Branwell meets Munch

Rail trips to literary landscapes in The Scarborough News:

National Book Lovers Day this week is a time to acknowledge the joy of reading as well as to appreciate the amazing literature crafted by British authors. (...)

Yorkshire by Steam – five days from £419 per person

Passengers begin their Yorkshire adventure on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales in Harrogate.

The journey continues through some of North Yorkshire’s most picturesque towns and cities from the historic city of York to the quaint village of Howarth (sic).

Brontë fans will be particularly enthused by the wonderfully dramatic landscape of the moors, that feature in Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre.

Price: £359 per person. Includes four nights hotel accommodation and seven meals. Price based on departing on August 14 2022. For more information or to book, please call 01904 527180 or visit www.raildiscoveries.com (Sue Wilkinson)

The Hindu goes for clichés when talking about Persuasion 2022:

Netflix’s Persuasion is the latest addition to the Jane Austen spin-off industry, flourishing more than two centuries after her death. There are Jane Austen societies in the U.K. and the U.S. where people still pay her homage; her face graced a £10 note released in 2017, on the 200th anniversary of her passing; movies on her novels are regularly made; devoted fans hold Jane Austen picnics dressed in Regency costumes and cross swords with Brontë groups, their natural enemy. (Anusua Mukherjee)

Yorkshire Day is coming and The Yorkshire Evening Post shares what Yorkshire has given to the world:

2. The Brontë sisters

The Parsonage in Haworth, West Yorkshire, was home to the Brontë sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne, where they wrote their famous novels. Coastal town Whitby is known as Dracula’s birthplace, after Bram Stoker stayed there in 1890. He found plenty of inspiration for his novel within his surroundings including the abbey, St Mary’s Church and 199 steps. (Zoe Drye) 

Dorset Echo announces the upcoming open-air performances of Wuthering Heights by the SISATA Theatre Company. Hampshire Cultural Trust interviews the cast:

 Q. All of you are from Dorset- how does that affect your portrayal of Brontë's classic Northern characters?

“I’ve been moving backwards and forwards, I’ve never really had a home town other than Christchurch. So I’m going to use that. Heathcliff is a traveller, he’s been moving around. This is what I’ve been doing all my life. I’ve always been a bit of a lone wolf like him.” - Ignacio Andrew Parish, Actor - Heathcliff  (...)

Q. I hear the live music is full of hidden gems. Can you tell us more?

“I'm really excited to bring my music to our audiences. I've newly written an overarching theme of original songs to punctuate the drama of the play. As an exclusive treat for Brontë fans, we’ll also be using folk tunes directly from Emily Brontë's brother's book of flute music. Accompanied by the Victorian travelling harmonium and bowed psaltery- this will certainly be a once in a life-time experience for audiences.” - Alastair Simpson, Actor/Musician/Composer- Multirole

The London Review of Books visits the exhibition Edvard Munch: Masterpieces from Bergen at the Courtauld:

[T]here is an extraordinary painting, Woman in Three Stages, painted in 1894 when Munch was thirty. The three women might represent the three stages of the life cycle – youth, maturity, old age – yet they appear to be the same age. They could be sisters. A man stands isolated to the right of the canvas, his eyes cast down; he is boxed in by tall tree trunks. The painting made me think of Branwell Brontë’s famous ‘Pillar Portrait’ in the National Portrait Gallery, depicting his sisters Charlotte, Emily and Anne with his own self-portrait in the group obliterated: a ghostly absence that haunts the composition in the form of a tall column of paint. Branwell, as the only brother in a family of sisters, must have had a similar struggle to Edvard. But Branwell never resolved the gender insecurity he experienced. The portraits of his sisters remain caricatures. He didn’t enter the life of his subjects as Munch was able to do. (Celia Paul)

A press release on Newswires announces that the psychologist and author Dr. Susan Kavaler-Adler will be featured on Close-Up Radio:

Her already published books, “The Compulsion to Create: Women Writers and Their Demon Lovers,” and “The Creative Mystique: From Red Shoes Frenzy to Love and Creativity,” have in-depth studies on the Brontë sisters, Emily Dickinson, Anne Sexton, Virginia Woolf, Camille Claudel, Diane Arbus, Katherine Mansfield, Sylvia Plath, and others. These articles discuss brilliant writers/performers who were traumatized, haunted by demon lovers, or were torn, and never truly healed, in contrast with those who could mourn and heal, such as Charlotte Brontë or ballerina Suzanne Farrell.

Mad in America reviews the article Race, Gender, and Sanism: Remapping Mad Feminist Genealogies by Jess Waggoner:

How does the exclusion of Black women from psychiatric narratives manifest itself today? As Waggoner’s critical reading reveals, the figure of the Black woman in distress emerges in works from Jane Eyre to The Yellow Wallpaper as the “mad figure deserving of confinement” that, in turn, bolsters the sanity of the white female protagonist; or, alternatively, becomes a deracialized figure for the liberatory potential to white feminist audiences. (Jenny Logan)

De Groene Amsterdammer (Netherlands) reviews the novel Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris by  Anjet Daanje:

Verhalen die van heel ver komen

Met Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris biedt Anjet Daanje een fascinerende kluwen van verhalen die samen twee eeuwen omspannen, in een mozaïek van stijlen en genres. Centraal staat de onaangepaste Eliza May, in wie we Emily Brontë herkennen. (...)

Daanje’s bedoeling is niet Brontë te verslaan, zoals de Bloom-mannen zouden doen, maar eerder haar dichterbij te halen, haar raadselachtige persoon tot spreken te brengen, haar voort te zetten. Om dat te doen schept Daanje een nieuwe fictieve familie, levend in de eerste helft van de negentiende eeuw in Yorkshire, te midden van de uitgestrekte heidevelden. Het dorp heet Bridge Fowling – een gefictionaliseerd Hayworth, waar de Brontë’s woonden. (Read more) (Maaike Meijer) (Translation)

WMN (Hungary) explores costume dramas:

Kislánykoromban rongyosra néztem a Sisi-filmeket, a Titkok kertjét, aztán jöttek a Jane Austen- meg a Brontë-feldolgozások, bár utóbbiak azért jóval sötétebb hangulatúak. (Anna Eszter Szabó) (Translation)

Magazine HD (Portugal) and Artribune (Italy) talk about Kate Bush:

Wuthering Heights foi o single de estreia de “The Kick Inside”, o primeiro álbum de Kate Bush. A cantora escreveu a música após ter assistido a uma adaptação do romance homónimo (O Monte dos Vendavais, em português) de Emily Brontë. Fascinada com a obra da escritora britânica, Bush compôs a canção na perspetiva de Catherine Earnshaw, a protagonista do livro de Brontë, como se esta se encontrasse à porta de casa do seu amado, Heathcliff, implorando para que este abrisse. Infelizmente, o rapaz jamais poderia ouvir as súplicas de Catherine uma vez que esta era já um fantasma. (Jéssica Rodrigues) (Translation)

Già a partire dal suo primo singolo di successo, Wuthering Heights ‒ ispirato al romanzo di Emily Brontë, Cime Tempestose ‒, ci troviamo di fronte alla storia di uno spettro vendicatore che in una notte di tempesta torna a perseguitare il proprio amante fedifrago; non esattamente la classica pop song sull’amore infranto, ma quasi un romanzo gotico in quattro minuti. (Fabrizio De Palma) (Translation)

Querido Clássico (in Portuguese) compares Guillermo Del Toro's Crimson Peak and Wuthering Heights:

 A Colina Escarlate é um filme belo, tecnicamente perfeito, e conta com uma direção primorosa nas mãos competentes de Guillermo Del Toro, grande fã da literatura gótica, do terror, de monstros, fantasmas e de O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes. Com uma história simples, conseguiu fazer uma grande homenagem ao romance de Emily Brontë, e mesmo sendo evidentemente inspirado em um dos mais famosos romances góticos de todos os tempos, ainda possui vida e personalidade própria. Um filme tão mágico e fascinante quanto as outras obras de sua filmografia. ( Babi Moerbeck) (Translation)

Whattowatch publishes a summary of what we know about the release of Frances O'Connor's Emily.