eldritchhobbit

Happy birthday to Emily Brontë (30 July, 1818 – 19 December, 1848)!



“Heaven did not seem to be my home; and I broke my heart with weeping to come back to earth; and the angels were so angry that they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights; where I woke sobbing for joy.”
- Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights (1847)

Happy birthday to Charles Brockden Brown (17 January, 1771 – 22 February, 1810) and Anne Brontë (17 January, 1820 – 28 May, 1849)!

"Yet I will persist to the end. My narrative may be invaded by inaccuracy and confusion; but if I live no longer, I will, at least, live to complete it. What but ambiguities, abruptnesses, and dark transitions, can be expected from the historian who is, at the same time, the sufferer of these disasters?"
- Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale (1789)



“Are you hero enough to unite yourself to one whom you know to be suspected and despised by all around you, and identify your interests and your honor with hers?”
- Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

Happy birthday to Charles Brockden Brown (17 January, 1771 – 22 February, 1810) and Anne Brontë (17 January, 1820 – 28 May, 1849)!

"Yet I will persist to the end. My narrative may be invaded by inaccuracy and confusion; but if I live no longer, I will, at least, live to complete it. What but ambiguities, abruptnesses, and dark transitions, can be expected from the historian who is, at the same time, the sufferer of these disasters?"
- Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale (1789)



“Are you hero enough to unite yourself to one whom you know to be suspected and despised by all around you, and identify your interests and your honor with hers?”
- Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

Happy birthday to Charlotte Brontë (21 April, 1816 – 31 March, 1855)!



“I am no bird; and no net ensnares me: I am a free human being with an independent will.”
― Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre (1847)

Happy birthday to Charles Brockden Brown (17 January, 1771 – 22 February, 1810) and Anne Brontë (17 January, 1820 – 28 May, 1849)!

"Yet I will persist to the end. My narrative may be invaded by inaccuracy and confusion; but if I live no longer, I will, at least, live to complete it. What but ambiguities, abruptnesses, and dark transitions, can be expected from the historian who is, at the same time, the sufferer of these disasters?"
- Charles Brockden Brown, Wieland: or, The Transformation: An American Tale (1789)



“Are you hero enough to unite yourself to one whom you know to be suspected and despised by all around you, and identify your interests and your honor with hers?”
- Anne Brontë, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848)

On this day in 1847, according to Charlotte Brontë's letters, she received her author's copies of her newly-published work, one of the greatest of Gothic novels, Jane Eyre (credited to Brontë's pseudonym, Currer Bell). Secrets and disguises, fire and death, a sadistic boarding school and a madwoman in the attic: what could be more appropriate for Halloween?



Here is an eerie excerpt, describing how Jane as a little child was cruelly punished by being locked in the singularly spooky "red-room":

“God will punish her: He might strike her dead in the midst of her tantrums, and then where would she go? Come, Bessie, we will leave her: I wouldn’t have her heart for anything. Say your prayers, Miss Eyre, when you are by yourself; for if you don’t repent, something bad might be permitted to come down the chimney and fetch you away.”

They went, shutting the door, and locking it behind them.

The red-room was a square chamber, very seldom slept in, I might say never, indeed, unless when a chance influx of visitors at Gateshead Hall rendered it necessary to turn to account all the accommodation it contained: yet it was one of the largest and stateliest chambers in the mansion. A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany. Out of these deep surrounding shades rose high, and glared white, the piled-up mattresses and pillows of the bed, spread with a snowy Marseilles counterpane. Scarcely less prominent was an ample cushioned easy-chair near the head of the bed, also white, with a footstool before it; and looking, as I thought, like a pale throne.

This room was chill, because it seldom had a fire; it was silent, because remote from the nursery and kitchen; solemn, because it was known to be so seldom entered. The house-maid alone came here on Saturdays, to wipe from the mirrors and the furniture a week’s quiet dust: and Mrs. Reed herself, at far intervals, visited it to review the contents of a certain secret drawer in the wardrobe, where were stored divers parchments, her jewel-casket, and a miniature of her deceased husband; and in those last words lies the secret of the red-room — the spell which kept it so lonely in spite of its grandeur.

Mr. Reed had been dead nine years: it was in this chamber he breathed his last; here he lay in state; hence his coffin was borne by the undertaker’s men; and, since that day, a sense of dreary consecration had guarded it from frequent intrusion.

My seat, to which Bessie and the bitter Miss Abbot had left me riveted, was a low ottoman near the marble chimney-piece; the bed rose before me; to my right hand there was the high, dark wardrobe, with subdued, broken reflections varying the gloss of its panels; to my left were the muffled windows; a great looking-glass between them repeated the vacant majesty of the bed and room. I was not quite sure whether they had locked the door; and when I dared move, I got up and went to see. Alas! yes: no jail was ever more secure. Returning, I had to cross before the looking-glass; my fascinated glance involuntarily explored the depth it revealed. All looked colder and darker in that visionary hollow than in reality: and the strange little figure there gazing at me, with a white face and arms specking the gloom, and glittering eyes of fear moving where all else was still, had the effect of a real spirit: I thought it like one of the tiny phantoms, half fairy, half imp, Bessie’s evening stories represented as coming out of lone, ferny dells in moors, and appearing before the eyes of belated travellers. I returned to my stool.

* Read the complete novel here.
* There are two different downloadable audiobooks of Jane Eyre at Librivox, here and here.

** So NASA is holding a special televised news conference on Monday "to discuss the Chandra X-ray Observatory's discovery of an exceptional object in our cosmic neighborhood." Now that sounds interesting. Hmmm.


** Thanks to the brilliant Sherlock, I've decided to correct my heretofore scattershot and disorganized reading of Arthur Conan Doyle's Holmes works by reading through them all in their original order of publication. I'm two novels into this project now and enjoying myself quite a bit. I'll probably use this as an excuse to revisit the Professor Challenger stories, too. (I love The Poison Belt!)

I wanted to ask you, my friends, for recommendations of Holmes pastiches. I know that the field is vast, and I want to sample the best (and leave the rest). I'm particularly interested in those that lean toward science fiction and speculative literature, as opposed to straight mystery. Neil Gaiman's "A Study in Emerald" is one of my favorite short stories of all time, and I need to read all of Shadows over Baker Street. I've noted that Sherlock Holmes in Orbit, The Improbable Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Gaslight Grimoire, and Gaslight Grotesque all seem like good starting places. As for the subgenre of Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper fiction, I gather that Dust and Shadow: An Account of the Ripper Killings by Dr. John H. Watson is the novel most respected by scholars of "Ripperology."

Do you have any suggestions for me?


** In other news, I'm quite intrigued by the new official trailer for 2011's Jane Eyre, starring Michael Fassbender, Judi Dench, and Alice in Wonderland's Mia Wasikowska as Jane. It looks like the film may emphasize the gothic aspects of the story, rather than just focusing on the period romance. If so, that's very refreshing. I look forward to seeing it.


** Happy early birthday wishes to adamantrealm, sneezythesquid, bibliotrope, and m_stiefvater. May you enjoy many happy returns of the day!


"I had no idea that such individuals exist outside of stories."
- Dr. Watson, A Study in Scarlet, Arthur Conan Doyle

Happy Monday! I have some links to share:

Articles:

* The Guardian reports on which books 2,000 readers have chosen as the Greatest Love Story of All Time, based on a poll sponsored by the UKTV Drama Channel.

The Top Ten list looks like this:
1 Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë, 1847
2 Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen, 1813
3 Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, 1597
4 Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, 1847
5 Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, 1936
6 The English Patient by Michael Ondaatje, 1992
7 Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier, 1938
8 Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak, 1957
9 Lady Chatterley's Lover by DH Lawrence, 1928
10 Far from The Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, 1874

Marin Kettle responds in The Guardian with "If Wuthering Heights is a love story, Hamlet is a sitcom."

* Duck of Minerva writes about "What Harry Potter Inherits from Star Wars."


Other Literary News:

* For those of you who use iTunes, Lit2Go from the University of Southern Florida offers a number of free, unabridged audiobooks from the likes of Horace Walpole, Ann Radcliffe, the Brontë sisters, Edgar Allan Poe, Wilkie Collins, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and H.G. Wells, among others.

* The finalists for this year's World Fantasy Awards have been announced.


"He liked the steady sway and rhythms of voyaging, of movement, of the perpetual mystery that lurked beyond the far horizon. This was humanity's role."
- Gregory Benford, "At the Double Solstice"

Many thanks to everyone who took part in my poll about Jane Eyre adaptations. The favorite, by a strong consensus, is the 1983 Zelah Clarke/Timothy Dalton version, although seven different adaptations received more than one vote. Personally, I've enjoyed several of the films. My preference at this point is for Charlotte Gainsbourg as Jane Eyre (the only actress who has seemed sufficiently young, starved - both socially and physically - and deep for my taste... I wonder if she might have been more passionate if playing against a more spirited performance than William Hurt gave as Rochester) and Timothy Dalton as Rochester (his portrayal captures the character's proud spirit and changing moods so incredibly well, to my mind, that this overcomes the fact he is rather too attractive for the role). I have not seen all of the versions, however, and the poll has convinced me I must, especially the 1944 Joan Fontaine/Orson Welles adaptation.

That poll seemed to require this one, which I offer now. I'll admit to having much stronger loyalties for one of these films in particular, but then again, I'm yet to see them all. I look forward to your responses!

[Poll #1035096]

Is Mr. Heathcliff a man? If so, is he mad? And if not, is he a devil? I sha'n't tell my reasons for making this inquiry; but I beseech you to explain, if you can, what I have married...

"...Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!

- Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights