Wide Sargasso Sea is an honourable exception

This Telegraph reviewer didn't like Nick by Michael Farris Smith and so thinks that 'It's time to stop tampering with literary classics'. However,

As always, there are honourable exceptions. PD James scored a hit with her palate-cleansing Death Comes to Pemberley, which imagines the characters of Pride and Prejudice six years later, and embroils them in a deliciously ripe whodunit. Wide Sargasso Sea, the 1966 novel by Jean Rhys, is perhaps the greatest literary riff of them all. It looks at the marriage of Mr Rochester through the eyes of his “mad” first wife, the one confined to the attic in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, and richly evokes the power-play (and imbalances) between men and women in marriage.

What’s fascinating about Rhys’s work is that while its feminist response to the past is very much steeped in the ideology that was sweeping through British culture in the 1960s, it also chimes with our preoccupations in the 21st century. Indeed, both Wide Sargasso Sea and Nick are attempts to “reclaim narratives”, that modish phrase which anyone who follows the angry mob on Twitter will recognise. Today, we live in an age in which historians and museums are obsessed with giving a voice to those from the past who have been previously silenced, while the lives of more famous historical figures are there to be questioned.

Yet while a reimagining of Mrs Rochester’s life is poignant, a proper emancipation of someone fettered by the conventions of the time, the reclamation of Nick Carraway is unnecessary. He has not been wronged in any way; his silence in Fitzgerald’s original is a smart way to enhance our understanding of the novel’s more memorable characters. (Ben Lawrence)

Nouse has an article on the opening night of York TFTI’s Emergence Festival.

On Tuesday 23 February I tuned into the performance Wild Swimming by Marek Horn and was not disappointed. [...]

Wild Swimming details the story of Nell and Oscar, (Ella McKeown and Logan Jones) two childhood friends who are wildly different, yet always managing to find their way back to one another. Oscar is an undergraduate whose enthusiasm for romantic poetry leads to his  wish to travel the world and  follow Lord Byron in his completion of swimming the Hellespont. Despite his formal education, Nell always seems to have the upper hand in their debates. Sharp tongued and fiery, she always keeps him on his toes. In the end, Nell comes out on top despite the expectation that she is to wait at home to be married. She ends up living out Oscar's dream of visiting Greece and proceeds to inform him that her poetry is due to be published in a collection. She is successful, while he returns injured and deflated from fighting in the war.

Despite the fairly short running time of just over an hour, the play spans hundreds of years starting in the Renaissance period and finishing in the present day. As the time passes, the characters develop in interesting ways. Initially playing down the impact Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre has on her, Nell eventually admits that seeing someone just like herself on the page is meaningful. She finds herself, just as Oscar reverts into a shell of his former self. Refusing to move forward in time he attempts to make a portal to go back to the 17th Century. He wants to go back to the version of himself that matches the one in his head; a moment which is very powerful to capture. As the perfect blend of the past and the modern, Wild Swimming plays on gender politics while using audience engagement to its full potential. (Elizabeth Walsh)

France Dimanche features French film actor, director, and writer Robert Hossein.

Nous sommes en 1979. Xavier qui est alors au cours Florent, a rendez-vous avec quelques autres élèves au Palais des congrès où Robert Hossein recrute des jeunes talents pour son prochain spectacle Les Hauts de Hurlevent, adapté du roman d'Emily Brontë. Devant cet immense acteur et metteur en scène, les apprentis comédiens sont pétrifiés de trac.

L'audition se passe, les candidats retiennent leur souffle. « Toi ! » dit alors Hossein, en désignant [actor Xavier Deluc]. (Translation)

Building Our Story posts about The Wife Upstairs by Rachel Hawkins.