A C+ on not reading Charlotte Brontë

The Yorkshire Post advances what to expect of this year's 'Welcome to Yorkshire’s by-now traditional garden at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show' and reminds us of the fact that,

Other themes over the years have included York Minster’s East Window, the Yorkshire coastline and the Brontës. (Paul Robinson)

Big Issue North interviews comic writer Samantha Irby.

You take a candid and darkly comic approach to writing about physical and mental health, bereavement and other serious issues. Is it important to be able to write in this way without worrying about causing offence? I try to be sensitive to other people’s experiences while also being true to my own, and I think if I’m being honest about my experiences I can’t imagine why that would be offensive to another person. Someone is always going to be offended so matter what you do, so as long as I’m not intentionally writing something to harm another person or jokes that punch down I really can’t worry about it or I’d never write anything ever.
Aren’t people out there writing racist manifestos and Twilight fanfic? If you don’t like graphic sex jokes and toilet humour then my books aren’t for you, full stop. It’s not like it’s the news or whatever! No one is forcing my cat essays full of swearwords on small children in kindergarten! Sophomore year of high school I didn’t want to read Jane Eyre because it seemed like a snoozapalooza so I didn’t. I’m sure Charlotte Brontë was crushed. Oh wait, she’s dead but also who cares what I think? The world continued to turn, and I got a C+ in English that semester. If you don’t like what I do, don’t read it. It’s that easy. (Antonia Charlesworth)

The Michigan Daily discusses the TV show You and its depiction of reading.

“You”’s approach seems to me like, and hopefully is, a commentary upon this way of looking at reading and writing, holding Joe and Beck alike under criticism. Yet it is still off-putting, because the portrayal of the literary world in “You” is so instantly recognizable as the dreamy world of reading and writing that many people often incorrectly picture. The classicist view of literature is so often confined to the sorts of masterpieces Joe and Beck so often reference, like “Wuthering Heights.” When many people picture curling up with a book for fun, they picture the same leatherbound, beautiful, carefully maintained hardbacks that Joe keeps stored up in the glass prison below his bookstore. These — Joe preaches repeatedly to Beck and to the audience — are classics; they are works by the masters, some of the best pieces of art humanity has ever produced. There’s a reason the image of the Mooney’s bookstore resonates with us: We’ve seen it before, time and time again.
But the show skims past some of the problems with this romantic view of literature. The “classics” don’t include everybody; in fact, they have traditionally been extremely exclusive. I would argue that some of the most exciting, dynamic and interesting things that have ever happened in the world of literature are happening right now. We’re so lucky to live in an era when so many literary boundaries are being pushed in terms of subject matter, genre and style. We’re lucky to live in a time when the exclusive past of the literary canon is finally being recognized with, and the voices of queer writers, writers of color, female writers, indigenous writers and more writers from traditionally marginalized communities are starting to be amplified. “You”’s treatment of the literary community — via, again, the purposefully distasteful characters of Joe and Beck — makes no mention of this, choosing instead to elevate the names of long-dead writers whose voices have been glorified plenty enough anyway. (Laura Dzubay)

The Catalan edition of El País (Spain) refers to Elizabeth Gaskell's Life of Charlotte Brontë.

Així se’ns ha acudit arran de la lectura del llibre d’Elizabeth Gaskell, Vida de Charlotte Brontë (traducció d’Ángela Pérez, Barcelona, Alba, 2016), que molts crítics anglesos consideren la millor biografia escrita en anglès després de la que Boswell va escriure sobre Samuel Johnson (Barcelona, Acantilado, 2007). Tant de l’una com de l’altra pot dir-se això que hem afirmat als paràgrafs precedents. Gaskell, ella mateixa una enorme novel·lista, va rebre l’encàrrec de redactar una biografia de la més gran de les germanes Brontë, i va escriure aquest llibre, en què és molt fàcil que el lector —llevat que sigui un gran coneixedor de l’època victoriana— no distingeixi amb tota claredat si es tracta d’una biografia o d’una novel·la. Això passa amb quasi totes les biografies del segle XIX, amb excepcions tan òbvies, per exemple, com les Converses amb Goethe, a càrrec del seu secretari Eckermann, que ja es presenten, objectivament, com una recopilació de converses (tot i això, el llibre és ple de ficcions). Si no és en casos com aquest, malgrat que una biografia com aquesta de Carlota Brontë contingui una llarga sèrie de cartes de la biografiada i moltes opinions seves sobre escriptors del seu temps (Thackeray, George Sand, Balzac, les seves germanes), el lector tan aviat pot decantar-se per la idea que està llegint història —la petita història d’una sola persona, la seva obra i el seu context— com una “història” en el sentit narratiu.
Almenys en el gènere de la novel·la de tall realista, tan versemblant i tan honorable pot ser la vida dels éssers anònims com la vida d’una d’aquelles persones que, per mèrits o demèrits a la seva vida, ha entrat en l’altre registre, el del gènere biogràfic. (Jordi Llovet) (Translation)

AnneBrontë.org has written a post 'In Loving Remembrance Of Tabby Aykroyd'.