Tempestuous Extrovert

The week of the fiftieth anniversary of the release of the album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles we have found a Brontë-Beatle connection in a Washington Post article:

Girls may have created Beatlemania, but male writers have always dominated journalism and scholarship about the Beatles. I know of no full-length book written by a woman that offers a serious treatment of Beatles songs. No female authors appear on any of the top-10 listings of essential books about the Beatles, except one perverse listing that includes “Daddy Come Home,” by Pauline Lennon, the (very young) second wife of John’s father, Freddy. This makes about as much sense as listing Jewelle St. James’s “John Lennon and the Brontë Connection,” a book that argues Lennon is the reincarnation of Branwell Bronte, the troubled brother of Emily and Charlotte. If any book by a wife belongs on these lists, it’s Cynthia Lennon’s “John,” a heartfelt but bittersweet account about loving a musical icon. (Sibbie O'Sullivan)

The Herald interviews the historian, author and television presenter, Lucy Worsley:

Talking to her is not a monologue. It’s a conversation. “What’s your opinion of Jane Austen?” she asks me almost as soon as we sit down. “Honestly? I’d be on team Brontë,” I tell her. “Ah, you’re a wild, tempestuous extrovert,” she says. In my dreams, Lucy. (Teddy Jamieson)

More Austen things. 9colonne presents a new Austen book, Alla ricerca di Mr Darcy by Giovanna Pezzuoli:

Giovanna Pezzuoli, con penna lieve e divertita, si interroga anche sul perché sia proprio Mr Darcy il personaggio maschile di Jane Austen di gran lunga preferito, mettendolo a confronto con gli altri usciti dalla penna della scrittrice – e con l’altro modello che ha spopolato dall’Ottocento in poi: il romantico, problematico, iroso, imperfetto Mr Rochester di Jane Eyre (Charlotte Brontë), capostipite della tradizione “io ti salverò”, vale a dire di quella “trappola” sentimentale per cui generazioni di donne si sono immolate sull’altare dell’amore. (Translation) 

Extra Newsfeed takes a look at Generation X in the Trump age:

To be Gen X in the Trumpian age means to look at the canon of literature and music we used to brandish, and to realise just how racist and sexist and homophobic it is, and always was. Our collections of paperback Penguin Classics, including the work of Jane Austen, Charles Dickens, Emily Brontë and William Shakespeare now look less like a recipe for edification and more like a jukebox playing only White People’s Greatest Hits. (Christopher May)

The Times on Jose Mourinho's season:

Now, we know Southampton were robbed in the League Cup via the sort of non-offside goal that would have had Mourinho in full conspiracy mode. And yes, the team finished lower in the league than last year, worse even than Arsenal who, Arsenal fans will tell you, are far worse than last year. On the other hand, they lost the same amount of games as Chelsea, had a better defence and beat both Chelsea and Spurs. People have bemoaned the style but Mourinho was never a stylist and remains more likely to write a Haynes manual than, say, Jane Eyre.  (Rick Broadbent)

Medium reviews Anne with an E:

It’s clear that L.M. Montgomery’s equal-parts whimsy and humor point of view is being deliberately cast aside and replaced with the darker, more brooding lens of Charlotte’s Brontë’s gothic romance. (Rachel Darnall)

El Ciudadano (Chile) interviews the writer Mariana Enríquez:

En ese mismo sentido, la literatura escrita por mujeres siempre suele estar asociada al lugar común de “la mirada femenina”. (...) ¿Cómo convivís con ese esteriotipo que se le implanta a la literatura hecha por autoras mujeres? (Gustavo Yuste)
 No convivo. Me malhumora y me irrita. No creo que exista un ente que pueda ser llamado mirada femenina. Además tradicionalmente las mujeres escribieron horror y gótico: Mary Shelley, Alejandra Pizarnik, Daphne Du Maurier, Flannery O’ Conjor, Shirley Jackson, Emily Brönte (sic)… Y Emily Brönte, por ejemplo, escribió a uno de los “héroes” hombres más importantes de la literatura, Heathcliff. Me parece además una especie de insulto a la imaginación. ¿Acaso los hombres no tienen una mirada femenina? ¿Cómo hacen para escribir mujeres, si no? Es como si fuera exclusivo de un sexo. Un escritor, hombre o mujer, puede escribir sobre cualquier cosa y desde cualquier mirada. (Translation)

L'Ape Musicale reviews the recently-released recording of the Pietro Mascagni opera, Guglielmo Ratcliffe:

Un allucinato intreccio di destini e deliri, amori impossibili e distruttivi, matrimoni rassicuranti e infelici che si tramandano e rispecchiano dai padri ai figli, come sarà, un quarto di secolo dopo il dramma di Heine, in Cime tempestose, che sviluppa, però, ben altro respiro evocativo nell’articolare personaggi, rapporti e strutture narrative. (Roberta Pedrotti) (Translation)

Broadway World and Kent News present the June performances of the Jane Eyre UK National Tour in Canterbury and South Wales Argus the Cardiff ones. The Wrap announces that on June 16, Jane Eyre 2011 is leaving Netflix.