Othello 2: The moor on the moors

The ongoing restoration works at the Haworth Parish Church are revealing interesting archaeological finds. In The Telegraph & Argus:

Fragments of Haworth ’s medieval and Georgian past have been discovered during work to repair the parish church where two of the Brontë sisters are buried.
The initial stage of the project at Haworth Parish Church has involved overhauling the blocked drainage system on the south side of the building. (...)
Archaeologist Dr Angela Redmond, who oversaw the excavations, said discoveries included traces of a 16th-century roofline on the building and three previously unrecorded tombstones, including two which are close to the Brontë family crypt.
The dig also uncovered a halfpenny minted during the reign of King George III in the late 18th century and a medieval cross carved into a wall.
They also found the original flagged entrance to the church that was on the site between 1600 and 1755. (...)
“It is entirely possible that there has been worship on the site of Haworth Parish Church since AD600. The first reference in writing to the church was in 1197 and again in 1317, when there was a historical reference saying it had been there since ancient times. 

The repertoire of the singer Marianne Meringolo includes I Was Born in Love With You, a song composed by Michel Legrand for Wuthering Heights 1970. The critic of Times Square Chronicles is not very happy with the cover (as performed in New York's Metropolitan Room last Sunday):

The two hour event featured too many songs, several in overly lengthy versions, which neither bore relationship to one another nor offered an emotional path. Zigzag performance order included successive BIG endings -this rarely, if ever, works-and my personal least favorite “I Was Born in Love With You,” a song from Wuthering Heights whose histrionic nature is completely dissonant to an evening of a decidedly different genre. (Sandi Durell)

A completely different opinion was published in Wall Street Journal covering another concert of the performer last March:

Every cabaret show worth seeing has at least one number that moves you to tremble and shake like a dog coming in from the rain. For Marieann Meringolo, honoring the eminently worthy Michel Legrand on the occasion of the composer's 80th birthday, it's "I Was Born In Love With You," a song so rarely done that if you don't do it brilliantly it isn't worth singing at all. Ms. Meringolo's powerhouse interpretation makes full use of the dramatic Bergman lyric and the adventurous LeGrand melody, which deftly combines rubato with a nutso time signature. (Will Friedwald)

Warren Adler on the dilemma of choosing a title for your novel. In The Huffington Post:

But for the author of mainstream fiction whose story line is not in any genre category, he or she must face the agony of choice. Many famous authors chose to name their books after a main character, and one can point to many successes such as David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, Jane Eyre, Anna Karenina, Daniel Deronda, Nana, Mrs. Dalloway, Lolita, Mrs. Palfrey at the Claremont, Rebecca, Tom Jones, Clarissa, Robinson Crusoe and the most enduring of all, Don Quixote.

Belinda Jack's The Woman Reader is again on the pages of The Irish Times:

But there was a huge shift in the 19th century, facilitated by the improved postal service, the fact that gaslight was increasingly replacing candles, and the onward march of literacy. Then came several writers who happened to be women, and who attracted new female readers. The Brontës and George Eliot became household names, and Jane Austen chose a bookworm reader of gothic novels as her heroine in Northanger Abbey. This year is the centenary of Bram Stoker’s death and it was Stoker’s mother, Charlotte, another consummate reader, who read an early draft of Dracula and predicted its success.

The Independent's Getting Into University 2012 interviews an English student:

[Oliver] Lewis was looking for somewhere near London to study English literature, ideally with some specialism in ancient literature – Homer or Virgil. He also wanted courses that didn't just focus on limited literary eras in history. "I wanted something more thematic than periodic. I like the idea that concepts from classical literature are still used in some the most iconic books today, such as Wuthering Heights or even Harry Potter. The same techniques, images and use of language." (Peter Brown)

The Register-Guard describes Yachats (in Oregon):

Yachats looked like something from an Emily Brontë novel, the strip of fog giving the coast the feel of the Yorkshire moors in northern England. You half-expected the guy serving you your fish ’n’ chips to be wearing a name badge that said “Heathcliff.” Only around here, restaurants are too laid back to require name badges. 

As the New York Times says spoiled children are not exactly a new thing:

These days, a lot of parents are wondering about the spoiling question. A recent book review by Elizabeth Kolbert in The New Yorker compared American children unfavorably with the self-reliant and competent children of a tribe in the Peruvian Amazon; she discussed “the notion that we may be raising a generation of kids who can’t, or at least won’t, tie their own shoes.” (...)
Indeed, the overprivileged and overindulged child was a stock character in 19th-century novels: As veteran governesses who presumably knew the territory, the Brontë sisters wrote powerful portraits of spoiled older children. The culture changes, but many of the battlegrounds remain the same. (Perri Klass M.D.)

Flavorwire makes a top ten of the best underdogs in literature:

Jane Eyre is no victim — we will forever love China Miéville’s observation that “she takes a scalpel to the skin of the every day” — but her rise from mistreated orphan to happy mother and wife of the man she loves is more due to her personality than the fact that she had been given much chance in the world. (Emily Temple)

Le Figaro (France) reviews the film Cornuaille by Anne Le Ny:

Donc, si le ­titre vous fait rêver d'être emporté ­comme dans un roman de Daphné Du Maurier ou des sœurs Brontë, ­Cornouaille n'est pas pour vous. (Marie-Noëlle Tranchant)

Le Nouvel Observateur (France) interviews the creators of the TV series The Hour:

On pense forcément à “Mad Men” pour ce goût du rétro… Comment expliquez-vous cette vague de nostalgie dans le monde des séries ?Daniel Isaacs – “Mad Men” a ouvert une porte. Il y a toujours eu des fictions historiques sur la BBC mais, jusque-là, cela concernait plutôt le monde de Dickens ou des soeurs Brontë ! Evidemment, l’époque ne fait pas tout : une série comme “Pan Am” [qui met en scène la compagnie aérienne dans les années 1960, NDLR] n’a pas fonctionné. (Translation)

The songwriter Dia Frampton was in Haworth yesterday. We read on her twitter:

Wuthering Heights....Jane Eyre... I burst into tears walking through here. They have influenced my life so much. pic.twitter.com/l8xqlE0A

Library Mice interviews the children's author Michelle Robinson:

Your favourite comfort reads:
I Capture The Castle by Dodie Smith, Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë and The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society by Mary Ann Shaffer and Annie Barrows.

My Serynity talks with Shauna Roberts:

What was your favorite book when you were a child/teen?
Jane Eyre. It’s one of the very few books I’ve read more than once. I read it first as an odd, solitary child and found for the first time a heroine I could identify with. I read it next as a teenager and found it quite a different book. And when I read it as an adult, it was a different book yet, and at last I understood why Jane was attracted to Rochester.

I'm Wide Awake (in Romania)  interviews Cylin Busby:

Ai o carte favorita?Am citit " Wuthering Heights" de vreo 100 de ori! Dar mai iubesc si multe alte carti, e foarte greu sa aleg una.. (Sabryy) (Translation)

Mind Over Media and Reamy Reads review Wuthering Heights; Pia Drent publishes a nice illustration of the three Brontë sisters and Heathcliff; the Brontë Parsonage Blog publishes the call for papers for the 'Re-Visioning the Brontës' conference; Ibo et Non Redibo posts about Charlotte Brontë on marriage; Cleo's Literary Reviews, O Maravilhoso Mundo de Tinta (in Portuguese), Changes. Chances (in Italian) and Books According to JD Thompson talk about Jane Eyre; The Bookish Teacher reviews its prequel Wide Sargasso Sea; LawGirl in Love reviews Villette, a book is reading sqrandomly; The Ballad of the Broken Birdie (in Portuguese) posts about Emily Brontë; Apresiasi Film Klasik (in Indonesian) reviews Jane Eyre 2011 and Chez le chat du Cheshire (in French) reviews Wuthering Heights 2009 and finally, @Ben_Palmer tweets a picture of Anne Brontë's grave.

And the best tweet of the week, courtesy of @Deanzoz:

Literary historians confirm that, as seen through the continued theme of moors, Wuthering Heights is intended as a sequel to Othello.