An absorbing metabiography

SFist reviews Emma Rice's Wuthering Heights at Berkeley Repertory Theater.

But how to tell a story so renowned for its dark spookiness and plot involving treachery, abuse, and neglect, in the form of a musical, on a live stage? It's a challenge that Rice obviously dove into headfirst, removing the framing narrator Nelly Dean and adding in her place a Greek chorus who represent the Yorkshire Moors — the landscape of forest and rugged, wind-whipped hills that serve as the backdrop to Brontë's tale.

Playing the lead Moor, Jordan Laviniere serves as the story's primary narrator, as well as counsel to several characters in the style of Greek tragedy. As Rice describes it, in her reframing, she casts Heathcliff (Liam Tamne) as the God of Revenge, Catherine (Leah Brotherhead) as the God of Chaos, and their nephew Hareton (Tama Phethean) as the God of Hope.

Each gets their moment to dominate the narrative, beginning with Catherine, but this is, through and through, a tight ensemble piece in which the majority of the dozen players are often on stage at once — moving in choreographed chaos and grace, shifting around set pieces made of reclaimed doors, windows, and wooden chairs, and providing backup sound effects and puppeteering.

Playing the roles of the neighbor Lockwood and his predecessor at Thrushcross Grange, Edgar Linton, actor Sam Archer shines as one of the most talented physical comedians, opening the story with a series of pratfalls and an animated battle with a blustering storm outside.

And playing both Isabella Linton (until her untimely death) and Little Linton, Georgia Bruce also proves her comedic and dramatic chops.

The leads, Heathcliff and Catherine, are both played by immensely talented actors in Tamne and Brotherhead, both of whom succeed in conveying the joys of their shared, half-feral childhoods in the Moors, as well as the dangerously intense, adult passion for each other that grew out of that.

In service of the tale are a dozen original songs by Ian Ross — including the Alanis Morisette-esque, very rock-and-roll "Catherine's Curse" that comes near the end of Act 1, in which someone tosses Brotherhead a microphone and she rocks out downstage. These include some pretty tunes, like Act 1's "Bluebell," but mostly there is a theme of minor-key ennui to the score, which is appropriate enough.

The most remarkable achievement of this Wuthering Heights may be its lightness and humor. It's a testament to Rice's talents as an adapter and director that while the seriousness of Brontë's themes is not ignored, and while the characters exhibit some real pain and anguish throughout, this isn't a sad or desultory tale at all. It's a play that moves, with barely a moment's rest, from start to finish. And we're given plenty of joys, between the thrills of the actors' collective dance from scene to scene, making and remaking the shape of the stage, and the actual laughs that we're allowed to have at the characters' — and Brontë's — expense. When Catherine utters her melodramatic line "There is no happiness!", at least one member of the orchestra at last night's performance laughed out loud, and why not? (Jay Barmann)

Esquire lists 'The 50 Best Biographies of All Time' and we are glad to see that one of them--even if it's not exactly a biography--is

29 The Brontë Myth, by Lucasta Miller

Without Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë, we’d have no Wuthering Heights, no Jane Eyre, no The Tenant of Wildfell Hall—and something like half as many BBC television and radio adaptations. The thing that makes Lucasta Miller’s “metabiography” so absorbing is that she doesn’t just recount the lives of the three Brontë sisters in Victorian Yorkshire; she also narrates her own process of discovery as she realizes just how much their first biographer—a family friend who tried to sugarcoat their personal lives—misrepresented the Brontë family. (Adam Morgan)

While Book Riot has selected 'The Best Book Covers of 2022'.

Half-Blown Rose by Leesa Cross-Smith. Cover Design by Laywan Kwan,

In a world of blobby book covers, I really appreciate the angularity of this one. I also appreciate how much it communicates about the story. First, you see the titular rose, which is actually a reference to Jane Eyre. That reference speaks to the self-determination of Half-Blown Rose’s protagonist Vincent. Then you see a cityscape, and that’s the Paris backdrop of this lush and leisurely novel. Third, you can notice the painterly effects that blend the city into the rose; Vincent’s art career has brought her to Paris. It’s romantic, artistic, and positively dreamy. (Isabelle Popp)

According to Big Think,

While there are many articles from mainstream publications that reintroduce the timeless works of Honoré de Balzac, Vladimir Nabokov, and Emily Brontë to contemporary audiences, one has to look far and wide to find a non-academic article that explores the legacy (and lunacy) of Laurence Sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman. (Tim Brinkhof)

The New York Times asks bookish questions to cookery writer, etc. Prue Leith.

What’s the last great book you read?

I reread “The Warden,” by Anthony Trollope. It’s been my favorite book for half my life. I love all those Victorian writers like Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontë sisters, but Trollope is, I think, the best.

Michigan Daily reviews the film adaptation of Emma Donoghue’s The Wonder.

Aesthetically similar to a Robert Eggers (“The Northman”) film, “The Wonder” has the look of a gritty, gray horror period drama. The film is stripped of anything ornate and denies its characters and rural Ireland any superficial filter. The visual storytelling relies on the bleak nature that surrounds the uninviting O’Donnell home and the cool tones that dull the already monotonous costume and set design, reminiscent of Cary Joji Fukunaga’s 2011 film adaptation of Charlotte Brontë’s “Jane Eyre.” (Maya Ruder)