Wallowing in all the novels of the Brontë sisters

Reuters reports the death of author A.S. Byatt.

Byatt, whose career spanned nearly 60 years, was best known for her 1990 novel "Possession: A Romance". She was the sister of the novelist Margaret Drabble, and the siblings drew parallels with the Brontës, a comparison they tended to spurn.

Possession is definitely one of the best fictional recreations of the Victorian era and well worth a read (or two). Rest in peace, Antonia.

The Yorkshire Post interviews actress Samantha Giles about all things Yorkshire.

What’s your first Yorkshire memory?

I’d have been 15 or 16 and I can recall coming over the Pennines (our family came from ‘the other side’) and we visited Haworth, which suited me perfectly, because I was wallowing in all the novels of the Brontë sisters, and I could imagine that I was Cathy to my heart’s delight. [...]

Name your favourite Yorkshire author/book/artist./CD/performer?

The Brontës gave me my love of Gothic fiction and in the present day, reading Milly Johnson is like getting a big, warm, sincere and genuine hug.

Similarly, writer Joanne Harris is also a fan of Wuthering Heights according to The Guardian:

The book I reread

I often reread books, sometimes for comfort and sometimes because I find that really good books can grow alongside the reader, offering different insights as the reader gains life experience. When I first read Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights at 16, I read it as a love story and was swept away by the drama, passion and poignancy of the central relationships. Rereading it as an adult, I was struck by how different it seemed to me, and how much of the humour I’d missed. Now I love its poetry and rawness, and the love story that exists between Brontë and the North York Moors.

Glamour interviews Emerald Fennell about her latest film, Saltburn.

What I love about Promising Young Women and also this film is its dark, twisted quality. Often, you're compared to male directors and artists who shared these qualities, like Bret Easton Ellis and Roald Dahl – I know that you personally identify with Alfred Hitchcock as well. What do you think that a more female perspective has to offer to these darker narratives?

That's so interesting, as I think of the Gothic as actually being an inherently female thing, like the Brontë sisters and Hilary Mantel and Patricia Highsmith [author of The Talented Mr Ripley book]. I think there's a dark, specifically female thing as well. Because when you're writing about sex and power, those things are experienced differently if you're a woman. The writers and filmmakers that I love the most tend to write or make things that are very, very dark, but in a very beautiful way. Sofia Coppola is a great example of the modern American Gothic. There's no one darker, but everything she makes is so tactile, beautiful and alluring that the darkness is like a knife wrapped in satin. The women that I admire are working in those super dark places. (Francesca Specter)

The Yorkshire Post on 'why now is the best time to head out and discover the Yorkshire landscape'.

Brontë Country

Visit Haworth, the home of the Brontë sisters, and explore the rugged countryside that inspired their novels. The Brontë Waterfall and the ruined farmhouse at Top Withens, said to have inspired Wuthering Heights, are popular sites to visit.

On the other side of the pond, Cultured recommends The Trespasser and Other Tales exhibition at Turn Gallery, New York City.

Picture Source

Every season an artist emerges with a collective, heightened buzz around them. As 2023 draws to a close, my money is on Karyn Lyons, whose solo exhibition, "The Trespasser and Other Tales" at Turn Gallery on the Upper East Side, debuted earlier this month. Suspended between the fictional and the biographical, Lyons creates a lush world of nostalgia-imagined film stills in pitch-perfect detail. You can practically hear and smell that sacred, liminal space of teen girlhood: a McDonald’s cup, the copy of Jane Eyre, that hickey under a sweet white blouse. 

“My paintings are about my teenage memories, the embarrassment and shame and loneliness, but also about the beauty and hope,” says Lyons. “I believe in the saying that the more personal you make something, the more universal it becomes.” (Jacoba Urist)

The Guardian on twins:

According to the ancient Greek poet Pindar, Pollux “didn’t give it a second thought”. In a choice between immortality and Castor, he went with Castor – of course. He likely felt about it the way Cathy felt about Heathcliff when she said: “If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it.” Deathless though he was, Pollux couldn’t live without his twin. (Helena de Bres)

Xtra has a recap of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK Season 5, Episode 8.

Joining her down there is Kate [Butch] and her partner, “Femily Brontë.” [...]

 I’m not sure there’s ever been a better makeover partner drag name than Femily Brontë for Kate Butch. The Wuthering Heights connection is unreal. (Kevin O'Keeffe)

The Tim
es has an article on boots, including a so-called Jane Eyre lace-up one.