Changing the Rules

The Argus announces one of the panels at the upcoming Small Wonder Festival at Charleston:

Heathcliff, the brooding anti-hero of Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights, has gone down in history as the epitome of romantic love – thanks in part to cinema and theatre .
Yet that is so far from what his creator intended, and is in fact a misreading of the book, as the foreword by author Kate Mosse to a new collection of short stories, explains.
I am Heathcliff, the opening event at this year’s Small Wonder festival, dissects the influence Heathcliff and Brontë’s novel has had on literature. This collection of specially commissioned stories inspired by Wuthering Heights and curated by Kate Mosse celebrates the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth. It is a collection which takes a long hard look at the reality which was Heathcliff through a range of mostly contemporary stories.
Kate Mosse, author of six novels including the multi-million selling Languedoc trilogy, in her foreword to the collection, describes how her own reading of Heathcliff through the decades has changed her perception of him and his relationship with Cathy. From what began as a romantic love story – albeit one of violence and anger – she sees now the monumental nature of the writing .
That it is no domestic story of romance but is about the nature of life, love and the universe.
“Not only did she change the rules of what was acceptable for a woman to write,” Mosse says, “ but there is a total absence of any explicit condemnation of Heathcliff’s conduct.”
Two contributors to the collection of stories, Louise Doughty and Juno Dawson, will read from their work and discuss how the anthology came about.
Louise Doughty, author of eight novels including the number one bestseller Apple Tree Yard, sets her story Terminus in a bleak and wintery Brighton where Maria has fled from a violent partner.
The comparisons with Heathcliff are there of course, but when her partner Matthew tracks Maria down, I wondered whether she had actually wanted to be found.
“No” says Louise “She’s terrified of Matthew and when he finds her she feels an overwhelming sense of inevitability. She is so broken down by circumstance that it is hard for her to resist.”
Did Maria feel somehow responsible for the way Matthew had treated her? I ask.
“A lot of people in difficult relationships get into the habit of self blame and believe they can redeem a difficult man if they love him enough,” she says.
And what of the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy? I wonder.
“She was every bit as wild as he was, “ she says. “Emily Brontë is quite clear on that.”
And like Kate Mosse she believes that to romanticise their love is a misreading of the book.
To hear more about the enigma of Heathcliff, book a ticket for this event through Charleston.org.uk/smallwonder or telephone 01323 815150. 

Books about the ocean on Star2:

Wide Sargasso Sea – Jean Rhys (1966)
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë is one of my favourite Gothic novels, and Rhys’ counterpoint to it is brilliant, telling the story of Mr Rochester’s marriage from the POV of his mad wife locked up in the attic. Rhys brings an anti-colonial and feminist lens to Jane Eyre, while telling a story that is dark, complex and tragic. (Sharmilla Ganesan)

Rodrigo Fresán on Página 12 (Argentina) replies to a recent article by Alex Clark, Why have novelists stopped making things up?:

Semanas atrás, en un artículo en The Guardian, Alan (sic) Clark se preguntaba ya desde el titular “¿Por qué los novelistas han dejado de inventar cosas?” Y, a continuación, muchas líneas para intentar responder paseándose por los ejemplos claros de aquello que ahora se conoce como Auto-Ficción o Literatura del Yo. Y que, por prepotencia de lo supuestamente novedoso, opta por ignorar antecedentes clarísimos como —por quedarnos sólo en lo anglosajón— los de Kurt Vonnegut, Philip Roth, Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac & Co., Henry Roth, Thomas Wolfe, Jean Rhys, Marcel Proust para no irse demasiado lejos rumbo a las hermanas Brontë, Charles Dickens y buena parte de la novelística del siglo XIX, para concentrarse en el aquí nomás y en el ahora mismo. (Translation)

Okezone (in Malay) recommends romantic novels:

Jane Eyre.  Novel karya Charlotte Brontë ini mengisahkan tentang seorang anak yatim piatu yang jatuh cinta dengan gurunya sendiri. Para pembaca akan dibuat penasaran tentang rahasia yang disembunyikan di Thornfield Hall, dan apa yang dilakukan Jane saat ia mengungkap masa lalu Rochester yang kelam. (Dimas Andhika Fikri) (Translation)

Adevarul (Romania) has a quiz with a Brontë question; a local Brontëite on the Parry Sound North Star.