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Friday, December 21, 2018

Friday, December 21, 2018 12:01 pm by Cristina in , , , , , , , ,    No comments
The worldwide premiere of The Unthanks' take on Emily Brontë's poetry will take place tonight in Leeds. The York Press has an article about it.
The Unthanks selected the Emily Brontë poems that spoke to them most, such as Shall Earth No More Inspire Thee, High Waving Heather, Lines (The Soft Unclouded Blue Of Earth) and The Night Is Darkening Round Me.
"Setting Emily's poems to music feels like a departure for us because lots of our projects have a political bent with a working-class orientation, though we broke that mould to an extent with our Molly Drake project, when it was good to illustrate that the northern left-wing manifesto isn't exclusively what we're interested in. We're more interested in humanity full stop," says Adrian.
"Emily Brontë is so singular and her work is so unique that she's absolutely fascinating, and had we been bigger Brontë fans at the start, we would have been petrified at the task in hand, so it helped that we came it at afresh. I read Wuthering Heights as background and then there were hundreds of poems to choose from.
"We're known for not shying away from dark material, and Emily is remorselessly dark; the lack of moral compass she offers is fantastically brave and refreshing." (Charles Hutchinson)
Still locally, Leeds List recommends '10 Breathtaking Winter Walks in Yorkshire', such as
The Haworth Circular
Think of the name Brontë and it conjures up images of wild, wintery countryside beaten by whirling winds. So what better time of year to explore Haworth than in winter? The area is now known as Brontë Country as it inspired much of the family’s work, and you can see some of its biggest landmarks on this 7-mile route.
Start at St Michael & All Angels Church and pick up The Brontë Way, which leads you through Penistone Hill Country Park. Along the way, you’ll pass flowing becks and crisp moorland on your way to the Brontë Waterfall. Once you’ve taken in the sights, walk across to Top Withens, a ruined farmhouse which acted as the inspiration for Wuthering Heights, and over to Lower Laithe Reservoir on the path back into Haworth. Take the chance to pop into the Haworth Steam Brewing Co. bar before you leave the village.
The walk starts at St Michael & All Angels Church, Haworth, West Yorkshire, BD22 0HB, OS Reference – SE 00925 37050. (Joseph Sheerin)
KWBU reviews Reader, I Married Him, edited by Tracy Chevalier and published in 2016.
Picking favorites for this review is almost impossible.  While the stories vary on the treatment, they all possess wonderful imaginations.  A case in point is “Grace Poole: Her Testimony” by Helen Dunmore.  She writes, “Reader, I married him.  Those are her words for sure.  She would have him at the time and place she chose, with every dish on the table to her appetite. // She came in meek and mild, but I knew her at first glance.  There she sat in her low chair at a decent distance from the fire, buttering up Mrs. Fairfax as if the old lady were a plate of parsnips.  She didn’t see me, but I saw her.  You don’t live the life I lived without learning to move so quiet that there is never a stir to frighten anyone. // Jane Eyre.  You couldn’t touch her.  Nothing could bring a flush of color to that pale cheek.  What kind of a pallor was it, you ask?  A snowdrop pushing its way out of the bare earth, as green as it was white: that would be a comparison she liked.  But I would say: sheets.  Blank sheets. Paper, or else a bed that no one had ever lain in or ever wood” (31).  Grace Poole was a servant of Rochester who was charged with taking care of Bertha, the iconic “mad women in the attic.”
Joanna Briscoe writes in “To Hold,” “Mary and I stole conversations between lessons, between days and nights, every moment with her treasured, even the times when we clashed and tangled and cried, then tried so hard to start afresh.  But how could you love a woman as I loved her?  She lined my existence because she lived inside me, and at night as Robert slept, there were the colors of her, the fragrance, the smooth shell of skin behind her ear.  When we could escape town, no one else on the moors on wet days, she walked with me in all the winds, which had names, and by the stream sources, among the curlews, the peregrine nests.  She showed me the sandstone and the thorns and waterfalls: all the pretty places where the toadstools grew in dark secret; the drowning ponds, sphagnum, fairy tale growth in tree shadows” (61).  This story has an ethereal bent that brings to mind the moors the Brontë sisters loved so dearly.
If I had the time and space, I would toss pages about to give a sample of each story.  Tracy Chevalier in Reader, I married Him has assembled a marvelous collection of stories that reflect on the wealth of the literature of the 19th century.  It is a collection every avid reader and admirer of the Brontë’s should have a permanent copy close at hand.  5 Stars for each of these women. (Jim McKeown)
Memphis Flyer reviews Edward Carey’s Little.
Carey adds just the right amount of gothic seasoning to his tale. One can feel a bit of Brontë behind his descriptions of the various households and plain and fancy folk whom our protagonist finds herself among. (Corey Mesler)
La Nación (Argentina) considers Laura Ramos's book on the Brontës, Infernales, a must read of 2018.
Escrita a lo largo de casi diez años, en los que la autora viajó a Europa para consultar fuentes y transitar las diversas "rutas Brontë", Infernales es una biografía que narra de manera novelesca las vidas de los cuatro hermanos aunados en comunidad creativa. Más allá de la mitología romántica, en parte auspiciada por las tres hermanas en cartas, testimonios y relatos, Ramos revaloriza al cuarto personaje del clan: Branwell, modelo de los atormentados antihéroes de Jane Eyre y Cumbres borrascosas. Una historia de tres vampiras del siglo XIX (y su víctima) contada por una escritora argentina. (Daniel Gigena) (Translation)
Aftonbladet (Sweden) joins in the trend of listing famous 'nannies', albeit obviously with a Swedish touch.
Tänk bara på Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontës föräldralösa prästdotter i romanen från 1847. Visst tycks mr Rochester på Thornfield Hall älskansvärd, han till och med friar till sin barnflicka, men sedan visar det ju sig att han håller en galen kvinna inspärrad på vinden, en kvinna som dessutom råkar vara hans hustru. (Petter Lindgren) (Translation)
The Stage looks back on 2018 in terms of dance shows.
Revivals of Cathy Marston’s Jane Eyre for Northern Ballet and Will Tuckett’s Elizabeth at the Royal Ballet were welcome and Liam Scarlett’s contributions to Petipa’s classic Swan Lake proved subtly enhancing. (Neil Norman)
The East Hampton Star mentions actress Zelah Clarke (Jane Eyre 1983) and wonders,
the mercurial actress Zelah Clarke (the best Jane Eyre?) (Frank Fedi)
The Guardian discusses Woody Allen's 'alleged affair with 17-year-old Christina Engelhardt'.
Literature and films are littered with May-December liaisons. Jane Eyre was 18 when she fell for Mr Rochester (about double her age) and Rebecca was in her early 20s when she married a widower in his 40s. (Sofka Zinovieff)
Gulf Times tells the terrible story of a young Rohingya refugee girl who is shown in a picture holding 'a copy of the novel Jane Eyre, which she says is her new favourite book'. ArtFund shows Charlotte Brontë's drawing of Zenobia Marchioness Ellrington and other Brontë art they have helped acquire the Brontë Society. Tonight on RAI Premium (Italy), Cime Tempestose 2004

Finally, we would like to join the Brontë Society in this:

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