Daily Info reviews the
Oxford Shakespeare Company production of Wuthering Heights as performed at Wadham College Gardens:
What would Emily Brontë have made of Wuthering Heights, her novel of bleak Yorkshire moors and even bleaker passion, being transported to the idyllic calm of Wadham College gardens? Perhaps the contrast would have amused her, but I think she would have approved. Under Michael Oakley’s assured direction, the Oxford Shakespeare Company and Lamplighter Drama are successful in transporting their audience elsewhere for the evening – to a darker time and starker place where tragedy, misunderstanding and passion rule.
This success due in part to April de Angelis’s script, liberally sprinkled with a humour that, given the somberness of the novel, is surprising and makes for an entertaining evening (though perhaps purists attached to the book may find it hard to adjust to!). Some humour is aimed knowingly at the audience – there is a sly reference to 'frittering your life away on silly trifles – like trips to the theatre' and a character’s desire to 'take a fifteen minute sojourn' announces to the audience that it’s interval time. (Fiona Bennett)
Variety reminds us how Kate Bush
officially proved herself as a pioneer when, at 19, she released her literary first single, “Wuthering Heights” — based on Emily Brontë’s gothic romance — which topped the U.K.’s charts for an entire month. In so doing, Bush became the first female artist to score a No. 1 hit that she wrote herself. (James Patrick Herman)
Lake Mills Leader celebrates the new novel by Margo Peters:
Her doctoral dissertation was on Charlotte Brontë, so it was natural for her to write her first biography about the author.
“I had read every book she and her sisters ever wrote,” she said. “Biographies are fun but scholarly.”
The book, “Unquiet Soul: A Biography of Charlotte Brontë,” was accepted by two major publishers. She went with Doubleday, publishing in 1975. (Sarah Weihert)
Unlikely Brontë references today presents
Security Boulevard:
Shakespeare. Brontë. Dickens. In literature, the classics have long been a staple of summer reading lists. Computer security has its own share of classics – reference points that serve as a foundation for understanding the field’s ever-changing chessboard of attack and defense. (dmurphy)
The Irish Times interviews the songwriter Aldous Harding:
She says that frequently-attached labels like “mysterious”, “introverted” and “eccentric” don’t bother her. I tell her that one comment on a YouTube interview said “She’s what I imagine Emily Brontë to be like”. (Lauren Murphy)
Screen Rant makes a D&D reading of
Star Trek: Voyager with the occasional Brontë mention:
Janeway has a natural talent for leadership and spent several years training to be a Captain, and study is the providence of Wizards. She has a talent for literature, especially the dark Romantic Period that gave us artists like Byron, Shelly, and the Brontë sisters. (Kristy Ambrose)
Who lists gifts for book lovers:
The Eyre Affair by Jasper Fforde
This alternate-history novel follows a ‘literary detective’ named Thursday Next, who travels through different novels and literary universes in pursuit of a criminal who has been kidnapping characters from classic literature. Lovers of classic books and poems like Jane Eyre and The Raven will enjoy meeting famous characters in this universe-hopping adventure. (Rhys McKay)
The Sun Daily (Malaysia) interviews author Carol Jones:
“I have always loved those star-crossed lovers’ stories like Romeo & Juliet and Wuthering Heights,” Jones admitted. “The two lovers are separated by insurmountable odds. (S. Indra Sathiabalan)
Brief mentions to
Wuthering Heights 2011 and
Jane Eyre 2011:
Suo anche il più bel film tratto da “Cime tempestose”, con Heathcliff trovatello di pelle scura nella brughiera, come lo aveva immaginato Emily Brontë. (Mariarosa Mancuso in Il Foglio) (Translation)
Olivier is in seething, feral form as Heathcliff, the brooding romantic hero of William Wyler's adaptation of Emily Bronte's "Wuthering Heights." His windswept period film (1939), chilled by the Yorkshire moors and mental cruelty, shares an all-Brontë triple bill [in the SFOMA "Haunted! Gothic Tales by Women,"] with Andrea Arnold's brutal 2011 interpretation. With hand-held camera work, spare dialog and a barely suppressed savagery only hinted at in Wyler's movie, it's an unflinching depiction of racial violence, socio-sexual politics and thwarted desire. Cary Fukunaga's superb, exceptionally moving version of Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre" (2011) features simmering chemistry between a tortured Rochester worthy of romantic obsession (a taunting, sexy Michael Fassbender in one of his best performances) and the orphaned, independent-minded Jane. She's played with spine, vulnerability and a combination of tenderness and wariness by the phenomenal Mia Wasikowska, who radiates the character's emotional intelligence in every frame. (Sura Wood in Bay Area Reporter)
Also,
N S Ford reviews
Jane Eyre 2011.
El País (Spain) recommends
Lluvia Fina by Luis Landero:
Lean Lluvia fina. Lean Jane Eyre, una gran novela feminista que Charlotte Brontë nos legó en defensa de la verdad como forma de rebelión. Lean los Ensayos esenciales, de Adrienne Rich, recién publicados por Capitán Swing, que nos enseñan lo que se esconde bajo las apariencias de muchas formas de cultura. De nuevo, la verdad. Escapemos por un rato del acartonamiento político que nos rodea y, mientras les dejamos entretenidos en sus faroles, busquemos la realidad literaria como forma superior, muy superior, frente a la procaz realidad que debemos afrontar. Si se dan cuenta de que no les hacemos caso en su absurdo teatrillo, tal vez avancemos. (Berna González Harbour) (Translation)
The latest book by Alejandro Varderi is discussed in
ViceVersa Magazine (in Spanish):
El mundo después de Alejandro Varderi, es el quinto volumen que bajo el título Origen final trata de los diferentes temas en los que el ser humano en la sociedad actual se encuentra inmerso y que mencionaré más adelante.
Desde el punto de vista formal la obra está dividida en tres partes que las abren las citas de tres grandes: Charlotte Brontë, Winston Churchill y Robert Musil. (Alicia Aza) (Translation)
ANP Panamá (in Spanish) quotes from
Wuthering Heights:
En la novela "Cumbres borrascosas", Emily Brontë escribió: "Es una tontería lamentarse de una desgracia con veinte años de anticipación". A lo que añado hoy: y una causa más de la epidemia actual de ansiedad. (Ismael Cala) (Translation)
The actual quote is: "And would it not be foolish to mourn a calamity above twenty years beforehand?"
Vanilla Magazine (Italy) reviews
Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine by Gail Honeyman:
Non è un caso, a questo proposito, che il libro preferito della protagonista sia Jane Eyre, che è uno dei capisaldi della letteratura di formazione britannica. Sfumature di Charlotte Brontë, dunque, ma a cui non guasta anche un pizzico di Oliver Twist perché le disgrazie capitate alla protagonista sono talmente numerose, profonde e sconvolgenti che l’ombra di Dickens non può non incombere, prima o poi, durante la lettura. (Cristina Vitagliano) (Translation)
Barometern OT (Sweden) talks about Rigmor Gustaffson's cover of Kate Bush's
Wuthering Heights:
Ett annorlunda inslag stod Rigmor Gustafsson för, när hon framförde Kate Bush Wuthering Heights, mästerlig ekvilibristik med rösten, men jazztonen återkom i Allt under himmelens fäste i Mathias Algotssons arrangemang: pianointro i fugastil, övergående i parti till jazz-mode med unisona röster på aaaaa. (Translation)
One Man Book Club reviews
My Plain Jane by Cynthia Hand, Brodi Ashton, and Jodi Meadows;
Stirling Castle shares a peek behind the scenes of the recent Chapterhouse Theatre production of
Wuthering Heights in the Great Hall at Stirling Castle.
Finally, an alert from BBC Four. A new chance to watch the documentary
The Brontës at the BBC:
June 11, 02:00 AM
An exploration of the BBC's long love affair with the lives and works of the Bronte sisters - Charlotte, Emily and Anne. For over half a century, the ill-fated literary dynasty has proved irresistible to drama and documentary makers alike, keen to reinvent their novels for new audiences. So we get Bronte heroines reimagined for each emerging generation, first as classic 1950s housewife material, then wild child '60s 'chicks', Gothic waifs and, finally, empowered modern women. The Bronte males, meanwhile, are restyled as assorted prigs, wife-beaters, even brooding prog rockers and, of course, wouldn't you know it, new men. Wonderful stuff.
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