Moors Mirtherers

Offaly Independent recaps the recent That Beats Banagher! events:

The second weekend of this year’s That Beats Banagher Festival was mostly dedicated to commemorating Charlotte Brontë and her husband Arthur Bell Nicholls of Banagher.

The ten literary and heritage events held over the weekend were largely attended and enthusiastically received.

The programme began on Friday evening with the opening of an exhibition The Legacy of the Brontës in Banagher and showing of a related film by Maebh O’Regan.

The exhibition showed through a variety of textile panels precious items connected with the Brontës which had come to Banagher in the 1860s. The work is an ongoing collaboration between the Banagher Crafting Group and Maebh O’Regan of the National College of Art and Design in Dublin. The exhibition will travel throughout County Offaly and elsewhere in the coming months.

This was followed by a reading from the well-known poet Eileen Casey of Birr and Dublin. Eileen read from her recent works Bog Treasure, Bogmen First and Last and Lives on the Line. The evening concluded with the unveiling of three portraits by acclaimed artist Jennifer Kenny Phibbs of New York and Shannon Harbour. The portraits are of Arthur Bell Nicholls and his first wife Charlotte Brontë and his second wife Mary Anna Bell. Each portrait was beautifully rendered in an atmospheric sepia style and will go on public display in Banagher in August and Sepember.

Saturday commenced with the premiére of another Maebh O’Regan film called Arthur and Charlotte, A Victorian Romance (... Read more) 

Forbes interviews Mike Matessino, an expert on the music of John Williams:

Darryn King: Williams has also been quoted as saying that “Jane Eyre” [1970] is one of his favorite scores of his own.

M.M.: “Jane Eyre” is a delight. I think John was really starting to feel at home in England during this period, having done “Goodbye, Mr. Chips” and then “Fiddler on the Roof,” with “Jane Eyre” scoring in the middle of the latter project. So the composer’s penchant for “English-ness” really comes out (which we really wouldn’t hear again until the Harry Potter scores) and there was an additional level of comfort in that it was his third project with director Delbert Mann. There is some fantastic period instrumentation in the piece, and then you also have suspenseful music along with some sweeping melodies that certainly make it one of the finest scores ever done for television, absolutely deserving of the Emmy award John received for it.

ual: reviews the book Season of the Witch: The Book of Goth by Cathi Unsworth:

The opening up of post-punk splinterlands of shamanic impressions and pseudo-satanic compressions where subtleties are misunderstood and imagistic horrorscapes abound: Yorkshire produces the Brontë sisters as Moors Mirtherers and the Ripper’s twilight terror. Democracy is duly delivered via the whack to the head and spirit crushing bloodshed (The battles of Beanfield and Orgreave). (Kevin Quinn)

and also interviews the author:

K.Q.:  Is goth a very British bricolage reaction and response to society’s stultifying straitjacket?

C.U.: (...) The music these bands and artists made renders those times the same way that previous generations (Gothmothers and Fathers) had recorded theirs – Percy Shelly writing The Mask of Anarchy about the Peterloo Massacre in the time of Lord Liverpool, whose record rein in office was equalled by Thatcher; Mary Shelley writing Frankenstein in the year there was no summer; the Brontës seeing the mills go up around them in the Yorkshire Dales. 

Helsingin Sanomat (Finland) quotes Charlotte Brontë:

 ”Sovinnaisuus ei ole moraalisuutta, eikä hurskastelu ole uskonto”, muistutti kirjailija Charlotte Brontë. Toisten tapoja, katsomusta ja seksuaalisuutta on mahdollista kunnioittaa sortumatta sellaiseen arvorelativismiin, jossa haitallisetkin näkemykset ja teot sallitaan. (Silvia Hosseini) (Translation)

El Placer de la Lectura (Spain) and the books you should read at least once in your life:

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

 Esta novela histórica que redefinió la conciencia narrativa se centra en la homónima Jane Eyre, una huérfana nacida en la Inglaterra de 1800. A medida que Jane crece, toma su destino en sus propias manos, lo que se vuelve particularmente conmovedor cuando se encuentra con el melancólico Sr. Rochester en Thornfield Hall. (Translation)

La Voz de Galicia interviews the chiel of pathological anatomy at a local hospital:

María Cobas: ¿Qué está leyendo?

Carm en Penín: Estoy releyendo Cumbres Borrascosas. Vi una película malísima que hablaba de él y lo cogí. Hay libros que leo cada cierto tiempo. Mi preferido es Cien años de soledad. (Translation)

Anfibia (Argentina) quotes from the book of essays, Donde Nada se Detiene by Sonia Budassi:

Al preguntarle por su libro favorito, Isabel responde: Cumbres borrascosas. ¿Casualmente? En Madre e hijo, de Aira hijo, puede leerse, cuando el narrador le habla a su madre: “Cuando yo era chico leías siempre Cumbres borrascosas. Vos siempre con Cumbres borrascosas”. Como si los dos fueran personajes, el uno en la obra del otro, además de madre e hijo. (Translation)

Buzzfeed includes Wuthering Heights in a post here you have to match quotes and films. We have some late Most Wuthering Heights Day Ever pictures around: Bunbury Herald,  Frankfurter Rundschau, Lasvolta...