A Really Strong Belief System

Diane Fare's Chapter & Verse monthly column in Keighley News covers what is new at the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

We've enjoyed a very busy August, and have had a great response to our new Frank Cottrell Boyce installation and we’re now looking forward to our September events.
There’s still time to buy tickets for ‘Rebooting the Brontë Way’, which takes place on Saturday, September 7 in the Old School Room in Haworth, and features our writer-in-residence Zaffar Kunial in conversation with novelist Michael Stewart.
Anyone fascinated by inspiring landscapes should enjoy the evening, and tickets cost £7/£5 or just £2 for 16-25 year olds. Book online or call 01535 640192.
As promised last time, I have news of our fantastic Festival of Women’s Writing which takes place from September 20 to 22.
This year’s festival has been programmed by novelist Kit de Waal, and explores and celebrates working-class writing.
It’s easy to assume that the Brontë sisters were reasonably wealthy middle-class women, but they lived far from the centre of literary London, and they lacked the social and family connections that often opened doors in the worlds of literature and publishing.
These geographical and social barriers still exist 170 years later, and so with this in mind Kit has programmed a range of events that support different voices.
There’s a mix of writing workshops, panel discussions, ‘in conversation’ events, and spoken word.
Friday’s evening event is very topical – ‘#MeToo, Time’s Up & Violence Against Women’ discusses the excessive amount of violence against women in fiction, and recent efforts to come up with some alternative stories. It takes place in West Lane Baptist Centre at 7.30pm and tickets cost £8.
If you fancy attending the festival with your family, then come along on Saturday afternoon to ‘Draw Along with Nadia Shireen’. Nadia is a children’s author and illustrator, and will lead a draw-along workshop perfect for 3-7 year olds.
The workshop takes place from 2pm-3pm in the Old School Room and costs just £4 per child (accompanying adults go free).
And different again is ‘Words and Stories’ on Saturday evening, which promises to be a warm and funny evening of women’s working-class stories and poetry.
Our presenters, Zena Barrie and Jo Howard, used to run the award-winning Verbose spoken word night in Manchester, and they’ve invited some of their favourite voices along to join us in Haworth.
We’re billing the evening as spoken word for people who don’t usually like spoken word, so you should be in for an entertaining night!
Tickets cost just £8 and the event takes place in West Lane Baptist Centre at 8pm. And go to our website bronte.org.uk-whats-on to see the range of events – it’s a jam-packed weekend!

The Sydney Morning Herald talks about the musician Natasha Khan aka Bat For Lashes:

To combine the sonic with the fictive is a move as old as music. David Bowie had Aladdin Sane, the harder-edged heir to the artist's space-alien persona Ziggy Stardust. Hounds of Love is peppered with references to great writers: James Joyce, Emily Brontë. (Neha Kale)

The Sacramento Bee interviews the Sacramento Public Library CEO/executive director Rivkah Sass on her favourite books:

“Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Brontë. “My mother gave this to me when I was 10. Jane is my all-time favorite character in literature – she’s passionate, knows right from wrong, and has a really strong belief system.” Sass could be describing herself. (Allen Pierleoni)

The Independent reviews the film The Souvenir by Joanna Hogg:

The film shows Julie with her fellow students at the film school and then with Anthony. It’s as if she is living in two completely separate worlds. Burke plays Anthony with subtlety, catching his raffishness and his charisma but also his leech-like neediness. “You’re not normal, you’re a freak ... you’re lost and you will always be lost,” he tells her but he could just as well be describing himself. There’s a hint of Jane Eyre’s Rochester or Wuthering Heights’ Heathcliff about him, albeit he is a druggier version of such archetypes. (Geoffrey Macnab)

The importance of communication in Yorkshire and the Humber according to Money Marketing:

While the economic landscape of Yorkshire and the Humber is shifting it is retaining its cultural identity that incorporates everything from the windswept moors of Wuthering Heights to the curry houses of multicultural Bradford. (Amanda Newman Smith)

Oficinista (México) lists must-read books for teenagers:

Cumbres Borrascosas
Probablemente, la historia de amor más tórrida y enfermiza de la literatura universal. Emily Brontë narra en su única novela, publicada en 1847, la historia de obsesión, pasión y muerte entre el gitano Heathcliff y la caprichosa Catherine, a lo largo de varias generaciones.
El paisaje que se nos muestra es devastador y lúgubre, así como las emociones de los personajes (todos ellos antihéroes): páramos grises y solitarios, en un lugar gélido y abandonado de Dios. (...)
 Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë, hermana de Emily, escribió en 1847 (mismo año en el que se publicó Cumbres Borrascosas) otro de los clásicos imperdibles de la literatura universal, la historia de Jane, una joven institutriz que se enamora de su empleador, el señor Rochester, en medio de un paisaje inhóspito, frío y desfavorable para ambos de los protagonistas.
De manera más profunda, Jane Eyre es la historia de una huérfana de infancia que se rehúsa a dejar de ser ella misma, a pesar de las desgracias de su vida, para adaptarse a una sociedad regida por los hombres. También es una historia de amor como ninguna otra con más de una veintena de adaptaciones a cine y televisión. (Laura) (Translation)

Le Nouvel Observateur (in French) interviews the writer and historian Mona Ozouf:

Et comme Renée Guilloux – c’était elle, le professeur – nous enseignait moins le français qu’une littérature sans frontières, elle faisait tourner autour de nous une ronde de figures féminines : outre-Manche, Jane Eyre, la petite gouvernante assez intrépide pour déclarer la première son amour ; ou Maggie Tulliver, la fillette qui coupe sauvagement ses cheveux pour ne pas subir les papillotes du dimanche ; ou encore, au pays des ours cette fois, cette Sonia qui voue sa jeune vie à consoler l’oncle Vania. (Translation)

Saltenposten (Norway) reviews a concert by Sveinar Aase and Soetkin Babtis:

Babist fortalte om da hun som student på musikkonservatoriet fikk beskjed om at hun var Mezzosopran falt henne tungt for brystet da hun gjennom det aldri kunne synge sopran Kate Bush sine låter. Historien ble avsluttet med at hun, ikke overaskende, fremførte nettopp Kate Bush sin «Wuthering Heights» på mesterlig vis. (Translation)

Expertreviews mentions the Brontës on a list of the 'best' Airbnbs in the UK. InfoLibre (in Spanish) reminds us of the fact that writer Carmen Martín-Gaite translated Wuthering Heights into Spanish. The Sisters' Room posts about the Brontës' little books at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. The Eyre Guide explores what you could 'tweak, change, edit, or omit' in Jane Eyre.