Born - Bridalled - Shrouded

News Shopper talks to Coronation Street's actress Wendi Peters, who talks about what she would like to do in her acting career.

I'd like to go back to theatre for a bit, maybe more TV," she said.
"Period drama is something I'd really love to do; a Bronte, a Dickens or an Austen or something like that. And who wouldn't want to be in a film?"

So, film producers out there, now you know.

Talking about film adaptations. The Willamette Week Online reviews Joe Wright's Atonement. Wright's previous work, Pride and Prejudice is mentioned and the Brontës and Harlequin novels follow right behind somehow.

It was New Yorker critic Anthony Lane who noticed that Wright’s debut movie, an ambitious take on Pride and Prejudice , felt less like Jane Austen than Charlotte Brontë—the irony was replaced with swooning. Atonement follows the same pattern, taking the incidents of McEwan’s book and staking them to rapturous images of a weeping woman straining for her beloved’s hand, or a man chasing hopelessly after a bus. It’s not an insult to say that both of Wright’s films feel like quality adaptations of Harlequin novels—or at least I don’t intend it as one. But it does suggest that he might have better success with pulpier sources. (Aaron Mesh)

Firstly, it wasn't the 'swooning' that brought about the comparisons to the Brontës, mainly because there aren't that many 'swoons' in the Brontë novels. And secondly, it's either the Brontës or Harlequin novels because, you know, they're worlds apart.

Apollo Guide reviews Wuthering Heights 1992 and gives it a 55/100. The conclusion sums up the review:

Wuthering Heights‘ infamy is for its drama and its tragic love story. On these counts, the film succeeds. But it’s an unmotivated, loose script with a rambling tale and impotent casting that degrade this otherwise mildly satisfying hanky-fest. (Elspeth Haughton)

The Age reviews the book Rhett Butler's People, which is a sequel of Gone with the Wind. The reviewer examines sequels which are not part of a series, but - for lack of a better word - a kind of fan-fiction springing from a previous original work.

The sequel industry rarely does justice to readers: it is so easy for sequels to get bogged down in soap-style plotting that ends up being dull, dull, dull. Emma Aiken's leaden Pemberley with its cod-Regency pastichery (Georgette Heyer alone could do it and wisely made up her own stories), all those Flowers in the Attic knock-offs, and such idiocies as Mrs Rochester, the sequel (heaven help us) to Jane Eyre.
It's difficult enough to write historical novels without having to extrapolate from others' ideas. Even an intelligent work such as Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea prequel has problems. It's impossible to read as a stand-alone: its divergences from Jane Eyre become irritations just as its congruences with the original make you simply want to go back to Charlotte Bronte. (Juliette Hughes)

Actually, the article is a very interesting read on the subject of sequels/prequels.

A couple of blogs brush on this subject as well. Om en hund och massa annat writes about Texts in Dialogue & Intertextuality in Swedish drawing up examples from Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea. And La vie en rose of Mademoiselle Non has a post on the notorious MTV's musical of Wuthering Heights. Worth reading too.

Meanwhile, Scaly Monster writes about the original Jane Eyre.

And now for a couple of interesting, totally different discoveries thanks to these two blogs.

RabbitReader posts about The Confessions of Max Tivoli by Andrew Sean Greer. Towards the end we are surprised to read:

Greer has a penchant for embedding literary references in his story. [...] For example, he writes, “Reader, she married me” and “the creature had to stay in the attic” as homages to Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë. (Chiron)

And Professor Meyer writes about a poem by Emily Dickinson supposedly about Charlotte Brontë. Not the well-known one starting All overgrown by cunning moss, but the one starting Title divine--is mine! K. Hoting, the blogger, says:

She makes mention of Charlotte Bronte, as the note in the anthology alerts us, perhaps as a homage to her writing and as a woman author. Royalty amongst her peers.

Empress of Calvary -
Royal, all but the Crown -

The following line "Bethrothed, without the Swoon" has me a bit confused. Is she referring to Charlotte marrying not for love? Or in conjunction with her following line, "God gives us Women", she is actually referring to women's union with God as alluded to in her first line.

K. Hoting is interested in hearing people's opinions on this, so if you have any ideas, do leave a comment. As far as we're concerned, we've tried our modest Emily Dickinson corner and have found nothing on the matter. (Incidentally, if you like Emily Dickinson, you might like to visit this website as well).

Finally, if you like creating icons, Regency_Stills gives you the chance to participate in a challenge concerning Wuthering Heights film adaptations. Entries are due by Monday December 10th.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Sequels, Websites, Wide Sargasso Sea, Wuthering Heights