Loving Jane

A guest post by Kelly Creagh, author of the YA Jane Eyre retelling Strange Unearthly Things in School Library Journal:

When I began brainstorming Strange Unearthly Things, my modern paranormal romance YA retelling of Jane Eyre, I went to my closest female friends, asking what they loved most about Charlotte Bronte’s original novel. Between conspiring—and gushing—about all the possible routes and approaches I could take with this beloved book, I noticed a common theme. Everyone, it seemed, including me, loved one thing above all others in the original story. And that one thing…was Jane. (...)

Jane Eyre certainly has its mysterious and foreboding leading man, and the swoon-worthy Mr. Rochester ensnares the reader as much as he does Jane. However, when it comes to Brontë’s Jane Eyre, the true allure for the reader is found less in the mercurial and sympathetically flawed Mr. Rochester and more in its title character. To me, this seems like an anomaly. And an enigma. And isn’t Jane herself an enigma, too?

I wanted to accomplish many things with my retelling of Jane Eyre, which would include recasting Jane herself—the character who taught me as a teen that, no matter who you are or where you come from, your worth is not assigned by anyone outside of you. I wanted to bring Jane new life while also retaining those core elements of her character that resonated so profoundly with me and my friends. One of those elements—the most fundamental—is Jane’s fortitude. (Read more)

The Guardian reviews the novel Learned by Heart by Emma Donoghue:

Much less is known about Eliza Raine, who was born in Madras, the illegitimate daughter of an English father and an Indian mother, sent back to England at the age of six and orphaned shortly after. In 1814 Eliza was committed to an asylum where she remained incarcerated for the rest of her life. Scholars have claimed her as the inspiration for Bertha in Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. (Clare Clark)

Birmingham Live covers the wedding of the Coronation Street star Faye Brooks:

Faye, who met Iwan [Lewis] while starring in the theatre production of Legally Blonde together, yesterday shared a photo of herself enjoying a spa day. She took a selfie in a mirror showing her in her dressing gown and flip flops.

She then shared a photo of a book with the Emily Brontë quote: "He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same." (Katy Hallam)

Susie Goldsbrough in The Times thinks that no writer today could write as well as the Victorian writers:

And then there were the geniuses: not only Dickens but George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Elizabeth Gaskell, William Thackeray, Charlotte Brontë, Thomas Hardy and on and on. Many were men, of course, eased along by the wheel-grease of their wives (for what more perfect economic condition is there for an artist than a hard-working, unsalaried assistant?).

Countryfile walks the Pennine Way:

Day 4: Calder Valley to Ickornshaw

16 miles (26 km)

A longer hike today through the literary landscapes of Brontë Country, through Heptonstall Moor before dropping into the little village of Ickornshaw. There’s a wider range of accommodation and eateries in nearby Haworth – plus the added appeal of the Brontë Parsonage. (Mark Sutcliffe)

A.I. in schools in The New York Times: 

Why would you assign a take-home exam, or an essay on “Jane Eyre,” if everyone in class — except, perhaps, the most strait-laced rule-followers — will use A.I. to finish it? Why wouldn’t you switch to proctored exams, blue-book essays and in-class group work, if you knew that ChatGPT was as ubiquitous as Instagram and Snapchat among your students? (Kevin Roose)

CBR talks about Star Wars: The Last Jedi points in common with Pride and Prejudice:

Rian Johnson seems to understand that Kylo Ren is by no means the first character of his kind, and there's a reason why he sticks in fans' minds, especially as the other half of an enemies-to-lovers romance. He walks in the same footprints as Mr. Darcy and Wuthering Heights' Heathcliff. All of them are, to a certain extent, Byronic heroes. (Vera W) 

Business Insider lists the most iconic music videos:

Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights" has two iconic videos. The UK version features Bush in a white dress as she dances around a dark room white white mist. The second stars Bush in a red dress doing the same memorable dance moves and emotive faces, but instead of a room, she is in the middle of the woods. More than 300 people dressed as Bush in the red dress recreated her video in a Brighton park in 2013. (Anjelica Oswald and Barnaby Lane )

Our Coast presents the book Medusa's Sisters by Lauren J.A. Bear:

“Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” “Wide Sargasso Sea” and “My Jim” are some of my favorite retellings of classic tales — wherein an author revisits a story conceived of by another writer from long ago and reimagines it from a different point of view.

A new contribution to this literary niche of counternarratives is “Medusa’s Sisters,” by Seattle-based writer Lauren J.A. Bear. (Barbara Lloyd McMichael)

Kino Zeit (Germany) explores (British) costume dramas:

Wie schwierig sich dieser Perspektivwechsel gestaltet, zeigt sich unter anderem daran, dass sowohl die Schwestern Brontë (ganz im Gegensatz zu ihrem ihrem Bruder Branwell, der ebenfalls schrieb) als auch Alcott zunächst nur unter Pseudonym veröffentlichen; die Schwestern unter männlichem, Alcott unter einem, bei dem das Geschlecht nicht ersichtlich war. Jane Austen wiederum versteckt sich zeitlebens hinter der kryptischen Autorinnenzeile „by a Lady“.

Wie feministisch Austens Werk ist, darüber lässt sich trefflich streiten. Festzuhalten ist zumindest, dass die Protagonistinnen ihrer Werke weniger frei und wild wirken als die der Schwestern Brontë und die vier Schwestern in Alcotts Roman Little Women (1868/69). (...)

Vergleichsweise freizügig zeigen sich auch zwei Adaptionen der Brontë-Schwestern aus dem Jahr 2011, Jane Eyre von Cary Joji Fukunaga mit Mia Wasikowska in der Titelrolle und Andrea Arnolds Wuthering Heights, in der Shannon Beer die junge und Kaya Scodelario die erwachsene Cathy spielen. Noch ungezügelter geht es derweil in Emily (2022) zu, dem Regiedebüt der Mansfield-Park-Hauptdarstellerin Frances O’Connor, die in ihr Biopic über Emily Brontë (Emma Mackey) geschickt Elemente aus Brontës Wuthering Heights einfließen und den Geist der Schriftstellerin frei flottieren lässt. In allen drei Filmen ist die Natur auch immer Seelenlandschaft. Die Figuren sind so schroff, wie die Welt, die sie umgibt. Besonders in Arnolds ins beengende 1.33:1-Format gepresster Version (die sich allerdings auf den männlichen Part Heathcliff fokussiert) könnte die karge, unwirtliche Umgebung kaum weiter entfernt sein von den von Menschenhand perfekt zurechtgestutzten Grünanlagen, durch die die Figuren in den Austen-Adaptionen Sinn und Sinnlichkeit (1995) und Stolz und Vorurteil (2005) spazieren. (Falk Straub) (Translation)

A small ray of hope in Giornale di Brescia (Italy): 

«Un’altra tendenza senza dubbio interessante e che trascende il periodo estivo è la riscoperta di alcuni grandi classici da parte dei giovani - ha aggiunto Marco della Feltrinelli -. Abbiamo tanti ragazzi che vengono a chiederci libri della Austen o della Brontë: opere cardine della letteratura che stanno tornando di tendenza su Instagram e TikTok e vengono intercettate dai giovani. È molto bello vedere come i ragazzi siano in grado di trainare le vendite». (Alessia Tagliabue) (Translation)

Listelist (Turkey) thinks that if you like Pride and Prejudice you would like Wuthering Heights (!):

Uğultulu Tepeler – Emily Brontë

Uğultulu Tepeler İngilizce yazılmış en büyük romanlardan biri olarak kabul ediliyor. 1801 yılının sonlarında, Lockwood adında bir adam, İngiltere’nin ıssız bozkır kıyılarında Thrushcross Grange isimli bir malikane kiralar. Burada, Grange’den dört mil uzakta, Wuthering Heights’ın eski malikanesinde yaşayan zengin ve asık suratlı ev sahibi Heathcliff ile tanışır. Bu vahşi, fırtınalı kırsalda Lockwood, hizmetçisi Nelly Dean’den kendisine Heathcliff ve Uğultulu Tepeler’in garip sakinlerinin hikayesini anlatmasını ister. Daha sonra Lockwood, Nelly’nin söylediklerini yazmaya başlar. Kitabı incelemek ve satın almak için buraya tıklayabilirsiniz. (Öykü Demirağ) (Translation)