The Brontës as Miners or Plumbers

Tomorrow is Father's Day in several countries and The Telegraph & Argus has an article on the Father of the Brontës:

As Father’s Day approaches, spare a thought for the Rev Patrick Brontë.
By the time of his death, aged 84, in June, 1861 he had outlived all his family - his wife, Maria, by 40 years and all six of their children. How must he have felt, rattling around draughty Haworth parsonage in old age, with failing eyesight and no children to take care of him, or grandchildren at his knee.
“I have lived long enough to bury a beloved wife, and six children - all that I had," Patrick told the Bishop of Ripon in 1855."I greatly enjoyed their conversation and company, and many of them were well-fitted to being companions to the wisest and best.”
Patrick had come a long way from his humble roots in Ireland. The oldest of 10 children born to a County Down farmer, he went from rural poverty to the well respected curacy of St Michael and All Angels Church in Haworth. Prior to that Patrick Brunty, later changing his name to Brontë, served several apprenticeships and worked as a teacher before moving to England to study theology at Cambridge. (...)
Often overlooked in favour of his famous offspring, Patrick Brontë is being celebrated at the Brontë Parsonage Museum - 200 years after he was invited to take up the role of Perpetual Curate in Haworth - with a year-long programme of events and an exhibition. Patrick Brontë: In Sickness and in Health explains more about the man who, as a minister, was expected to know how to help his parishioners who couldn’t afford medical treatment. For the first time his medical textbooks, filled with his notes, will be collectively on display, giving a fascinating insight into his determination to help the sick, even as he lost his own family. Also on display is a collection of the Brontë family’s spectacles and a handkerchief, believed to have been used by Anne Brontë,spotted with blood from her infected lungs.
Tomorrow sees a special Father's Day deal for visitors to take a glimpse into what Patrick was like as a father and how he encouraged his children to write. Visiting fathers at the Parsonage Museum accompanied by their children, young or old, are eligible to a special ticket price of £5 and a 10per cent discount in the museum shop. (Emma Clayton)

Dance Magazine has a discussion about Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre ballet as performed in New York:

Story ballets that debut during American Ballet Theatre's spring season at the Metropolitan Opera House are always the subject of much curiosity—and, sometimes, much debate. Cathy Marston's Jane Eyre was no different. The ballet follows the eponymous heroine of Charlotte Brönte's novel as she grows from a willful orphan to a self-possessed governess, charting her romance with the haughty Mr. Rochester and the social forces that threaten to tear them apart.
While the ballet was warmly received in the UK when Northern Ballet premiered it in 2016, its reception from New York City–based critics has been far less welcoming. A group of editors from Dance Magazine and two of our sister publications, Dance Spirit and Pointe, sat down to discuss our own reactions: (Read more)

Clearly, Jeremy Clarkson is not a Brontë fan... although he probably likes them a bit more than Jane Austen or Daphne du Maurier as we read in The Sun:

As a rule, I’m not a fan of books written by female authors. I wish Jane ­Austen had been strangled by her umbilical cord, and that the Brontë sisters had all become miners or plumbers.
Oh, and then there are all those books by Daphne Du Maurier. I’d rather read the instructions on the back of a sick bag.
More recently, we’ve had EL James who wrote the dreary Fifty Shades Of Grey, and JK Rowling who came up with the completely unfathomable Harry Potter nonsense.

This is an article about a Russian painter published in The Statesman (India). A fine example of being completely wrong and misleading... WTF journalism at its best:

What exactly inspires an artist or a writer to depict a particular subject in their work? Emily Bronte’s only book, Wuthering Heights, published in 1847, shocked Victorian England with its portrayal of unbridled passions. It sold poorly, possibly due to the fact that people, at the time, thought writing narratives by women was not at all recommended. The book was almost forgotten and inexplicably, subsequent to Brontë’s demise, it was rediscovered. It is now considered one of English literature’s masterpieces. (Deepak Rikhye) 

A letter to the New York Times complaining about James Ellroy's opinion on Cormac McCarthy (or William Faulkner for that matter) catches our attention:

To the Editor:
James Ellroy’s trashing of Cormac McCarthy comes off sounding like Barbara Cartland dissing Emily Brontë. Seriously, Mr. Ellroy?
JIM SKOFIELD
WALPOLE, N.H

The Guardian interviews the writer Harlan Coben:

The book I’m most ashamed not to have read
Ulysses, Brave New World, Wuthering Heights. I could do this all day. But it doesn’t embarrass me. Time is finite, folks. I also don’t read the classics any more. For me they have become like the Beatles: I went through a period in my life when I listened to them nonstop but I almost never seek them out any more.

Also in The Guardian, a question of the weekend's quiz:

What links:
9 Aurore Dupin; Brontës; Mary Ann Evans; Karen Blixen? (Thomas Eaton)

Studio International reviews the Simone Kenyon's Into the Mountain immersive performance:

Rather, [Nan] Shepherd encourages a waking up of the senses, and an immersion in the sensuality of climbing, walking and seeing that is at its core poetic and mystical, recollecting the Romantic ideas of sublime nature of the Brontë sisters, Keats, Coleridge and Burns, among others. We are not to tame nature, but to submit to it, love it, even at its harshest. (Christiana Spens)

Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany) reviews the Mainz performances of Schwestern Im Geiste:

Um Literatur geht es hier, um Spielarten der Liebe und vor allem um große Fragen des Lebens, im neuen Musiktheaterstück „Schwestern im Geiste – eine musikalische Zeitreise zu den Schwestern Brontë“. Es stammt aus der Feder von Peter Lund, mit Musik von Thomas Zaufke. Unter der Regie von Claudia Wehner kommt es auch am Samstag und Sonntag und dann mehrfach in der neuen Spielzeit zur Aufführung.
In der Koproduktion zwischen Kammerspielen und „Musical Arts Academy of the Performing Arts“ stehen vor allem die diesjährigen Absolventen der staatlich anerkannten Berufsfachschule auf der Bühne. Die musikalische Leitung liegt in den Händen von Rochus Paul, Choreographin ist Chris Ertelt.
Zur Premiere, als Teil der Abschlussprüfungen, verkörpern sie ihre Rollen authentisch und überzeugend, auch durch Tanz und Gesang. Begeisterten Beifall, Blumen und Bravo-Rufe gibt es daher für die große Produktion mit 16 Darstellern, darunter weitere Studierende. Auch im Stück selbst bereiten sich junge Erwachsene auf einen wichtigen Lebensabschnitt vor, das Abitur und die Zeit danach. Sind die drei englischen „Tanten“ dann etwa auch ein Thema? (Nicole Weisheit-Zenz) (Translation)

La Orquesta (México) interviews the writer Mariana Enríquez:

Enríquez afirmó ser una lectora asidua desde muy pequeña, aunque sus padres dedicados a las ciencias exactas siempre fomentaron la lectura. Eso sí, sin distinción. No existía en su casa la literatura infantil y juvenil. Leía Cumbres Borrascosas y Cementerio de animales antes de los diez. (Andrea Lárraga) (Translation)

Melissa Errico reminisces about the album she recorded with Michel Legrand in La Règle du Jeu:

Au terme de ces jours passés ensemble à New York, nous arrêtâmes une liste de quinze chansons, débattant de comment les interpréter, imaginant des arrangements de rechange ou inédits pour les partitions égarées, tel que ce chant en solitaire de Martina (qui parle d’un enfant mal-aimé), ou ces chansons détachées du monde et terrifiantes, telle Je suis né à l’amour avec toi, une chanson inspirée des Hauts de Hurlevent. (Translation)

Letteratu (Italy) reviews Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters:

In Lettere di compleanno troviamo episodi della vita in comune di Ted e Sylvia raccontati sotto forma di flash che si accendono e spengono nella mente, emergendo dalla “lettera” con singolare evidenza, come la visita all’Eden privato di Emily Brönte (sic) , l’autrice di Cime tempestose, che genera in Sylvia un’intensa emozione[.] (Michela Tartaglia) (Translation)

BBC News talks about Dame Paula Rego and mentions her Jane Eyre connections. Ovicio (Brazil) presents the Brazilian edition of Aline Brosh McKenna and Ramón K. Pérez's Jane. Feminist Quill reviews Wuthering Heights. Finally an alert for today, June 15, in Gijón (Spain):

#FeLiX19. Presentación del libro La poesía de Emily Brontë (Uve Books) por Sandra Márquez
Sábado, 15 de Junio de 2019 a las 12:00
Paseo de Begoña. Carpa 2. Sábado 15 de junio a las 12:00 horas.
La obra literaria de Emily Brontë no es abundante, pero si extraordinaria, aún hoy se la recuerda como uno de los grandes exponentes del romanticismo y se la ha reconocido como una de las mejores poetas del siglo XIX.
En esta edición de arte, se recogen dieciocho excelentes poemas publicados por primera vez en 1845, donde la autora nos muestra una parcela de sus propias vivencias con una lírica inconfundible.