Branwell Brontë: a little bit Byron, a little bit Bowie

Electric Lit interviews writer Douglas A. Martin about his novel Branwell: A Novel of the Brontë Brother.

Brendan Mathews: When did you first learn that there was a brother in the Brontë family—a sibling who didn’t write one of the classics of 19th century British literature? 

Douglas A. Martin: I didn’t know about him at all, which is what intrigued me completely because I’d been taught the Brontës like everybody else in school, and Wuthering Heights was one of the first important reading experiences for me. I had been out of my MFA program for a year or so, and as I walked around the city I would stop to see Darcey Steinke at the New School. One day, she was writing a lecture on the Brontës and she casually mentioned that there was a brother, which completely took me aback. The way she described him fascinated me and made me feel like this was a person that I would have been in love with immediately if I’d been taught about him in school.

BM: What was it about him?

DAM: It was the way that Darcey talked about his awareness of self-fashioning. When I did my MFA, my critical thesis was on self-presentation in the work of Patti Smith and Anaïs Nin, and how they styled themselves determined the reception of their work—one being hyper feminine and the other being hyper masculine. When Darcey talked about Branwell’s sense of self-drama, and the way that he would faely comport himself around in his poet blouses, because he wanted to be Byron, that was really electric to me. But she also had ideas about how he was like David Bowie, and so, two things came together really nicely for me—this idea of self-determination, but that one can make one’s own codes, one could begin to forefront how one wanted to be read. You know, create a metaphor of the self, and that was as much through how he moved through the world as what he put on the page. (Read more)

Writing has writer Maybelle Wallis tell about how she approaches historical fiction.

Jane Eyre is so absorbed into my psyche that I named my female protagonist Jane.

On Página 12 (Argentina), writer Jamaica Kincaid tells about how she came to read Jane Eyre and the impact it had on her.

“Yo quería ser escritora, yo creía que era Charlotte Brontë porque en la escuela, como castigo, mi profesora de francés me puso en un rincón, me tiró un libro y me dijo: leé esto. Leí Jane Eyre, y no fui la misma persona desde entonces. Yo solía pensar que era Jane Eyre o Charlotte Brontë o un poco de las dos. Quería ser escritora, pero creía que nadie escribía más libros después de Rudyard Kipling” (Silvina Friera) (Translation)

According to The Daily Signal, 'Literature Needs to Be Saved From Its Teachers'.

2. Simplifying Message

Sometimes teachers choose a work and reduce it to a simple message. Such teachers can make highly complex works, like “Huckleberry Finn,” into banal message carriers:

First impressions are misleading (“Pride and Prejudice”).

Child abuse is wrong (“Jane Eyre”). 

Stop moping and do something (“Hamlet”)!

There’s no fool like an old fool (“King Lear”).

But if that’s all these works have to say, why not just read SparkNotes or, still better, memorize the message? (Gary Saul Morson)

We have never seen Jane Eyre reduced to that message, but that reductionist claim is as silly as stating that 'Literature Needs to Be Saved From Its Teachers'.

And now we turn into RebeccaBlog. PopSugar recommends 17 books that 'Will Give You the Same Romantic Thriller Vibes as Rebecca' including

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre has a surprising amount in common with Rebecca. Both are told from the perspective of young women who fall in love with a wealthy older man, and they both feature a huge old manor that hides secrets, as well as a mysterious former relationship that threatens the couple's future. For more angsty, romantic thrills, you can't go wrong with this classic. [...]

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is pretty much the poster child for Gothic romance. Rich, spoiled Cathy and her family's wild ward Heathcliff grow up together, fall passionately in love, and embark on a toxic relationship that has more than a hint of the supernatural surrounding it. [...]

The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is perhaps slightly less famous than her sisters' novels, but no less intriguing. A reclusive widow slowly reveals her mysterious past to a suitor, including the horrifying story of her husband's actions and whether or not the wicked rumours about her are true. (Amanda Prahl)

The Sun wonders, 'Is Rebecca on Netflix a true story and is it based on Jane Eyre?'

Is it based on Jane Eyre?

Many critics have noted the similarities between Rebecca and Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, which was published 100 years prior to Du Maurier's novel.

Rebecca is not explicitly based on Jane Eyre, but Du Maurier may have been influenced by Brontë's novel.

There are certainly similarities between the two novels - both are written in Gothic Romance styles.

Both the unnamed narrator of Rebecca and Jane in Jane Eyre have similar voices - they're both anxious and self-deprecating.

Even the two male love interests, Rochester and Maxim de Winter are both brooding and dark characters.

So, although not explicitly related, Rebecca has picked up on many of Jane Eyre's tropes. (Clara Gaspar)

The Conversation describes Rebecca as 'gender, gothic haunting and gaslighting'.

Rebecca can be recognised as part of the genre of the “female gothic”, critic Ellen Moers’ term for works that derive their terror from women’s domestic entrapment and manipulation, as in the Bluebeard folktale.

Female gothic narratives seek to expose the psychological manipulations and abuse of power disguised as romance. This alone explains the narrator’s continued sympathy for her “wronged” husband, even at the novel’s end.

This use of the female gothic also constitutes a critique of the novel’s source text: Du Maurier’s Rebecca is a reimagining of Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre (1847), in which Jane is disturbed by the looming presence of Mr Rochester’s first wife, the infamous “madwoman in the attic”.

Whereas Jane’s ultimate devotion to her husband is celebrated in that novel, Du Maurier encourages her reader to recognise her narrator’s powerlessness. (Jessica Gildersleeve)

Finally, Irish Times has a rather unfavourable review.

Commentators on this Netflix production have described it as a “remake” of the famous Alfred Hitchcock version from 1940. I suppose you could call it that. But the du Maurier novel, healthily in print for 80 years, has generated any number of successful adaptations (Diana Rigg won an Emmy for her Mrs Danvers in a 1996 TV version). So it is no more unreasonable to have another crack at the thing than it is to wrestle once again with Wuthering Heights. (Donald Clarke)