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Saturday, November 09, 2013

Saturday, November 09, 2013 3:56 pm by M. in , , , , , ,    No comments
The Northumberland Gazette reviews performances of Wuthering Heights by the DCHS Drama Group in Alnwyck:
Engrossing, captivating and absorbing – this was Duchess’s Community High School pupils’ performance of Wuthering Heights.
The talented cast simply shone, capturing all of the drama and emotion of this classic tale.
That is no easy feat either.
Emily Brontë’s story, adapted for the stage by April De Angelis, is deep, powerful and at times, very dark. It is as much an exploration of revenge and hate as it is love.
But the pupils coped remarkably and earned a standing ovation at the end of the night. Quite right too.
The High School has built up a fine reputation for its theatrical performances over the years, and Wuthering Heights was yet another memorable show.
The story is centred on lovers Cathy and Heathcliff – played by Annie Davison and Harry Brierley respectively.
It was fitting therefore that these talented youngsters stole the show. (James Willoughby)
Publishers Weekly presents the English translation of Minae Mizumura's A True Novel:
A True Novel by Minae Mizumura, trans. from the Japanese by Juliet Winters Carpenter and Ann Sherif (Other Press) - The story-within-a-story-within-a-story at the heart of this novel features a doomed, Wuthering Heights romance set in postwar Japan, with the 20th-century Heathcliff riding the Japanese-American economic wave. Concentric narratives connect and transform into a critical appraisal of commercial expansion and cultural decline. (Gabe Habash)
St George & Sutherland Shire Leader (Australia) talks about a local fashion design student who has chosen Jane Eyre as her inspiration for her final design project:
It was a fascination with the character Jane Eyre from the novel of that name which captured Lillian Chan's imagination.
The honours student from Beverly Hills is studying fashion and textile design combined with international studies at the University of Technology, Sydney.
For her final design project, Lillian, 25, showcased her 20-piece creations across six looks at her university's "Future of Fashion" runway show last week.
Her style "icon" was none other than Miss Eyre herself.
"Jane Eyre is my favourite novel — I've read it a couple of times," Lillian said.
"The main character Jane is such a strong role model, despite her oppression.
"I like to think of her as the original feminist."
Lillian's collection, "Thornfield", was named after the Thornfield House in the novel.
"People expected me to do a Victorian collection but it's not that at all," she said.
"I've added a supernatural element — a ghostly feeling by using sheer and pastel-coloured fabric, lots of layering and ivory silk organza contrasted with textural fabrics like leather and tweed.
"It's quite a contemporary collection but still classic because I wanted to keep that sophistication."
Her modern muse for the collection was Australian-Polish actress, Mia Wasikowska.
"I've seen a few of her movies, and she played Jane in a modern adaptation," she said.
Claire Fellon writes in The Huffington Post about dating and nineteenth century novels:
In the course of my literary education, I plowed through classic marriage-plot-centered novels, and no scrap of apparent romantic wisdom was left behind in my wake. Jane Eyre, Elizabeth Bennet -- these were my role models in the realm of dating. The results were catastrophic. It turns out that trying to recreate the plotlines of romances written 200 years ago wasn't the best strategy for finding love. (...)
That guy is being an asshole to you because he's so into you. (Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë)
Ah, Mr. Rochester. The tortured romantic hero who inspired a million girls to hold out hope for that adorable, brooding guy a grade above them who tortures them with snarky insults and always seems to be dating the most popular girls in school. What do his comments really mean?? And wouldn't he be happier with you than with that snobby Michelle, anyway? Deep down, he's probably just afraid to admit what a profound connection you have. Yup, that's it. I mean, Jane Eyre ended up happy with her confusing, hot-and-cold beloved, so why not you? Lesson: A guy might have many reasons to treat you badly, but none of them are that he doesn't love you.
Caitlin and Caz Moran remember how it was (and it is) being a teenage girl in The Times:
Teenage girls didn't ride around on bicycles, pretending they were a cross between Just William, Freddie Mercury and Jane Eyre, doing noble deeds. Teenage girls didn't do anything at all. Everything I'd done before now had to die. 
Literary 'merchandising' on The Guardian:
In 2011, a pair of "directional" Catcher in the Rye sneakers caught Lindesay Irvine's discerning eye. He's not wearing them now – apparently, they don't match his Jane Eyre hoody. Just as well. It seems book-themed fashion is like no longer lust-have.
More Huffington Post. A list with books for every personality. Introverts, apparently, are into Jane Eyre:
Jane Eyre
by Charlotte Brontë
Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead, subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. (Arti Patel)
The Herald discusses the threats to literary heritage:
But the moors abutting the Brontës's parsonage in Haworth, or the dank fields and valleys of Ted Hughes's Yorkshire, or the rolling hills of Grassic Gibbons's Mearns are something else altogether. They are fragile, unique and irreplaceable. Something of their essence creeps into their characters or creatures, the bond between them bone-deep and indivisible. (Rosemary Goring)
The Pakistan Daily Times includes a Brontë reference when discussing phrenology:
He expanded his apparently harmless theory to senseless speculations by linking the zones with lumps and bumps on the anterior of the skull. As a consequence of the wide acceptance of this theory, perfectly normal persons found themselves as potential murderers or lunatics as they unfortunately had similar bumps or lumps that had been identified by the science of phrenology for murderers or lunatics. Such was the sway of these beliefs that even authors like the Brontë sisters and Arthur Conan Doyle’s popular character Sherlock Holmes promoted these ideas in some of their stories. (Dr Haider Shah)
North Adams Transcript reviews the Spanish animation film Arrugas:
The truth is that I saw a little of myself in every one of them -- in the woman who wanders the halls searching for a telephone so she can call her children to come and get her, because she’s "all better now," in Modesto and Dolores, as much in love since childhood as Heathcliff and Cathy were in "Wuthering Heights," the loving and caring Antonia and her walker, the woman who is convinced that aliens are out to whisk her away and, perhaps the most affecting of all, the elegant lady whose every waking moment is lived in the fantasy of an Orient Express journey of a lifetime, a lifetime that never catches up with her. (Jerry Goldberg)
The Secret Life of Writers interviews author April Tucholke:
What’s better: a kickass villain that you almost want to cheer for or hilarious minor characters? Tell us why!
Kickass villain. Always. Gothic horror plots thrive on passionate antagonists that both seduce and repel at the same time. Byronic heroes—what’s not to love? See: Wuthering Heights, Dracula, Dragonwyck, The Phantom of the Opera, Interview with a Vampire, Jamaica Inn…
Ο Φιλελεύθερος (in Greek ) presents Wuthering Heights 1992 which will be broadcast on the local station PIK2; O Prazer das Coisas (in Portuguese) review Agnes Grey; Kids' Book Review posts about Jane, the Fox and Me.

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