Comics for boys and fairytales for girls

The Bradford Telegraph & Argus covers the cyprus pine tree souvenirs initiative by the Brontë Society. Check this previous post to know more details:

Slices of literary history in the form of chippings from a tree planted by Charlotte Bronte more than 150 years ago are proving to be a money spinner.
The author of Jane Eyre was said to have planted the tree when she got married in 1854, and early this year it had to be felled because its roots were dying and it risked becoming a danger to tourists visiting the Bronte Parsonage Museum in Haworth.
But custodians of Bronte heritage at the family's former home hit upon the idea of chopping up the felled tree and selling portions off to fans.
So far they've raised more than £1,000 in just over a week, with one Bronte aficionado in the south of England pledging £100 for the specially-packaged piece of the Cyprus pine.
Demand has also been flooding in from Bronte fans throughout the world, but the first to get his slice from Bronte Parsonage Museum director, Alan Bentley, was William Callaghan, a Bronte Society member from Oxenhope. Mr Bentley said: "Members of the Bronte Society were asked to donate money to the conservation fund in return for this package of history - they have responded remarkably."
The souvenirs have been offered to society members in return for a donation of £5 or more. The money will go to the care and collection of Bronte memorabilia.
The original tree is one of a pair planted by Charlotte Bronte and her husband, Arthur Bell Nicholls, on their marriage. The other is still standing. A sapling grown from the felled tree has been planted in the same area.
Later this summer, a sculptor is to turn timber from the original tree into an image inspired by the Brontes. It is hoped the public will be able to see the work-in-progress at the museum.
People wishing to buy a piece of Bronte history should write to the Brontë Society Museum, Haworth, enclosing a minimum of £5 and a stamped addressed envelope. (Clive White)

Helen, from the Brussels Brontë Group, has alerted us to an article in the Belgian newspaper De Standaard (in Dutch) covering the recent Brussels Brontë Weekend organized by the Brussels Brontë Group. The article is by the Belgian writer Kristien Hemmerechts.

The Huffington Post publishes a list of one sentence guides of classical books. Let's see what's the summary of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights:

JANE EYRE / Charlotte Bronte - Orphan Jane falls in love with employer Mr. Rochester while working as governess to his ward, but it turns out he's got a crazy wife locked in the attic.
WUTHERING HEIGHTS / Emily Bronte - Catherine and her wild adopted brother Heathcliff locked in passionate but doomed love on the moors. (Pamela Redomond Satran)

We are a quite shocked to read this comment made by Gwyneth Paltrow presenting her new film, the Marvel comics adaptation of Iron Man:

When the laughter died down, Paltrow continued:
"I was more of a fairytale, Charlotte Bronte kind of youth, but when I was approached with this I actually had never heard of ‘Iron Man’, so it was a real education. I ended up reading quite a number of the comics." (James Hunt on Den of Geek!)

We get the point... but considering Charlotte Brontë's novels as fairytales is as wrong, or even more, as describing Wuthering Heights as a Mills & Boon romance.

Fortunately, some people still go beyond the clichés. The Christian Science Monitor publishes an article about the eternal question of why boys don't like to read:

Mom, there's a lot more to life than reading," my 14-year-old son said as he rushed in from school one afternoon and texted another reading-averse boy down the block.
"That's a girl's book," he later said when I asked him to spend some quiet time with "Jane Eyre." "And, anyway, I only read at night."
So when my local library offered a talk on why boys don't read and what parents can do about it, I signed up. Many of my neighbors had the same idea: We came, desperate for advice on how to get our boys off the technology and into the books.
Here's what the reading expert said: Boys don't read because they don't like stories, poetry, or tales about relationships. They prefer nonfiction – science, math, and instructional booklets. He suggested parents entice boys with material they enjoy such as sports statistics, instead of sports stories. (...)
Call me a renegade, but I'm not falling for this latest theory. Several decades ago, my brother fell in love with Cathy and Heathcliff and never once questioned the gender-correctness of "Wuthering Heights." He plowed through Jane Austen, and continues to be a serious reader today. What's changed? (Read more) (Janine Wood)

On Tiscali we read the following confirmation that the Brontës will still be in the new UK National Curriculum:

The Department for Children, Schools and Families said there would still be "rigorous concentration on traditional subject knowledge".
"Youngsters will continue to study the likes of Shakespeare, Chaucer, Wordsworth, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Dickens," Schools Secretary Ed Balls told the BBC. (Tim Castle for Reuters)

The Salisbury Post interviews Joanne Harris who doesn't miss a chance to introduce a Brontë mention:

"I was born in Yorkshire, England, which is sort of between 'Wuthering Heights' and 'The Full Monty.' ... I had a slightly schizophrenic life. ... In France I was 'the little British girl' and in Yorkshire, they thought I was a complete freak." (Deirdre Parker Smith)

The Reformer reviews the Val Lewton DVD Horror Collection with the following reference to Jacques Tourneur's I Walked With a Zombie:

"I Walked With a Zombie" is actually a loose variation on "Jane Eyre," with very few shocks but with great atmosphere as the nurse brings her catatonic patient into a voodoo ritual. (Frank Behrens)

Jeffrey M. Anderson's posts in Cinematical about Jacques Rivette and considers that his take on Wuthering Heights, Hurlevent, is:

In the 1980s he made what most critics consider his weakest films, and certainly his bland reading of Wuthering Heights (1985) is the worst Rivette film I've seen.

Weekly Reader interviews actress Anna Popplewell (Susan Pevensie in The Chronicles of Narnia films). A future Brontëite?

11. What is your favorite book of all time?
— Jade, 15
Anna Popplewell: That's very tough. It's always changing. Alice in Exile by Piers Paul Read is a beautiful novel but I love Wuthering Heights too.

Bench Hamlet 2008 has a picture of the current Jane Eyre production by the Bench Theatre.
Eclectic Rose reviews Villette. actionverb briefly discusses Jane Eyre 1944. Undreverset (in Norwegian) posts about several covers of Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights. Le blog de ce qu'on aime! talks about Wuthering Heights in French.

Categories: Brontë Society, Brontëites, Brussels, In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Theatre, Wuthering Heights