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Tuesday, March 08, 2016

Tuesday, March 08, 2016 10:43 am by Cristina in , , , , , , ,    No comments
It is International Women's Day Today and so the Brontë Parsonage Museum shares some apt words from Jane Eyre on Facebook.

Also Catch has selected 10 female authors, 10 books and 10 quotes. No Brontës on the list but Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea has made it onto it and Virginia Woolf's quotation comes from A Room of One's Own and mentions Emily Brontë.
Virginia Woolf - A Room of One's Own. Stream of consciousness is not an easy train to follow, but Woolf makes the journey worth your while. In To The Lighthouse, she gave us a glimpse of what reality looks like to different people. In this book - or rather a longish essay - she gives a discourse on women in literature through the years.
Favourite quote:
"When, however, one reads of a witch being ducked, of a woman possessed by devils, of a wise woman selling herbs, or even of a very remarkable man who had a mother, then I think we are on the track of a lost novelist, a suppressed poet, of some mute and inglorious Jane Austen, some Emily Brontë who dashed her brains out on the moor or mopped and mowed about the highways crazed with the torture that her gift had put her to. Indeed, I would venture to guess that Anon, who wrote so many poems without signing them, was often a woman." [...]
Jean Rhys - Wide Sargasso Sea. A postcolonial novel - the book was written keeping Charlotte Brontë's famous novel Jane Eyre in mind. Rhys talks about the life of the 'other woman' in the book - Mr Rochester's rich wife who he keeps locked in his attic. It serves as a prequel to the English classic as it gives us a look into Antonette (sic) Cosway before she 'went mad'.
Favourite quote:
"The prayer ended, 'May Almighty God defend us.' And God who is indeed mysterious, who had made no sign when they burned Pierre as he slept - not a clap of thunder, not a flash of lighting - mysterious God heard Mr Mason at once and answered him. The yells stopped."
Deia (Spain) also marks the day even if their view of Charlotte Brontë keeping her Wuthering Heights (sic) manuscript in the potato bowl (?!) is somewhat muddled (to put it mildly).
¿Y que Charlotte Bronte guardaba sus escritos en los cestos de las patatas?
Mientras Cumbres borrascosas se embadurnaba de tierra de patatas, otras mujeres se escondieron detrás de un nombre de varón para poder publicar sus escritos. (Carmen Torres Ripa) (Translation)
We are all for vindicating the rights of women but a little research wouldn't hurt.

India Today considers Jane Eyre one of six 'iconic heroines from fiction who gave us real life lessons'.
Jane Eyre
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
"Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain and little, I am soulless and heartless? You think wrong! - I have as much soul as you - and full as much heart!"
She might have been an orphan, but we see Jane Eyre struggle continuously to find a point in her life where she can live with her dignity, self-worth and freedom intact--ideas no young woman can hurt from pinching. (Hemul Goel)
And more on women, as The Walkman (Italy) lists seven women who have made history in music such as
Kate Bush
La cantautrice inglese rappresenta senza dubbio la fusione perfetta tra arte e rock da un punto di vista femminile. In Wuthering Heights, tra richiami a Cime Tempestose e melodie barocche, abbiamo un artista sensibile e versatile come pochi (Andrea Porcu) (Translation)
Fine Books and Collections reviews the novel The Madwoman Upstairs by Catherine Lowell.
It can be no easy task to re-hash Brontë lore--whether in fiction or non-fiction--and yet, occasionally a reader finds reason to rejoice. Catherine Lowell’s debut novel, The Madwoman Upstairs (Touchstone, $25.99), is utterly absorbing, a lighthearted read that appeals to those of us who unwind with TV adaptations of Victorian novels (almost any will do) and who might be still be sobbing this morning over the demise of Downton Abbey.
Twenty-year-old American Samantha Whipple is the last of the Brontë line and thus the center of much unwanted public scrutiny. The world seems to believe that Samantha’s family is hiding a hoard of Brontë treasures. Samantha’s enigmatic father--who home-schooled her, primarily in literature--died young, but not before planting clues to Samantha’s “inheritance.” She sets off to attend Oxford University, where she feels quite lonely, until her father’s annotated copies of Brontë novels (believed to have burned in a house fire years before) begin appearing in her room.
Lowell’s plot moves along at a brisk pace, introducing characters who upstage Whipple, the men in particular. Her father, Tristan, is either a genius or a loon; her professor, James Orville, is a taskmaster we warm to; and her adversary, Sir John, has a dark side that borrows a bit from A.S. Byatt’s unscrupulous collector Mortimer Cropper in Possession. Sir John is on the hunt for the Brontë relics--a brooch, a quill, a manuscript, items that will give him a “deeper understand of their novels, of course.” (He surely would have enjoyed The Brontë Cabinet--having written a similar book about Brontë objects.)    
There’s loads of literary banter and a smidge of romance--a lark that can keep one awake well past her bedtime, and The Madwoman Upstairs does just that. (Rebecca Rego Barry)
On Salon, writer Danielle Dutton speaks about her childhood ambition:
My entire girlhood I wanted to be an actress, but I think really I wanted to be part of a cast. Or maybe I just wanted to be the characters I loved. I wanted to be Jane Eyre. Or Antigone. Today I’m tired and cold, so I would like to be Lady Mary and live at Downton Abbey and have Anna come and warm my nightgown before the fire. (Teddy Wayne)
Speaking of Downton Abbey, here's how it is described by Decider:
You had the upstairs/downstairs tension from Upstairs, Downstairs, the family drama of The Forsyte Saga, and heaping helpings of Trollope, Austen, Brontë, Dickens, and Gaskell dashed in when appropriate. (Meghan O'Keefe)
News Gazette recommends Wuthering Heights 1939:
Every screen romance dictates that a bit of tragedy dog the couple in question, and there's certainly no shortage of that in William Wyler's adaptation of Emily Brontë's classic novel. Though reluctant to embrace the Hollywood lifestyle, Laurence Olivier came to the U.S. to be near his fiance, Vivien Leigh, who was filming "Gone with the Wind." The result was the first of his many classic screen performances as the doomed Heathcliff, whose obsession with the mercurial Cathy (Merle Oberon, never more luminous) would lead to their mutual destruction. Wyler's version only covers half of the novel, but it succeeds in successfully delivering Brontë's theme of eternal love literally transcending earthly limits. While various accounts have been recorded stating that Olivier and Oberon did not get along, you'd never know it from the on-screen chemistry they create. Each brings a bit of madness to their performance that underscores the fanatical nature of their actions, making the film's climax all the more tragic and moving. Made in 1939, this unforgettable love story gave credence to that notion that this was Hollywood's greatest year. (Chuck Koplinski)
That Fable Place posts about Wuthering Heights. Nick Holland, the human behind the wonderful AnneBrontë.org, is proud to announce the release of his Anne Brontë biography. We wish him all the best!

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