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Wednesday, December 08, 2021

Yorkshire Examiner lists some 'Yorkshire hidden treasures' feature in the recently published book 111 Places in Yorkshire:
4. Brontë's Shooting Range
Every morning Rev Patrick Brontë, the father of Charlotte, Emily and Anne, would fire his pistols from the window of the now-famous parsonage at his church, St Michael and All Angels, Haworth.
It sounds bonkers but this was not long after the Luddite Uprising and Rev Brontë, afraid of these violent saboteurs, slept with two pistols by his bed. Because the pistols could not be unloaded any other way he would render them innocuous by shooting the wall of the church.
Pockmarks in the wall are still visible. (...)
5. Cabinet of Curiosities
The Cabinet of Curiosities in Haworth
This shop a few doors down from St Michael and All Angels (see above) is decorated in the style of a 19th-century apothecary's shop. It's what the shop would have looked like 200 years ago when the Brontë sisters' brother Branwell stopped there to buy his laudanum, opium dissolved in alcohol.
Branwell, an artist and poet, succumbed to drug and alcohol addiction and died aged 31. (Dave Himelfield)
Lee Hyon-soo describes his literary pilgrimage around Britain in The Korea Times:
From Shakespeare's birthplace, I moved on to Haworth (pronounced "How-worth"), a small village in Northern England. Here in this remote and barren setting lived the famous Brontë sisters. Of the three sisters, Emily was perhaps the greatest. She wrote only one novel, "Wuthering Heights," which is considered one of the finest novels in the English language.
This highly imaginative work of passion and hate has captivated so many young men and women since its publication in 1847. The main theme of the novel is the unfulfilled love affair between the two protagonists, Catherine and Heathcliff. Nothing reveals Catherine's unrestrained love for Heathcliff better than her own impassioned utterance: "My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath ― a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff! He is always, always in my mind ― not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
Emily's two sisters, Charlotte and Anne, also distinguished themselves by writing "Jane Eyre" and "Agnes Grey" respectively. The house in which the Brontë sisters grew up and went on to compose their famous novels is now called Brontë Parsonage Museum. It contains first editions, manuscripts, some of the clothes the sisters wore and some of the furniture they used, including a rosewood desk at which Emily wrote Wuthering Heights. I was told by the curator that, after Stratford-upon-Avon, Haworth is England's most visited literary shrine.
We really don't agree with this comment read on Dazed about the upcoming publication of a retelling of George Orwell's 1984 from a feminist perspective:
From Madeline Miller’s Circe, an adaption of Greek myths from the perspective of the witch Circe, and Natalie Haynes’s reimagining of the Trojan war, A Thousand Ships, to Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys’s prequel to Jane Eyre, feminist reimaginings of classic stories have become increasingly popular. (Alex Peters)

Wide Sargasso Sea is not a feminist reimagining of Jane Eyre! It can be read as a post-colonial reading, a race commentary.... but certainly not a feminist one.

San Francisco Chronicle reviews Mothers, Fathers, and Others by Siri Hustvedt:
But too many of the essays that follow feel like the product of pandemic restlessness — she picks up a copy of  Jane Austen’s “Persuasion” and decides to reread it, for example — but we probably don’t need an essay about that and a rereading of “Wuthering Heights.”  (Allison Arieff)
The Times of India has some lessons to learn from terrible literary couples:
​Don't panic before knowing the whole story - Heathcliff and Catherine from 'Wuthering Heights'
Sometimes, though you think that everything is going wrong, that's not actually the end of the road. As mentioned earlier, patience is the key to a happy relationship. If the same had been done by our hero Heathcliff, if he had just stayed calm and heard Catherine's whole story, then he would be living happily ever after with her, instead of her ghost.
The Article discusses, among many other things, the difference between easy and hard literature:
On the other hand, Camus is very straightforward — superficially at least. You can follow the storyline of La Peste quite easily, in the same way you can follow the storyline of Jean Rhys’s Good Morning, Midnight and Wide Sargasso Sea, or anything by Hemingway. But try Beckett’s The Unnameable, and there isn’t really a story at all, only a consciousness spiraling inwards on itself with terrifying rotational force. Brilliant, but hard. (Jay Elwes)
ABC (Spain) reviews the novel Les Fous de Bassan (1982) by Anne Hébert:
Junto a los cinco narradores de la tragedia, la presencia envolvente de los elementos naturales, los gritos de los pájaros al borde del mar, la amenaza de negras y violentas tempestades, las señales y secretos que todos comparten y se llevarán a la tumba sin una palabra, se unen de forma inextricable. Una furia de los sentimientos y un poder de una naturaleza misteriosa e indoblegable que trae a la memoria las novelas de las hermanas Brontë, pero sobre todo a Faulkner. (Mercedes Monmany) (Translation)
Todo Literatura (in Spanish) discusses the latest episode of the podcast Sexto Continente:
Y para acabar, Miguel Ángel de Rus propone la lectura del libro de Alicia Mariño “Cumbres Borrascosas. El amor más allá de la muerte”. La novela de Emily Brontë ha sido adaptada al vine en varias ocasiones; la autora repasa esas adaptaciones.
Público (Spain) publishes a very funny article about book covers: 
Cuando la saga Crepúsculo empezó a venderse como churros, las muchachas pálidas con cara de susto y las flores sobre fondos que jugaban con rojos y negros invadieron las librerías. Este diseño tuvo tanto impacto que novelas clásicas como Cumbres borrascosas, Orgullo y prejuicio o Las brujas de Eastwick fueron reeditadas con portadas crepusculares. (Carlos Luria) (Translation)
The author of the play Pampa Escarlata writes in Perfil (Argentina):
Pudimos estrenar Pampa escarlata, una obra que escribí y dirijo.
Pampa escarlata está inspirada en el universo de las novelas inglesas del siglo XIX —los textos de las hermanas Brontë, Jane Austen, Mary Shelley—, las cuales presentan un lenguaje que hoy resulta barroco, aunque reconocible.(...)
Más allá de la inteligencia de sus autoras, sospecho que estas historias persisten y salen a flote una y otra vez por su visceralidad y detallismo psicológico. Me atrevo a afirmar que Cumbres borrascosas es una de las obras más violentas de la literatura universal. La abundancia de primeras personas y la aparición del género epistolar son la ventana perfecta al corazón de estos personajes refrenados por sus circunstancias. (Julián Cnochaert) (Translation
CincoNoticias (in Spanish) lists the 'best' romantic novels:
3. Cumbres Borrascosas de Emily Brontë (1847)
Su título es el nombre de la propiedad de la familia Yorkshire, ubicada en los páramos, donde nace la historia de amor entre Catherine Earnshaw y su amigo Heatchcliff. Un hombre llamado Lockwood llega a la finca Cumbres Borrascosas para conocer a quien le arrendó la granja vecina de los Tordos. Durante la trama se tejen venganzas, pasiones desatadas y amores desesperados. Una de las historias románticas más vistas. (...)
6. Jane Eyre de Charlotte Brontë (1847)
Como muchos de los libros de romance, este inicia cuando Jane es una niña huérfana de apenas 10 años de edad, quien vive con su tía y sus tres primos con los que no se lleva bien. Bajo tutela intentan casarla con un hombre para mejorar su situación y ella se niega aceptarlo. Posteriormente, Jane es contratada por Edward Rochester para trabajar como instructora de una niña. No obstante, la inicial displicencia del dueño de la casa se convertirá poco a poco en amor. (Translation)
Global Press (Italy) interviews Mario Baudino, author of Il Teatro del Letto:
Cristina Marra: Il letto oltre che di piacere è anche luogo di terrore?
M.B.: Certo. Il romanzo gotico riprende un immaginario medievale e ne fa il luogo della prova suprema. E non solo i “gotici” intesi come genere. Penso alle sorelle Brontë, a quel capolavoro che è Cime tempestose, alla deliziosa parodia che fa di questi terrori Jane Austen in L’abbazia di Northanger. O ai racconti di Henry James. (Translation)
Readasaurus Reviews posts about Mrs. Rochester's Ghost by Lyndsay Marcott.

The plans to turn the Red House into a holiday accommodation are also reported in Keighley News. This Day (Nigeria) confirms that Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights is included as one of the required literature texts in the 2022 Unified Tertiary Matriculation Examination (UTME). An article about gardening in the Lamorinda Weekly begins with a quote from Emily Brontë's Fall, Leaves, Fall poem. La Razón (México) announces the publication of the collection Novelas Eternas in México. Zon (Italy) lists lovely love quotes, including some from Wuthering Heights. Finally, Designers Brasileiros (Brazil) lists some Christmas fonts, including Sideshow's Rochester font:
Rochester? Do romance vitoriano Jane Eyre Rochester ? Isso explica tudo. Esta fonte combina caligrafia com um estilo vitoriano para criar uma fonte clássica que é elegante e poderosa.
Tipo o personagem que deu o nome, certo? (Dalmir) (Translation)

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