"I love that it's messy"

NPR's Enlighten Me with Rachel Martin interviews Vanessa Zoltan on her book Praying with Jane Eyre:

Vanessa Zoltan: We started sort of a Bible study with "Jane Eyre". We got together every week. It's different from a book club in that you're trying to learn from the book, not about the book. And you are actively asking the book questions about your own life. Just like you would with Torah, right?

As in, what does the creation story tell us about climate change today? What does, you know, Jane's relationship with her aunt tell us about toxic relationships today in my life?

Rachel Martin: Yeah. (...)

Martin: Even you admit that "Jane Eyre" isn't perfect as a piece of either sacred text or something to hold in this way because it falls short for you in some ways. Can you talk about that and that feeling of like, "Ah, dang it."

Zoltan: Ah, dang it, the man who I've been in love with since I was 14 sure did lock his wife up in an attic.

Martin: He sure did. We're talking about Bertha, the character of Bertha, and you spend a lot of time in your memoir talking about that character, and she's just not in the story for very long.

Zoltan: And you read more closely and Bertha is definitely coded as at least partially Black Caribbean. We know that she's been sent from the Caribbean to be married to Rochester. And so, you know, learning to decode the way that things were written in the 1840s. There are things that we wouldn't necessarily know to pick up on today. And having studied the book more closely, I was like, "oh, Bertha is Black, and this white man marries her for her money and then locks her in an attic and tells everyone she's crazy. Like, that's sure convenient."

Charlotte Brontë was one woman, you know, she was one teeny tiny woman. She was not perfect, and her theology was not perfect. And I do think that she ends up sacrificing Bertha, um, as a plot device and as a totem of baggage.

Martin: And does that diminish your perception of the book as sacred?

Zoltan: No, I love that it's messy in such an obvious way. It's not pernicious. It's not sneaky about how messed up it is. You know? I love "Pride and Prejudice," but it's so good that you can let some of the messed up stuff sort of slip by, whereas "Jane Eyre" is like the Bible in that it's messed up in a really obvious way that you have to deal with.

Brabant Cultureel (Netherlands) publishes a review about a book... but suddenly it became hijacked by another book: Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris by Anjet Daanje: 

Maar misschien heeft Alles voor de Kempen geen eerlijke kans van me gekregen. De schuld daarvan ligt bij Anjet Daanje. Ik had haar Het lied van ooievaar en dromedaris weliswaar net uit voor ik aan Hertoghs’ boek begon, maar haar woorden zinderden nog na. Hoe zij in haar boek, zonder hen bij naam te noemen, constant alludeert op het verborgen leven, de eenzame verbondheid, de bijzondere karakters en de zachte kracht van Charlotte, Emily en Anne Brontë, daar kun je niet zomaar uit stappen. Hetzelfde had ik decennia geleden toen ik Wuthering Heights van Emily Brontë gelezen had. Dit was geen boek om literair van te smullen, maar een ervaring die me naar de keel greep. Het spookte nog weken na.

Toen een jonge vrouw mij onlangs vroeg welke roman uit de wereldliteratuur zij volgens mij moest lezen, noemde ik Wuthering Heights. “Waarom?” “Omdat het gaat”, zei ik, “over…,” maar ik kwam er niet uit, “over de elementen, het instinct, de menselijke drift, het onderdeel van de natuur zijn, de vrede en de onrust, het leven en de dood, het bezield zijn van mensen, dieren en planten, dingen zelfs, de naïviteit en de berekening, het mysterie van het leven, het woeden van de hele wereld, de weidsheid van het universum, het starre en het buigzame, over…, over alles. En dat op een manier dat het al lezende in je kruipt.” “Poeh”, antwoordde de jonge vrouw. En toen ik haar enkele weken later opnieuw tegenkwam, herhaalde ze dat: “Poeh, je had gelijk.” (Jace Van der Ven) (Translation)

We love this comment from this column on the LNP-Lancaster Online:

My daughter recently came of age to announce her favorite Brontë. The equivalent in other households I know might be the eldest son choosing a favorite Beatle. Branwell the wayward brother is the “Ringo” pick, if you’re playing at home. Anne is George. The other two are easy. I won’t say which she picked, but her mom and I each had a hope. (Doug Harper)

Seventy years have passed and still some critics don't get it. The Critic Magazine publishes a review of the recent recording of  the Hans Sørensen adaptation of the Suite from ''Wuthering Heights''  for Soprano, Baritone and Orchestra by Bernard Herrmann:

Weary of Hollywood Hermann migrated to London, where he died in his mid-60s. He left a large body of concert music that seldom gets heard and the prospect of discovering an opera he wrote in the 1940s on Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights was distinctly tantalising. Unfortunately, this premiere recording is a disappointment. The music is at once dappled and derivative, with undertones of Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten. The textures are too light by half and there is a dearth of dark foreboding. Roderick Williams and Keri Fuge sing the solo parts; Mario Venzago conducts the Singapore Symphony Orchestra for what seems like a very long time. I ran screaming back to Herrmann’s recording of Psycho: now, there’s a real concert score. (Norman Lebrecht)

By the way, this is no premiere of Bernard Herrmann's operas as the article seems to suggest. A couple of recordings exist. This is the premiere of the 2011 suite created by Hans Sørensen. Fortunately, the BBC Music Magazine (September 2023) does a much better job:

Sørensen sticks faithfully to Herrmann’s massive orchestration, but distills the narrative so asto focus wholly on Cathy and Heathcliff. Through their two voices – a radiant Keri Fuge and a towering Roderick Williams –we’re drawn immediately into their intense love affair( with each other and the wild landscape that seemingly defines them). The orchestra is just as much a character, taking on the roles oft he rugged moors and the violent weather, and while Herrmann’s uncompromising score could easily suffocate, it more than find sits match in Williams’s virile baritone. The composer seemingly feels every moment of romance, though, drenching the few moments of sunlight, beauty and rapture with probably his most gorgeous refrains – the soaring love theme would make a more familiar appearance in Herrmann’s 1947 film score for The Ghost andMrs Muir. (Michael Beek)

The Independent reviews the gig of The Last Dinner Party at the Reading Festival 2023:

But the sprite-like twirls and prances of singer Abigail Morris – plus lyrics about “candle wax melting in my veins” – undoubtedly give them the air of modern Brontë heroines in fits of wild, yet still civil abandon. (Mark Beaumont)

Derbyshire Live describes the 'hidden gem' of the Peak District, Hathersage:

It inspired author Charlotte Brontë when writing ‘Jane Eyre’, and nearby North Lees Hall was visited several times by the author in 1845, becoming the main inspiration for Thornfield Hall. These hidden historical gems are just one of the reasons that Hathersage has previously been named as one of the best places to live in the Midlands. (Joseph Ash)

The New Zealand Herald's Viva publishes the books and films that have inspired collections at the recent New Zealand Fashion Week:

Ahead of their 2012 Fashion Week showing, Rachel Eastwood gifted Anjali Stewart a copy of The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. The two Twenty-seven Names designers found some inspiration in the first lines of the novel, which read “To start with, look at all the books.” Following Eugenides’ advice quite literally, the pair looked to their sixth-form reading list for inspiration. They found enlightenment in the great female novelists of the 19th century, including Jane Austen, Mary Ann Evans (whose pen name was George Eliot), and the Brontë sisters. (Madeleine Crutchley)

Harper Bazaar India lists books about female friendships:

Think of Blair Waldorf without her Serena Van Der Woodsen in Gossip Girl or Jane Eyre without Helen Burns, Eloise Bridgerton without Penelope Featherington, Jane, Kat and Sutton in the Bold Type or even you without your 3:00 a.m girls. For a long time, female friendships were perceived by most as overtly competitive and toxic or at best, frivolous and pretentious. (Maahi Shah)

The Sunday Times reviews Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue:

But this is not just a novel; it’s a political project. Desperate letters from Eliza [Raine] to Anne [Lister], sent from a mental asylum, break up the chapters. Driven mad by jealousy and locked away, Eliza is rumoured to have been the inspiration behind Jane Eyre’s Bertha Mason. (Laura Hackett)

Il Mattino (Italy) reports how the Biblioteca Communale di Soccavo (shame on you) have get rid of several volumes to make space for others. Among the discarded volumes we found Villette by Charlotte Brontë:

Abbiamo fatto una ricerca random e abbiamo appurato, ad esempio, che i due volumi dismessi del “Nicola Nickleby” di Charles Dickens erano unici, così come i due tomi di “Collegio Femminile” di Charlotte Bronte. (Paolo Barbuto) (Translation)

La Vanguardia (Spain) is a bit confused about when Emily will be (or was) screened at the Sitges Film Festival. It was last year at the 2022 edition. But this is not the only blunder in this text. Stay tuned for Anne Brontë writing in Shirley about Emily Brontë:

Una de las películas a competición en el próximo (!!) festival de Sitges es Emily, el filme sobre Emily Brönte (sic) que su directora, la también actriz Frances O’Connor, insiste en llamar “no un biopic”. Por si alguien se pregunta qué hace una Brönte (sic) en un festival de fantástico, las dudas se despejan pronto, porque la película arranca con una escena en la que Emily, interpretada por Emma Mackey, se pone una máscara para asustar a sus hermanos haciéndose pasar por el espíritu de su madre. No hay que olvidar tampoco que la mediana de las hermanas de Yorkshire se considera una de las creadoras de la novela gótica, con Cumbres borrascosas, y que ella misma practicaba un cristianismo un tanto herético y místico. Algunas de las anécdotas que han pervivido sobre ella la muestran como una estoica y una criatura indómita, como la vez que le mordió un perro con rabia y que, tal y como recogió su hermana Anne en Shirley (!!!), Emily se curó a si misma cauterizando la herida con un hierro ardiente que metió ella misma en el fuego. (Begoña Gómez Urzaiz) (Translation)

Good Night quotes, including one by Anne Brontë, in Pinkvilla. A screening of the film Emily in Prima Como (Italy). Lavart (Greece) lists quotes from Jane Eyre "revealing its timeless beauty".