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Tuesday, June 23, 2020

In its heritage section, The Yorkshire Post publishes a brief article about Top Withens:
The remote, now-ruined West Yorkshire farmhouse is said to have been the inspiration for Emily Brontë’s renowned novel Wuthering Heights.
Every year thousands of visitors to Haworth, where the Bronte sisters once lived, make their way from the village to see the site.
According to tourism organisation Visit Bradford, such is the attraction to Japanese literary tourists that some footpath signs in the area include directions in Japanese.
A Brontë Society plaque, dated 1964, was placed at the site in response to “many inquiries” about the farmhouse’s reported association with the Earnshaw family home in Emily’s Wuthering Heights.
It reads: “The buildings, even when complete, bore no resemblance to the house she described but the situation may have been in her mind when she wrote of the moorland setting on the heights.”
The location is one of many Brontë attractions in the area, including the Brontë Waterfalls and the Brontë Bridge, considered to be one of the sisters’ favourite places. (Laura Reid)
If the coronavirus pandemic was not enough, the Brontë Parsonage Museum faces another challenge for its future reopening. We read in The Telegraph & Argus:
The Brontë Parsonage Museum’s recovery after coronavirus could be badly affected by the closure of the main road between Oxenhope and Hebden Bridge, warn bosses.
The Brontë Society fears the 20-week improvement programme on the A6033 Hebden Bridge Road will hinder its plans to attract visitors from the Calder Valley and across the North West.
The society points out many museum visitors reach Hebden Bridge by train then continue to Haworth on the bus, which will not run across the moors while the road is closed.
The society spoke this week as a parish council chairman raised concerns that the closure would stop people crossing the moors to reach work – including residents on the Hebden Bridge side who run businesses in Haworth and Keighley. (...)
The Brontë Parsonage Museum has been closed since the beginning of lockdown, in a year when it hoped to attract many visitors interested in the 200th anniversary of the birth of Anne Brontë.
A spokesman said: “We fully understand that improvements need to be made to the A6033, but we are concerned that the timing of them, and the length of time that the road will be fully closed,  will have an adverse effect on visitor numbers during the late summer and early autumn.
“We expect the recovery from the effects of lockdown to be slow, and the disruption caused by this work will further hamper our plans to attract visitors from the upper Calder Valley and beyond, including those who arrive in Hebden Bridge by train and then continue their journey to Haworth by bus.” (David Knights)
Some news outlets talk about how the Emily Brontë biopic film project is being presented at the virtual Cannes Film Market:
Embankment Films is handling Emily, a biopic on the early life Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë, starring Emma Mackey, Joe Alwyn, Fionn Whitehead and Emily Beecham.
The producers are David Barron, Piers Tempest, Jo Bamford and Arenamedia’s Robert Connolly and Robert Patterson. The aim is to shoot in Yorkshire in the first quarter of 2021. (Don Groves in IF)
Emily – Emma Mackey, Joe Alwyn, Fionn Whitehead and Emily Beecham will star in Emily, Golden Globe-nominated actress Frances O’Connor’s directorial debut about the early life of Wuthering Heights author Emily Brontë. Producers are Harry Potter producer David Barron, Piers Tempest and Jo Bamford’s Tempo Productions with Robert Connolly and Robert Patterson of Arenamedia. Embankment will handle world sales. (Andrea Wiseman, Tom Grater in Deadline)
The Conversation on ways to build a writing collaboration:
Although new writers such as the Brontë siblings may collaborate, the practice seems to fall away with age, perhaps because writing relationships can be as fraught as familial ones, with as many pitfalls to navigate. (Alexis Brown)
RealScreen informs that
AMC Networks’ SVOD service Acorn TV, meanwhile, has picked up the rights to a package of literary and UK-focused programming that includes Blakeway Productions’ Brilliant Brontë Sisters (1 x 48 minutes) and The Genius of Roald Dahl (1 x 48 minutes), as well as What Larks! Productions’ Narnia’s Lost Poet: The Secret Lives and Loves of CS Lewis (1 x 59 minutes). (Daniele Alcinii)
Verily Magazine reviews a free Librivox recording of Jane Eyre:
Jane Eyre (Elizabeth Klett)
In my experience, it is hardest to find a quality audiobook for books that are in the public domain. Why? Since publishers do not have to pay copyright fees to adapt these titles, just about anyone can record an audiobook; the result is that some versions are subpar, either because the recording quality is poor or the narrator is less experienced. The silver lining is that these books often can be found for free.
I must have listened to a dozen samples of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre before I found a narrator I liked. Klett has a light British accent that really brings the book to life, and she reads the book so naturally. Jane Eyre is a great read but it can be hard to get through the first few painful chapters about Jane’s childhood. I don’t think I would have made it through if it weren’t for Klett’s lovely narration! And since the recording is done by LibriVox, it is in the public domain, and available to download for free. (Monica Burke)
But Why Tho? reviews Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-García:
In an ominous letter, Noemí’s cousin Catalina details that High Place has ghosts and that she is in danger. Like most haunted house stories, the novel is atmospheric but subverts this with its self-awareness. Mexican Gothic has constant references to classic gothic literature from authors Mary Shelley and Emily Brontë and reading Moreno-Garcia’s full embrace of the camp and romanticism in her exposition was delightful.
Coast Community News interviews Kim Reardon, book reviewer:
Ross Barry: Ok, now for the ultimate question: What has been your favourite book so far?
Kim: Well, firstly, my favourite book of all time is Jane Eyre. I think it always will be.
A brief Brontë mention in a New Yorker article on Crime and Punishment:
Dostoyevsky’s writing about the subservient status of women was as outraged as anything the Brontës had produced, with the Russian additive of persistent violence. (David Denby)
Alone and booming. Mary Ann D'Urso in The Boston Globe:
Living alone since my early 20s, I had imagined that by my 30s, I would have a romantic Jane ending — Austen or Eyre.
Allociné (France) lists literary adaptations on Amazon like Wuthering Heights 1992:
Les Hauts de Hurlevent, oeuvre unique d’Emily Brontë, est considérée comme un ouvrage majeur de la littérature romantique. Son récit insolite et ses personnages sombres ont toujours intrigué les cinéastes, donnant lieu à plus d’une dizaine d’adaptations entre 1920 et 2015. Si la plupart se concentre sur la première génération des personnages, la version de Peter Kosminsky, avec en tête d’affiche Ralph Fiennes et Juliette Binoche, peut se vanter de couvrir les quarante années qui s’écoulent dans le roman. On y suit l’évolution de Heathcliff, un jeune garçon pauvre et esseulé, recueilli par un gentilhomme qui l’invite à venir vivre avec lui, son fils et sa fille. Néanmoins, son arrivée dans le foyer suscite rapidement la jalousie et la haine de son frère d'adoption, Hinley (sic) , tandis que sa soeur, Cathy, tombe amoureuse de lui. A la mort du patriarche, Heathcliff se retrouve sous la domination de Hinley (sic again) et doit regarder Cathy accepter un mariage de raison avec un autre. En plus d'être très fidèle au roman, le film est acclamé pour sa bande-originale signée Ryuichi Sakamoto, ces décors et l’interprétation torturée de Ralph Fiennes. (Manon Maroufi) (Translation)
La Hora Digital (Spain) quotes Emily Brontë's No Coward Soul is Mine in an article about local politics. A verse that takes a new meaning in these times:
No coward soul is mine
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere
I see Heaven's glories shine
And Faith shines equal arming me from Fear
Der Tagesspiegel (Germany) reminds us of the pre-pandemic world and hotels, room service, those strange delights:
In Ponden Hall zum Beispiel, wo schon die Brontë Sisters zu Besuch waren, setzt man sich an den liebevoll gedeckten Holztisch und wird bedient. Die ausgedehnten Morgenmahlzeiten im B&B, ein Gang nach dem anderen, die Gespräche mit Gastgebern und anderen Urlaubern gehören zu meinen schönsten Urlaubserinnerungen. Dabei habe ich mehr über England erfahren als aus manchen Büchern. (Susanne Kippenberger) (Translation)
According to Libreriamo (Italy) and pseudoscience, Virgo readers have to read Wuthering Heights these days:
Il romanzo da leggere secondo l’oroscopo dell’estate: “Cime tempestose” di Emily Brontë. Un grande classico da leggere e rileggere è l’unico romanzo scritto dall’autrice a metà dell’800, che le è bastato a renderla una delle scrittrici più famose della storia. Questo libro narra la storia di Heathcliff, del suo amore per Catherine e di come questa passione finisca per distruggere entrambi. Infatti, elementi quali la gelosia e la vendetta hanno un ruolo centrale nello sviluppo della trama, che scatena effetti negativi sugli individui. (Loredana Galiano) (Translation)
Another, more serious, Italian article can be read on Rolling Stone on the music of Kate Bush:
A qualcuno potrebbe sembrare una cantante come tante degli anni ’70/80. «Kate Bush? Ah, quella di Cime tempestose… ma è ancora viva?». Non solo è viva e vegeta ma, anche se l’attività discografica non è una delle sue priorità da quasi trent’anni, il suo contributo alla musica moderna è stato enorme. E poi no, Kate Bush non è solo quella di Wuthering Heights, ma quella di una serie di album che hanno contribuito a definirla come una super artista, una che canta e suona divinamente, una compositrice notevole, nonché una sperimentatrice senza confini. E un’ottima ballerina che nei rari spettacoli dal vivo ha sfoggiato costumi e coreografie di un’originalità fantascientifica, in anticipo su tutti.
(...)
Kate Bush è solo Kate Bush. Una che a 14 anni scrive una roba come Wuthering Heights e che a 20 se ne esce con un disco come The Kick Inside non ha bisogno di essere la versione femminile di nessuno. (Fabio Zuffanti) (Translation)
Denník N (Slovakia) and expectations in relationships:
 Keď som bola na základnej škole, mala som vo veľa veciach jasno. Nemám na mysli iba dátumy bitiek či značky prvkov periodickej tabuľky, ale napríklad aj moje predstavy o živote. Vedela som, že sa budem živiť ako spisovateľka, a že môj osudový partner bude lojálny ako Gilbert Blythe, tajomný ako pán Rochester, vášnivý ako Heathcliff a povznesene inteligentný ako pán Darcy. (Tatiana Carova) (Translation)
Picture this Post reviews Wuthering Heights 2011.  SCW1842 shares a photo gallery of Wuthering Heights 1992.

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