Intensely Fascinating

Good Housekeeping interviews the author Stacey Halls.

Your favourite book of all time...
Wuthering Heights
It would have to be Wuthering Heights, with Great Expectations a close second. I read both in my impressionable teens and turn to them often. Wuthering Heights isn’t a perfect book, and Nelly can be a bit of a drip, but it’s got so much soul and energy and atmosphere. I lived in West Yorkshire at the start of this year and reread it while I was there. I connect so much with the landscape; it’s my favourite place in the world. There’s something so horrible about the book that you can’t stop reading - how the characters act and treat one another, how they all die so young and unfulfilled, Heathcliff’s psychosis and sheer determination to make everyone around him miserable to the end of days. But its spirit and passion is what makes it so compelling. There’s also something intensely fascinating about the fact that it was Emily Brontë’s only novel, and she, too, died so young.

The Nation (Nigeria) talks about a local politician quoting Jane Eyre... but mistaking the sister:

It looks at how racism in America is like a caste system. That is how [Malam Nasir] El-Rufai is looking at the folks in southern Kaduna. He is saying to the over 30 tribes to “keep to your caste,” in the words of Emile Bronte (sic) in Jane Eyre. That is his concept of who is a Nigerian. (Sam Omatseye)

The quote is from Chapter XVII:

 "You have nothing to do with the master of Thornfield, further than to receive the salary he gives you for teaching his protegee, and to be grateful for such respectful and kind treatment as, if you do your duty, you have a right to expect at his hands. Be sure that is the only tie he seriously acknowledges between you and him; so don't make him the object of your fine feelings, your raptures, agonies, and so forth. He is not of your order: keep to your caste, and be too self-respecting to lavish the love of the whole heart, soul, and strength, where such a gift is not wanted and would be despised."

The Daily Iowan thinks that Jane Eyre is too perfect:

I’m exhausted from reading about the perfect girl in an imperfect situation and need more characters whose flaws run rampant off the page — who are almost unlikeable — who reflect the parts of ourselves that we hate to see the most. Let’s face it, you can’t find a single unlikeable characteristic about Jane from Jane Eyre, Liesel Meminger (The Book Thief), Tatiana Metanova (The Bronze Horseman), Hazel Grace Lancaster (The Fault in Our Stars), and of course, if you subtract the whole “falling in love with a vampire thing,” Bella Swan from Twilight and Midnight Sun. (Madison Lotenschtein)

Radio Europa Liberă Moldova (Moldova) reviews the Romanian/Moldovan translation of La fille qui lisait dans le métro by Christine Feret-Fleury:

Se-nţelege că Juliette se prinde în joc, astfel încât „nu mai era ea cea care, la ora cinci fără un sfert, o întâmpina pe Zaide în uşa bucătăriei; era Salammbo, era Alexandru, Sancho Panza sau baronul cu mintea rătăcită, teribila lady Macbeth, Charlotte a lui Goethe, Catherine Earnshaw – şi, când şi când, Heathcliff”. (Emilian Galaicu-Păun) (Translation)

IDN Times (Indonesia) lists classic underrated novels:

Wuthering Heights
Kisahnya tentang sebuah keluarga yang cukup tragis dan aneh. Dimulai dengan keputusan pasangan Earnshaws untuk mengadopsi seorang anak yang mereka namai Heathcliff untuk menemani kedua anak mereka Hindley dan Catherine. Namun, pasca kematian istrinya, sang ayah justru memperlakukan Heathcliff dengan spesial.
Hal itu membuat Hindley, anak tertua cemburu dan membenci Heathcliff. Beda dengan Catherine yang sangat dekat dengan saudara tirinya itu. Setelah Hindley menyelesaikan studinya dan kembali ke rumah, ia membuat hidup Heathcliff tak tenang. Hingga akhirnya Heathcliff memilih untuk pergi dan mencari rezekinya sendiri.
Beda dengan kebanyakan novel klasik yang fokus pada keluarga kaya, mereka mencoba mengeksplor lebih banyak tentang Heathcliff yang saat itu dipandang rendah dan tergolong outsider. Menarik, tragis, dan penuh pesan, beda dari biasanya. (Dwi Ayu Silawati) (Translation)

Wuthering Heights... underrated?

Turnip Lanterns republished an old article titled The Wuthering Heights of Down. AnneBrontë.org posts about the imminent release of Charile Rauh's album The Bluebell.