwards)
Your holiday will begin with a private coach trip that takes you to the quaint Yorkshire village of Haworth where the cobbled streets and alleyways helped inspire the Brontë sisters to write Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.The Yorkshire Post highlights the release of a 'quirky' tourist guide to Yorkshire with the Tour in mind:
First-time visitors to Yorkshire are being pointed in the direction of Keighley and to Chapeltown in Leeds in a slightly quirky guide to the county’s heritage tourism sites.Wharfedale & Aireborough Observer insists on the Tour's visit:
Managers at the Heritage Lottery Fund have drawn up a ‘top 20’ guide to Yorkshire for those visiting for the Tour de France on July 5 and 6. (...)
Meanwhile, a Banksy-style street artist has been creating a stir with life-size stencils depicting famous folk on buildings across West and South Yorkshire. Bristol-based ‘Stewy’ depict David Hockney, Jarvis Cocker, Sylvia Plath and the Brontë sisters.
The work appeared on the Tour de France route with the blessing of building owners. (Andrew Robinson)
"While the Grand Départ has attracted attention, it is the world-class attractions and hospitality that make visitors stay longer and keep coming back - places like the National Media Museum, City Park, the Alhambra, Brontë Country, Keighley and Worth Valley Railway and many more really play a part in this.Ham & High recommends tomorrow's literary talk in London:
“The Tour is estimated to inject £100 million into Yorkshire’s economy. Its value for business is immense."
Mr Darcy and Mr Rochester – two heart-throb characters penned by Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë – have long represented the epitome of the romantic hero. But what would they really have been like to live with?Country Life summarises recent sales and auctions:
A panel of writers, novelists and broadcasters debates the desirability – and horrors – of these two characters and whether they will always be better left on the page.
The panel includes author Lilian Pizzichini, Guardian journalist Tanya Gold, professor of English at University College London John Mullan, and novelist Fay Weldon. Chaired by broadcaster Melvyn Bragg. (Paul Wright)
On May 19, a book and manuscript auction at Bloomsbury featured a complete set of first editions of the Brontë sisters' novels, sent for sale from America. Estimated to £80,000, the set reached £111,600. (Huon Mallalieu)The New Yorker's Page-Turner interviews the author Rebecca Curtis:
Are there ghost stories that you’re particularly fond of, either by other writers or ones you’ve heard by the campfire?The Independent talks about the exhibition The Wonder of Birds at the Norwich Castle Museum:
I love ghost stories. As a kid, I read collections of ghost stories. I loved “Wait Till Martin Comes,” for example, which is about a man taking refuge in an old hut and getting his head bitten off by the largest of a series of three black cats that appear. I loved the Headless Horseman—stuff like that—and Grimm’s Fairy Tales, which are ghosty, in that many feature “spirits” who appear and harm or help out. I love classic ghost novels like “Wuthering Heights,” “Dracula,” “The Turn of the Screw,” and of course Shakespeare’s ghosty plays. (Willing Davidson)
More taxidermied birds peer down from high ledges throughout the exhibition, seemingly accusing us humans from beyond the grave. There is a plump-breasted white cockatoo, a blue and gold macaw, a domestic turkey, a chicken, and a magnificent Berwick’s Swan, named after the Enlightenment natural history author Thomas Bewick, whose History of British Birds (1804) became a classic. It is read by a young Jane Eyre in the first chapter of Charlotte Bronte’s 1847 novel. A 19th-century edition of Bewick’s book is displayed here. (Zoe Pilger)The Boston Herald celebrates the release of the Acorn Classic Drama Collection on DVD which includes Jane Eyre 1997:
Samantha Morton tops almost any list of the world’s greatest English-speaking actors and she is wonderful as Jane Eyre, as is the better known Kate Beckinsale as Austen’s meddlesome Emma. (Stephen Schaefer)She has been called a mystic, Asperger-like, lesbian, incestous, anorexic (and in this same post animal-lover and animal-abuser)... asexual is not the most far-edged we have read:
What do T.E. Lawrence, Isaac Newton, Janeane Garofalo, and Emily Brontë have in common? They identify and identified as asexuals. Like these people, I am also asexual. (Katrina Trask on The Peak)Kaite Welsh in The Huffington Post doesn't like the 'reading-is-sexy' type of literary advertisement:
Men aren't the target of this misplaced, cross-brand advertising campaign because it's assumed that they read, they don't need to wear it on their sleeve or across their tits. For every Scrabble tile cufflink, there are hundreds of bracelets quoting Jane Eyre and earrings with quotes from Pride and Prejudice and the real kicker -- the A Room of Her Own tea-towel. Somehow, I don't think the kitchen was the room Virginia was talking about.The Telegraph interviews Cheryl Hickman, artistic director of the Opera on the Avalon:
Newfoundland has unique characteristics that attract established composers and directors, she believes, including weather that we might consider lousy, but to some, offers a mysterious, “Wuthering Heights” feel. (Tara Bradbury)Le Vif (Belgium) begins an article about summer festivals like this
Manon, 23 ans, évoque davantage une héroïne d'Emily Brontë (Les Hauts de Hurlevent) que la festivalière tout-terrain standard. (Philippe Cornet) (Translation)Ziarul de iaşi (Romania) announces that next July 26, they will give a Romanian translation of Jane Eyre with the newspaper; The News & Observer traces an exclusive book club between a father and a daughter which began with a reading of Wide Sargasso Sea; Homo Literatus (in Portuguese) posts about Anne Brontë; Thany's Thoughts reviews Jane by April Lindner and Jane Eyre 2011; Pa(i)ge Turners has not enjoyed fully a re-reading of Jane Eyre; Prickiga Paula Och Böckerna (in Swedish) posts about Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault's Jane, the Fox and Me; the Brontë Parsonage tweets this 1836 drawing by Charlotte Brontë, The Cross of Rivaulx.
Originally exhibited at London's prestigious White Cube, Sam Taylor-Wood's Ghosts photographic series is here resized to find its remote cultural home amid the Brontë paraphernalia of west Yorkshire's Haworth. Shot on the bleak moorlands near Top Withens, the setting for Emily Brontë's wonderfully moody novel Wuthering Heights, Taylor-Wood's landscapes are deceptively simple and direct. While avoiding over-emphasising the moody romanticism, they achieve a rare atmospheric resonance. There are few artworks in any medium that are as grounded in a particular landscape as Wuthering Heights, and Taylor-Wood's series here pays fitting on-site homage to the fact. (Robert Clark)The Globe and Mail recommends summer reads. Aislinn Hunter has a very original and Brontëite proposal:
My favourite books of letters are Letters: Summer 1926, by Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva and Rainer Maria Rilke; Paula Modersohn-Becker: The Letters and Journals, by German Expressionist Modersohn-Becker, edited by Günter Busch and Liselotte Von Reinken; The Gonne-Yeats Letters, 1893-1938, by Maud Gonne and William Butler Yeats, edited by Anna MacBride White; and the three-volume (epic) set of Charlotte Brontë's correspondence, which brings Haworth and the family's day-to-day habits to life.Heather Vogel Frederick writes in The Christian Science Monitor about her literary trip searching for Jane Austen. It mentions Novel Destinations: Literary Landmarks from Jane Austen’s Bath to Ernest Hemingway’s Key West by Shannon McKenna Schmidt and Joni Rendon
a “book-lover’s Baedeker,” full of detailed travel advice, commentary, and anecdotes about the authors profiled.The New York Times revies Lilian Pizzichini's The Blue Hour:
Co-author Schmidt clued me on the fact that that what I was doing – a writer tailing another writer – was actually nothing new.
“A lot of writers were literary travelers,” she informed me. “Nathaniel Hawthorne visited Sir Walter Scott’s castle in Scotland, and Louisa May Alcott toured Dickensian sites when she went to London.” Edith Wharton and Henry James toured literary landmarks as well and once “visited George Sand’s chateau together.”
An avid aficionado of this brand of travel herself, Schmidt’s favorite destination is Bronte country. “I loved Wuthering Heights, and for me, the moors were as much a part of the story as the characters,” she says.
“Wide Sargasso Sea,” a prequel to “Jane Eyre” that brought Jean Rhys fame in her late 70s, was the product of hard-won wisdom about how a fragile psyche can be crushed by the habits of dominance and submission between men and women, and between Europe and its colonies. As with Rhys’s four other novels, it was written during snatches of diligence amid episodes of paralyzing depression and alcoholic rage. (Mick Sussman)The Times reviews the TV series True Blood:
Obviously and understandably, at this point, many people will be having an automatic embarrassment-reaction to the subject of vampires. Even the superlative work done on Buffy the Vampire Slayer has failed to quell many people’s default Vampire Alarm. “Vampires are strictly for overweight teenage girls, into gallimaufry with capes,” they will tut. “It’s all just Wuthering Heights with silly teeth. It’s not proper drama. Proper drama is about corrupt cops shouting at each other in parked cars, or divorcing couples shouting at each other in hallways. Vampires are just the default metaphor of the over-excited.” (Caitlin Moran)The Elk River Star News revies a local production of the musical The Secret Garden by Marsha Norman and Lucy Simon:
“The Secret Garden” is a daunting musical, one few community theaters are willing to tackle.The Guardian explores some of the activities that the National Trust offers. Including visiting Belton House which was Gateshead Hall in Jane Eyre 2006:
Elk River Community Theatre (ERCT) loves a challenge, and will present this tale of mystery, misery, dreams, lost love and redemption, set in a spooky mansion on the Yorkshire moors in the early 1900s, beginning Friday at Zabee Theater.
“This play does not get done often. The vocals and theatrics are demanding and the sets are complex,” said Eileen Bowersox, who’s both directing and playing a role,
Bowersox and fellow actors viewed this play in another metro area theater and left “totally confused,” but she is confident the ERCT can pull it together.
“This play has some light moments but also some very intense scenes,” she said. “This is not fluff. We want to showcase our acting and singing talents.”
Noting the ghostly figures and moving sets, she quips: “This is like Harry Potter meets Wuthering Heights.” (Bruce Strand)
At Fountains Abbey and Studley Royal in North Yorkshire, the It's a Monk's Life guided tour invites you to dress up in robes and learn about the daily life of a monk, while at Belton House in Lincolnshire children and parents can dress up like Victorians to explore the house, which has seen filming for Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice and Tom Jones within its walls.The couple Ryan Gosling-Rachel McAdams is qualified by the National Post as
Canada's answer to Heathcliff and Catherine swooshed off to differing orbits. (Shinan Govani)The Book Reporter interviews author Stephen L. Carter, whose latest book is Jericho's Fall:
Q: Jericho's house, Stone Heights, is itself a character in this novel, one with its own secrets and surprises. It harks back to such stories as WUTHERING HEIGHTS or REBECCA or an Agatha Christie mystery where the physical setting is as much a character as the people. Did you have any of those stories in mind as you wrote this?Pakistan Views interviews actress and director Savera Nadeem:
SLC: Oh, yes. I remember reading Thomas Hardy as a teenager, and being fascinated by the way that the house or the pond or the moor was always brooding over the action. Here, I had in effect two "physical" characters, the house itself, and the mountains that surround both Stone Heights and the town of Bethel. By the way, the town of Bethel is fictitious, but of course bears a biblical relation to Jericho.
Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights are my favourite books of all time. They are works of the highest order,” Savera fondly reveals.ClicRBS (Brazil) selects Wuthering Heights 1939 as a 'crying' film:
O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes (Wuthering Heighs) – o magnífico William Wyler dirige com maestria esta história de amor, ódio e vingança, baseado no romance de Emily Brontë. Clássico obrigatório para os amantes de cinema. O filme conta a trágica histórica de Heathclif, um jovem pobre que enriquece e decide se vingar de todos os que o humilharam. Será que sua sede de vingança é tanta que nem mesmo o amor pela bela donzela Cathy será capaz de apagar seu ódio? O final....? Quem anda não sabe, que vá assistir. Mas por favor, o clássico de 39. (Ju Lessa) (Google translation)El Diario Vasco (Spain) interviews author Claudia Casanova:
Ella se crió leyendo a «Walter Scott, Dumas, Flaubert, las Brontë. Los clásicos y los románticos. Más que por mi trabajo de editora, que ayuda, escribo como lo hago por mis lecturas de siempre», asegura. (Elena Sierra) (Google translation)Lourdes Ortiz talks in El Diario Montañés (Spain) about Simone de Beauvoir and her Brontëiteness:
La escritora también recordó lo dura que fue la parisina con sus contemporáneas, a las que acusaba de seguir siendo «dependientes» aunque escribieran o pintaran. «No le interesaban sus colegas, a las que en general despreciaba. Sólo salvaba a Virginia Wolf y a Brönte (sic)». (Violeta Santiago) (Google translation)A couple more of German papers contain articles about the Annelies Štrba exhibition at the Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem in Troisdorf, Germany:
Das Licht ist diffus, die Farben entstammen einem Reich, das nicht von dieser Welt zu sein scheint, das irgendwo unter Wasser oder mitten in einem wunderlichen Dschungel liegt.
Die Stimmung lässt sich am ehesten als märchenhaft bis schaurig beschreiben. So wie die Schweizer Fotografin Annelies ?trba ihre ätherischen Mädchen im Märchenwald inszeniert, so stellt man sich die Fantasiewelt der Brontë-Schwestern im Heidemoor von Yorkshire vor. Erst recht die zwischen Idylle und Albtraum oszillierende Stimmung in Emily Brontës Klassiker "Wuthering Heights" ("Sturmhöhe", 1847) findet in trbas opulenten Farbfotografien ihren kongenialen Gegenpart.
Service Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem, Troisdorf; bis 6. September. Di-So 11-17 Uhr.
Mit dem Foto-Projekt "My Life Dreams" ist die Schweizerin im Bilderbuchmuseum Burg Wissem zu Gast, das beim Komplex "Rotkäppchen und der böse Wolf" um die Ecke die wundersame Welt der Brontës zelebriert. Den Anfang machen Fotos und Dokumente aus der Sammlung des Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth. Porträts zeigen die zarten Gesichter von Charlotte und Emily, die mit geschicktem Strich 1829 eine Ringdrossel zeichnete oder den Hund "Keeper" im Aquarell verewigte.
Eine hübsche Landschaft mit Kirche erscheint auf einem Blatt der jüngsten Brontë-Schwester Anne, ein winziges Büchlein, über dessen Inhalt nur Spekulationen möglich sind, war einst im Besitz von Charlotte. Und wenn es um die Interpretation geht, muss der Name Balthus fallen, der mit einem Schuss Lolita-Erotik 1933 "Wuthering Heights" illustrierte. Tatsächlich findet sich in der Ausstellung ein Druck des großen Balthus.
So ganz unberührt von einer latent erotischen Aufladung sind auch Annelies ?trbas Bilder nicht, auch die Darstellung der jungen Mädchen als somnambule, in einem Zwischenzustand zwischen Traum und Tod treibende Wesen erinnert an Balthus. Den Plot zu ?trbas Bildessays aber hat Emily Brontë selbst in ihrem Roman geschrieben: "Ich habe in meinem Leben schon Träume gehabt, die mich immer wieder verfolgt und meine Ansichten verändert haben. Sie haben mich durchdrungen, wie man Wasser mit Wein mischt, und meinem Denken eine andere Farbe gegeben."
Annelies trba setzt solche Texte in fließende, atmosphärische Bilder um, ähnlich wie bei den Studien aus ihrem engsten Familienkreis, den Porträts und Städtebildern, die sie schon auf der ganzen Welt ausgestellt hat, und die eine Autorin einmal als "Innenaugenbilder" bezeichnete. "My Life Dreams" verwischt die Grenzen zwischen Fotografie und Malerei im wahrsten Sinne des Wortes und reizt sämtliche Möglichkeiten und Tricks digitaler Bildbearbeitung aus. Ein schaurig-schönes Fantasy-Abenteuer. (Thomas Kliemann in General-Anzeiger) (Google translation)
Winzig wie eine Babyhand ist das Buch, das in einer Vitrine liegt. Die kleine Häkelschrift ist nicht zu entziffern. Wird hier vielleicht von den Königreichen Angria und Gondal erzählt? In diesen imaginierten Rückzugsort nämlich flüchteten die Geschwister Brontë als Kinder. Ihre Erzählungen hielten sie in selbst gemachten „Zeitungen“ fest; vielleicht auch in jenem Büchlein, das sie aus Zuckerpapier bastelten.Martin Stannard, who has spent 15 years researching Muriel Spark's authorised biography, publishes an interesting article in The Guardian. A couple of passing mentions to Muriel Spark's book about Emily Brontë (Emily Brontë. Her Life and Work, published in 1953 with Derek Stanford) appear. Vandalism in St Mary's churchyard (Scarborough), home to Anne Bronte's grave, is reported in Scarborough Evening News. Fortunately, Anne's tomb has not been affected, The Weekly Standard reviews Elaine Showalter's A Jury of Her Peers. American Women Writers from Anne Bradstreet to Annie Proulx. DotGolf (in Italy) traces bizarre comparisons between Wuthering Heights and Tom Watson 1977 Open Championship victory.
Heute ist es eine bibliophile Kostbarkeit, zu bewundern in der Schau „My Life Dreams“ im Bilderbuchmuseum auf Burg Wissem - mit Zeichnungen und literarischen Zeugnissen von Anne, Charlotte und Emily. Direktorin Maria Linsmann konnte diese kleine Auswahl aus dem Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth ausleihen. Und musste dafür eine Pilgerreise nach Yorkshire antreten. Denn das Institut verleiht seine Schätze nur ungern, gilt es doch, die Aura des Brontë-Pfarrhauses zu hüten, die Fans aus aller Welt heilig ist.
Alles ist an seinem Platz: die Möbel, der Stickrahmen und auch die Peitsche, mit der die Kinder von ihrem Vater geschlagen worden sind. Landschaftsskizzen, eine Zeichnung des Haushundes, Manuskripte und Porträts der Geschwister gewähren einen intimen Einblick in das Drama der begabten Kinder, mit dem sich vor allem ein Name verbindet: „Wuthering Heights“, Emilys düsteres Werk um Liebe, Demütigung, Eifersucht und Rache.
In den Bann dieses viktorianischen Seelenromans ließ sich auch die Fotografin Annelies "trba (Jg. 1947) ziehen, die den größten Teil der Schau bestreitet. Ätherische Frauen- und vor allem Mädchenfiguren inszeniert sie in Landschaften von tranceartiger, surrealer Farbigkeit. Türkisblau wallt der Nebel einer Alice im Wunderland entgegen, die im weißen Rüschenkleid durch einen violetten Tannenwald wandelt. Doch oft liegen die Heldinnen mit geschlossenen Augen da, eingebettet ins Moos der nordenglischen Nebellandschaft oder wie Schneewittchen eingesargt in die Gletscher von Annelies "trbas Schweizer Heimat. Ihre eigenen Töchter und Enkelinnen haben vor der Kamera posiert. Durch Vergrößerung, malerische Unschärfe und handwerkliche Manipulation werden die Lichtbilder in eine Sphäre jenseits des Privaten gerückt, die zwischen bedrohtem Idyll und sanftem Horror changiert.
Mag zuweilen die Grenze zum arg Gefälligen gestreift werden, so fasziniert doch das Gespür Annelies "trbas für Stimmungsräume. Wie giftgelbe Fanale leuchten die Narzissen auf dem nächtlichen Friedhof von Haworth; und im geisterhaften Pfarrhaus stellen wir uns die Dichterin Emily Brontë vor: „sitzt allein an ihrem Fenster / wo der Abend sich verlor / böiger Winde böse Ahnung / flitzt durch grauen Wolkenflor“. (Annette Schroeder in Kölnische Rundschau) (Google translation)
Unless explicitly said
