Another announcement from the Brontë Parsonage Museum for today:
School Library Journal reviews Aline Brosh McKenna's
Jane.
Gr 10 Up –This present-day graphic novel adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre draws on the original story with some surprising twists. Orphan Jane has grown up in a New England town under the not-so-watchful eye of her relatives and has earned enough money for art school in New York City. Rochester, a mysterious businessman, hires Jane, now a college freshman, to take care of his precocious daughter. Jane becomes a surrogate mother to Adele and catches the eye of her absent father and Mason, Rochester’s business partner and Adele’s uncle. As the heroine unravels the mystery behind Rochester’s wife’s death, she falls in love with her boss and the glamorous life that he can afford her while neglecting her studies. She quickly gets embroiled in the dangerous dealings and power struggles of the two men. Screenwriter Brosh McKenna (Devil Wears Prada, Crazy Ex-Girlfriend) injects the narrative with intrigue and romance, updating this story for modern audiences while maintaining elements from the source material (the protagonist’s naiveté, Rochester’s aloofness). The dynamic art changes from sketchy blues and whites (for scenes of the past) to bright yellows and reds (during Jane’s first weeks in New York City) and dark blues and purples (menacing and brooding panels involving Rochester), establishing a gothic mood. The variation in panels becomes more comic book–like as the story progresses, especially in the final action-packed scenes. VERDICT: This brilliant homage to the classic will enamor fans of the original and intrigue newcomers. A strong choice for graphic novel collections. (Shelley M. Diaz)
Indy Week reviews the play
The Moors, giving it 4 stars out of 4.
Silverman's loving but decidedly left-handed tribute to the worlds created by Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë threads biographical and plot devices from their major novels into a toothsome critique of Gothic romance. The sudden arrival of governess Emily (a confident Jessica Flemming) to an ill-kept mansion on the desolate British lowlands hardly interrupts the spinster Agatha (a steely Jessica Hudson) in her imperious recital of the shortcomings of her younger sister, Huldey (a feverish Tamara Kissane, ridiculously coiffed and costumed by Sarah McCabe), the family retainer (a sullen Sarah Koop), and a melancholy mastiff (Nick Popio).
After admonishing Emily that "the moors are a savage place," Agatha admits to authoring the increasingly romantic mash notes—and solicitation of employment—supposedly written by her brother, Branwell, that lured Emily to this isolated place. Agatha unapologetically asserts that she cannot stand weakness in herself and will not abide it in others.
"There is no weakness in the moors," she says. "When I come out here, I am surrounded by merciless strength." Those revelations dampen neither Emily's ardor nor Agatha's clearly dominating machinations. The rub, however, is in how those acts play out with Huldey and the servant of the house, characters with dreams of their own that may not be compatible with Agatha's.
Kissane's Huldey, after being emotionally neglected for decades, has retreated into an imagined world where fame as a writer makes hers the name on everyone's lips. When she's unable to interest anyone in the pages of her supposedly scandalous diary, she becomes even more ravenous for the attentions and affection Emily is giving Agatha. In The Moors, dreams long denied find their full expression to the detriment of all concerned, in a comic send-up of classic melodrama with a cautionary barb at the end. (Byron Woods)
The News & Observer gives 5 reasons to see it, one of which is
1. Imagine “Jane Eyre” filtered through Mel Brooks crossed with “Wuthering Heights” conceived by John Waters and you’ll have some idea of the script’s naughty humor and bizarre spookiness. (Roy C. Dicks)
According to
The Week (India),
Teenage English language readers have a wide range of romance literature to choose from: Pride and Prejudice, Wuthering Heights, Regency Buck, Madame Bovary, Gone With the Wind, The Portrait of a Lady, and so on. (Sneha Bhura)
A columnist from
Chiapas Paralelo (Mexico) writes about reading
Wuthering Heights and then watching Andrea Arnold's take on it.
Escribí hace mucho en alguna Casa de citas que durante años tuve la idea de que Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brönte [sic], era nomás una novela de amor. El prejuicio me había hecho no leerla, hasta que, en una entrevista, mi admirado António Lobo Antunes dijo que era su novela favorita y la leí. Es maravillosa, claro.
Hace no tanto supe de una nueva versión en cine, la hallé y aunque traté de aguantar para ver en qué acababan aquellas tomas locas que a veces se desenfocaban, que se iban persiguiendo una mariposa, que sólo tomaban los ruidos naturales y mostraban un paisaje agreste, un camino de lodo… dejé la peli a la mitad.
Por recomendación de un amigo vi Dulzura americana (American Honey, 2016), de Andrea Arnold. La cámara también, de pronto, se iba a un detalle que no tenía que ver con la trama y se tomaba su tiempo para mostrar algo; la cinta tiene muchos silencios, no es explicativa ni convencional. Dura casi tres horas, pero me atrapó su poética, su sutileza, su punto de vista alejado de la comercialidad, de la superficialidad, del querer dejar a todos contentos. Cuando leí críticas sobre la cinta me enteré que había ganado varios premios (el de Cannes, por ejemplo) y descubrí que la directora era la misma de aquella Cumbres borrascosas (Wuthering Heights, 2011) que había dejado en suspenso.
La vi de nuevo, ahora con un conocimiento mayor sobre esta cineasta inglesa y quedé atrapado otra vez por su modo particular de narrar con imágenes. No sé qué pensará quien no haya leído la novela, pero si ya la ha leído la lectura en cine de Andrea tal vez lo desconcierte porque no busca ilustrar la anécdota ni que se vea “bonito”, y se toma todas las libertades creativas para contar la historia de este amor desgraciado (Heathcliff, por ejemplo, es negro).
Me gustan estas mujeres (Brönte [sic] y Arnold) y me gusta que se hayan encontrado en la inmortalidad que tiene el amor que nunca puede volverse realidad, que nunca se besa los labios. (Héctor Cortés Mandujano) (Translation)
Narrative First analyses
Jane Eyre.
The Brontë Babe posts about Charlotte's piece of juvenilia,
The Poetaster.
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