The most memorable in this odd social menagerie are the arrogant Sean, the wily Leo and the mad Ursula, who spoke volubly of “her past incarnations, which included an iron-age priestess, Charlotte Brontë and a peasant girl who’d died in a workhouse”. (Somak Ghoshal)The new album by P.J. Harvey, White Chalk, is reviewed in Onda Rock (in Italian)
. Apparently the new look of the singer and the songs have some Brontë-ish qualities:Qualcuno ha definito il nuovo look di Polly Jean Harvey “à-la sorelle Bronte” e il suono di “White Chalk” evoca in qualche modo i paesaggi notturni e aspri descritti in “Cime Tempestose” e quelli nebbiosi e uggiosi presenti in “Jane Eyre”. “White Chalk” contiene brani che potrebbero piacere molto a Charlotte e Emily. (Magda di Genova)Nefret's Blog reviews the 1996 BBC production of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall in German. Life, so Far posts some pictures and interesting thoughts about Haworth:
Babelfish translation -> Someone has defined new look of Polly Jean Harvey "à la Bronte sisters" and the sound of "White Chalk" evokes in some way the nocturnal and sour landscapes described in "Wuthering Heights" and those foggy and rainy present in "Jane Eyre". "White Chalk" contains pieces that could appeal to Charlotte and Emily.
But life in Haworth is slowly changing. Neighbouring supermarkets are making life difficult for shops in the village. There is a sweets shop a few doors away from the bookstore that has been there even when Margaret was a child, but according to Joe, he and his friends would probably go to Spar for their sweets. (Chris)Categories: Books, Haworth, Music, References
ZOUNDS! Such is the joy induced within my heaving bosom by Cranford that I fear the onset of a nervous eclipse requiring the medicinal administration of a compound. Fiddlesticks to dreary serialisations of Jane Eyre! A pox upon overwrought small-screen re-workings of Pride and Prejudice! Huzzah, huzzah and thrice huzzah for Cranford!A review of PJ Harvey's album White Chalk has lagged behind the heyday of the White-Chalk-is-a-Brontë-album fad. From Telegram:
Harvey makes a final stroll atop the Dorset Cliffs of her native homeland on the Celtic-flavored title track, “White Chalk.” Sounding like she sprung to life out of an Emily Bronte novel, Harvey has all the rich characteristics of a classic Gothic heroine. With her ghostlike voice fading in and out, Harvey foreshadows her fate in the lines, “And I know there chalk hills will rot my bones.” (Craig Semon)On the blogosphere today: To have and to hold reviews Wuthering Heights in French. As do Textual Frigate and Eclectic Reader, who also writes about Jane Urquhart's Changing Heaven in another post. Literatura e seus mistérios writes a long post in Portuguese about Emily Brontë, which includes several translations of her poems into Portuguese. Vox Audita Perrit, Literra Scripta Manet writes about Jane Eyre 2006 and forthcoming screenings of more adaptations by the BBC. Kay's Bookshelf has written about The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Finally El turista despistado writes in Spanish about the Brontë Parsonage Museum.
Reichek is a grandmother who does embroidery, but, whatever associations that image has for you, forget them. A conceptual artist with a degree from Yale and a punkish shock of platinum hair, she is a leading figure in the field of mixed-media art. (Judith Thurman)An exhibition of some of her works is now on at the Klagsbrun gallery (click here to see some images). But what is relevant to us is the description of one of her works:
Reichek’s samplers include embroidered reproductions of a Web page, Seurat’s portrait of his mother sewing, an Attic frieze, quotations in needlework from Freud and Colette, Charlotte Brontë’s favorite collar patterns with a paragraph from “Shirley,” and an extract from Darwin’s journals. (Judith Thurman)It does sound interesting.
In the five-part work Sampler (The Brontes), 1997, Reichek quotes from Charlotte Bronte's Shirley (1848): "She was sitting in the alcove--her task of work on her knee, her fingers assiduously plying the needle, her eyes following and regulating their movements, her brain worked restlessly. She did sew, she plied her needle, continuously, ceaselessly, but her brain worked faster than her fingers." (Bill Arning, 1999)The Herald mulls over the eternal question of 'a rose by any other name'.
Names are important in fiction, too. If Heathcliff had been called Hugebottom and if Wuthering Heights had been Bide-a-wee, the effect wouldn't have been the same. (Ron Ferguson)If Heathcliff had been named Hugebottom, then Cathy's words would have been even more unforgettable, although for all the wrong reasons: 'Nelly, I am Hugebottom'.
Airing Sundays, December 30, 2007 + January 6, 2008 on PBSThe site has a much information on the series as well as some background information as well.
(Check local listings; dates and times may vary)
The most famous female authors, on the other hand, are remembered as solitary eccentrics. The Jane Austen of popular imagination is a timid spinster, devoted above all else to kith and kin. Charlotte Brontë knows little of the world beyond the moorland parsonage where she languishes with only the company of her sisters. (...)The Providence Journal reviews A Girl Walks into a Book: What the Brontës Taught Me About Life, Love and Women’s Work by Miranda K. Pennington
Charlotte Brontë also had someone outside her close-knit family to whom she could turn for literary support. Mary Taylor, the future author of the early feminist novel Miss Miles, met Brontë in 1831, when they were both adolescent boarding school students. An outspoken and unconventional personality, Taylor challenged the then socially conservative views of her classmate, particularly concerning the position of women in society. Later, when they’d both reached their twenties, Taylor convinced Brontë to accompany her to Brussels. Here, the pair would further their education, but Brontë ’s stay ended in heartbreak after she fell in love with a married man. Taylor’s influence on Brontë can be felt not just in the books directly influenced by her Brussels years, but also in her most outwardly political novel Shirley, in which Taylor inspired the character of the forward-thinking Rose Yorke.
Pennington excels at interpreting Charlotte’s ambition, and she is an astute literary critic. She freely admits her preference for “Jane Eyre” over “Wuthering Heights,” so her take on Emily Brontë’s masterpiece might not sit well with fans of Heathcliff and Catherine. But her accounts of all the books, particularly the under-appreciated novels of Anne Brontë, are full of insight.The Independent falls for the dark side of questionable listings and presents 'five literary classics that will only make sense in your twenties':
Less interesting are her attempts to tie her own life and romantic disappointments to the travails of Jane Eyre, Agnes Grey and Catherine Earnshaw. (Betty J. Cotter)
Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëThis article on the 2017 Summer issue of Invisibility is quite controversial:
Forbidden love doesn't exist in the age of Tinder
The tale of Heathcliff and Cathy will forever hold a place in any literary buff’s hearts. But in 2017, the whole “but we’re from different worlds” concept doesn’t fly, mostly because since dating moved online, romance is governed by omnipotent Tinderellas and Bumblers, who employ algorithms to ensure that we’re all operating within the same digital world, or your money back. The lovers in Brontë’s novel were kept apart by torturous social constraints and agonising bigotry whereas today all they’d have to do it both swipe right. All’s fair in love and apps. (Olivia Petter)
The title character of Jane Eyre, and by extension the entire novel, was racist.The Times interviews some book tubers. Including Lucy Powrie, aka Lucythereader:
Many discussions of race in Jane Eyre tend to center on Bertha Mason, Rochester’s insane first wife, and with good reason. Bertha’s ethnicity as a Creole is directly connected to her insanity and the dissipated evil she allegedly possessed before going insane. (...)
White feminists who champion Jane Eyre as a bastion of female self-actualization don’t talk about its racism or colonialism enough. You cannot satisfactorily and honestly champion the story or its author without drawing attention to the ways in which its feminism is exclusionary, cruel, and white. (...)
White feminist readings of the novel have triumphed over a century and a half of literary criticism because Jane Eyre is about gender; Charlotte Brontë, a white woman living in Yorkshire through one of the largest and most brutal expansions of empire in human history, explicitly wrote it to be so. But it can never be just about gender. Readers drawn to Jane Eyre read with the understanding that it has a place in the Anglophone canon, malecentric as that canon has been. (Li Sian Goh)
What she’s reading now:
Shirley by Charlotte Brontë
“It’s one of the underrated Brontë novels, but for no fault of its own. It’s quickly becoming a favourite read.”
Remezcla presents the works of the artist Krystal Quiles. Including:Her newfound love of GIFs has led her to create a spectacular J. Lo and Ja Rule graphic from the “I’m Real” music video, as well as a very on-point GIF of Katie Bush – inspired by the “Wuthering Heights” music video – swaying back and forth. (Yara Simón)(Source)
It’s worth getting up early in Scarborough: this is the east coast and dawn can be spectacular. The town spreads around two broad bays with a promontory in between, topped by the castle – Brontë fans will want to go up there via St Mary’s churchyard, where Anne is buried. South Bay is the earlier settlement: the harbour is a joy to explore and early birds who have an appetite should not miss the Harbour View Café, aka “the tea shack”, which serves superb fish and chipsfrom 6am till lunchtime, largely for the homecoming fishermen. (Kevin Rushby)The actress Mandy McElhinney is getting married. In The Age, she explains why:
I went to an all-girls boarding school, Stella Maris Presentation College in Geraldton, and didn't really notice boys. But later I attended a co-ed high school in Perth, St Joachim's. I would take long bus and train journeys to get home and that's when I started noticing boys. I spent a lot of time reading romantic novels like Wuthering Heights and had a warped vision of romance. (Jane Roca)Financial Times mentions that the film director Frances Lee lives near Haworth:
The 48-year-old film director is in his cottage near Haworth, the village that was home to the Brontës. (Tom Seymour)SparkLife has a curious experiment:
Fall Out Boy is notorious for their song titles that go on forever. Most 19th-century novelists did the same thing with chapter titles. But that's not the only thing these two have in common. Specifically, pretty much every quote from Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights sounds like a line straight out of "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark." Can you tell them apart?Multiple Esclerosis News recommends some books:
Books help improve memory and empathy, improve focus and increase critical thinking skills. That’s why “War and Peace,” “Love in the Time of Cholera,” and “Swann’s Way” are all on my “to read” list, and books including “Jane Eyre,” “Heart of Darkness” and “Dubliners” are among my all-time favorites. (Jamie Hughes)Le Devoir reviews the recent French translation of Brontë letters Lettres choisies de la famille Brontë 1821-1855:
Le génie a parfois dans ses coulisses des pensées bien sombres, un « silence fatal » aussi que vient aujourd’hui faire entendre, avec éloquence, l’imposante correspondance que les soeurs Brontë ont animée entre elles, leur famille et leurs amis au milieu du XIXe siècle. Près de 300 lettres, inédites en français, traduites et annotées par Constance Lacroix, qui racontent un Yorkshire d’antan, mais entre surtout dans l’intimité d’un incroyable phénomène littéraire qui y a émergé d’entre les murs du presbytère de Haworth sous la plume de trois romancières ayant traversé leur époque en coup de vent. (Fabien Deglise) (Translation)Brecha (Uruguay) reviews Rodrigo Fresán's La Digresión Infinita:
el encuentro con Vladimir Nabokov, genio tutelar de la novela, con las hermanas Brontë y una historia de vampiros, con Bob Dylan, omnipresente en el imaginario de Fresán, con una fundación futurista dedicada a preservar los sueños. (Translation)Not the first time we read this applied to PJ Harvey. In L'Echo (Belgium):
Et s'il y a un point commun à ses multiples facettes, c'est cette indéniable "englishness" magnifiée sur "White Chalk" (en 2007), interprété entièrement au piano par une sorte d'Emily Brontë du Dorset qui aurait choisi d'écrire au clavier. (Bernard Roisin) (Translation)Ghigliottina (Italy) talks about the novel An Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim:
Intitolato Un incantevole aprile, ristampato e imbellettato recentemente da Bollati Boringhieri, è uno dei romanzi di madame Mary Annette Beauchamp, in arte Elizabeth Von Arnim. Donna di suprema intelligenza che si trovava a suo agio nel bel mondo (fu a lungo amante di H. G. Wells), la scrittrice fu una mancata sorella Brontë novecentesca, e regalò alle sue eroine vite avventurose e intrighi in perfetto stile de Staël. (Gloria Frezza) (Translation)Reel Illustrated reviews Jane Eyre 1944.
The new book by Bruce Mayer, Heroes: The Champions of Our Literary Imagination, is presented on the CBC Radio website (Words at Large). One of the heroines is our Jane:English literature academic and broadcaster Bruce Meyer gives new insights into the heroes who inspire us in his new book Heroes: The Champions of Our Literary Imagination (HarperCollins Canada). Meyer is best known to CBC Radio listeners for his frequent contributions on book-related subjects. In his latest work, he gives readers a new perspective on their favourite literary heroes, ranging from Superman to Dante. (...)The PJ Harvey Brontë frenzy with her new new album White Chalk still lingers on. Based, as far as we can read in the articles, basically on her white frock dress. From the New York Magazine:Here are the top ten heroes from some key works of the Western literary imagination. I hope this list will spark some thoughts about who you consider to be heroes and what constitutes that honorable title.
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Bronte’s great 19th-century heroine is a do-it-yourself individual who rises from the ashes of her meagre, miserable life to become the mistress of a great estate. She is a Disney movie waiting to happen, a true-to-life Cinderella.
"It seems like so long I played in New York — ages, really," PJ Harvey remarked to a sold-out crowd at the Beacon Theatre last night. Looking like one of the Brontë sisters in a white frock dress, the indie rocker, now almost 40 (!), performed a motley mix of songs to a reverential crowd at her only scheduled show on the East Coast. (Sadia Latifi)The Mystery of Irma Vep is another well-known usual suspect in the Brontë news. The Tacoma News Tribune reviews the current performances of Charles Ludlam's play at the Centerstage’s Knutzen Family Theater in Tacoma:
Written by the incomparable Charles Ludlam, founder of The Ridiculous Theatrical Company in New York, the play is patterned after Alfred Hitchcock’s gothic horror film “Rebecca” and is liberally sprinkled with literary references ranging from Poe to Shakespeare to Oscar Wilde, with further reference to films such as “Wuthering Heights” and “The Hound of the Baskervilles.”The Sioux City Journal provides the funny/surrealist quote of the day:
The Coors site features a closeup of a beer next to a book on the bar. Why these people aren’t swilling, they’re taking a study break. I can’t see the title of the book but I’m sure it’s either “Wuthering Heights” or microbiology. Or both. “Look, Heathcliff, mitochondria. I shall never love you.” (Dave Yoder)Finally, we would like to congratulate Doris Lessing on receiving the Literature Nobel Prize and remind our readers that there's a book connecting her to the Brontës: Elaine Showalter's A Literature of Their Own: British Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing, published in 1998.
H Gregg, who runs 3D Media Productions and is set to become the first Hebden Bridge resident to make a 3D documentary, is appealing to film enthusiasts to help him with the production of his historical educational piece on the Brontë sisters, which will be shot in Haworth.CineEuropa thinks it likely that Andrea Arnold's Wuthering Heights will be present at the forthcoming Cannes Film Festival.
Although it will be unpaid work, in return Mr Gregg will pass on his self-taught knowledge of 3D filming, and become part of local history.
“I want to make a 3D documentary about the Brontë sisters, which will be shot at various locations in Haworth, including the museum, which can be sold in Japan and other countries,” he said. “There’s a lot of interest worldwide in the Brontës and in Japan, especially, they use their books as an educational tool, so it would be great to tap into that market.
“I’m working on an almost zero budget, but all I need is a couple of people with a passion for making film and video who want to be part of the future of this industry.” (...)
Indoor filming for the Brontë documentary starts in mid-March and outdoor filming will start later in the month - depending on the weather.
Anyone interested in the project can contact Mr Gregg via email at info@3Dmediaproductions.co.uk or call 07849 843918. For more information visit www.the3Dsite.co.uk
People in English novels seemed to know the Bible by heart, and quoted from it as though they had grown up breathing in its grave poetry like air. Jane Eyre, for example, is sustained in her travails by it. Though a bullied child, she is a discriminating reader, honest enough to admit to the beastly clergyman Brocklehurst that she does not like Psalms, because they are "not interesting". The hypocrite priest's toddler son sickeningly professes to prefer reciting Psalms to eating gingernuts and so gets extra gingernuts as a reward.The latest episode of Bones (Series 6, Episode 14, The Bikini in the Soup) has a Wuthering Heights reference:
In the interrogation room, Brennan bluffs and tells Greg that his DNA is on the cake topper, and she also compares him to Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights in that Greg was forced by Wendy to be something less than he was when she forced him to give up his dream of working on a ranch training horses to drive the carriage. (Nicole Bessette in buddyTV)
The upshot of the murder investigation is that the husband did it, mainly because the victim slept with her swishy but straight business partner. Bones manages to trick the confession out of him with references to "Wuthering Heights." (Mark Whittington in associated content)
take as I am provides the actual quote:You are like Heathcliff. Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff was a real man but misunderstood. Forced to be something less. The way you had to give up your dreams to ride a carriage, I can only imagine what that is like. Then the woman you do ALL of that for, she goes and gives her heart and the business to another man!" (Writer: Lyla Oliver)The World Book Night initiative is explained in The Guardian:
On 5 March a million books with a retail value of £8.39m will be given away on World Book Night. They'll be distributed in prisons, pubs, restaurants, at literary events and on doorsteps, with BBC2 cameras showing the action live from London, Manchester and Glasgow. Books are everywhere on the BBC right now – hard to avoid seeing a man walking up a hill talking of Heathcliff or another man sitting under a tree describing Tom Jones. (Ian Jack)Heathcliff also appears in an article in the Financial Times which mentions the World Book Night too but placed in a wider context:
Love can give them an earthly benison – as Elizabeth’s love did for Darcy – or consume the lover, as Heathcliff was consumed. (John Lloyd)Hi Fructose Magazine interviews Marci Washington who once again shows her Brontëiteness:
I’ve read that the Victorian novel Jane Eyre plays an important role of inspiration to your work. Can you discuss how you feel about how literature can inspire art and vice versa and why this book in particular has become a patron saint of sorts to your work?The Times compares (again) Jane Eyre and South Riding:
The gothic novel does a really amazing job of being both social commentary and entertainment- it sucks you in with romance and mystery and then, when it has you firmly in its grip, does a remarkable job of conveying meaning and commenting on current social conditions. I took this way of working as a model for my own work- to suck you in and then show you another way of seeing the world- an alternative story to the dominant social narrative. It’s interesting to me how this idea has evolved through literature and into film- horror films operate the same way. Both literature and film are these safe places of fiction where you are free to comment/work out things that cannot be said in other places- a dream space where through allegory and allusion you can cut pretty close to the bone before anyone has even seen the knife. Jane Eyre is an amazing book for way too many reasons to list- I never get tired of reading it. (JL Schnabel)
In South Riding he would be David Morrissey’s character Mr Carne, gloomy and introspective and with more than a nod to that other great BRH (Brooding Romantic Heroe), Jane Eyre’s Mr Rochester. (...) It gives our gruff hero, who has his house to pay for her care, a softer, more human edge; and it also places an obstacle between him and the heroine. The blueprint is, of course, Jane Eyre. (Sarah Vine)Screen Junkies lists the ten best romantic drama films. Among them is a Wuthering Heights (1939?):
"Wuthering Heights." The setting is the moors of England. A young wealthy girl falls for the handsome stable boy. This is a story of true love that is thwarted by circumstance. (Breakstudios)Wake Forest University mentions Jane Eyre in the Senior Oration for the Founder's Day Convocation:
Those students in the class of 2011 may remember one of the application essay prompts was to discuss a literary character with whom one found an affinity. I can still remember vividly my reaction when I first read the assignment. My mind filled with vibrant visions of the illustrious literary heroines: Anna Karenina, Elizabeth Bennett, Jane Eyre, and, even little Scout Finch. Yet my ambitious mind settled on one woman above all others, one venerated by generations of feminists and literary enthusiasts – Jo March. (Ashley Gedraitis)The Wesleyan Argus covers a recent conference by Michael Cunningham:
He proceeded in a whirlwind of pithy generalizations to broadly define a contextual chronology of British and American fiction. He explained that the true birth of the novel occurred in the “disreputable” days of serialized tabloid fiction and self-improvement tales; then there were the Brontës and the Victorians, who created novels as “higher” art forms, although they were still confined to a moral universe. (Benjamin Soloway)The Fort Wayne News-Sentinel interviews a local impresario, Julie Eckert Clancy
“So there isn't much time for reading fiction, although I do love what I call romantic classics. I read them in high school, of course, books like ‘Jane Eyre' and ‘Pride and Prejudice' and didn't like them as much as I do now. I reread ‘Sense and Sensibility' fairly recently and liked it very much. You know, you appreciate their beauty when you read them as an adult.”(Betty E. Stein)The Sydney Morning Herald talks about the Liz Hurley-Shane Warne tweets affaire:
LIZ and Shane. Romeo and Juliet, Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester, Tristan and Isolde, Lizzie Bennett and Mr Darcy, Violetta and Alfredo - Shane Warne and Elizabeth Hurley. In the past few months, it's seemed that this unlikely couple were about to join the ranks of the Great Romances. (Kathy Lette)Movimiento Generación 80 (Chile) talks about a local reality show, Amor ciego:
Es difícil ver la televisión nacional y no escuchar en los diversos canales, siguiendo una especie de coro religioso, las historias de Edmundo, quizás el símbolo de lo patético de nuestra cultura audiovisual. (...) Es como si tuviéramos el temperamento iracundo Heathcliff –de Cumbres Borrascosas, la excelente novela de Emily Brontë- actuando en un Chile de escenarios realistas y mentiras convincentes al estilo de “The Truman Show”. (Jorge Inzunza H.) (Microsoft translation)A humourous review of Wuthering Heights is available on the Spanish radio programme Herrera en la Onda (Onda Cero) by Alfonso "El Cani" (February 17).
A Heathcliff como el forastero que retorna a Cumbres borrascosas para vengarse y reclamar lo que considera suyo. (Microsoft translation)RockLab (Italy) talks about the new album by PJ Harvey, Let England Shake, and says the following about the previous White Chalk:
Lo fa non solo negli aspetti lirici-estetici (già White Chalk giocava con un immaginario più antichizzante e citava, fra gli altri, le conterranee Brontë e la poesia elegiaca inglese), ma anche e soprattutto nella sostanza, una volta tanto decisamente politica. (Simone Dotto) (Microsoft translation)Kinda Muzik (Netherlands) insists on the same idea:
De Emily Brontë van haar vorig album is in George Orwell veranderd. (Bart Breman) (Microsoft translation)A late Valentine list from LibriBlog (Italy):
Jane Eyre, di C. Brontë (Newton Compton; € 6,00): Jane Eyre, dopo anni trascorsi tra la solitudine e gli stenti, viene assunta dalla famiglia Rochester come istitutrice. L’amore che nutre verso il suo padrone, che la ricambia, la porterà a compiere scelte importanti e a superare tutti gli ostacoli che la vita le pone. (valentina) (Microsoft translation)According to Libération, the singer Nolwenn Leroy
aurait aimé vivre au XIXe siècle, en Angleterre. Gothique, romantique. Sœurs Brontë, Jane Austen, Lewis Caroll, Mallarmé, Chateaubriand, Villiers de l’Isle Adam. (Luc Le Vaillant) (Microsoft translation)Meredith Blake from Los Angeles Times has a new kitten named Jane Eyre; a curious contest in Novosibirsk with improvised readings of, among others, Charlotte Brontë as read on Academ.info; Татьяна Васильевна Морозова writes an article about Charlotte Brontë a bit melodramatic but nice all the same on ХайВей (Ukraine); a guest post on The Squeee discusses the "terms of endearment" in Jane Eyre; TeeBLiterary posts about Wuthering Heights; LLL Livres et lectures de Lili reviews Lin Haire-Sargeant H. The Story of Heathcliff's Journey Back to Wuthering Heights(in French); Boomerang Books contributes to the Unputdownables Villette Read-alongand We'll Always Have Books begins its own Jane Eyre Read-along; Végétalion reviews Wide Sargasso Sea; The Romance Reviews take a look at the Wild & Wanton Edition of Wuthering Heights by Beth Williamson.
Definitely, Maybe is a new romantic comedy, directed by Adam Brooks, premiered last Friday in the UK (and next February 14 in the US) that contains a curious Jane Eyre reference according to The Times:Is the young Will destined to be with his blonde college sweetheart (Elizabeth Banks)? The kooky redhead with a Jane Eyre fixation (Isla Fisher)? Or the dark-haired writer (Rachel Weisz) to whom he gets engaged? (Edward Porter)What's that fixation? The Latino Review gives further details:
The third love of Reynolds' life is none other than Isla Fisher, that wacky nymph from "Wedding Crashers" and the bearer of Borat's child in real life. As a member of Clinton's campaign, she and Reynolds begin a relationship that develops out of sarcastic observations of each other and blossoms into friendship. In a sub-plot that's bound to resurface several times throughout the picture, she has a large collection of copies of Jane Eyre, searching for that lost book her father gave her as a child that featured a memorable dedication. Naturally, when it looks like she and Reynolds may hook up, the other is single while one is unavailable. (Ron Henriques)Larry Wilson in The Pasadena Star-News analyzes the list of Books that make you dumb:
Caltech student Virgil Griffith has put together a silly, intricate, fun and wildly misleading list called Books that make you dumb that's causing a stir on the Web. By correlating the "10 favorite books" section college kids list on their Facebook pages with their schools' average SAT scores, Griffith comes up with the crazy correlative that reading tomes that turn up more often on lists from, well, less selective schools than his own will make a gal or fella stupid. (...)The list is curious to look at, as a kind of academic exercise on pointless but funny statistic calculation, and a couple of Brontës are included:
Jane Eyre ranks 13 out of 100.The Age interviews PJ Harvey and the reasons behind her latest album White Chalk (which was featured on BrontëBlog quite often some months ago). More Hardy country than Brontë country it seems:
Average SAT 1133 + 16.82
Popularity Rank 23 out of 100
#Schools with book 63
Wuthering Heights ranks 70 out of 100.
Average SAT 1012 + 41.396
Popularity Rank 51 out of 100
#Schools with book 13
Anywhere from the bleak farmland of Anna Karenina to the "unquiet slumber" of Wuthering Heights to any number of macabre folk ballads. But there's little doubt that the songwriter's heart was anchored in the Thomas Hardy country beneath her feet, at least for some of the key songs. (Michael Dwyer)The Philippine Sunday Enquirer has another list with the 12 most romantic places in the Philippines and surprisingly one of them is related to Wuthering Heights:
4. Cape Engaño off the Babuyan ChannelCategories: Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, References, Wuthering Heights
“One of the most romantic spots in the country due to its isolation. It straddles both the Pacific Ocean and the Babuyan Channel and is a very ‘Wuthering Heights’ setting. The lighthouse at the tip of Palaui Island has a spectacular view of both bodies of water. Best time to visit is after a storm when the waves crash on the rocks below. Camping on this windswept island, with the ruins of a century-old lighthouse and with just the bare essentials, makes for a truly romantic escape.”—Manuel Maximo L.C. Noche, author, “Lonely Sentinels”; asst. professor, UST College of Architecture and Fine Arts. (
Why did you decide to write your next novel about Charlotte Brontë?CNN.com devotes its Mental Floss section to "Real life plot twists of famous authors". An improbable starry-eyed Charlotte Brontë makes an appearance:
The Secret Adventures of Charlotte Brontë [due in March 2008] is a historical suspense novel that gives the real-life author the adventure that she always craved but never really had, even though she did lead an interesting life. This is my tribute to her and my love of Victorian literature. It may be the start of a new series; I’m waiting to see how well this one does. I have two more Sano books to finish before I can do anything else, and the Brontë book was extremely long in the making. I love the character and the period, and have a lot of ideas about where I’d like to go with this. (Interview by Leonard Picker)
Starry-eyed? Is the journalist suffering from an overdose of Flanders talk?Charlotte Brontë may have been the author of the romantic classic Jane Eyre, but she was not well served by love herself. In fact, it more or less killed her.
In June of 1854, a starry-eyed Bronte married her father's curate and soon became pregnant. During her pregnancy, she fell ill, and according to her earliest biographer, Elizabeth Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness."
The elder Bronte sister's nausea was so overwhelming, in fact, that the author couldn't eat or even smell food without becoming violently ill. On March 31, 1855, a dehydrated, malnourished and severely exhausted Charlotte Bronte died at the age of 38. (Diane Mapes)
Writing is communication, and as readers we look for certain indicators to help us construct meaning. If we read, “John took Jane Eyre to bed,” we may infer from the italics that the name refers to the title of a work rather than someone he met at a nightclub—even if we have never heard of Charlotte Brontë. (Alan Warhaftig)Not a particularly good choice for an article complaining of bad punctuation. The punctuation of the Brontës in general was, at best, erratic. Charlotte, in fact, was quite happy that Smith, Elder & Co. corrected her manuscripts:
I have to thank you for punctuating the sheets before sending them to me as I found the task very puzzling - and besides I consider your mode of punctuation a great deal more correct and rational than my own. (CB to Messrs Smith, Elder & Co., 24 September 1847)Some days ago we already posted about the presumptive Brontë influences of the latest PJ Harvey's work: White Chalk. The Manchester Evening News follows this trend but goes further and mentions even Wuthering Heights. The question is: the reviewer quotes Wuthering Heights because he thinks that PJ Harvey's music is really influenced by Emily Brontë's novel or just because it's the only thing that remotely sounds like Gothic and Brontë?
In shifting direction with vocal, Harvey has replaced the rock-and-roll harlot personae once heard circa Stories From The City and Uh Hur Her with an angelic and at times haunting Chanteuse - a storytelling vocal that creates the album’s ethereal charm: part Victorian séance and part Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. (Steve Baker)Wuthering Heights also appears in a review of the film Blind (2007) published by Variety:
True love really is blind in Tamar van den Dop's Victorian era fairy tale about the relationship of a fierce sightless youth and his equally strong willed albino companion. Combining the unhinged romanticism of "Wuthering Heights" with leitmotifs from Hans Christian Andersen's "The Snow Queen," overwrought "Blind" frequently over-reaches, but nevertheless reps a confidant calling card for the debuting Dutch feature helmer. (Alissa Simon)A pity that Wuthering Heights is settled mainly in the 18th Century, nothing to do with Victorian times. But who cares?
The novel “Jane Eyre” was published 160 years ago today, in 1847. Author Charlotte Bronte submitted her manuscript under the male name Currer Bell because, at the time, it was unlikely a book by a woman author would be published.Can you imagine how it would be to read Jane Eyre for the first time without knowing anything about the plot? Stuck in a book posts about it.
Emily Brontë. Manically-depressed graveyard worrier from Fermoy, Co. Cork. Her epic work 'Wuthering Heights', charting the adventures of a roving potato-salesman during the Great Famine, is a real barrel of laughs. (damien)With Emily Brontë they are not so far from the reality. As a matter of fact Patrick Brontë was born in Drumballyroney, County Down.
In some cases, books that today would be considered fan fiction have become literary classics. Jean Rhys’s novel ‘‘Wide Sargasso Sea,’’ explores one specific character in Charlotte Bronte’s ‘‘Jane Eyre,’’ telling the story of the madwoman locked in Rochester’s attic. Now ‘‘Wide Sargasso Sea’’ is read in high school and college literature classes. (Vanessa E. Jones)Allmusic reviews PJ Harvey's White Chalk and this time restricts the Brontë influence to one track:
Lyrics like "The Devil's Come here at once! All my being is now in pining" could be written by one of the Brontë sisters. (Heather Phares)Brood also talks about the album. BrontëBlog gave their opinion on this Brontëmania in a previous post.
Besides, bad reviews aren't always right, just by virtue of being bad. In 1847, first reviews of a first novel by a young writer from Yorkshire described it as the most appalling example of contemporary fiction. The author's name? Charlotte Bronte. The book's title? Jane Eyre. (Howard Davies)Well, the first reviews of Jane Eyre were not particularly negative. A little bit of everything. It was only a couple of months later that Currer Bell's novel was treated as coarse, probably influenced by the reviews of Wuthering Heights.
In the popular debut title, protagonist Thursday Next is called upon to rescue Jane Eyre, who has been kidnapped from the pages of the classic Charlotte Brontë novel that bears her name. (Vit Wagner)In other news today: The Source Weekly lists some successful adaptations of classic novels including Wuthering Heights 1939 or Jane Eyre 1944 and 2006. Gaskell's angel-in-the-house description of Charlotte Brontë is still alive and well as this post on feminine-genius is a good example of.
Non volendo tediarvi con recensioni da finto critico musicale, mi limito a elencarvi le immagini che l’ascolto del disco evoca nel mio immaginario: un carillon rotto, un’arpa scordata, un mattino piovoso nella brughiera inglese, un bollitore lasciato sul fuoco, una strega innamorata in trip allucinogeno, Emily Brontë sotto metadone, la protagonista di “Lezioni di piano” ricoverata in una clinica sperduta. (huggotron)We have read about Emily Brontë's mystic visions, in Gérin's terminology. We never thought they could be induced by methadone, though.
To be frank, is this really a surprise? Literary fiction loves a rogue. From self-centred Jane Eyre?'s Mr Rochester to Rupert Campbell-Black in Jilly Cooper's Riders, from the Marquis de Valmont in Les Liasons Dangereuses to the Alfie, the 1970s cheeky chap brought to life by Michael Caine, fiction has long celebrated the attraction of the anti-social charmer who steals the heart of even the sternest females in their midst. (...)Libération qualifies White Chalk, the latest work of PJ Harvey as "Brontë rock". More on this on previous posts.
Flirts get their woman because they bother to tell them how wonderful they are; usually in witty, elegant style, although the Heathcliff approach of obsessive glowering and mooning about on the moors can also work. (Glenda Cooper)
The story has an intrinsic appeal. Echoes of Wuthering Heights and rooting for the underdog. It has been said that the story is based on the splitting up of Al Webber and his then wife Sarah Brightman. Superficially, maybe, but the story has a more ancient theme, that of unrestrained passion and the disfigurement of obsession with anything or anyone.Stuck in a Book talks about Alfred Sangster 1933 theatre piece "The Brontës". The play was quite popular on the 1930s-40s, being performed in several theatres (or here) and even recorded:
Sangster does all the usual tricks - Patrick is a stern bully of a father; Bramwell [sic] is a destructive drunk whenever he appears; Emily is mysterious and melancholy; Anne is timid; Charlotte... well, the stage directions are thus - "She is eager and interested, small of stature, almost bird-like in movement, and might be called insignificant if it were not for the large, dark eyes below the fine brow, for ever questioning - seeking - ". From this point on, whether pondering existential matters, or asking for a cup of tea, Charlotte is perpetually 'seeking...' in an endless ellipsis. Basically, take all the cliches about the Brontes you've ever heard, jumble them along with some 1930s jargon (can you really imagine Emily saying "I can't. I'm all wrong. All jumbled up inside...") and that's what Sangster produced. It's very entertaining.The post ends with this comment:
As EM Delafield wrote, in advice to anyone considering becoming an author:So true :). She published in 1935 her own book on the Brontës.1) You will, at some point, be expected to write something about the Brontes.
2) There is nothing new to say.
Utställningen "Mad woman in the attic" (Galna kvinnor på vinden) är en litterär metafor för Charlotte Brontës klassiska roman "Jane Eyre" från 1847. Metaforen associerar till hur kreativa kvinnor kunde betraktas som galna eller opassande och också som metafor för kvinnors styrka, ilska eller sexualitet som hölls tillbaka i det patriarkala samhället. Här träffar vi de båda konstnärerna på "vinden" och utställningen är uppbyggd som en vindsmiljö där man hittar saker efterhand. Saker som verkar glömda sedan länge. (Bengt Valentinsson)The exhibition has used the 'madwoman in the attic' metaphor to include a collection of women's art.
El grueso de la película se rodará en Inglaterra. Confirma al deseo de la productora, se buscarán parajes similares a los utilizados en el clásico Cumbres borrascosas. Los interiores se rodarán en Barcelona. Se baraja un presupuesto "modesto" de unos tres millones de euros y, fiel a la trayectoria de esta productora nacida seis años atrás, será una coproducción internacional entre España y el Reino Unido. El rodaje podría comenzar en septiembre del 2008 y el estreno, un año después. (Lourdes Durán)Most of the film will be shot in England, where the novel is set. They want places like those 'used in the classic novel Wuthering Heights'. Shooting will start in September 2008 and the film will probably open a year after that.
-La suya es una novela gótica. ¿A lo «Jane Eyre» o «Cumbres borrascosas»?When asked whether this is a gothic novel à la Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights she says that the novel's main goal is entertainment, both for her when she wrote it and for the reader. It's a mystery novel set in the USA. Some cousins spend the summer at their grandfather's and then...
-Sobre todo se trata de una novela de entretenimiento, una historia que escribí para divertirme y con la intención de que quien la leyera también se divierta. Se trata de una historia criminal llena de misterio. La historia se desarrolla en los Estados Unidos, unos primos pasan un verano en casa de su abuelo y entonces... No voy a contar nada más, ¿no le parece? (S. Fernández)
The owner of a major Hebden Bridge tourist attraction is taking her business out of Calderdale because of parking restrictions.The Guardian has an article on Diederick Santer, producer of Jane Eyre 2006 and current producer of classic soap opera EastEnders.
Sharon Pickard, 54, is the owner of Bronte Boats, which brings 18,000 visitors to the town every year.
She put her life savings into setting up the canal cruise firm in 2005, but says this year the coaches that bring in her customers have been banned from parking in Hebden Bridge centre.
Ms Pickard, of Sowerby Bridge, claims this has made business impossible and is taking her thriving tourist attraction to Leeds. (Joe Shute)
This is PJ Harvey's Bronte sisters album, a set of chilling ballads sung by a woman locked away in the attic in Jane Eyre or lost out on the moor in the middle of the night in Wuthering Heights. (Dan DeLuca)From Casket of Dreams:
Harvey appears to have mutated now into a Bronte, as her album cover proves: her strange, manly beauty is reminiscent of Charlotte Gainsbourg in Jane Eyre, and the profile shot reminds me of portraits of Emily. That’s why the 33 version of White Chalk seems to show her hand: it’s the nasty dream submerged under the record, the lover mutating into the beloved, destroying herself in the process. It’s Jane becoming Rochester; Cathy becoming Heathcliff; alienated, lonely woman becoming demonic Byronic man.Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Books, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Music, Wuthering Heights
Indy Theatre Habit reviews the Footlite production of Jane Eyre. The Musical in Indianapolis. It's a long review and we have just extracted a few paragraphs:Stephen R. Hollenbeck’s individual costumes (...) are stunning. The rich fabrics! The exquisite attention to detail! They are even more gorgeous when their wearers twirl gracefully around the stage in choreography by Elena Marr.Cinema Blend reviews the TV series Canterbury's Law and is able to discern some Brontë echoes:
The show is not without flaws. Sometimes the microphones “pop” and crackle distractingly. Sometimes the orchestra, which sounds lovely on its own, overpowers the actors, especially when they are speaking rather than singing. The beds and other set pieces that roll on and off stage are distractingly noisy. I didn’t quite understand why smoke billows up the stairs at a certain point. Is it supposed to represent the hellfire of Rochester’s guilt and torment or is the house itself already on fire? Some of the songs sound too much alike. I think this is what makes the show feel a little too long. I am not talking about the songs that are actually repeated. The repetition of “Forgiveness” near the end, for example, is quite powerful.
In any case, for me, the numerous museum-quality costumes, Brenna Campbell’s beautiful musical storytelling, the romantic story itself, and many, many other elements make this show a satisfying one, well worth my time and money. (Hope Baugh)
I like the “look” of the show. It looks HBO-ish. It’s dark, both in feel and color. Things aren’t perfect. People aren’t perfect. And the main character is definitely not perfect. She knocks back vodka like an old Russian, sleeps around like a Tudor king, and views the world with all the gloom of a Bronte character. (Jane Louis Boursaw)If you say so... nevertheless it's always better to see Brontë characters everywhere than to classify Justine Picardie's Daphne as chick-lit. We wonder if someone at the The Daily Record has read the novel at all:
Author Daphne du Maurier is still haunted by Rebecca - her most famous heroine. To keep busy she embarks on a biography of Branwell Bronte and meets slippery Alex Symington. Over 50 years later the truth behind the whole literary mystery is uncovered by a lonely young woman.By the way, this week we are giving away a copy of Daphne. Just click here to know more.
There's a Victorian feel to the lyrics and a theatrical feel to the building and crashing music. Slean would benefit, perhaps, from some more modernity. Take, for example, the lyrics to Please Be Good to Me, where Slean sings: "I carried my heart unbuttoned across the lonely stage where all the fools and actors circle like birds of prey." I can't help but picture the heartache and drama of a story like Wuthering Heights when I listen to this album. Images of torn gowns, unkempt curls and bleak winter gardens come to mind. Such influences could make for gorgeous music, but Slean overdoes it. The songs all blend together. They all sound similar - a bit like they were written for some romantic, teen television drama. Slean is surely capable of more. (Amy O'Brian)VDBD-Viadellebelledone reproduces an interesting article (originally published in Il Pendolo in 2006) by the poetess Flavia Buldrini about Emily Brontë's poetry in Italian. Happy Talk expresses her love for Jane Eyre.
[T]his Saturday, September 29, he presents one of the fringe events held at the town’s St Margaret’s Church Hall at 6 pm.Indeed, his talk could be the same one he gave at last year's Brontë Conference and which can now be read in the latest issue of Brontë Studies as it has the same title.
He gives a talk called The Likeness of a Kingly Crown: John Milton’s Influence on Charlotte Bronte. Ian has a life-long interest in the work of the Brontes and is the author of many articles on the subject.
This talk develops themes from his 2005 Bronte Society publication Pilgrims From Loneliness: An Interpretation of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre and Vilette - the strong influence of John Milton’s writing on Charlotte Bronte.
Imagination makes us aware of limitless possibilities. How many of us haven't pondered the concept of infinity or imagined the possibility of time travel? In one of her poems Emily Bronte likens imagination to a constant companion, but I prefer to think of it as a built-in entertainment system. (Alexandra Adornetto)The full poem can be read here.
Presented in full-screen, both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre come housed in individual slimline snap cases, and are in turn jointly housed in an attractive, single cardboard slipcase. Jane Eyre’s bonus features include interviews with the cast and crew, a small collection of deleted scenes, hour-long audio commentaries for two of the episodes, and trailers from the program’s original British broadcast on BBC. [...] B+ (Movies) B- (Disc)This answers the questions BrontëBlog readers had regarding the Brontë Collection, though we had already been told by the WGBH Customer Care Center that Jane Eyre did indeed include the deleted scenes as well as the rest of the extras included on the original British DVD (unlike on the PBS DVD)
Wuthering Heights by Emily BrontëBut then The Irish Times features Kenny’s Bookshop in Galway.
You’d be hard pressed to find someone who hasn’t read this classic book (or, at least, seen the period drama adaptations). Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, which was written in secret in 1845, is a classic, passionate love story that’s been retold many times. Take note: Emily, a biopic on the British author, is set to hit our screens in 2021. (Susan Devaney)
“As soon as we closed the door, our library business stopped because all the university libraries closed at the same time,” says Sarah Kenny. “But at the same time, our online orders went up almost overnight. Fiction was the absolute biggest increase. Everything from current best-selling fiction to a lot of classics.Book Riot has selected 'Your Summer of Great YA Horror Books', including
“Books that people had maybe intended to read someday but never got around to. So there was big demand for titles like Ulysses or War and Peace and Jane Austen’s novels and Wuthering Heights. (Keith Duggan)
Thornhill by Pam Smy: This hybrid novel, combining art and narrative, is about a haunted house and it’s set in two timelines: 1982 and 2017. It’s packed with the tropes of horror, including creepy dolls and ghosts, while remaining a deliciously modern gothic tale. A good pitch for this one might be Jane Eyre meets The Secret Garden. Smy uses a dark palate for the art, adding another level of the spookiness to the book. (Kelly Jensen)UDiscoverMusic features singer/songwriter PJ Harvey.
Harvey’s seventh LP, 2007’s White Chalk, was, however, her most radical record to date. Eschewing virtually all vestiges of her guitar-based alt.rock sound, the LP presented a set of mournful, intimate, piano-based songs that Harvey sang in a voice pitched higher than her usual range. Streaked with British folk and gothic horror, it featured remarkable compositions such as the Emily Bronte-esque ‘The Devil’ and the eerie ‘When Under Ether’, and concluded with a blood-curdling shriek on closing track ‘The Mountain’. Though the album was arguably Harvey’s most challenging yet, it again wowed the critics and sold well, going silver in the UK (where it peaked at No.11) and also reaching No/65 on the US Billboard 200.We do indeed recall a lot of reviews comparing it to the Brontës at the time.
Anna Christy and Barry Banks are aptly framed by David Alden's absorbing production, which updates the gruesome story to the era of the Brontë novels. (Rupert Christiansen)As we remarked on a previous post, the connection between Lucia di Lammermoor and the Brontës is always easily bridged through their much-admired - particularly by Emily - Sir Walter Scott, who penned The Bride of Lammermoor, the work upon which Donizetti based this opera when he wrote it in 1835.
She immediately ripped in to To Bring You My Love, and thoughts of Austen and the Brontes were set to one side for a while. (Noel Mengel)A while ago we made it clear that we thought the Brontë connection was quite random, but the Austen connection sounds totally crazy now.
These are just five of my favourite romance movies, but the (film) food of love is plentiful in its variety. Try out older stuff like Gone with the Wind and Wuthering Heights or explore the unconventional with Brokeback Mountain, there’s quite a lot to learn about romance and it’s also best to do it in the safe (two hours maximum) confines of a DVD. (Jason Lim)If things go well, soon Wuthering Heights won't necessarily go into the 'older stuff' category, even though we think the film in the writer's mind is Wuthering Heights 1939, not Wuthering Heights 1992.
By satisfying, I don't mean happy. Film history is packed with cherished titles that end unhappily for the characters but satisfyingly for the viewer. The lovers part, or the hero dies, or injustice prevails. Off the top of my head: Wuthering Heights, Gone With the Wind, Casablanca, Vertigo, West Side Story, The Godfather and its sequel, Chinatown, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, Annie Hall and even the biggest box-office hit, Titanic. (Frank Gabrenya)Commercial Appeal has an article on violinist Joshua Bell, and he's oddly compared to Heathcliff.
In his performance, there is no hint of Heathcliff, nothing of the daredevil or tightly-wound dynamo. (Christopher Blank)A couple of blogs with a couple of posts each and both in turn related to Emily and Charlotte. Plaisir du livre writes in French a brief biography of Charlotte and Emily while El escondrijo de una escritora novel posts in Spanish about Zeffirelli's Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heighs 1992.
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