Unmatched escapism

Irish Times mourns the death of writer Jilly Copper by saying something as silly as 'Forget the Brontë sisters, they could never match Jilly Cooper for glamorous escapism, and sex' as if the Brontës had ever claimed that title for themselves.

These characters with their fancy names all seemed impossibly glamorous compared to my boarding school life in midlands Ireland, or to the nineteenth-century novels I was also reading back then. You can call the Brontë sisters’ brilliant novels many things, but glamorous escapism they are not. (Rosita Boland)

According to People, 'Jane Eyre Gets a Feminist Retelling in The Chateau on Sunset' by Natasha Lester.

While speaking about the inspiration for the book in a statement to PEOPLE, Lester reflects on borrowing Jane Eyre from the library when she was 10 years old.

"The book had an old-fashioned, illustrated cover where Rochester loomed large on his white horse and Jane was relegated to a small corner," says Lester. "The deeper I got into this novel, the more grown-up I felt. A madwoman! An excitingly steely man! A gothic mansion! Passion, a concept I hadn’t understood until I read this book. Oh, and a woman called Jane."

Lester tells PEOPLE that she has never been more engrossed in the TV than when the BBC adapted Jane Eyre into an episodic series.

"Never have I ever been more terrified by what was hiding in the attic," she says. "Never have I ever been more obsessed with a brooding, dark-haired hero. Yes, Jane Eyre left a deep impression on me. I’ve watched every movie adaptation since and reread the book many times."

"Over the years, I realized that the characters who most stayed with me were Rochester and his wife," she continues. "And I began to wonder how Jane felt after her happy ending. She was a woman who was fascinated by Lapland, Siberia and 'the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone,' who looked at the horizon beyond Lowood school and said of the blue peaks she saw in the distance, 'it was those I longed to surmount.' "

"Somehow, the woman whose name was on the cover of the book had not only been outshone by a man and madness, she’d never really got what she’d most yearned for," Lester adds. "Which didn’t seem fair. So I thought it was time that Jane got a story where she was the real star." (Ingrid Vasquez)

A contributor to ArtReview wonders, 'What Do We Actually Want From Literary Adaptations?'

Rugged CGI landscapes wreathed in mist, flames, heaving bodices, Jacob Elordi. So populated are the trailers for two new film adaptations of classic literary texts: Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights, which comes out on Valentine’s Day 2026, and Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein, which will be released later this month. Both novels have generated their own lineage of visual tropes; each new cinematic version of these stories is placed immediately in unfavourable comparison with all that have come before.

Why bother? A more useful question, perhaps, is what we want from literary adaptations in the first place. Fidelity to the source text is always a problem to be navigated. [...]

The response to the Wuthering Heights trailer has been at best mixed, with much derision directed towards Fennell’s decision to cast a white, twenty-eight-year-old Elordi as Heathcliff opposite a thirty-five-year-old post-Barbie Margot Robbie. In a former life, I was a professional Victorianist; this is certainly not my Catherine Earnshaw. But should that matter? More relevant, I think, is the fact that the film has the potential to honour Emily Brontë’s anarchic spirit – her sister Charlotte spent a significant amount of energy after Emily’s death trying to dampen and apologise for the text’s erotic deviance – but it probably isn’t going to succeed in doing so, not because of infidelity to the text but because Fennell’s films are bad. An early test screening contained, according to The Guardian,‘horse-rein sex, suggestive egg yolks and necrophile nuns’, suggesting the continuation of her track record of confusing campy pseudo-subversive sexual dynamics for substance.

Fennell herself seems to have an ambivalent relationship to the act of adaptation. Speaking at the Brontë Women’s Writing Festival in Haworth, Yorkshire, last month, she referenced her teenaged ‘obsession’ with the book: ‘I know that if somebody else made it, I’d be furious. It’s very personal material for everyone […] The way we relate to the characters is very private.’ The act of trying to make a film of something that means a lot to you, she went on, is an ‘act of extreme masochism’, because the text ‘can’t love me back’. Her adult attempt to direct the project, then, is always in opposition to her obsessive teenage self, who relates to the book in a different way than the adult ever can. Teenage Fennell might be seen as a stand-in for the viewers who have taken to the internet to express their own rage at her choices as perceived violations of their own private relations to the text, their own cinematic fantasies. (Helen Charman)

According to Her Campus, 'Your Fall Book Club Needs' to read Wuthering Heights.

However, something about the weather cooling down always makes me want to read a book full of truly horrible people continuously making worse decisions than the last. All in the name of “love,” of course. Wuthering Heights is truly one of the most intense, insane, and compelling books ever written. With destructive passions, gothic estates, ghostly encounters, and a truly terrifying antagonist (or love-interest, if that’s how you want to refer to Heathcliff), Wuthering Heights sets the dark, gothic vibe that I expect for any good Autumn season.

Wuthering Heights is a 200-year-old Gothic novel written by Emily Brontë. Despite its age, the novel possesses that special kind of family drama and twistedness that feels timeless. Starring Catherine Earnshaw and her star-crossed lover Heathcliff (who, like I mentioned, is also the book’s antagonist, but a lot of people aren’t ready for that conversation), Wuthering Heights is ultimately a love story, just not in the way you might be used to.

And yet, this twisted and haunting love story leads to some of the most beautifully romantic quotes that I have ever read. When discussing Heathcliff, Catherine at one point states, “He’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” Later in the book, Heathcliff begs Catherine, “Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I can not live without my life! I can not live without my soul!” Now, the actual context of these quotes (still not giving any spoilers) might make them seem a little less romantic and a bit more insane, but that doesn’t make them any less beautiful.

If the love story isn’t enough to convince you to read the book, then maybe the incredible (if unconventional) writing style will. The book is told primarily through the perspective of a judgmental (and refreshingly responsible) former servant of the Earnshaw family, who is telling the story of the family to an outsider unfortunate enough to have moved in next door to Wuthering Heights. The novel spans generations and ties in additional, engrossing themes of the cycle of abuse and the all-consuming nature of revenge. Emily Brontë was not trying to write likable characters; she was trying to write compelling ones. The characters are (glaringly) flawed, and because of that, they feel fully fleshed out and real. 

Finally, if you’re still not convinced, there is absolutely no better reason to read a book than to be able to intellectually engage in some internet controversy. The upcoming Wuthering Heights movie has been completely engulfed by. Featuring a soundtrack by Charli XCX (not exactly giving 1800s), Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff (who is described as ‘dark-skinned’ multiple times in the novel), and a casting director who said there was “no need to be accurate” to the book, every facet of the upcoming movie (which will hit theaters on Valentine’s Day) has been hotly debated across social media.

While you are more than free to watch the movie without reading the book, or engage in internet controversy without having dedicated any time to the source material, where’s the fun in that? Especially when reading Wuthering Heights is such a trip in and of itself.

So put on a cute fall playlist, throw up your fuzzy socks, and get excited to read a dark, twisted, terrifying “romance” that also has ghosts. What more could you want? (Kendall Meachum)

Hello! Fashion also has recommendations for a 'cosy night in', such as

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

Set against a backdrop of gusty moors, medieval manor houses and oppressive institutions, Charlotte Brontë's world-famous Jane Eyre is the ideal read to usher in the autumnal mood. Steeped in themes of isolation and filled with gothic atmosphere, the novella is a popular tale of resilience, love and self-discovery. One to re-visit time and time again. (Tania Leslau)