Underestimating Comics

The Sunday Times goes tabloid publishing this news (?) item reporting that Lily Cole backs a Wuthering Heights comic adaptation for children and a 'professor of education' (honouring his Matt-Groening-like name) maintains that nine-year-olds don't need these (beware, pedantic elitism ahead)  'dumbed down' versions because they can enjoy the richness of the originals by themselves.

The supermodel Lily Cole has backed a comic strip version of Emily Brontë’s classic novel Wuthering Heights as a way to persuade a new generation of children to love the gothic tale of a passionate but doomed love affair.
Cole — whose appointment as “creative partner” by the Brontë Society in events to mark the bicentenary of Emily’s birth caused a scholarly row earlier this year — is to talk about the novelist at the Barnes children’s literature festival in London next month.
“Emily Brontë is an inspiration for me because of her novel, Wuthering Heights. I read it when I was at school . . . it created an alternative reality,” Cole has said. She has read the book “multiple times”.
As well as having the original text when she appears at the festival next month, Cole has asked the organisers to make available a “graphic novel” of the book, published by Classical Comics, for an event aimed at children aged nine and over.
This version is on sale in the Brontë Parsonage museum shop, run by the Brontë Society, which is where Cole spotted it. (...)
This weekend some experts reacted with disdain, claiming that such books dumbed down the classics.
Alan Smithers, professor of education at Buckingham University, said: “I do think it is underestimating children to have this version of Wuthering Heights on offer at a literature festival. Many nine-year-olds will be able to read the real thing with great pleasure.” (Sian Griffiths)

Paraphrasing Cecilia Lisbon, 'obviously, professor, you've never been a nine-year-old child'. Furthermore, it is really depressing that in some places of academia this stultified looking down to 'minor' arts like cinema or... God forbid it... comics still persists.

The Sunday Herald lists page-turner novels:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë
When, in 1847, the publisher George Smith received the manuscript of Jane Eyre,m he began to read it on a Sunday morning, and described later, "The story quickly took me captive. Before twelve o'clock my horse came to the door but I could not put the book down… before I went to bed that night I had finished reading." Brontë’s romantic tale brought together a crucible of gothic elements – crumbling house, orphaned governess and mysterious Byronic hero. Angela Carter once wrote “of all the great novels in the world, Jane Eyre veers the closest towards trash.” (Vicky Allan)

The Guardian interviews Mira Robertson, author of The Unexpected Education of Emily Dean

What you were reading while you wrote it: The novel’s protagonist, Emily Dean, is desperate to read Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, as she’s heard from her arch nemesis at school tha march, a second-hand Christmas present from her father. I reread both books while writing the novel and despite Emily’s view, was awed once again by George Eliot’s masterpiece. I loved Jane Eyre too! t Mr Rochester is the most romantic hero ever. But instead, she’s stuck with George Eliot’s Middlemarch, a second-hand Christmas present from her father. I reread both books while writing the novel and despite Emily’s view, was awed once again by George Eliot’s masterpiece. I loved Jane Eyre too!

Also in The Guardian, a review of the film Beast:

[Jessie] Buckley is on phosphorescent form as flame-haired islander Moll, a twentysomething misfit who is still firmly under the thumb of her domineering mother. While her siblings have long since spread their wings, Moll remains trapped within the family home, helping to care for her ageing father, rigidly controlled by her choir-mistress mum, Hilary (Geraldine James). When Moll meets gun-toting woodsman Pascal (Flynn), his Heathcliff-like charms awaken passionate responses, encouraging Moll to break away from her suffocating home life. (Mark Kermode)

The Daily Mail does a Holland boat tour:

Sail on one of Riviera’s new all-suite ships, the five-star Emily Brontë, which offers stylish interiors and spacious cabins all with river views. The ship carries just 169 passengers. (Monty Don)

Cassino Informa (Italy) on writers' rooms:

Questo è il tavolo delle Sorelle Brontë, ed una delle stanze del Brontë Parsonage Museum, la casa (oggi un museo) dove le sorelle Bronte vissero tra il 1820 ed il 1860. Haworth è un paesino della contea inglese del West Yorkshire, un luogo fuori dal tempo e dallo spazio dove ci si dimentica di stare nel 2018 ma si ha la sensazione di vivere nel 1800 e respirare le atmosfere che ispirarono Jane Eyre e Cime Tempestose. (Martina Salvatore) (Translation)

Vanity Fair (Italy) interviews Margaret Atwood:

Caterina Soffici: Perché è importante un narratore al femminile?
M.A.: «Il racconto dell’ancella è narrato da una donna, non una cosa così usuale quando uscì. Le donne sono poco più della metà della razza umana: sarebbe davvero molto strano se non ci fossero narratori femminili. Infatti, quando il romanzo si sviluppa tra la fine del Settecento e l’Ottocento, man mano che le lettrici aumentavano, anche i narratori femminili diventavano comuni, benché i romanzi fossero scritti per lo più da uomini: pensiamo ad Anna Karenina o Madame Bovary. Alcuni dei personaggi femminili più longevi, come Jane Eyre, sono però stati scritti da donne. E anche molti protagonisti delle fiabe sono donne. A volte mi piacerebbe scoprire come sarebbe una storia se cambiassimo il genere». (Translation)

Lonesome Reader reviews Wuthering Heights. Camryn Daytona posts about the Jane Eyre Manga adaptation. The Brussels Brontë Blog continues mapping Brussels in the Brontës' times. Now cultural places.