BrontëBlog

Emily B. - A Review

2009-11-25T00:03:00.000+01:00

Our thanks to Editions Memory Press for sending us a review copy of this book.

Emily B. et autres contes d’automne
Dominique Jacques
Editions Memory Press
Collection Nouvelles
Format : 11 x 19 cm
Nombre de pages : 96
ISBN : 2-87413-130-X
Prix de vente public : 13 €
Date de parution : septembre 2009

Dominique Jacques performs a double invocation in this little book. To the spirits of Catherine Earnshaw and her creator Emily Brontë. Her particular ouija is the autumn wind which transports through time and space the ghosts of both creature and demiurge.

The author negotiates with the voices of her ghosts through a poetical prose full of alliterations and repetitions which provide a musicality to the text not far from minimalism. Almost as if a John Adams or a Philip Glass had decided to put the wind in a pentagram not full of notes but of words⁽¹⁾.

Dominique Jacques's voice is mixed with the wild, full of life and most of and above all, free Catherine Earnshaw and the repressed Emily Brontë. Her thesis is that Emily Brontë succumbed to her own lack of freedom and ability to trascend her enclaustred life. Catherine Earnshaw has to rescue her creator and incarnates in the author of this book in order to fully realise herself, themselves. Through Heathcliff, the savage stranger who is able at the same time of giving purpose to Catherine/Emily/Dominique and of ravaging and breaking all the rules and shaking the very foundations of the establishment.

But even as we recognise the purpose of the author as legitimate and coherent, we cannot agree with some of her sometimes too-easy images. We realise that the author's intention portraying the Parsonage as a castrating and repressive environment is to use it as a symbol of the oppression of women particularly (but the metaphor is more universal and can be also read as the social repressions that all of us carry with us). But when Emily Brontë is used as a symbol of that repression we are bound to disagree. If anything the Parsonage was an island of freedom and creativity. It was not a wall against the moors, the fact is that the moors begun in the Parsonage rooms⁽²⁾.

A pity that the bitter taste that such generalisations leave impregnates the powerful appearances of Catherine Earnshaw looking for her Heathcliff. Showing off her femininity, the Byronic force of her passions, the magnitude of her titanic fight against the chains that try to bound her to earth when she belongs to the wind.

The book is completed with two additional short tales, not directly related with Emily Brontë but perfectly coherent with the stylistic trends and personal world of the author.

Notes

(1) Not a musical piece but a series of paintings have been inspired by this text. Janine Descamps, Olivier Jadoul and Odile Goffin presented her works in an exhibition in Arlon, Belgium: Autour d'Emily. One of them appears in the cover of the present book.

(2) Even Patrick Brontë, in the worst Gaskell tradition, is given the oppressor's role. Knowing as we know how much he had to endure with the death of all his family it's hard to read things like:

Un seul survivant: lui, le pasteur. Votre père. Un seul. Celui qui tenait les clefs du presbytère. Barbe-bleue. Pas de traces. Les corps vont bien au cimitière.

Categories: Review

Brontë vs Dickinson: the debate

2009-11-24T10:07:00.008+01:00

Let's begin with the Brontë references in today's newsround that are not Twilight-related, shall we?

The Telegraph and Argus comments on the upcoming auction of Very Important Brontë Items at Christie's.

A rare copy of Emily Bronte’s only novel, Wuthering Heights, owned by her sister Charlotte, is expected to be sold for up to 60,000 US dollars – about £36,000 – when it goes under the hammer in New York.
The original cloth-bound 1847 volume, with pencil notes and corrections written by Charlotte Bronte, will be auctioned from the collection of Hollywood actor-turned-producer William E Self at Christies next month.
It is one of only five copies of Wuthering Heights sold at auction in the past 30 years and is estimated to fetch between 40,000 and 60,000 US dollars, about £24,000 to £36,000. (Marc Meneaud)

The Greensboro News & Record reviews the collection of short stories Little Pockets of Al arm by Kat Meads. Here's what one of the stories is about:

Then, there’s the debate on “the impact of reclusive on life, art, family, community and pets” between Emily Bronte and Emily Dickinson. The narrator, sitting in the audience, eagerly waiting for the authors to appear, tells us: “Briefly, the curtain at the back of the stage balloons. The wait is crushing, killing. It is exceedingly difficult for us to hold our water. We are in grave danger of succumbing to the strain.” (Charles Wheeler)

That would be one interesting debate, that's for sure!

And the Twilight zone swings back and forth between the 'Twilight is the heir of the Brontës, etc.' and the 'Twilight is nothing like the Brontës' attitudes. Today it's the latter mood that's overtaken the news outlets.

From the San Diego News Network:

But it’s not great literature in the lasting tradition of a Jane Austen or a Charlotte Bronte. So what is it about this story that makes it so appealing? (Marsha Sutton)

The Cornell Daily Sun makes it even clearer:

I just want to shake this Bella girl. Get her some therapy. And I want to shake the entire Twilight fan base. I get it, man. Bella’s all shy and quiet and she likes to read, and you totally identify with her, but c’mon. Maybe we read, I dunno, Jane Eyre? I mean, Mr. Rochester is also problematic, but at least that shit is well written. (Elana Dahlager)

But regardless of all this, HarperCollins makes once again its own statement, as seen in The Vanguard.

Major publishing company HarperCollins recently released a new edition of Emily Brontë’s classic 1847 novel “Wuthering Heights.”
At first glance, the cover of this timeless work of 19th-century literature looks strikingly familiar, as it bears a similar design scheme as the popular teenage romance series “Twilight.” In addition, it is branded with a logo of “Bella & Edward’s Favorite Book.”
To which I respond: Is nothing sacred? [...]
Furthermore, the branding of “Twilight” on such a work is insulting. It isn’t anywhere near “Wuthering Heights” in terms of literary value. While that is not a crime, it is a cheap move to connect such a disparate work to classic literature, and it certainly doesn’t give any literary credibility to “Twilight” by association. (Alexa Coccaro)

One blog for today: Writerly Musings of Lisa Asanuma blames St John Rivers for slowing down her reading of Jane Eyre.

Categories: Books, Brontëana, Emily Brontë, Jane Eyre, References, Wuthering Heights

Brontëana Surgery at the Parsonage

2009-11-24T00:04:00.001+01:00

A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

Brontëana Surgery at the Brontë Parsonage Museum

Back in October the Brontë Parsonage Museum issued an invitation to anyone who thought they might own artefacts relating to the Brontës or historic Haworth to come to a ‘Brontëana surgery’ and find out more about them. The museum is keen to encourage local people to use the museum’s resources to find out more about items in their possession, and was offering free, expert advice on such material to people living in and around Haworth.

As a result, there have been all sorts of discoveries as local people came forward with their treasures. Several items are currently being investigated, including a jam pan which is believed to have been included in the sale which took place in Haworth after Patrick Brontë’s death in 1861. The museum has been able to compile a record of Brontë-related material in private hands, including an 1834 Haworth rate book, a wonderful collection of Haworth church hymn sheets dating from the Brontë period and six books believed to have belonged to the Brontës, which were given to their servant, Martha Brown. Three bound volumes of the Family Economist which belonged to Martha’s sister, Tabitha, who also assisted with domestic work at the Parsonage, were kindly donated to the museum and will go on display at the Parsonage next year.

In February 2010 we are planning to include new displays at the Parsonage which will focus on the Haworth community in which the Brontës’ lived, and it is hoped that some of this newly-discovered material can be included. We would like to thank everyone who got in touch and to reiterate that people are still welcome to contact the museum to take part in the Brontëana surgery. (Ann Dinsdale, Collections Manager, Brontë Parsonage Museum)

Categories: Brontë Parsonage Museum, Brontëana

Song-inspiring books

2009-11-23T19:01:00.004+01:00

The Twilight zonetoday is limited to USA Today:

The books and movies employ the classic romance-novel formula in scores of books from Jane Eyre to Harlequin romances, says Elisabeth Gruner, an English professor at the University of Richmond who has studied the Twilight phenomenon. (Maria Puente)

She may have studied the Twilight phenomenon but not so much Jane Eyre, we think.

Speaking of Jane Eyre, the Wilton Bulletin has related advice for rainy days.

If you want my advice concerning how to get through future rainy days, here it is: On the next nasty weekend, curl up tight, like a cat, on the window seat, like old Jane Eyre, and read a book, perhaps a murder mystery, where the rain has some purpose, at least. (Joanna Ecke)

And there are things that definitely only can happen in New York. Look at this notice from the New Yorker.

BUSHWICK BOOK CLUB
Books inspire many things: movies, plays, religions, and even political platforms. Less frequently, they inspire songs (Kate Bush’s “Wuthering Heights,” Jefferson Airplane’s “White Rabbit”). For the past year, the Bushwick Book Club, which meets monthly, has addressed that deficiency by choosing a bill of songwriters to compose songs prompted by a chosen book, ranging from “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” to “The Origin of Species.” In celebration of its one-year anniversary, the Book Club offers a best-of performance highlighting the year’s most inspired tunes. Songwriters include Dan Costello, Dibson T. Hoffweiler, Phoebe Kreutz, Ben Krieger, Corn Mo, and the club’s founder, Susan Hwang. (Goodbye Blue Monday, 1087 Broadway, Brooklyn. 718-453-6343. Dec. 1 at 8.)

That's surely a club worth belonging to and an event worth going to. And we definitely want more Brontë songs.

And Gapers Block has an article on The Mystery of Irma Vep on stage at Chicago with its Brontë references.

As for blogs, Side Street, Sydney posts about Wuthering Heights. And Days of Reading explains her aversion to Jane Eyre.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, Music, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

The Sisters and the Painting

2009-11-23T00:02:00.002+01:00

1. In Valenza, Italy, a new chance to see the 2009 production of Bernard de Zogheb's Le Sorelle Brontë, first premiered in Venezia:

Le Sorelle Bronte
Teatro Sociale Valenza
24 nov ore 20:45

Libretto: Bernard de Zogheb
Ricostruzione della partitura musicale: Andrea Chenna
Maestro concertatore: Andrea Chenna
Drammaturgia: Stefano Valanzuolo
Regia: Davide Livermore
Produzione: La Biennale di Venezia,Teatro Regionale Alessandrino, Moz-Art Box Portici, Associazione Baretti, in collaborazione con la Fondazione del Teatro Stabile di Torino

Le sorelle Brontë è il libretto di un'opera comica che fino a oggi è stata eseguita soltanto in privato nel 1964, da amici dell'autore.
Il libretto attinge all’antica lingua franca dei porti del Mediterraneo, lingua che per oltre mille anni è stata fondamentale per il commercio e le culture. In questa lingua, Bernard de Zogheb ha raccontato ancora una volta la storia delle sorelle Brontë, donando al plot narrativo una dimensione del tutto nuova.
Un cocktail di colto e popolare, di kitsch e sublime, straordinariamente attuale: Le sorelle Brontë è una sorta di helzapoppin in salsa mediterranea, un vaudeville da ventunesimo secolo. (Bing translation)

On AgenFax we read more details:

In questa lingua, l’autore ha raccontato la storia delle sorelle Brontë, donando al plot narrativo una dimensione del tutto nuova, in bilico tra vaudeville, cabaret e operetta. La vicenda procede tra momenti allegri e giocosi, ma offre anche spunti di riflessione e di satira di costume su temi attuali. Ne scaturisce un musical tutto da ridere, una sorta di rivisitazione alla Paolo Poli; la biografia delle tre ardenti sorelle scrittrici, prende le mosse dal seguente pretesto: all'interno della clinica e casa di riposo per artisti “CIME TEMPESTOSE", gremita di infermiere e badanti d'ogni parte d'Europa (ma soprattutto dell'Est), la madre superiora impone che si rappresenti la dimenticabile pièce in lingua franca Le sorelle Brontë, già cavallo di battaglia di un'anziana ospite, chiamata la "Signora". Il tutto per compiacere i parenti dell’ex attrice, principali sostenitori della struttura. Ed ecco che, la sgangherata compagnia composta da vecchi e malmessi ospiti della casa, da un multietnico staff di badanti, da una suora e da un infermiere, propone il risultato dei loro comici sforzi… Perspicaci le stoccate alle suore tiranne delle case di riposo e alla tratta delle badanti dell’est Europa. La commedia non vuole essere propriamente una ricostruzione della vita delle tre scrittrici, ma piuttosto una riflessione condita di ironia su alcuni temi dettati dalla loro singolare esistenza. In scena i protagonisti - scapigliati e divertenti - cantano, ballano, recitano, tutto sul filo di un’ironia sottile, in bilico tra colto e popolare, kitsch e sublime. Il libretto è di Bernard de Zogheb, la drammaturgia di Stefano Valanzuolo, la regia di Davide Livermore, le ricerche musicali, la scrittura e l’orchestrazione di Andrea Chenna, anche maestro concertatore. In scena - in questa performance corale - complessivamente 12 interpreti e 2 musicisti, Angelo Conto e Diego Mingolla. Le scene sono di Barbara Delle Vedove, i costumi di Clara Mennonna, le luci di Nicolas Bovey. (Google translation)

2. In Köln (Cologne), Germany. An exhibition by the painter Ekkhard Drefke contains a painting (Der Konflikt) directly inspired by Jacques Rivette's 1985 film Hurlevent. It belongs to his series Scène Noires.

Ekkehard Drefke
Rotunde der Bundesfinanzakademie, Köln.
Until December 11
Monday to Friday (9am to 7pm)

From the Kölner Stadt-Anzeiger:

Um zum Beispiel die starken Spannungen zwischen den Personen in dem Ölgemälde mit dem Titel „Der Konflikt“ zu erspüren, muss der Betrachter nicht unbedingt wissen, dass Drefke sich hier mit dem Film „Sturmhöhe“ des französischen Filmregisseurs Jacques Rivette beschäftigt hat - einem jener Werke der „Nouvelle Vague“, die Drefke in weiteren ausgestellten Gemälden als Serie „Scène noire“ malerisch umgesetzt hat. (Susanne Neumann) (Google translation)

Categories: Art-Exhibitions, Music, Theatre

The Auction of the Year

2009-11-22T13:42:00.019+01:00

A very important auction (arguably one of the most important ones in the recent years) with Brontë-related items is taking place next December 4 in Christie's. We read on ArtDaily:

"The William E. Self Library Part II: Important English & American Literature"

Following Christie’s highly successful 2008 auction of The William E. Self Family Collection: The Kenyon Starling Library of Charles Dickens, Christie's will offer The William E. Self Library Part I: Important English and American Literature on December 4. This superb library offers remarkable 19th and 20th-century literature from notable names such as Poe, Austen, Brontë, Dickens, Melville, and Whitman.

A Hollywood actor turned producer, William E. Self enjoyed a successful career in both film and television, producing memorable shows from the 1960s–70s such as 'M*A*S*H', 'Batman', and 'Lost in Space'. Mr. Self’s passion for rare books was ignited in the 1970s when he sought a first edition as a gift for his daughter. He has since assembled one of the most important collections of English and American literature in private hands.

Sale Location: 20 Rockefeller Plaza, New York
Auction Times: Dec 4 10:00 AM Lots 1 - 198

Viewing Times: Rockefeller Center
Nov 28 10am - 5pm
Nov 29 1pm - 5pm
Nov 30 10am - 5pm
Dec 1 10am - 5pm
Dec 2 10am - 5pm
Dec 3 10am - 2pm

The auctioned Brontë items include manuscripts, letters, first editions and even Charlotte Brontë's own (annotated) copy of Wuthering Heights:

Sale 5123
Lot 12
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
By Acton Bell. London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1848.
Estimate: $8,000 - $12,000
3 volumes, 12^o (188 x 114 mm). Half-title in vol. I (all issued). (Lacks 2pp. ads in vol. I, half-title reinforced along gutter, repaired tear on final leaf of vol. I crossing text.) Modern half green morocco, gilt-lettered on spines, by Bayntun-Riviere for Henry Sotheran.

FIRST EDITION of Anne Bronte's only separate publication. (Read more)

Lot 13
Charlotte Brontë - Autograph manuscript of two poems, "Found in the Inn Belo nging to You" ("Thou art a sweet and lovely flower..."), and "Addressed to the Tower of all Nation" ("O thou great thou mighty tower...") dated resp ectively "U.T. Sept. 28,1829" and "U.T. Oct 7 1829," with a title and two lines of another poem entitled "The Walk," neatly inked out.
Estimate: $50,000 - $75,000
2½ pages (53 x 35mm.), IN THE BRONTË'S MICROSCOPIC SCRIPT, with a miniature calligraphic transcript. (Light dampstaining). Dark green morocco gilt-paneled, upper cover tooled in tiny letters, enclosed in a padded compartment in a protective clamshell box, by Sangorski and Sutcliffe.

ONE OF A VERY FEW OF THE BRONTË CHILDRENS' MICROSCOPIC MANUSCRIPTS STILL IN PRIVATE HANDS. (Read more)

Lot 14
BRONTË, Cha rlotte. Aut ograph letter signed ("C., Bronte") to Henry Nusse y (brother of her friend Ellen Nussey), Haworth, 5 March 1839.
Estimate: $50,000 - $70,000
3¼ pages, 4^o (225 x 185mm), page 4 with several lines text, signature and address panel. Postmarked, second leaf neatly inlaid to a larger sheet. A small (85 x 25mm). piece bearing original signature cut from pages 3-4, but expertly restored.

CHARLOTTE BRONTë ELOQUENTLY DECLINES AN OFFER OF MARRIAGE: "MY ANSWER TO YOUR PROPOSAL MUST BE A DECIDED NEGATIVE" (Read more)

Lot 15
BRONTË, Cha rlotte. Autograph letter signed ("C Brontë") to the Rev. Henry Nussey, Hawo rth, 26 May 1840.
4pp., 4^o ( 227 x 187mm). The second leaf neatly inlaid.
Estimate: $25,000 - $35,000

"YOU MUST NOT AGAIN ASK ME TO WRITE IN A REGULAR LITERARY WAY...I CANNOT DO IT AT ALL - DO YOU THINK I AM, A BLUE-STOCKING?
A lengthy, thoughtful letter, praising Ellen Nussey's character, considering the different insights of men and women and the risks and rewards of matrimony. Charlotte has neglected to answer a letter of Henry's: "Your sister Ellen often accuses me of want of punctuality in answering letters and I think her accusation is here justified." But, she explains, "when the letter came Ellen was staying with me, and I was so fully occupied in talking to her, that I had no time to think of writing to others - this is no great compliment, but it is no insult either -- you know Ellen's worth -- you know how seldom I see her, and from these Jeremiads you may easily draw the influence that her company when once obtained is to valuable to be wasted for a moment..." (Read more)

Lot 16
BRONTË, Charlotte. Autograph letter signed ("C., Bronte") to the Reverend Henry Nussey (brother of her f riend Ellen Nussey), Upper Wood House, Rawden, May 9 [1841].
Estimate: $30,000 - $40,000
3 pages, 4^o (228 x 187mm), page 4 with address panel in Charlotte's hand, postmarked, second leaf neatly inlaid to a larger sheet.

"... IF I WRITE AT ALL I MUST WRITE AS I THINK"
A gracious, faintly chiding letter to Reverend Henry, containing a wistful recollection of her distant home and her beloved siblings, who are, at this date, scattered far apart. At this date Charlotte was serving as governess to the White family in Rawden. She tells Henry -- whom she considered rather dull -- that she is taking "part of a Sunday evening" to write him, and adds that, since "Sunday evening is almost my only time of leisure, no one would blame me if I were to spend this spare hour in a pleasant chat with a friend, is it worse to spend it in writing, a friendly letter?" (Read more)

Lot 17
[BRONTË, Charlotte (1816-1855), Emily (1818-1848) and Anne (1820-1849)]. Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. London: Aylott and Jones, 1846.
Estimate: $15,000 - $20,000
8^o (169 x 106 mm). Errata slip at end. (Gatherings G and H sprung.) Original green cloth, covers blocked in blind with geometric design, gilt-lettered on front cover (front hinge weak); morocco pull-off case. Provenance: owner's gift inscription on front free endpaper.

FIRST EDITION, FIRST ISSUE of the Brontë sisters' first published work. (Read more)

Lot 18
[BRONTË, Charlotte, Emily and Anne]. Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. London: Smith, El der and Co., 1846 [but 1848].
8^o (170 x 107 mm). Advertisement leaf at end, errata leaf tipped in after Contents. Original green cloth, covers blocked in blind with harp design and ornamental border, gilt-lettered spine (slightly faded, chipped at head of spine).
FIRST EDITION, second (and usual) issue, with Smith, Elder's cancel title-page of 1848 and in Carter's binding B. Ashley I., p. 70-71 (Read more)

Lot 19
[BRONTË, Charlotte]. Jane Eyre. An Autobiography. Edited by Currer Bell. London: Smith Elder, 1847.
Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000
3 volumes, 8o. Half-titles, publisher's 32-page catalogue dated October 1847 preceded by inset fly title dated June 1847 and one advertising leaf for The Calcutta Review at end of volume I. Original plum cloth, covers stamped in blind with triple-line border enclosing ropework border, gilt-lettered on spines (some repairs to spine ends and joints); quarter morocco slipcase.

FIRST EDITION of Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre. (Read more)

Lot 20
[BRONTË, Charlotte]. Shirley. A Tale. By Currer Bell, author of "Jane Eyre." London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1849.
Estimate: $4,000 - $6,000
3 volumes, 8^o (198 x 122 mm). With 16-page advertisements in vol. I dated October 1849 and 3-page advertisments in vol. III. Original claret cloth, decorated in blind, gilt-lettered on spines (spines slightly darkened, some light wear at ends of spines, front joint of vol. I with repair and partly split at head, endpaper in vol. II clipped along foremargin).
FIRST EDITION. (Read more)

Lot 21
[BRONTË, Charlotte]. Poetry Past and Present. A Collection for Every-Day reading and Amusement. London: John and Charles Mozley, 1849.
Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000
12^o (139 x 88 mm). Illustrations in text. Contemporary green polished calf, spine gilt, edges gilt.
Provenance: CHARLOTTE BRONTË (inscription on front free endpaper).
"IN REMEMBRANCE": CHARLOTTE BRONTË REFLECTS ON THE DEATH OF HER SISTER EMILY
INSCRIBED BY CHARLOTTE BRONTË on the verso of the front free endpaper: "C. Brontë, to Emily -- Haworth. In remembrance. July 18, 1849. Glad I shall be to be home again. 'Once more I return to my dear native home, And from the old Farm ne'er again will I roam.' I love these lines; but can I safely say this? C.B." (Read more)

Lot 22
BRONTË, Charlotte. Autograph letter signed ("C Brontë") to "My dear Mrs. Forster (wife of John Forster?), in Rawden, Haworth, 28 October 1851.
1 page, 12mo, integral blank, with note "authoress of Jane Eyre."
Estimate: $8,000 - $12,000
..."IT IS NOT IN MY POWER TO LEAVE HOME.... Charlotte, whose health had become delicate, declines an invitation, evidently from Mr. and Mrs John Forster: "We are come to the close of the month and I find it is not in my power to leave home. There would be no use in dwelling on the regret I feel at this circumstance; I can but once more thank you and Mr. Forster for your kindness (of which I am as sensible as if I had been able more fully to profit for it) and beg you briefly to believe me Sincerely yours...." (Read more)

Lot 23
[BRONTË, Charlotte]. Villette. By Currer Bell, author of "Jane Eyre," "Shirley," etc. London: Smith, Elder and Co., 1853.
3 volumes, 8^o (197 x 122 mm). 12-page publisher's advertisement dated January 1853 in vol. I. Original brown cloth, blindstamped on covers, gilt-lettered on spines (repairs to spine ends); quarter morocco slipcase.
Estimate: $4,000 - $6,000

FIRST EDITION. (Read more)

Lot 24
[BRONTË, Charlotte (1816-1855)]. The Professor, a Tale. By Currer Bell. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857.
Estimate: $4,000 - $6,000
2 volumes, 8^o (196 x 127 mm.). Half titles, advertisement leaf at end of vol. one, 16-page publisher's advertisement dated June 1857 at end of vol. two. Original blind-stamped plum cloth, by Westley's, with their ticket (spines lightly darkened); morocco slipcase.
FIRST EDITION OF CHARLOTTE BRONTë'S FIRST NOVEL (Read more)

Lot 25
[BRONTË, Charlotte (1816-1855)]. The Professor, a Tale. By Currer Bell. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857.
Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500
2 volumes, 8^o (196 x 127 mm.). Half titles, advertisement leaf at end of vol. one, 16-page publisher's advertisement dated June 1857 at end of vol. two. Original blind-stamped plum cloth, by Westley's, with their ticket (spines lightly darkened); morocco slipcase.
FIRST EDITION OF CHARLOTTE BRONTë'S FIRST NOVEL (Read more)

Lot 26
[BRONTË, Charlotte]. GASKELL, E.C. The Life of Charlotte Brontë. London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1857.
Estimate: $300 - $400
2 volumes, 8o (197 x 124 mm). Half-titles. EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED with the addition of thirteen watercolor drawings and 24 prints, and with additional manuscript title and contents leaf in volume 1. Early 20th-century green morocco, the front covers with title painted within inset translucent vellum medallion, spine gilt, top edges gilt.
A FINE EXTRA-ILLUSTRATED COPY. (Read more)

Lot 27
[BRONTË, Emily and Anne. Wuthering Heights. A Novel. By Ellis Bell. -- Agnes Grey. A Novel. By Acton Bell. London: Thomas Cautley Newby, 1847].
3 volumes, 8o. Advertisement leaves R3-4 in volume three. (Title pages removed, pages 163-168 lacking from volume one [see note below], volume three with pages 12-24 repaired.) Original reddish-brown cloth, Smith Variant B (some fading and soiling, volume three front hinge cracked); cloth folding case.

Provenance: CHARLOTTE BRONTË (her pencil annotations in volume one); Rev. Arthur Bell Nichols, Charlotte Brontë's husband (who sold books from her library to); Clement Shorter (bookplates in volumes one and two, his sale Sotheby's, 18 June 1928, lot 32); anonymous owner, Sotheby's London, 28 June 1964, lot 390; anonymous owner, Sotheby's London, 29 October 1968, lot 473; The Property of a Lady, Sotheby's London, 24 June 1975, lot 281A.

CHARLOTTE BRONTË'S COPY OF 'WUTHERING HEIGHTS' AND 'AGNES GREY': WITH HER PENCIL ANNOTATIONS, CORRECTIONS AND GLOSSES THROUGHOUT VOLUME ONE

FIRST EDITION OF EMILY BRONTË'S ONLY NOVEL, PUBLISHED WITH HER SISTER ANNE'S 'AGNES GREY' AND OWNED BY THEIR SISTER CHARLOTTE. (Read more)

Lot 28
BRONTË, Reverend Patrick (1777-1861). Cottage Poems. Halifax: P.K.Holden for the author, 1811.
Estimate: $1,000 - $1,500
8^o in 4s (153 x 98 mm). Half-title. Contemporary half sheep, marbled boards (some wear to joints and spine ends). Provenance: Apley Castle (manuscript note on front pastedown).

FIRST EDITION. (Read more)

Categories: Brontëana

"In danger of loving you too well"

2009-11-22T12:23:00.005+01:00

The Guardian analyzes the case of the news presenter James Partridge, who has a disfigured face and Rochester makes an appearance:

It was pointed out, perhaps reasonably enough, that Partridge, who must once have been very handsome, was not the most challenging case imaginable. Some viewers may even have responded to his performance in the way Jane Eyre did, to the spectacle of scarred Mr Rochester: "One is in danger of loving you too well for all this; and making too much of you." (Catherine Bennett)

The Sunday Times (Sri Lanka) publishes an article about the actress Suranga Ranawaka. Apparently,

She has also made two short films – ‘Jane,’ based on the Jane Eyre story and ‘To be Filled,’ a story about women forced into prostitution to feed themselves.

Regrettably we have been unable to find more information about this short film.

The same newspaper interviews the author Louise Doughty:

Is there a book you’ve found yourself wishing you had authored?
There isn’t really one individual book but there are certain writers whose oeuvre I really envy. Margaret Atwood is one, Hilary Mantel (this year’s Man Booker winner) is another. ‘Wolf Hall’ is a masterpiece. If I could die knowing I had written something that good, I would be happy. If I don’t get to write a sprawling masterpiece that, I would like to achieve something small and perfect like Jean Rhys’s ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’.
When was the last time a book had you laughing out loud? When was the last time one made you cry?
I can’t remember the last time I laughed out loud at a book! That’s a bit sad, isn’t it? I clearly don’t read enough comedy. I don’t cry much either, though. The scene from the whole of literature that has really made me sob is the bit in ‘Wuthering Heights’ when Heathcliff begs Cathy’s ghost to haunt him in whatever fiendish shape she cares to take, anything rather than leave him. I cried buckets over that.

A A Gill makes a Wuthering Heights reference in his Food & Wine section in The Times:

If I had to pick out the most important and influential restaurant of my life as a food writer, actually, just as a hungry person, it would be Marco Pierre White’s first solo restaurant. The one that made his reputation. The one he stalked around like Heathcliff in a butcher’s apron, throwing out bankers and producing some of the best food in the world. No hyperbole. No overoeufing his boudin.

The Albany Times-Union talks about the writer Kate Walbert:

It's cautionary stuff that echoes such early feminist tales as Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," about a frustrated housewife gone mad, and Charlotte Brontë's "Jane Eyre," in which a feral gentlewoman gets locked in the attic. (Susan Comninos)

And now for BrontëBlog's very own Twilight zone:
Geeks of Dome recommends watching Wuthering Heights 1939 on Hulu (just US viewers though) after knowing it is Bella's favourite book.

The black and white film, directed by William Wyler and produced by Samuel Goldwyn, starred Laurence Olivier as Heathcliff and Merle Oberon as Catherine. Both the film and the book are worth checking out, but this film takes some liberties, not surprisingly. In the novel, it really comes across that Heathcliff and Catherine are selfish, horrible people, while the movie plays on the star-crossed lovers theme. (Empress Eve)

New Zealand Herald:

Twilight's been compared to a modern day Wuthering Heights, but please.
There's more passion and fire in Cathy's flickering grate than there is in the entire Twilight series. (Kerre Woodham)

The Philippine Star:

They are the people who read Pride and Prejudice and Wuthering Heights, not because they’re classics, but because they’re Bella’s favorite books. (Not that this is necessarily a bad thing, but these books are now being marketed in this exact manner, and it is horrifying.) (Regina Belmonte)

A reader in the Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune picks up Wuthering Heights as a holiday reading, TG Daily makes the bizarrest Brontë reference of the day, Ms Eckert's Blog recommends Jane Eyre and Risolvi Problemi (in Italian) does the same with Wuthering Heights.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights

All about Emily

2009-11-22T00:04:00.000+01:00

Several alerts for the following days:
1. In Canada, a student production of Wuthering Heights (we don't know which version exactly, probably Robert Johanson's?):

Wuthering Heights
Strathmore High School
Strathmore, Alberta, Canada

The Drama 20/30/35A class presents:
Wuthering Heights
November 22nd, 23rd, 25th and 26th.
7:00 pm

Picture source: Richard Saad photo - Strathmore High School drama students, Megan Bradley and Henrik Trien, rehearse a scene from Emily Bronte s Wuthering Heights.

The Strathmore Standard has more information:

Wuthering Heights, the classic novel by Emily Bronte, is all about contrasting the Earnshaw family and the Linton family as well as students' appreciation for classic literature.
For Paula Richardson, the drama and music teacher at Strathmore High School, it is the contrast both on and off the stage that appeals to her.
Like the stage, which is divided into two areas and contrasts the two families, Richardson has created a production with two goals in mind, to stretch her actors and to make them appreciate classic literature.
Richardson has given the actors, most of whom have never taken on a complicated play like this one, substantial material they can use to develop their skills as actors.
"They are a little nervous about it and it's a great deal of work for them," said Richardson. She wants students to understand the role of classic literature and the importance of analyzing and critically deconstructing Emily Bronte seminal work.
"I feel it gives the actors good characters to work with," said Richardson, who wants to challenge the actors to stretch themselves.
"Basically, I'm just trying to bring a strong sense of characterizations."
Rather than giving students fluffy roles to play with, she hopes to provide them an opportunity to critically look at the play and to study the characters.
"I think it makes them dig a little deeper into themselves in order to bring the characters to life," said Richardson.
Richardson said the audience will get a chance to see two families in contrast on the stage, which will make Bronte's themes visually represented.
Casey Tucker, a Grade 12 student and first time stage manager of the show is excited about the potential of the play.
"It's an interesting play, and complicated, but I think we all like it for that," said Tucker.
Tucker said the best part of the play is the attraction between the two main characters, Catherine and Heathcliff. She hopes audiences don't go into the play pre-judging the characters, but instead trying to understand their backgrounds and motivations.
The play, which is two hours long, deals with the whole concept of being honest with yourself and being true.
Richardson hopes she can instill that sense of honesty into the actors. Having flawed characters makes good drama, explained Richardson, adding she wants the students to explore human frailty.
The actors are made up of Grade 11 and Grade 12 students and this adaptation of Wuthering Heights is their first big stage play of the year.
"It's a tough play," said Richardson. "There are a lot of monologues."
Of course, the actors are a bit apprehensive about performing, but Richardson feels they have the acting chops to pull off a successful show. The actors have been rehearsing since the second week of September.
Richardson picked Wuthering Heights as the opening production this year because she wanted a production that could showoff the strengths of the cast.
"It's a big show, so it's exciting," said Richardson, who is directing Wuthering Heights for the first time. Last year, she directed Footloose and Little Women.
All the sets for the show are designed by Richardson but the sets are built by all the drama students, with help from other volunteers.
Richardson has been the drama and dance teacher at Strathmore High School since 2000. She is a graduate of Mount Royal College's theatre arts program and has worked for Theatre Calgary and One Yellow Rabbit, among others.
There are 18 students in the drama class but only 12 students are acting in the play. The others take on behind-the-scenes roles, including stage managing, lights, and sound. (Richard Saad)

2. In Santa Monica, California, a new chance to enjoy in a movie theatre Jane Eyre 1944:

American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre Presents
Orson Welles Revisited
Sunday, November 22 - 7:30 PM

JANE EYRE, 1944, 20th Century Fox, 97 min. Dir. Robert Stevenson. Plain Jane Eyre (Joan Fontaine) goes to work as a governess for the bright and charismatic Edward Rochester (Orson Welles) and quickly falls for her boss. Before long, family secrets emerge in this adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's classic novel. Co-stars include Agnes Moorehead, Margaret O'Brien and, in an early role, Elizabeth Taylor.

3. In Holland, Michigan:

The Women's Chamber Choir of Hope College will perform with Luminescence and 12th Street Harmony on Monday, Nov. 23, at 7:30 p.m. at St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church.

The program will include poetry by Emily Bronte and Leonora Speyer, accompanied on piano by Lannette Zylman-TenHave. (...)
The Women's Chamber Choir is directed by Jennifer Wolfe, who is an adjunct assistant professor of music at Hope. She holds master's degrees in choral conducting and piano performance from Michigan State University and the University of Illinois.
St. Francis de Sales Catholic Church is located at 195 W. 13th St., on the corner of 13th Street and Maple Avenue.

Categories: Alert, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry, Wuthering Heights

Is Jane Eyre well made?

2009-11-21T09:59:00.006+01:00

John Mullan selects the best teachers in literature for The Guardian. Lucy Snowe makes it into the list:

The heroine of Charlotte Brontë's last novel, Villette, finds employment teaching in a private girls' boarding school in Belgium. Plain and brainy, she's scornful of the silly, rich girls she has to teach. The school hums with sexual tension, and Lucy falls for first the school doctor, then a teacher.

Also in The Guardian there is an interesting article by Zadie Smith about the differences and connections between essays and conventional novels:

But even the most conventional account of our literary "canon" reveals the history of the novel to be simultaneously a history of nonconformity. For as readers we have loved and celebrated not some hazy general idea of the novel but rather the peculiar works of individual imaginations. Even in those familiar lists of "great novels", classics of the genre, and so on, it's hard to find a single "well-made" novel among them, if by well-made we mean something like "evenly shaped, regular, predictable and elegantly designed". Is War and Peace, with its huge tracts of undigested essay, absurd plotting and obscene length, a well-made novel? Is The Trial? And those neat Victorian novels we're now expected casually to revile – is it not only from a distance, and in the memory, that they look as neat as they do? Which of them is truly "well made"? Jane Eyre seemed hysterical and lopsided to its earliest readers; we now think of Middlemarch as the ultimate "proper" novel, forgetting how eccentric and strange it looked on publication, with its unwieldy and unfeminine scientific preoccupations and moral structure borrowed from Spinoza.

The California Chronicle reviews the film An Education and mentions its Jane Eyre connection:

David seems to offer an irresistible shortcut to the world of jazz clubs and art appreciation, although Sarsgaard's trademark slit-lidded eyes and Jenny's English literature assignment ("Jane Eyre") foreshadow trouble. (John Beifuss)

The Boston Globe talks about Oprah Winfrey's tremendous influence in book sales (now that it seems that her show will end to make way for her own cable channel):

Testament to Oprah’s power, some books were unlikely hits. Alice Hoffman’s book, “Here on Earth,’’ a modern reworking of the Emily Bronte classic, “Wuthering Heights,’’ sailed to No. 1 when Oprah gave it the nod. (Johnny Diaz and Megan Woolhouse)

And now for the Twilight section of our daily newsround. Another review of The Twilight Saga: New Moon film in the New York Press:

Hardwicke gave Meyer’s fairy/gothic tale an idealized representation of universal adolescent tension. Bella’s attraction to teen vampire Edward Cullen (Robert Pattinson) normalized today’s sexual permissiveness—the cultural pressure teens feel to be sexually active—with a concept both shrewd and authentically Bronte-esque. (Armond White)

In The Times:

Marketers are taking full advantage. Play.com, an internet retailer, is advertising the Twilight duvet cover (£27.99 for a double) as “fangtastic”. The blurb accompanying the New Moon board game (£22.99) reads: “When you can live forever, what do you live for? Board games!” Even Wuthering Heights has been reprinted with the words “Edward and Bella’s favourite book” on the cover, helping to make the Brontë novel Britain’s bestselling children’s classic. (Alexis Mostrous and Ruth Lewy)

Liverpool Echo:

Berni Turner, a Liberal cabinet member for the environment, chose Stephanie Meyer’s four Twilight novels as her specialist subject, last night.
She said the “paranormal romance” stories about a teenage girl and her vampire lover reminded her of Pride and Prejudice, Romeo and Juliet, and Wuthering Heights. (Gary Stewart)

Movie Mom (A blog from Beliefnet):

The wildly popular Twilight Saga has the core elements of girl-friendly romances from "Wuthering Heights" to "Titanic:" a boyfriend who is not approved by parents who is utterly undone by the appeal of the female lead, and something to make sure that their relationship is about longing, not satisfaction.

The National (United Arab Emirates):

As Edward Cullen, the vampire hunk of the Twilight films, Robert Pattinson’s smouldering gaze, pale sculpted features and windswept hair arouse comparisons with grand figures of literature and film. He’s like Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights, many admirers say. Others suggest Lord Byron, the Romantic poet, or James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause. (Peter Howell)

El Espectador (Colombia):

“No, lo importante es que lean”, dice, y luego me cuenta que una de sus pupilas, cuando supo que Crepúsculo se basaba en novelas clásicas del siglo 19, se puso a leer Cumbres borrascosas, de Emily Brontë. (Esteban Carlos Mejía) (Google translation)

Diario de Cádiz (Spain):

Héroes byronianos son -para entendernos- el Heathcliff de Cumbres Borrascosas, el Rochester de Jane Eyre o el Lestat de Crónicas Vampíricas. Lobezno es un héroe byroniano. Y Jim Morrison, por ejemplo, y James Dean. Y, por supuesto, lo es el Edward Cullen de Crepúsculo. (Pilar Vera) (Google translation)

La Nueva España (Spain):

Meyer actualiza el romanticismo decimonónico (la referencia, «Cumbres borrascosas»); lo mezcla con dos o tres arquetipos (el vampiro, el príncipe azul y el metrosexual), y le da una pátina religiosa (de semejante pasión, ¿no debería salir un ratillo de sexo, amigos?). (Eduardo Galán) (Google translation)

Le Devoir (Canada):

Le second, à l'affiche ce week-end au terme d'une campagne publicitaire monstre, reconnaît sa dette envers Émilie Brontë et ses Hauts de Hurlevent. À preuve: son héroïne romantique et exaltée, en proie à des cauchemars à la suite du départ de son amoureux sacrifié, parti dans le but de ne pas la faire souffrir mais qui, sans le vouloir, la dépouille de tout instinct de survie. (Martin Bilodeau) (Google translation)

Var-Matin (France):

« Je n'ai pas lu les romans parce qu'ils n'entrent pas dans mes priorités. Mais j'ai vu le premier film, reprend Christelle [libraire à la Fnac du centre Mayol]. Twilight séduit les jeunes filles parce que ça traite des angoisses des adolescents, de la peur de la mort. C'est gothique et il y a des vampires, mais c'est surtout une histoire d'amour. » Qui renvoie aux Hauts de Hurlevent d'Emily Brontë, ce qui n'est pas pour déplaire aux amateurs de littérature. (S.M.) (Google translation)

Dagbladet (Norway):

Stephenie Meyer hadde utdannelse fra mormonerskolen Brigham Young University, hun elsket Charlotte Brontë og Jane Austen, men hadde overhodet ingen litterære ambisjoner selv. (Mira Mack Omdahl) (Google translation)

And El Telégrafo (Ecuador):

Según la autora, la saga “Twilight” representa a Orgullo y Prejuicio (Crepúsculo), Romeo y Julieta (Luna Nueva), Cumbres borrascosas (Eclipse) y El sueño de una noche de verano (Amanecer). (Walter Franco) (Google translation)

The Yorkshire Post announces the opening of a photography exhibition at the Dales Country Museum in Hawes to mark the signing of the 1949 National Parks and Access to the Countryside Act:

Throughout the generations the Yorkshire Dales have inspired writers and artists from the Brontës to JMW Turner.
Whether it is the windswept moors portrayed in Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights or the paintings captured during Turner's famous tours of the Dales, there is no denying the impression left by the stunning scenery on some of the country's most celebrated arts figures. (Paul Jeeves)

Qué Leer (Spain) interviews Lorrie Moore, who says about her latest novel A Gate to the Stairs:

Me inspiré bastante en Jane Eyre, aunque prácticamente nadie ha captado el referente. (Antonio Lozano) (Google translation)

Not quite so. BrontëBlog's archives tell the opposite.

Têtu (France) describes the film Bandaged by Maria Beatty like this:

Imaginez le romantisme des Hauts de Hurlevent d'Emily Brontë, le côté oppressant de Psychose d'Hitchcock et le fétichisme de Fassbinder, et vous aurez une idée de ce que va provoquer en vous Bandaged... (Google translation)

Fluctuat (France) interviews author and Brontëite Hannah Tinti:

Votre roman regorge de descriptions fabuleuses du XIXe siècle, de ses paysages et de ses habitants.... Auriez-vous aimé vivre à cette époque ?
Bonne question... J'aurais aimé, oui, mais je suis quand même très contente de profiter de la médecine moderne, d'avoir l'eau courante, des toilettes à l'intérieur, une salle de bains... Je pense que ce que j'aurais aimé à cette époque c'est le mystère que l'on prêtait à la vie, la nature - sans pollution - et le fait de vivre plus en phase avec la nature. Et puis à l'époque, les gens n'avaient pas de télé, pas de radio pour se divertir... Il n'avaient rien d'autres que les livres. Et comme les livres sont toute ma vie, je pense que j'aurais été dans mon élément. A l'époque j'aurais pu rencontrer les écrivains que j'aime tant : Jane Austen, Charlotte Brontë, Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson. Ils auraient été mes contemporains. (Céline Ngi) (Google translation)

The Dutch press covers the tour of De Brontë Sisters (Toneelgroep Dorst): Helders Weekblad and Vlaardingen De Echo and Wooste Hoogten (Artemis Theater): Parool and The Agenda.nl.

A Brontëite in the Watseka Times Republic, an article in the Colorado Springs Christian Espirituality Examiner links together the H1N1 Swine Flu and the Brontës and even better, Музыка KM.RU (Russia) is able to join Jane Eyre and Marilyn Manson in the same paragraph. Let the good times roll posts about Wuthering Heights and Book Review - The Club does the same about Jane Eyre. Finally, Be Literature begins a series of posts (in Spanish) about the Brontës (umlaut misplaced though).

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, References, Theatre, Wuthering Heights

Bored Females

2009-11-21T00:03:00.000+01:00

More scholar books with Brontë mentions:

The Female Gothic
New Directions
Edited by Diana Wallace and Andrew Smith

Palgrave Macmillan
12 Nov 2009
9780230222717
240 pages

This rich and varied collection of essays makes a timely contribution to critical debates about the Female Gothic, a popular but contested area of literary studies. The contributors revisit key Gothic themes - gender, race, the body, monstrosity, metaphor and motherhood - to open up new directions for criticism, while two essays on Scottish and Welsh Gothic represent the latest work in these new areas. Writers discussed range from central figures such as Ann Radcliffe, Charlotte Bronte, and Angela Carter, and neglected figures like the authors of the 'Northanger novels', to writers who are rarely discussed as 'Gothic' such as Iris Murdoch, Toni Morrison and Iain Banks. An Introduction surveying criticism on the Female Gothic and an essay on the institutionalisation of Gothic Studies provide invaluable contextualisation. Contributors: Kirsti Bohata, Carol Margaret Davison, Lauren Fitzgerald, Anya Heise-von der Lippe, Avril Horner, Alison Milbank, Robert Miles, Meredith Miller, Marie Mulvey-Roberts, Andrew Smith, Diana Wallace, Angela Wright, Sue Zlosnik.

Beautiful Boredom
Idleness and Feminine Self-Realization in the Victorian Novel
Lee Anna Maynard

McFarland & Co.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4555-4
198pp. softcover 2009

This volume explores boredom as a possible force for good in the Victorian novel. Boredom in these works is an important means through which female characters are able to achieve a greater sense of self-awareness. In her discussion of Charlotte Bronte's "Jane Eyre" (1847), George Eliot's "Middlemarch" (1871-72), and Henry James' "The Portrait of a Lady" (1881), the author examines both the deleterious and restorative aspects of boredom and shows how this subtle theme has continued to be used by more modern authors.

Chapter 1 is titled Avoiding the Boring: Boredom, Beauty, and Narrative in Jane Eyre.

Categories: Books, Scholar

Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender to star in new Jane Eyre (?)

2009-11-20T17:52:00.009+01:00

According to Variety (and other news outlets afterwards), it looks as ifthings are moving on with Cary Fukunaga's Jane Eyre: Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender are in talks to play Jane Eyre and Mr Rochester (respectively, of course!).

Mia Wasikowska and Michael Fassbender are in negotiations to star in "Sin nombre" helmer Cary Fukunaga's feature adaptation of Charlotte Bronte's classic novel, "Jane Eyre."
Brit shingle Ruby Films' Alison Owen and Paul Trijbits are producing with BBC Films and Focus Features from a script by Moira Buffini.
Project is a period piece but will play up the gothic elements of the story about Jane (Wasikowska), a demure governess who discovers her surly employer Rochester (Fassbender) is harboring a dark secret. The book is one of the most iconic in English literature and has been the subject of numerous previous adaptations.
Wasikowska will next be seen as Alice alongside Johnny Depp in Tim Burton's "Alice in Wonderland," which Disney is releasing next year. The actress is also set to star in helmer Gus Van Sant's untitled project for producers Dallas Bryce Howard and Imagine's Ron Howard and Brian Grazer.
Fassbender previously appeared in Steve McQueen's "Hunger," Quentin Tarantino's "Inglourious Basterds" and Andrea Arnold's "Fish Tank."
He will next be seen in Neil Marshall's Roman actioner "Centurion" and Warner Bros.' "Jonah Hex" opposite Josh Brolin and Megan Fox.
Ellen Page was previously attached to star as the eponymous heroine but left the project some time ago.
Lensing is due to begin next year. (Ali Jaafar)

As you will recall, a year and a half ago Michael Fassbender was confirmed as Heathcliff for Ecosse Film's Wuthering Heights. Will Jane Eyre suit him better?

(Picture source)

Categories: In the News, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV

Twilight and the Classics

2009-11-20T17:16:00.002+01:00

The Twilight zone only grows and grows, but let us begin with non-Twilight-related news.

The Independent interviews Mary Beard:

Which fictional character most resembles you?
When I was younger I liked to imagine myself as a cross between Jane Eyre and some hapless Margaret Drabble heroine – a horribly self-regarding position to take. (Boyd Tonkin)

Today's Chicago Woman writes about author Margaret Atwood by way of the columnist's reading history.

While I'm a lover of books (one of my favorite summer activities growing up was my parents driving us to the library and checking out a towering stack of books, which I'd start reading on the way home and would be finished by the time we returned next week) there are only a few I can think of that inspired such a visceral reaction. Jane Eyre. The Rapture of Canaan. A Thousand Splendid Suns. (Cassandra Gaddo)

Talking about visceral reactions, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer Jane Eyre can't hold a candle to The Light in the Piazza, the musical based on Elizabeth Spencer's homonymous novella.

'Reader, I married him." Is there a fantasy dearer to the female heart than Charlotte Brontë's long-suffering governess finally marrying the lord of the manor?
Yes, there is.
The Light in the Piazza, a lovely chamber musical that just opened at the Philadelphia Theatre Company after major success in New York, gives us the current chick-lit dream come true. . . (Toby Zinman)

To finish with the non-Twilight section, The Telegraph and Argus has news on the (in)famous Haworth clamper.

Now Twilight. Finding Dulcinea reports an interview with Amy Clarke, professor at the University of California and teen literature expert:

Clarke says she would “definitely” include the “Twilight” books in her own curriculum, even comparing main character Bella to “Jane Eyre and Elizabeth Bennet,” although somewhat less complex. Meyer’s themes of Native American mythology and religious inquiry also intrigue Clarke. (Sarah Amandolare)

It looks as if she's not alone. From Ozarks First:

Twilight has also encouraged kids to try more complex books. In the movie, Bella constantly reads the 19th century British novel Wuthering Heights. Now that book is also frequently checked-out."
These students would never have picked up Wuthering Heights or a Jane Austen novel and think this is good weekend reading, but now since a character they fell in love with reads it-- they're more interested in seeing what that's about," [Tracy] Mauschbaugh [who teaches Special Education English in Willard] says. (Jessica Williams)

And yet more agreement coming from The Cedartown Standard.

And the debates aren’t limited to teenagers. Valerie Karas, a seventh-grade teacher, has read the books and shared them with friends, who in turn gave them to their mothers.
"We’ve been preoccupied with these ideas for a long time — the idea of star-crossed lovers or the idea of a passion so powerful that it can destroy people," Karas says. "Look at the connections and comparisons between ‘Twilight’ and ‘Romeo and Juliet’ and between ‘New Moon’ and ‘Wuthering Heights."’ (Tom Keyser)

The Contra Costa Times brings actual evidence on the connection between both reads:

At the Century 16 Theater in Pleasant Hill, first in line was Brandy Elkanick, 30. She figured that there would be even more "New Moon" fans than for the first "Twilight" movie.
That time she had arrived at 5:30 p.m., only to find herself in line behind 29 other fans. This year she showed up at 11:30 a.m.
"It's a big deal to have books you read and love come to the theater," she said, slipping a bookmark into a copy of "Wuthering Heights." (Laura Casey)

In a similar vein, Zap 2 It gives advice on how to jump (late) onto the Twilight bandwagon.

Use classic literature as a reference point. Ever read "Wuthering Heights"? Substitute "Edward and Bella" for "Heathcliff and Catherine" and you'll be on pretty safe ground. (Rick Porter)

Which is in turn confirmed by the Derby Telegraph.

But what the Twilight saga has done is captured the heightened romance and melodrama of adolescent years and given contemporary teenage girls a tale of Wuthering Heights-level gothic madness of their own. (Nigel Powlson)

If you need more confirmation, Arts Beat - a New York Times blog - has asked its readers about it and some of them mention Jane Eyre too.

On the blogosphere, both Reading According to Allie and Mildly Free post about Jane Eyre.

Categories: Books, Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights

Dressing Gothic

2009-11-20T00:03:00.001+01:00

A couple of scholar books with Brontë content:

Dress Culture in Late Victorian Women's Fiction Literacy, Textiles, and Activism
Christine Bayles Kortsch, Eastern University, USA

* Imprint: Ashgate
* Illustrations: Includes 18 b&w illustrations
* Published: November 2009
* Format: 234 x 156 mm
* Extent: 212 pages
* Binding: Hardback
* ISBN: 978-0-7546-6510-6

In her immensely readable and richly documented book, Christine Bayles Kortsch asks us to shift our understanding of late Victorian literary culture by examining its inextricable relationship with the material culture of dress and sewing. Even as the Education Acts of 1870, 1880, and 1891 extended the privilege of print literacy to greater numbers of the populace, stitching samplers continued to be a way of acculturating girls in both print literacy and what Kortsch terms "dress culture." Kortsch explores nineteenth-century women's education, sewing and needlework, mainstream fashion, alternative dress movements, working-class labor in the textile industry, and forms of social activism, showing how dual literacy in dress and print cultures linked women writers with their readers.
Focusing on Victorian novels written between 1870 and 1900, Kortsch examines fiction by writers such as Olive Schreiner, Ella Hepworth Dixon, Margaret Oliphant, Sarah Grand, and Gertrude Dix, with attention to influential predecessors like Elizabeth Gaskell, Charlotte Brontë, and George Eliot. Periodicals, with their juxtaposition of journalism, fiction, and articles on dress and sewing are particularly fertile sites for exploring the close linkages between print and dress cultures. Informed by her examinations of costume collections in British and American museums, Kortsch's book broadens our view of New Woman fiction and its relationship both to dress culture and to contemporary women's fiction.

The Gothic, Postcolonialism and Otherness
Ghosts from Elsewhere
Tabish Khair

Palgrave Macmillan
04 Nov 2009
9780230234062
208 pages

Starting with a re-examination of the role of the colonial/racial Other in mainstream Gothic (colonial) fiction, this book goes on to engage with the problem of narrating the 'subaltern' in the post-colonial context. It engages with the problems of representing 'difference' in lucid conceptual terms, with much attention to primary texts, and highlights the strengths and weaknesses of colonial discourses as well as postcolonialist attempts to 'write back.' While providing rich readings of Conrad, Kipling, Melville, Emily Brontë, Erna Brodber, Jean Rhys and others, it offers new perspectives on Otherness, difference and identity, re-examines the role of emotions in literature, and suggests productive ways of engaging with contemporary global and postcolonial issues.

The Brontë chapter has a title not to be forgotten: Heathcliff as Terrorist (Chapter 3). If you want to know Tabish Khair's approach is useful to read these previous posts.

Categories: Books, Scholar

"In Yorkshire, we don't need to watch period dramas"

2009-11-19T11:40:00.005+01:00

The Yorkshire Post has an article on 'forgotten heritage' and the Brontë Birthplace is aptly mentioned.

"Sometimes it's the seemingly unremarkable buildings in which you find the best stories," he says. "In Thornton, near Bradford, there's a terraced house which looks like hundreds of others. However, when you realise it was the birthplace of the Brontës, it gives it a whole new dimension. "How fantastic is it to be able to sit in the living room of the house where the Brontë children were born and look out and see the same views they saw? In Yorkshire, we don't need to watch period dramas on television, we can go out and live and breathe it." (Sarah Freeman)

We would honestly like to know what's to become of it, now that's been a good while (over two years) since it was bought in an auction.

Now for the ever-present Twilight zone. Mark from Buzznet is reading Twilight (so that you don't have to). He's in chapter 11 of Eclipse:

Also, she quotes Wuthering Heights again. Please stop.

And of course the second installment, The Twilight Saga: New Moon, has just been released in cinemas and spoken of in the press. And they don't quote but mention Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre and the Brontës. Again.

San Diego News Network says:

For me, these books have been a modern day combination of the unrequited love of Romeo and Juliet, Heathcliff and Catherine from “Wuthering Heights,” and Wendla and Melchior from “Spring Awakening.” Only, the “Twilight” books have elements of all of these classics, with the added bonus of a happy ending. Alright, I’m stretching the comparison between historic, compelling literature, but even at my age (late 30s), in the middle-place, the captivating “Twilight” books have given me a vacation from stress, finances, my jelly belly muffin top, and my daily activities with my two energetic boys. (Maryann Castronovo)

Eyeweekly says:

It may well be a psychic cocktail of the agonies and ecstasy of first love, wherein if a guy doesn’t return your phone call, you’re basically ready to throw yourself off a cliff. (SPOILER ALERT: this does happen in New Moon, thanks probably to Stephenie Meyer’s reputed love for Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights.) (Chandler Levack)

Western Australia Today says:

Bella - lean, glowering, in jeans and a flannie - is an offhand heroine who's never going to inspire her own clothing line. Not quite a Jane Eyre, however; she can pique male interest, although her demeanour generally deflects boys' attention soon enough. But the camera doesn't linger on her: it turns to the torsos and cheekbones of the pin-up boys. (Philippa Hawker)

And Cinematical says:

What no one seems to realize is that women have been reading about idealistic lovers for a very long time. Jane Austen, the Brontes, and Elizabeth Gaskell all created paragons of male sexiness that women have been fantasizing about for centuries. (Elisabeth Rappe)

Oh, but they do realise! And they write about it quite a lot too.

Well, another much talked about film with a Brontë connection is An Education, which is reviewed by the Memphis Flyer.

And, as David takes Jenny from a classical concert to an after-hours club boasting a different kind of symphony — that of smoke and drink and Etta James covers and heady conversation — that Jane Eyre paper for English class doesn't seem quite so important. (Chris Herrington)

Curiously enough, Recorder Community Newspapers has an article about a classical concert which begins with a Brontë reference.

The evening of Saturday, Oct. 24, was worthy of a scene in a Brontë novel, chill winds whipping heavy rain and thunder in the distance. (Sheila Abrams)

At The Collegian (South Dakota State University), editor Andrew LaFrance writes about recent reads.

Also recently I have enjoyed Wuthering Heights, A Tale of Two Cities, I Capture the Castle and My Sister's Keeper. A girly good yarn or two is never harmful to anyone, but to me these books are so much more than stories; they are reasons to keep on living my own life in hopes that someday it, too, can become some sort of best-seller.

As for the blogs, The Clue in the Bookshelf has read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Project Read More is not too thrilled about Jane Eyre in comparison with a couple of novels by Jane Austen. The Film Fanatic has watched Jane Eyre 1973. And more blogs keep on joining Laura's Reviews All About the Brontës Challenge: Book-A-Rama and New Century Reading. It looks as if we can expect a good many comments and reviews in the coming months!

Categories: Books, Brontëana, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Wuthering Heights

Book Drum

2009-11-19T00:03:00.003+01:00

Book Drum is a new initiative which is trying to create a sort of online Companions for well-known novels. Each book includes Bookmarks (with annotations and clarifications, page by page), Review, Setting, Glossary, Author Information and Summary. In their own words:

What are books?

We feel passionately drawn to them. We fall in love with them. But a book is usually nothing more than text on paper. Sometimes there are pictures, perhaps even a few maps. The constraints of book technology rule out anything more.
Until now.
At Book Drum, we believe even the most wonderful books can be enhanced through selective use of the images, sounds, video and information available on the Web. Have a look at our sample book Profiles to get an idea of the potential.
Isn’t Captain Corelli’s Mandolin all the more moving when you can listen to the music the Captain plays on his beloved Antonia? Aren’t John Harrison’s inventions more impressive when you can see the actual mechanisms described in Longitude? And don't videos about the Taliban and kite fighting in Kabul add depth to a reading of The Kite Runner?

They are running a tournament in order to complete a database of 500 books:

Book Drum’s mission is to bring great books to life by going beyond the page. As a first step, we’re building Profiles for more than 500 classic titles. If you’d like to help with these or any other favourites, enter our Tournament and you could win a cash prize and a job interview!
If you really love a book, be the person who defines it for the world.
Enter Tournament

We know that Wuthering Heights is already taken and being worked on, but Jane Eyre is available. Jane Eyre lovers: this is your chance.

Categories: Websites

A Wild Thing reading Villette

2009-11-18T11:35:00.004+01:00

Via Flavorwire we have come across a recent article from the Guardian on the forthcoming auction Capture the Imagination: Original Illustration & Fine Illustrated Books to take place next December 9th in New York at Bloomsbury Auctions. One of the illustrations piqued our curiosity when it was described as follows:

An "extremely rare" edition of Maurice Sendak's first picture book Good Shabbos, Everybody – commissioned after the illustrator Leonard Weisgard saw one of Sendak's window displays for FAO Schwartz in New York – is also on offer, as well as a poster Sendak drew for a 1979 New York book festival, showing a Wild Thing relaxing against the Empire State Building, eating a (big) apple and reading Villette. (Alison Flood)

You can see said poster here on the right though we will have to take their word for it as the the title - Villette - on the spine can be barely guessed at in this low-res image. This is Bloomsbury Auctions' description of this item:

317. SENDAK, Maurice (b. 1928) New York Is Book Country Colored poster for the first annual autumn festival of books on Fifth Avenue, September 16, 1979 (60 x 48 mm). warmly inscribed to james marshall in ink and dated “sept. ‘79.” Framed. Provenance: James Marshall.Depicts a Wild Thing relaxing against the Empire State Building as he enjoys a big apple and a good read-- Villette by Charlotte Brönte [sic].
est. $500 – $800 (Picture source)

More plans for December, as seen on BroadwayWorld (Pittsburgh).

Pittsburgh Irish & Classical Theatre is staging an elaborate new theatrical version of Charlotte Brontë's masterpiece Jane Eyre for the holiday season! The production opens on December 3rd in the Charity Randall Theatre at the Stephen Foster Memorial in Oakland, and runs through December 20th.
Young Jane Eyre is abandoned by cruel relatives and left to her fate at the harsh and imposing Lowood School. She grows into a plain but intelligent young woman, and travels to the mysterious Thornfield Hall to work as governess. The Byronic master of the gothic mansion, Edward Fairfax Rochester, sweeps her off her feet -- but a dark secret from his past threatens to tear them apart. Will true love overcome all obstacles? Written in 1847, Jane's inner strength and determination to overcome adversity make her one of the most endearing heroines of classic literature.
A family-friendly adaptation by PICT Associate Artist Alan Stanford (Salome), Jane Eyre set box office records at the Gate Theatre in Dublin, Guthrie Theatre in Minneapolis, and Maintoba Theatre Center. This huge hit presents the audience with not just one Jane, but three! The play begins with young Jane (Jenna Lanz), the orphaned child left to fend for herself in a harsh world. As young Jane ages, she becomes middle Jane (Allison McLemore) - the simple governess whose inner beauty and intelligence win the heart of the stolid, implacable Mr. Rochester (David Whalen). Throughout the play, Shelley Delaney guides the audience through the story as older Jane, sharing her life story with us as it unfolds.
Scott Wise directs, and Douglas Levine returns to the PICT stage with an original music score. Costumes are designed by Diane Collins. Gianni Downs and Andrew David Ostrowski bring the world to life through set and lighting.
The brooding, mysterious Mr. Rochester will be played by Pittsburgh favorite David Whalen. Whalen is currently starring as the tortured doctor in City Theatre Company's production of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. His previous PICT credits include The Shaughraun, Julius Caesar, Stuff Happens, The Lieutenant of Inishmore, Pride and Prejudice, An Ideal Husband, and King Lear. Whalen is the recipient of the 2007 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Performer of the Year and 2008 Kevin Kline Award for best actor (St. Louis Rep, The Lieutenant of Inishmore).
Allison McLemore makes her Pittsburgh debut in the role of Jane. Her credits include the role of Jo in Little Women with Peterborough Players, Roxanne in Cyrano de Bergerac for the Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, and Eliza Doolittle in Pygmalion at Creede Repertory Theatre, for which she won the Denver Post Ovation Award. Most recently she was in The Madras House at the Mint Theatre.
Also making her PICT debut is Shelley Delaney, playing senior Jane. Head of the Professional Actor Training Program at Ohio University, Delaney's credits include Free Man of Color at Victory Gardens (Joseph Jefferson nomination), numerous productions at Capital Repertory Company including Sylvia (Best Actress, Metroland Newspapers), and numerous productions at Two River Theatre Company including The Dining Room (Best Supporting Actress, New Jersey critics/Star Ledger).
Kate Young returns to Pittsburgh to play the dual roles of Mrs. Fairfax and Hanna. A former Pittsburgh resident and professor at Point Park University, Young currently resides in Chicago. Her previous PICT credits include Doubt, Synge Cycle (Riders to the Sea, The Well of the Saints), Salome, Endgame, James Joyce's The Dead, The Cripple of Inishmaan, Major Barbara, and Faith Healer.
Scott Wise, who directed PICT's hugely-successful productions of Pride and Prejudice and James Joyce's The Dead, returns to direct Jane Eyre. Wise is a professor in the School of Theater at Point Park University, and was the founder and artistic director of Pittsburgh International Folk Theatre, for which he was awarded the Pittsburgh Magazine Harry Schwab Award. His many directing credits include recent productions of the musicals The Rocky Horror Show with Point Park Conservatory, and the world premieres of Streets of America (also with the Conservatory) and Eastburn Avenue at The Rep.
Original music for Jane Eyre is composed by Douglas Levine, whose PICT credits include original music for Pride and Prejudice, The Shaughraun, as well as Mother Courage and Peer Gynt for The Rep, and Mimoun for Pennsylvania Dance Theater. Levine was also the composer of the musical Eastburn Avenue, which premiered at The Rep in 2008. As an arranger, Levine has worked on PICT's Boston Marriage and Private Lives, and was the featured pianist in PICT's production of The False Servant.
Costume designer Diane Collins makes her PICT debut with Jane Eyre. Locally, Collins has worked with Dance Alloy, Pittsburgh Opera Theatre, CMU Opera and School of Drama, Three Rivers Shakespeare Festival, City Theatre at Hartwood, and Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. She has also worked extensively in film, with credits including costume design for Hollywood & Wine and The Bridge to Nowhere, and wardrobe supervisor for Shelter and Dogma.
Returning to PICT are scenic designer Gianni Downs, whose many PICT credits include Boston Marriage, Stuff Happens, Lieutenant of Inishmore, What the Butler Saw; and Andrew David Ostrowski, whose designs for PICT include Private Lives, King Lear, and Doubt.
The production also features Courtney Bassett, Christine Clark, Julia Concolino, James FitzGerald, Lisa Ann Goldsmith, Jeremy Hois, Jenna Lanz, Larry John Meyers, Catherine Moore, Joel Ripka, Laurel Schroeder, and Anna Van Valin.
Jane Eyre runs December 3rd through 20th at the Charity Randall Theatre in the Stephen Foster Memorial, 4301 Forbes Avenue in Oakland. Special student matinees are scheduled for December 2nd and 8th at 10 a.m. Tickets are on sale now, and are available by calling ProArtsTickets at 412.394.3353 or visiting ProArtsTickets online at www.proartstickets.org. To schedule a group for the student matinees, contact Eric Nelson at 412-561-6000 x206 or email enelson@picttheatre.org More information about the play is available on the PICT website, www.picttheatre.org. WDUQ-FM is the media sponsor for Jane Eyre.

More details on the theatre's own website.

Remember a few days ago when we first heard of D.H. Lawrence's opinion of Jane Eyre? Today the Daily Mail also reviews Poisoned Pens: Literary Invective from Amis to Zola by Gary Dexter and touches briefly on it:

Of the Brontes, D.H. Lawrence announced 'Verging towards pornography' - what a quote for the paperback! (Roger Lewis)

We would just like to point out that D.H. Lawrence's opinion was on Charlotte Brontë, particularly on Jane Eyre. Not on Emily, not on Anne.

Now for our almost-daily Twilight section. The Mirror has an A-to-Z on the saga and reminds us where the male protagonist's name comes from:

Edward: Our romantic hero’s name was inspired by “Edward Fairfax Rochester” from classic Charlotte Bronte novel Jane Eyre.

Zap 2 It suggests a few books that you may like if you enjoy Twilight. Wuthering Heights is of course on the list.

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Bella wants to jump Edward Cullen's bones, but he refuses, he knows it's a bad idea... so honorable, yet so frustrating too. "Wuthering Heights" has the same sort of deal going down: a crazy passionate love between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw which simply cannot be. It'll drive you insane. And it's pretty dark too.

Encore Online has an article on noticeably fake accents. Kevin Costner makes it to number 1 thanks to his Robin Hood accent, which is described as follows:

1. Kevin Costner—Robin Hood: Prince of Theives [sic].
Yes, it’s an easy target—but that’s because it sticks out like a fireball in a coal mine. His accent was lazy and off-putting, something made even worse by the actual Englishman playing the supporting roles. To be fair, this accent wouldn’t have been convincing in a 3rd-grade dinner theater production of Jane Eyre. (Anghus Houvouras)

On the blogosphere, Jane Eyre is reviewed by The Bookshelf and Ready to Read. xo.sorcha.ox posts about Wuthering Heights. And Fly High! and vvb32 reads have joined Laura's Reviews All About the Brontës Challenge.

Categories: Books, Illustrations, Jane Eyre, Theatre, Villette, Wuthering Heights

A Student's Guide to The Brontë Sisters - A Review

2009-11-18T00:04:00.000+01:00

Our thanks to Enslow Publishers Inc. for providing us with a review copy of this book.

A Student's Guide to The Brontë Sisters
Naomi Pasachoff
ISBN-13: 978-0-7660-3267-5
Enslow Publishers
Series Understanding Literature
Publication Year: 2009
Interest Level: Grades 6-up

Enslow Publishers is a publishing house which specialises in K-12 Nonfiction Library Books and defines its goal on their website with the following words:

The mission of Enslow Publishers, Inc., is to publish high-quality educational nonfiction books for children and young adults, who will access these materials in schools and public libraries. Our goals are that readers will be able to trust our products and that the books will satisfy their needs.

We don't know about the other titles included in their Understanding Literature series but its latest addition, Naomi Pasachoff's A Student Guide to The Brontë Sisters, is quite well described by the above statement and the following one which collectively defines the framework of the series:

An introduction to literature and literary criticism for middle and high school students. A fresh, pleasing visual layout and clear explanations of literary techniques and styles are designed to make the great works of literature more accessible to readers. Also includes sidebars which feature definitions of common literary terms and explanations of related content

The author Naomi Pasachoff is not a neophyte biographer. She teaches Reading and Writing Biography at Williams College and has a long experience in the field ⁽¹⁾. She knows her craft and has made her homework reading the Brontës' works and several Brontë biographies⁽²⁾. The result is a quite consistent Brontë Readers' Digest with the logical limitations of a volume of this sort but overall very satisfactory.

The book begins with an introductory and motivational chapter which is followed by a succession of chapters following the chronology of events of the Brontë family. Particular attention is paid to Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights with a chapter devoted to each novel. Anne Brontë's works are not forgotten or glossed over as the author keeps a chapter for the younger sister which is particularly interesting as Ms Pasachoff goes beyond the mainstream literary agenda and praises The Tenant of Wildfell Hall and Agnes Grey which she considers a precedent in many aspects of Jane Eyre itself⁽³⁾. The final chapter exploring the legacy and everlasting influence of the Brontës' works is probably the least satisfactory⁽⁴⁾. The book is completed with a glossary, a paltry bibliography and an embarrassing selection of internet addresses.

The author knows well the target of a book like this and uses adequate vocabulary and simplifies the many critical approaches that the novels have given way to. Nevertheless sometimes the insets where literary terms are explained are quite unnecessary as they literally double the definitions already made within the text and there are a couple of instances of clarifications à la Lemony Snicket which are clearly superflous (is it necessary to clarify that in the Brontës' time there were no computers?).

The illustrations are in black and white but the criteria for their inclusion is a bit erratic. Branwell's portrait of Emily is included but George Richmond's portrait of Charlotte is not (instead we have the beautified 1873 painting by Evert A. Duyckinick based on Richmond's). The novels are illustrated by stills of Jane Eyre 1996 and Wuthering Heights 1992 which are a poor choice when there are plenty of Brontë country landscapes probably more fitting and evocative.

The book appears with a reinforced library binding and clear and not overwhelming typeface in order to appeal to all those students which don't limit themselves to the Wikipedia articles or the same old online Jane Eyre/Wuthering Heights essays and want to discover the basics of the lives and works of the Brontës. If some of them comes across this book in their local or high school library we are pretty sure they will not be disappointed.

Notes

(1) No less than fifteen books can be found on her bibliography. Including biographies of T.S. Elliot, Marie Curie, Niels Bohr, Ernest Rutherford or Linus Pauling.

(2) The notes to the text suggest that Juliet Barker's The Brontës, Margaret Smith's Letters of Charlotte Brontë, Edward Chitham's Life of Anne Brontë and his Life of Emily Brontë, and Harold Orel's selection of The Brontës: Interviews and Recollections are the most quoted. Surprisingly Gérin's biographies are practically absent.

(3) It's a pity that the independence of thought that Ms Pasachoff shows in her treatment of Anne Brontë is not applied to Charlotte. The author joins the ranks of the recent critical trend that bitterly punishes Charlotte for 'editing' and 'manipulating' her sisters' works.

(4) There's even a mistake in one of them. As far as we know the comic show Withering Looks is not by Monty Python but by LipService Theatre. (p. 130)

Categories: Review

Sarah Waters in Haworth

2009-11-17T22:11:00.005+01:00

A press release from the Brontë Parsonage Museum:

SARAH WATERS IN HAWORTH

Novelist Sarah Waters will be making a visit to Haworth this month, to speak about her work as part of the Brontë Parsonage Museum’s contemporary arts programme. The talk takes place on Saturday 28 November at 6pm at the West Lane Baptist Centre, Haworth, and is part of a special day of creative writing events being held in Haworth in conjunction with Mslexia magazine. Mslexia is a magazine for women who write.

Sarah Waters was shortlisted for the 2009 Man Booker Prize for her most recent novel The Little Stranger, and it is this novel that she will be speaking about, as well as her writing career.
Sarah Waters is an incredibly popular writer and we feel very honoured that she has agreed to come and speak here as part of the museum’s contemporary arts programme. She has in the past described herself as an admirer of the Brontës, so it will be extra special to hear her talk about her work in such an important, and atmospheric, literary setting. (Jenna Holmes, Arts Officer)
About Sarah Waters: Sarah Waters was born in Wales in 1966. She has a PhD in English Literature and has been an associate lecturer with the Open University. She has won a Betty Trask Award, the Somerset Maugham Award, was named Author of the Year three times in 2003 and was also chosen as one of Granta’s Best of Young British Novelists in that year. Fingersmith won the CWA Ellis Peters Dagger Award for Historical Crime Fiction and the South Bank Show Award for Literature. Sarah Waters has been shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize three times and Fingersmith and The Night Watch were shortlisted for the Orange Prize. Tipping the Velvet, Affinity and Fingersmith have all been adapted for television. The Night Watch is currently in development with the BBC.

Tickets are £8 and can be booked from the Brontë Parsonage Museum by contacting the Arts Officer: jenna.holmes@bronte.org.uk / 01535 640188.

EDIT: Also in The Telegraph & Argus.

Categories: Alert, Brontë Parsonage Museum, Talks

Mrs Rochester becomes Heathcliff becomes Mr Rochester...

2009-11-17T12:06:00.004+01:00

After being degraded to Dobby the house-elf it looks as if Gordon Brown has now left his Heathcliff/Mrs Rochester past in order to impersonate Mr Rochester himself, at least according to the London Evening Standard.

The image of Brown struggling with his failing eyesight to compose a letter to a soldier's mother will further bring out the Jane Eyre in female voters. Oh to feel Mr Rochester's bitten fingers outline the contours of one's face. (Sarah Sands)

Now, how many Brontë characters has the Prime Minister left to be compared to? Politics is not our thing but if the elections turn out badly for him we might expect to see some Cathy and her "let me in" mentions ;)

Another comparison with Wuthering Heights is that made by Watch with Kristin - and E! Online blog - in anticipation of Lost's sixth and final season.

So What Is Lost's One True Pairing? We find that a lot of good literature follows the same tropes and arcs, so in hopes of getting a teeny-tiny bit of clarity on the final-season direction of some of Lost's major romantic storylines, we asked Lost boss Lindelof to compare Sawyer's love life on Lost to the love story in any other fictional work. "Wow," said Lindelof, "Sawyer's love life compared to any..." (He looked a little dazed at all the possible options, so we threw The Notebook, Jane Eyre and Gilligan's Island at him as totally random starting points for thinking about the question.) "All way off so far!" Lindelof said, "Perhaps the relationship between Gilligan and the Skipper, because there's a lot of hitting on the head with hats...OK. Serious...I think Wuthering Heights is probably a good one then. We've got a little Heathcliff action going on."
Putting aside our memories of the wacky cartoon alley cat, we find Heathcliff from Wuthering Heights an incredibly intriguing answer to this question. Literary scholars: Compare the stories of Emily Brontë's Heathcliff and and Lost's Sawyer so far. Senior shipper analysts, please convene a white-paper committee in the comments section to debate and report on these and other questions: In a metaphor where Heathcliff is equivalent to Sawyer, which Lost character is Catherine Earnshaw? Who stands for Edgar and Isabella? Is there a young Cathy or a Hareton figure in Lost? Can Heathcliff/Sawyer ever overcome his basic wildness? And does this presage a tragic and perhaps lonely end for James Ford? (So much to discuss!) (Jennifer Godwin)

See, new generations? You have to read the classics in order to find clues on your favourite TV shows.

Also a classic: alluding to the Brontës' noms de plume whenever pseudonyms are disccused. As is the case today in the Guardian.

In the shadows of anonymity, Dr Magnanti [real name of blogger and call girl Belle de Jour] certainly had a career that many more recognised writers might have envied: huge sales, bestseller status and television spin-offs. Take away the contemporary spin, and not much here is new. Literary history, especially in the 18th century, is littered with writers who chose to write anonymously. At the low end they are all forgotten; at the high end they range from Jonathan Swift and Walter Scott to Jane Austen and Charlotte Brontë. As so often in the past, something, in the end, persuaded Dr Magnanti to come clean. (Robert McCrum)

The Stanly News and Press (North Carolina) has an article on local theatre and reminisces about the origins of the current state of things:

In 1963, “Jane Eyre” was the first play to be performed at West Stanly, which opened its doors in 1962. At that time, the plays were reserved for seniors, and Judy Coble played the first ever leading role.

And speaking of theatre, Broadway World reviews The Mystery of Irma Vep, with its compulsory reference to Wuthering Heights.

Today's Leeds Daily Photo is that of the plaque at the Brontë Birthplace in Thornton. Life seems but a quick succession of busy nothings reviews Jane Eyre and Project Bibliophile posts about Wide Sargasso Sea. Finally, YouTube user pillyliu has uploaded a video of John Woods Duke's musical setting of Emily Brontë's poem The Old Stoic (included in Six Songs on Poems by Emily Brontë, published in 1977). The performers are Jillian Baker, Soprano and Peter Liu, Piano.

Categories: Jane Eyre, Music, Poetry, References, Theatre, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

Italian alerts (and a Polish one)

2009-11-17T00:03:00.001+01:00

Some Italian alerts:

1. At the Cineteatro Baretti (Torino), a new chance to see Bernard de Zougheb's Le Sorelle Brontë:

18 – 20 novembre 2009, ore 21.00
Le sorelle Brontë
di Bernard de Zogheb

Ricostruzione della partitura musicale di Andrea Chenna

Con Davide Livermore, Alfonso Antoniozzi
Perrine Madoeuf, Angela Nisi, Inna Savchenko, Maryse Pires da Silva, Oxana Mochenets, Anna Bessi, Mara Bezzi, Giulia Alberti, Gualtiero Ristori e con Angelo Conto e Diego Mingolla
Drammaturgia di Stefano Valanzuolo
Regia di Davide Livemore

Biennale di Venezia, Teatro Regionale Alessandrino, Moz-Art Box Portici, Associazione Baretti in collaborazione con la Fondazione del Teatro Stabile di Torino

Le Sorelle Bronte ha inaugurato la Biennale Teatro a Venezia nel Febbraio 2009.
E’ un’opera totalmente fuori dagli schemi, stimolante sotto il profilo letterario e gradevolissima in termini puramente musical teatrali, facile all’ascolto e densa di riferimenti colti.
Una sorta di helzapoppin in salsa mediterranea, un vaudeville del XXI secolo, a metà tra il musical, il varietà, l’opera lirica, in cui riecheggiano i fantasmi musicali e drammaturgici del recitar cantando, degli intermezzi buffi, dei cabaret berlinesi. Alfonso Antoniozzi e Davide Livermore ne sono i protagonisti, insieme ad un nutrito gruppo di artisti di talento.

2. A poetry reading in Rome includes some poetry by Charlotte and Emily Brontë:

Assaggi Poetici
November 19, 18:00 h
Sala Santa Rita

Inaugura il progetto La Poesia è di Casa ( a cura di Stefania Fabri e Maddalena Fallucchi), una vivace festa dedicata ai talenti noti e agli emergenti, di scena sino a marzo 2010 in tre spazi culturali della Capitale
L’evento inaugurale in programma il 19 novembre vede come interpreti dell’universo poetico Valeria Ciangottini e Gianni Garko.
Si autopresenterà la giovane poetessa Alice Clarini, introdotta da Monica Maggi L’accompagnamento musicale è a cura di Augusto Creni (chitarra) e di Marco Contessi (contrabbasso).
Immancabile un omaggio ad Alda Merini, recentemente scomparsa, e alla sua poesia “alacre come il fuoco”. (Marina Martorana in Il Corriere della Sera) (Google translation)

3. And a belated alert, from last November 9:

Incontrateatri 2009-2010,
Amicicompliciamanti
November 9, 20.45, al Piccolo Teatro Libero del Quartiere Sanpolino
Da una stanza all'altra

Viaggio nella letteratura femminile del '900 con Elisabetta Vergani e l'accompagnamento musicale al pianoforte di Filippo Fanò.
Nello spettacolo Elisabetta Vergani, che è stata in diverse occasioni ospite molto apprezzata di Amicicompliciamanti, racconta, con delicatezza e sentimento, l'esperienza di donne scrittrici, poetesse e intellettuali nel cammino compiuto verso la consapevolezza del proprio nome, del proprio ruolo nella società, del diritto a quella stanza tutta per sé di cui ha scritto Virginia Woolf; racconta l'esperienza di donne lacerate tra la vita quotidiana ed il loro sforzo di dare voce alla propria anima e corpo alla propria vocazione artistica. Insieme a lei risentiremo le parole di Marina Cvetaeva, Virginia Woolf, Milena Jesenska, Emily Dickinson, e Katherine Mansfield. Sono quasi tutte appartenenti al XX secolo, quello dell' emancipazione femminile, anche se tutte riconoscono un enorme tributo alle loro antenate dei secoli precedenti, dalle sorelle Bronte a Jane Austen, da Karoline von Gunderrode a George Elliot. (F.D.L. in Brescia Oggi) (Google translation)

EDIT: And a polish one. From the Teatrze Dramatycznym in Warsaw, a literary meeting:

Daleko od Wichrowych Wzgórz
Kuratorka: Agnieszka Drotkiewicz
2009-11-16 19.00

„Jesteśmy daleko od Wichrowych Wzgórz, delikatnie mówiąc. Forma powieściowa nie jest jeszcze gotowa, by opisać obojętność i nicość, trzeba by wymyślić bardziej bezbarwny sposób wyrazu, bardziej zwięzły i monotonny” – pisze Michel Houellebecq w Poszerzeniu pola walki. Czy rzeczywiście – w literaturze – jesteśmy daleko od Wichrowych Wzgórz? Czy jest coś, co pomimo zmian dekoracji pozostaje w literaturze niezmienne? Czy w dawnych książkach można szukać odpowiedzi na współczesne pytania? Czy warto się cofnąć, żeby zobaczyć obraz pełniejszy niż półka z napisem: „10 top nowości”?
Czytanie to awantura, mówi jedna z uczestniczek naszego projektu, Anna Marchewka, dlatego pozwalam sobie na takie pytania. Poszukiwać odpowiedzi, a także nowych pytań razem ze mną będą między innymi: Agnieszka Chrzczonowicz, Sylwia Chutnik, Anna Marchewka, Beata Stasińska, Kazimiera Szczuka, Bella Szwarcman-Czarnota, Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkało. Przyjmiemy rożne klucze: psychoanalityczny, społeczny, antropologiczny. Czytanie to awantura.

1. listopad 2009: Daleko od Wichrowych Wzgórz (Emily Brontë, Sarah Kane)
(More information) (Google translation)

Categories: Music, Poetry, Talks, Theatre

Is Jane Eyre a wimp?

2009-11-16T09:06:00.007+01:00

The Winifred Free Press reviews Lemon by Cordelia Strube.

Throughout the novel, Lemon gives us her unique take on historical figures such as Genghis Khan, Henry VIII, Joseph Stalin and Marie Antoinette. She also comments on books like Jane Eyre, The Great Gatsby, Lady Chatterley's Lover and Anna Karenina. (Bev Sandell)

The publisher's website offers more insight into the Jane Eyre connection, which is not very positive we are afraid.

She reads Mary Wollstonecraft and gets pissed off that Jane Eyre is such a wimp.

A Certain Bent Appeal reviews the book:

Lemon battles these opponents with her sizeable intelligence. She weaves in story lines from Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina and other classics to try to make sense of her world, though she mostly dismisses their lessons as misogynistic. (B. Kienapple)

Not that we agree. At all.

So yesterday we had a Prime Minister degraded from Heathcliff to Dobby the house-elf and a rugby player who is 'Heathcliff himself', and that was only yesterday - we have had heaps more in the past. Today's crop of Heathcliff lookalikes brings football coach Kevin Fallon as added by The Press (New Zealand).

As Kevin [Fallon] – who still casts an image of a Heathcliff clone fresh from the Yorkshire Moors – joined the 82 crew on a triumphal trek around the pitch before kickoff. . . (Tony Smith)

The Australian also employs a similar comparison when describing the National Park of Majella in Italy:

Majella: Imagine The Lord of the Rings crossed with Wuthering Heights and a couple of swashbuckling wartime escape stories thrown in: such are the improbable delights of Majella, an ethereal land of braying goats and swooping eagles. (Brendan Sainsbury)

On the blogosphere, Redhead Reviews posts briefly about Jane Eyre, Os Meus Livros writes about Wuthering Heights in Portuguese and Jayne's Books has joined Laura's Reviews All About the Brontës Challenge.

Categories: Books, Jane Eyre, References, Weirdo, Wuthering Heights

Pure words and more

2009-11-16T00:02:00.001+01:00

Four alerts for the following days:

1. A poetry reading of Rita María Martínez, author of Jane-in-the-Box, in Chicago, IL:

Palabra Pura: Rita María Martínez and Luis Tubens
Wednesday, November 18, 2009 - 7:30pm

Time: Reading begins at 7:30PM.
Cost: Free admission, all ages.
Location: Décima Musa, 1901 S. Loomis, Chicago

Rita María Martínez is the author of the poetry collection, Jane-in-the-Box (March Street Press, 2008). A graduate of Florida International University’s MFA Creative Writing Program, Martínez’s work has appeared in Gulf Stream, Ploughshares, Gargoyle, Diamgram, MiPoesias, and Tigertail: A South Florida Poetry Anthology. Her writing is also featured in Caña Quemada: Contemporary Cuban Poetry in English and Spanish (Simon & Schuster). Martínez is an Academic Services Writing Tutor at Nova Southeastern University.

2. In San Fernando, Spain:

IX Ciclo de Tertulias Literarias
"San Fernando 1810 - 2010: Un encuentro entre ilustradas y tertulianas"

FECHA: 17 DE NOVIEMBRE HORA: 17:00
LUGAR: Aula de la Fundación Municipal de la Mujer.
SESIÓN 10: Cumbres borrascosas. Emily Brontë.

3. In Chattanooga, TN

Classic Lit Book Club reviews Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
Rock Point Books, Chattanooga, TN
Tuesday, November 17, 2009 at 6:00 pm

Wuthering Heights is one of the most famous love stories in the English language. It is also one of the most potent revenge narratives. Its ingenious narrative structure, vivid evocation of landscape, and the extraordinary power of its depiction of love and hatred have given it a unique place in English literature.
Each month's selected title is available at Rock Point Books to participating members at a discount of 10% off of the regular price.
On the third Tuesday of each month, the CLBC will review and examine a literary classic.The Classic Literature Book Club is free to join and open to the public. Join anytime. For more information about this book club, please contact Joel Swanson at (423) 432-8579 or e-mail bookclub.classics@gmail.com.

4. A chance to see in a movie theatre, Wuthering Heights 1939. In the Traverse City Film Festival (Traverse City, MI):

Wuthering Heights
November 18, 1939 DAY
1:30 PM

Laurence Olivier, Merle Oberon and David Niven star in this beautiful adaptation of Emily Bronte's classic story of passion, hatred and revenge. Olivier and Oberon star as Heathcliff and Cathy, whose tortured love affair ends when Cathy marries the wealthy Edgar (Niven). Heathcliff's savage retaliation upon the woman he loves explodes in a stunning climax.

Categories: Alert, Movies-DVD-TV, Poetry, Talks, Wuthering Heights

Crazies are the best in bed

2009-11-15T13:13:00.005+01:00

The Greensboro News & Record republishes news from 75 years ago (November 1934) and we find this curious one:

The Dolley Madison Club of Madison voted unanimously to donate 24 books to the Rockingham County Library at a meeting that also heard Mrs. W.T. Lanten talk about the life of Charlotte Bronte. (Jack Scism)

The Twilight phenomenon arrives in Sri Lanka, Brontë mentions included:

Still, she [Stephanie Meyer] was compelled to continue the story of the young couple. She named the boy Edward, after Charlotte Bronte’s Mr. Rochester and Jane Austen’s Mr. Ferrars and the girl Isabella – a name she had reserved for the daughter she never had. (Smriti Daniel in The Sri Lanka Sunday Times)

The Independent talks about young Hollywood actors and Ed Westwick and his attachment to a Wuthering Heights film project is mentioned:

He is due to tackle the ultimate romantic lead, Heathcliff, in Wuthering Heights next year. (Kate Youde)

Probably the author of this article on Lemondrop will cry with joy after reading the previous news as she chooses Heathcliff among the (verbatim) literary characters we'd totally sleep with:

Heathcliff, "Wuthering Heights." So brooding. So dark. So smoldering sexy. Even if he went all bipolar on us, let's be honest: Crazies are the best in bed. (Andrea Zimmerman)

The most recent Cathy on film/TV, Catherine Riley is also the subject of an article in The Times:

Her Cathy in the recent television adaptation of Wuthering Heights is spirited and complex, her large, expressive eyes overflowing with torment as she is torn between her one true love and her choice of comfort and safety. (...)
Studying clowning in Paris is, of course, another thing that rising stars don’t do. She even opted for it in the face of American excitement over her role in Wuthering Heights, perhaps because of the uncomfortable side effects. “Wuthering Heights came out in America in January, and I made the mistake of going online.” She shudders. “That messed my head up for a week. I don't look at anything now. Some people were actually complaining that I looked too clean and that my skin was too good for Cathy. The internet just gives me anxiety, and it doesn’t do anything for my wellbeing. If you hear nice things about you, it’s not good for you. If you hear bad things, it’s not good for you.” (Stephen Armstrong)

As you can see on our sidebar, Wuthering Heights 1939 will be broadcast on TCM today, November 15. The New York Post describes the film like this:

Emily Bronte’s tale of Cathy and Heathcliff (Merle Oberon, Laurence Olivier), a gentleman farmer’s daughter and the orphan boy he takes in. The two grow up as soulmates — until Cathy’s brother becomes lord of the manor, and makes Heathcliff a stable boy. Cathy marries rich but lives to regret it when hunky Heathcliff returns as a rich man and Cathy’s stuck with stuffy. (Linda Stasi)

The Scotsman degrades Gordon Brown from Heathcliff to Dobby (the house-elf):

Once a brooding Heathcliff – in his own estimation at least – he now seems to have more in common with the hapless and self-loathing house elf Dobby in the Harry Potter books. (Dani Garavelli)

Another Heathcliff having a hard time is Martin Johnson, England's rugby team manager:

Who would have thought that Martin Johnson, old beetle-browed Heathcliff himself, would turn into the master of mirth. You see Johnno had spent all afternoon biting his fingernails, hiding his head in his hands and generally behaving like a tortured adolescent when he came up with a one-liner for the ages. (Mark Reason in The Telegraph)

We already knew that the author Lauren Baratz-Logsted was a Brontëite. Reality Bites. . . Fiction Does It Better! confirms it:

Can you tell us some of your favorite books?
Some of my favorite YA authors are Lisa McMann, Alyson Noel, A.S. King, Laurie Halse Anderson, Sarah Dessen and Ellen Hopkins. I also love the classics, particularly those written by Austen and the Brontes.

A Brontëite in The Allentown Morning Call, The Valve approaches Wuthering Heights (among others) from Claude Lévi-Strauss work on myth. Le Projet d'Amour posts about Hurlevent 1985 with several stills. Jucus' Home reviews Wuthering Heights (in Hungarian, Üvöltő szelek) and Bahía Salitre (in Spanish) posts about her love for the novel. Fickle Words talks about Villette. Iconzicons posts icons from Jane Eyre 1997.

Some new pictures on line: Leeds Daily Photo uploads the Cupola from the Bell Chapel in Thornton and on Flickr Anne Brontë's tomb in Scarborough.

Categories: Brontëites, Jane Eyre, Movies-DVD-TV, References, Villette, Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Checkmate

2009-11-15T01:01:00.000+01:00

A whole new literary criticism theory is starting thanks to a revolutionary new approach: chess.

Well, it's true that it's still in an embryonary stage but the prelimary results are very promising. The algorithm is described on Cabinet Magazine (Issue 35) and you can use their NovelChess program to make a comparative reading of a couple of novels, including Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights. These are some of the most interesting results:

W= White B= Black

Jane Eyre (W) - Wuthering Heights (B) WH wins. Checkmate in 60 moves.
Wuthering Heights (W) - Jane Eyre (B) Draw in 93 moves.

Categories: Websites, Weirdo

Lucy Snowe looking at a painting

2009-11-14T10:31:00.007+01:00

Today The Guardian brings several allusions to the Brontës:

John Mullan lists several examples of ekphrasis (the recreation in words of a work of art):

Villette by Charlotte Brontë Lucy Snowe, Brontë's narrator, visits an art gallery in Villette (aka Brussels) and encounters The Cleopatra: a large portrait of a voluptuous woman ("that wealth of muscle, that affluence of flesh") whose clothes are becoming detached from her. She sits looking at the painting and watching the respectable bourgeois "art lovers" relishing its near-pornographic allure.

The newspaper recovers the article published 144 years ago (November 14th, 1865) covering the death of Elizabeth Gaskell:

But her greatest work and that by which she will be longest known, is her "Life of Charlotte Brontë", of which it has been said that no biography has equalled it since Boswell's "Johnson". In the earlier editions of this now standard work, some personal references were made which created much discussion, and which were omitted from subsequent editions. (compiled by John Ezard)

The Twilight fever (now that the second film is about to be premiered) is also featured in the same newspaper today:

One unlikely beneficiary has been Emily Brontë – a paperback edition of Wuthering Heights with a Twilight-themed cover was been Waterstones' bestselling classic for months." (Helen Pidd)

But the fever reaches The Vancouver Sun as well:

The Twilight stories are more romance than horror; Stephenie Meyer references Wuthering Heights and Romeo and Juliet, not Dracula or Rice's Vampire Chronicles. (Gisele Baxter)

And also the Independent where Michael Sheen (or the journalist) seems to have lost perspective:

And if he sounds star struck by Stephenie Meyer, author of the book series, well, he is, comparing her to the Brontës and Jane Austen. "The utter desolation she is able to capture in New Moon, I experienced it. She really gets to the heart of the devastation of losing a first love. As we get older we all tend to maybe trivialise our own feelings and experiences at that age because society and culture does that to us. But I remember it. I remember people saying, 'Oh, he's just a 13-or 14-year-old boy. What does he know? He'll grow up and grow out of it'."(Lesley O'Toole)

And even to Estadao (Brazil):

Quem já leu Lua Nova, o segundo livro da saga Crepúsculo, sabe que nas últimas páginas do livro Edward e Bella, que formam o casal protagonista, discutem por que ela está lendo O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes, de Emily Bronte. O livro é um dos clássicos da literatura inglesa, mas Edward contesta que o casal de amantes, Heathcliff e Catherine, seja colocado no mesmo plano de Romeu e Julieta e Elizabeth e Darcy (de Orgulho e Preconceito), como representações do romantismo. Edward contesta Bella, dizendo que a história de O Morro dos Ventos Uivantes é de ódio, não é amor. (Luiz Carlos Merten) (Google translation)

The Washington City Paper talks about songs based on literary works:

“Wuthering Heights” by Kate Bush: The first single by the fey, experimental pop singer, which in 1978 made her, at 19 even, the first woman to both record and write a No. 1 single in the U.K. (This after her label wanted to introduce the singer with a safer song, but relented. Go lit!) She penned the song after watching a movie adaptation of Emily Brontë’s tragic novel, which has bedeviled AP Language classes ever since its 1846 publication (OK, it took a few years for it to enter curricula). As weird as it is, the song is pretty restrained for Bush, who continues to make great, challenging music but is utterly to blame for nonsensical ’80s videos like Bonnie Tyler’s “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” (Jonathan L. Fischer)

Another Brontëite on Bookreporter - the author Susan Wiggs:

Q: Who is your favorite fictional heroine?
SW: Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh --- she inspired me to be a writer. Jo March from Little Women --- another writer who never gave up. And Jane Eyre, who never gave up on love.

Qué Leer (Spain) interviews Argentinian writer Rodrigo Fresán:

La etiqueta de escritor pop, por el contrario, no es algo que le moleste ni, mucho menos, le desagrade, aunque su literatura, además del pop, también se nutre de autores como George Eliot, Charles Dickens, Marcel Proust, Laurence Sterne, Emily Brontë y siguen las firmas, y de discos de los Beatles y de letras de Bob Dylan y de películas como 2001: Una Odisea del Espacio y Qué bello es vivir. “Tengo bastante bien leído todo el siglo XIX y todo el siglo XVIII. No soy el típico escritor ‘joven’ que está en contra del establishment literario o de los maestros clásicos de la literatura, sino casi todo lo contrario”. (Diego Gándara) (Google translation)

A press note published on Tara (Canary Islands, Spain) is one of the best examples of lazy journalism and ignorance. It covers the visit of the writer Luis León Barreto to Brontë country:

A lo largo de una semana el autor visitó las ciudades de Mánchester, Liverpool, Birmigham y Leeds, además del célebre pueblecito Hebden Bridge, donde vivieron las hermanas Brönte (!!!), autoras de la célebre novela Cumbres borrascosas (!!!). (Google translation)

El Diario Montañés (Spain) reviews the comic Sambre by Yslaire:

Desde 'Cumbres borrascosas' a 'Los miserables', la impronta de los escritores decimonónicos más representativos está presente en esta obra de cuyo primer volumen firma el guión Balac, pseudónimo de Yann Lepennetier. (Yexus) (Google translation)

Le Monde also links together Florence & The Machine and the Brontës:

Mais si elle jongle aussi avec les octaves, cette jeune et jolie brune en short latex semble plus inspirée par les fêtes foraines que par les soeurs Brontë. (Stéphane Davet) (Google translation)

De Standaard (Belgium) reviews the Woeste Hoogten performances by Theater Artemis:

Maar ik wil ze allebei!' Actrice Alejandra Theus stampvoet en jengelt tegelijk, uit haar blik spreekt zowel pijn als verontwaardiging. Ze speelt Cathy, het hoofdpersonage van Woeste hoogten. Haar tragiek is dat ze veiligheid vond bij haar rijke, verfijnde man Edgar, maar erg gehecht blijft aan Heathcliff, zo'n beetje de bosversie van Kurt Cobain. Cathy wil ze allebei, zo snuift ze in de schoot van de huishoudster en vervangmoeder Nelly (An Hackselmans). (Read more)
(Wouter Hillaert) (Google translation)

And... Fast Company and the women writers, May Hope be Dyed in the Wool posts a poem devoted to Emily Brontë, ksotikoula uploads to YouTube a sketch using Katie Beaton's Dude-Watching with the Brontës cartoon.

New lists for Laura's Reviews All About the Brontës Challenge: Laura's own one, Helen Loves Books and Christy's Book Blog

Categories:, Brontëites, Elizabeth Gaskell, Music, References, Theatre, Villette, Wuthering Heights