Giacomo Brontë

The Haworth Parish Church urge to raise money for repairs is obtaining some results. There is still a long way to go, but it's a starting point. As published in The Telegraph & Argus:

Benefactors across the UK and in the US have pledged their support to Haworth Parish Church £1.25 million restoration appeal.
Donations totalling almost £5,000 have flooded in from as far afield as London, Gloucester, Northern Ireland and the US following a call for help made in the Telegraph & Argus on Boxing Day.
Before Christmas, church leaders warned they could lose a £100,000 English Heritage grant to repair the badly leaking south roof unless they raised £65,000 in match funding before the middle of January.
An appeal started last spring had only raised £33,000 meaning fundraisers had to find the remaining £32,000 in a matter of weeks.
Haworth Parish Council chairman John Huxley, who is also chairman of the church’s Future Group and secretary of the Parochial Church Council said: “The response has been superb and we feel deeply humbled by it.
“Since Boxing Day we have received more than £4,500 from well wishers. Obviously we have still got to raise a lot more but it is a big step along the way.
“People are now aware of the situation and we have more hope than we had before.”
Following the report in the T&A, the church’s plight was also publicised in the national and international media, including in Ulster, Wales and the US.
In the last seven days, a donation of £1,000 was made through the parish church website and Haworth Primary School gardening club donated a further £500. A charitable trust in Ilkley has also contacted the church to discuss a possible donation.
Priest-in-charge of the Parish Church The Reverend Peter Mayo-Smith said: “It has been wonderful really to realise that so many people do care so passionately about the church. A lot of people have been putting their hands in their pockets and sending us donations. It is very humbling and we are extremely grateful. I am now optimistic we will reach our target.” (...)
Donations can be made online at haworthchurch.co.uk or cheques made payable to Haworth Church Restoration Fund can be sent c/o the treasurer, 17 North View Terrace, Haworth, BD22 8HJ (Kathryn Bradley)

By the way, Ted Evans the infamous Haworth clamper and his impact on tourism is again in the news.

Guy Lodge from HotFix points to Moira Buffini's Jane Eyre 2011 screenplay as a candidate to the Best Adapted Screenplay Oscar:

Well-received as Cary Fukunaga's fresh-yet-classical interpretation of the oft-filmed Brontë chestnut has been, not nearly enough of the praise has centered on Buffini's superbly economical adaptation, which takes more structural liberties with the novel than many may realize, subtly emphasizing its proto-feminist core without straining its motions toward contemporary resonance.

Pajiba lists the best literary adaptations of the year:

Cary Fukunaga’s film has to be at least the tenth adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s beloved novel. And, for my money, it’s the finest. Other versions (mostly miniseries) may have boasted better casting (much love to Ciaran Hinds), but none has done a better job of capturing the psychological tension of Brontë’s gothic romance. The strain, repression, passion, fear, and horror come alive with every frame. A masterful piece of work. (Joanna Robinson)

We also report the disappointment with the Art Directors Guild (ADG) 16th Annual Excellence in Production Design Awards where Jane Eyre 2011 has not been nominated. The Worcerster Telegram nevertheless considers the film one of the best of the year. Time Magazine lists a box office top ten of independent films:

5. Jane Eyre — $11,242,660

The Salt Lake City Tribune Sundance Trailer of the Day was Wuthering Heights 2011, which will be screened in the Spotlight program at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.

The Chicago Sun-Times interviews Steven Fischer, director of Old School New School:

Q: You financed “Old School New School” out of your own pocket. Why?

A: This film is an extension of a topic I’ve been exploring with friends for many years: How can we, as artistic people, attain the quality of work and the level of success of our heroes, whoever they might be. Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Pablo Picasso, Charlotte Brontë. What does it mean to have that level of talent? Is that something you’re either born with or you’re not? Is there a way to go out and get it if you weren’t born with it? (Bruce Ingram)

The press release of the app Love Quotes for Moods 1.4 contains a little jewel:

Are you a great romantic destined to be remembered along with the Brontë sisters or Cassanova (sic)?

Impossible to beat.

Nicholas Lezard reviews in The Guardian Intolerable Tongues by Ellis Sharp:

A couple of years ago I recommended a selection of short stories by Ellis Sharp called Dead Iraqis. Under cover of seemingly surrealist hijinks (Stalin becoming a member of the West Bognor Conservative Association, for example) and the kind of literary games that seemed like offcuts from a Monty Python script conference – Emily Brontë bitching about her sisters – Sharp could smuggle in both avant-gardism and political awareness to great, and sometimes greatly comic, effect. (Sometimes very darkly comic effect, as with the title story.) But he also writes novels, which, I am ashamed to say, I had only heard about, not read.

Word Socialist reviews Chuck Palahniuk's Damned and quotes from the book:

Over the course of her time in Hell, Madison slowly realizes the true manner of her death. The reader will likely guess well before she does, as there is little in the way of mystery. She is forlorn when she figures out who her killer was, and almost loses hope. But in a predictable passage, she is cheered up by a supposedly unlikely compatriot who Reveals A Truth: You stay in hell until you forgive yourself. Buoyed by this news, Madison declares in fine break-the-fourth-wall tradition:

“The good news is that I’m not some fictional character in a printed book, like Jane Eyre or Oliver Twist; for me anything is now possible.” (Christine Schofelt)

The Hindustan Times talks with the author Ruskin Bond:

Author of innumerable children’s stories, he himself has quite a few books which he still loves to read, “I can read Alice in Wonderland again and again, the other day I found a copy of the Wuthering Heights – it had kept me up all night when I read it first at 12, and it kept me up this time too,” he reveals.

And we have to quote fully this letter to the editor of the New York Times for obvious reasons:

Could my final day of 2011 be a harbinger for a joyfully quiet 2012 with the next generation?
My texting, Facebook-bound, Mac-proficient teenager asked to join me at a local cafe to read. As she determinedly plodded through “A Tale of Two Cities,” and I wondrously galloped through the denouement of “Wuthering Heights” (real books with pages!), I noticed that nothing rang or buzzed, and our texting-gloved fingers touched nothing but our hot chocolate and coffee.
A toast to the joy of her size 5 feet on my lap as we disappeared into two hours of blissful solitude ... together. (Kathryn Frey-Balter, Baltimore, Jan. 1, 2012)

Stale Popcorn thinks that Jane Eyre 2011's poster is one of the best of the season;  Breathing Fiction reviews the film; Rebecca Chesney of The Brontë Weather Project posts about Wuthering Heights 2011.