Bluegrass, Conrad, Books, Mysteries and Dominica

Newsround coming!

1- Brontëites: Rebecca Hoggan, lead singer of Hit-and-Run Bluegrass, is interviewed on Richmond.com. When the question about what are her favourites books comes, she answers:
"Ahab's Wife" by Sena Jeter-Naslund; "Prep" by Curtis Sittenfeld and "Jane Eyre" by Emily Bronte.
Oh, well, Ms. Hoggan, if it's your favourite book, please take a closer look to the cover.

2- Michael Berkeley's Jane Eyre opera. Nothing new, here, but this post on Ionarts blog, provides a nice summary of the reviews that we have been publishing lately.

3- Something very original took place recently in Bradford:

The television celebrity, known as Gaz Top from ITV's How 2 show, was taking part in a massive reality game' created by students and staff from the school in Cottingley New Road.
And although the story line may have been fictitious the drama was all real as he sped across the district solving clues which had been set up by the school's pupils.
A team of writers of all ages from the school created the story line for a mystery which Gareth then had to solve.
The premise of their story was that Branwell Bronte, the brother of the Bronte sisters, won deeds for the land on which Nab Wood School is built, over a game of whist in Haworth. He decided to conceal the whereabouts of the deeds with elaborate clues around the district. A firm known as Baddy Industries has now presented false deeds to prove they own the land and plan to demolish the school to make way for a housing development.
And Gareth was set the challenge of finding the original deeds to save Nab Wood.
His adventure started with a text message to his Bradford hotel bedroom telling him a taxi was waiting outside.
And he was then taken on a six-hour journey from Ilkley Moor to Haworth and back to Bradford solving clues.

Now that sounds like fun! Branwell Brontë did spend some time in Bradford when he tried - unsuccessfully - to live on portrait-painting.

4-Articles with Brontë mentions: The New Left Review publishes an article about Joseph Conrad. What is curious is that when describes Marlow (the narrator of Lord Jim or Heart of Darkness) the author of the article uses Anne Brontë's Gilbert Markham:

To begin with, it is crucial to recognize that Marlow is not a personified narrator like the earlier Gilbert Markham, who delivers Anne Brontë’s Tenant of Wildfell Hall, or Holden Caulfield in Catcher on the Rye.

Here, the comment of the new paperback edition of The Mercy of Thin Air by Ronlyn Domingue is the excuse to connect Wuthering Heights with The Lovely Bones through a new literary category:

The novel is an evocative take on thedeath-shall-have-no-sting-because-love-transcends-time theme that descends through the pantheon of fiction from "Wuthering Heights" to "The Lovely Bones."

On this web, the novel Literacy and Longing in L.A. by Jennifer Kaufman and Karen Mack is reviewed. Some time ago we mentioned that novel and contacted the writers. This is what they told us about the Wuthering Heights connection:

Our book is about a woman who devours books and uses them to escape her life. She has a library filled with a wide variety of books - - classics, romances, mysteries, books from her childhood, etc. The Wuthering Heights mention is in the first chapter where our character, Dora, named after EudoraWelty, goes off on yet another book binge and considers resding some classic romances about unrequited love. She dismisses the Bronte on page 13 because, she says, she doesn't feel like "wallowing" in all the dysfunctional passion associated with Heathcliff who " never did get it on with Cathy." She ends up taking the Bronte and a few other classics into the bathroom and soaking and reading for days on end. Our book is now on sale in your local bookstore. I think you would enjoy it.

The Worcester Telegram has a long article on summer reads and a recommended list which includes both Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights.

And finally - to go on with the summer-y theme - The Independent talks about destinations that inspired the great artists, entertainers and explorers. Dominica is mentioned as the home of Jean Rhys (the timing is perfect as it coincides with the recent news about the shooting of a new version of Wide Sargasso Sea)

The rugged Caribbean island of Dominica is brilliantly evoked in Jean Rhys's seminal novel Wide Sargasso Sea, published 40 years ago. The author was born and grew up on the Windward Island of Dominica, its beauty and violent past reflected in her 1966 story of the first Mrs Rochester, written as a "prequel" to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.

Categories: In_the_News, Books, Weirdo