Smithsonian magazine features Harriet Martineau, describing her as 'The Victorian Woman Writer Who Refused to Let Doctors Define Her'.
Despite all the success and critical acclaim Martineau achieved in her lifetime, she has largely been forgotten, especially compared to contemporaries like Charlotte Brontë and George Eliot. Neither [Rachel Ablow, author of the 2017 book Victorian Pain] nor [ Maria Frawley, an expert on English literature and culture at George Washington University who edited a recent edition of Martineau’s book] have an explanation for Martineau’s relative obscurity; sometimes, writers simply disappear from the canon. (Lorraine Boissoneault)
In The Press and Journal, writer Erica Munro looks back on the budding reader she once was:
I wrote my name and the date on the inside cover and enjoyed watching my fledgling collection grow. The books are with me now – Charles Dickens (never really got him), Anne and Charlotte Brontë, Rudyard Kipling, EM Forster, Henry James, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, George Eliot, Jane Austen and others. There’s even Virgil’s Aeneid and Homer’s Iliad which, who knows, I may even open one day. But I read and enjoyed almost all of them.Maybe it sounds pretentious but, thinking back, I feel nothing but affection for that earnest young woman who only wanted to read good books. To be honest, she’s still here.
A columnist from Lake Placid News has just read Villette. Beware of spoilers!
“Villette” is such a strange book. Maybe after I read the introduction it won’t seem so strange — I always leave the introduction for last. In fact, I hardly ever read introductions at all. This time I will, though, because the book is so bizarre I feel I need some explanation.In the first place, the main character, Lucy Snowe, has no back story to speak of. The reader keeps expecting to learn more about her but never does. Even her appearance is a mystery. Somewhere around the middle of the book her age is disclosed — she could have been any age – but she is 24. Her parentage remains unknown.Somehow the story is compelling enough that I faithfully followed the luckless Lucy Snowe through countless trials and tribulations as she made her own way in the world alone. Not for Lucy Snowe the handsome hero!She does, however, win the heart of a very exasperating little man with a tendency to fly off the handle, and I hoped Ms. Bronte was not intending him to be her husband. They argue tediously about religion but eventually reconcile. They are in love!Unfortunately, he has to go off to sea for three years. She waits for him; she is sublimely happy, finally, knowing he is on his way home. Sadly, on the last page, page 546, he is drowned in a storm.Ms. Bronte points out that Lucy Snowe’s friends and acquaintances basically live happily ever after, which is no consolation and seems cynical on the author’s part. (Martha Allen)
Mangialibri (Italy) features Jean Rhys mentioning her novel Wide Sargasso Sea.
Sono passati oramai trent’anni dalla pubblicazione dei suoi primi romanzi quando, nel 1966, Rhys dà alle stampe la sua opera maggiore, quella che la consacrerà, quasi ottantenne, come una delle scrittrici più influenti del secondo Novecento e come punto di riferimento della letteratura post-coloniale e femminista. L’opera in questione è Il grande mare dei Sargassi, acutissima riscrittura di uno dei più celebri romanzi della letteratura europea: Jane Eyre di Charlotte Brontë. Rhys decostruisce il capolavoro di Brontë eliminando lo sguardo colonial-imperialista e così facendo dà voce al personaggio di Antoinette Cosway Mason che in Jane Eyre è relegato a un piatto stereotipo. Nel romanzo inglese infatti, la prima moglie di Mr. Rochester è pazza e pericolosa perché proviene da un mondo selvaggio; per questo è stata rinchiusa in soffitta. Rhys riabilita la donna mostrando le dinamiche di dominazione che dovette presumibilmente subire la giovane ereditiera creola dal britannico rampollo squattrinato. Inoltre, è possibile leggere ne Il grande mare dei Sargassi un vero e proprio testamento sentimentale e letterario dell’autrice. In Antoinette si condensano tutti i personaggi autobiografici di Rhys, in cui il confine tra esperienza biografica e finzione letteraria appare sempre molto labile, mentre nelle descrizioni delle lussureggianti terre caraibiche della Giamaica il lettore trova tutto l’amore e la malinconia della scrittrice per le sue origini, per quell’isola, la Dominica, che forse fu la sua unica vera casa. (Caterina Venere Marino) (Translation)
Business Insider goes in search of 'The 22 best book quotes — and the books they come from'. One of them is
"Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.""Wuthering Heights" is a classic, gothic novel from 1847 about two families — the Lintons and the Earnshaws — and their relationships with the Earnshaws' adopted son, Heathcliff. Full of complex characters, this classic follows Heathcliff's young friendship with his benefactor's daughter, Cathy, as it grows and morphs into a passionate and twisted romance. (Katherine Fiorillo)
WBGO features Ghost Song, Cécile McLorin Salvant's latest album.
Ghost Song, the album, comes bookended by unaccompanied vocal pieces in the style of a traditional Irish sean-nós. The first of these segues into an inspired choice of cover song: Kate Bush's "Wuthering Heights," which in turn is a "cover" of the Emily Brontë novel. (The final track is a sean-nós bearing the meaningful title "Unquiet Grave.") (Nate Chinen)
The Yorkshire Press reports that the Haworth B&B The Old Registry is now for sale.
Situated at the foot of Main Street in the perennially popular Worth Valley village of Haworth, stands the Old Registry which is being offered for sale through leading leisure property specialist Fleurets.Prominently positioned, the Old Registry sits within the popular “honey pot” village of Haworth. Popular with large numbers of year round visitors from both home and abroad as a result of its literary connections with the Bronte family as well as the attractions of the Worth Valley Railway, popularised in the film “The Railway Children”.As denoted by its name, the Old Registry is situated in what was once the home of Haworth’s Registrar and the business has been operational as a guest house for over 20 years, having been acquired by the current owners in 2015, who introduced and developed the current successful dining trade which caters for both residents and non-resident trade alike. (Alexis Wilson-Barrett)
Pseudonyms on 324 (in Catalan). Atrevida (Brazil) recommends several novels in eBook format and Wuthering Heights is one of them.
