Twilight, Brontës and... other things. Oh my.

I can tell you one thing: I dislike the Twilight saga. I think it's melodramatic, I think sparkly vampires make no sense, I think Edward is creepy and Bella is bland as all hell.

When the author of the series starts comparing her work to the likes of Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre, I can't help but disagree with her. She's nowhere near the same level as Emily or Charlotte... thankfully, Anne is avoided by her. Thank heavens for small mercies, huh?

Once, whilst flicking through a copy of Eclipse in Waterstone's, looking for one of the Wuthering Heights references, I came upon a part where Bella read an extract from the book, looked up and said "I'm Cathy", or something similar to that.

My initial reaction was 'oh good, maybe that means she'll die'. You shouldn't compare yourself to either Catherine, especially not the elder... after all, she ends up dead. Her daughter doesn't fare much better, if you think about it.

The books have, somehow, managed to romanticise Heathcliff. People forget that he's a terrible man, cruel and violent... yes, he loves Cathy passionately, but the love is self-destructive. You can't make him into a good man, no matter how hard you try.

...And yes, the Twilight saga does get me ranty. How did you guess?

Poetry... what a great thing.

I have to admit that, prior to taking my A-Level English Language-and-Literature course, I never used to like poetry - I thought it was dull and tedious stuff, really.
But... now, I see it for the better.

Take On The Death Of Anne Brontë as an example.
That poem is heart-wrenching to read, in my opinion.

The cloud, the stillness that must part
The darling of my life from me;

Poor Charlotte. To lose two sisters in such quick succession... it must've been torment so see them waste away, knowing that there was precious little that could be done to save them.

And Anne's own Last Lines... they're beautiful. I find the version that Charlotte published in 1850 all the more poignant, just for the addition of her own comments.

These lines written, the desk was closed, the pen laid aside--for ever.

And I admit that I adore Stanzas To ----.

But my sad heart must ever mourn
Thy ruined hopes, thy blighted fame!

A strange bit of foreshadowing, which Emily seems to have been fairly good at. Hello there, Branwell... isn't it a bit early for your sisters to be doing things like this? It is, really.

And I think it's pretty obvious that I adore The Old Stoic, considering the title of this blog...

Riches I hold in light esteem,
And Love I laugh to scorn;
And lust of fame was but a dream,
That vanished with the morn:

And if I pray, the only prayer
That moves my lips for me
Is, "Leave the heart that now I bear,
And give me liberty!"

Yes, as my swift days near their goal:
'Tis all that I implore;
In life and death a chainless soul,
With courage to endure.

...And on a final note in relation to poetry, I can only ever seem to find books of Emily's poetry.
I've yet to come across any of Anne's or Charlotte's, and I've never even seen a glimpse of Branwell's.

Audiobooks!

I have here, sitting on my desk, an audiobook. It's a Doctor Who one, The Resurrection Casket... and it came free with the Radio Times.
...And I can't imagine that happening a few years ago, if I'm entirely honest. The Doctor Who audiobooks are insanely popular now.
In fact, audiobooks in general seem to be gaining in popularity... never mind the fact that I've yet to find an unabridged version of Wuthering Heights!

I've noticed that there's a Jane Eyre one that's popped up recently - I don't envy that woman's task, considering all of the omissions that Charlotte placed in the novel... although BrontëBlog have claimed that the Juliet Mills version "''reads' all these most naturally".
I wonder how difficult it'd be to read Agnes Grey in that manner?

F---- was a village about two miles distant from A----.
Agnes Grey, Chapter XXIV.

"Agnes, I want you to take a walk with me to ----" (he named a certain part of the coast - a bold hill on the land side, and towards the sea a steep precipice, from the summit of which a glorious view is to be had).
Agnes Grey, Chapter XXV.

If anyone can read that and make the omissions sound natural, they deserve a medal or two. Perhaps three...

The Phantom of the Opera is there... somehow!

You wouldn't think The Phantom of the Opera would show signs of the Brontës, would you?

Remember, if you will, Rochester's tale of his exploits in Paris in Jane Eyre - Céline, a dancer and an opera singer, was his mistress for a time... and who does he catch her with? A vicomte, one who Rochester describes as a "young roue" and "a brainless and vicious youth".

...Now, why does that sound rather like Christine and Raoul?
Rochester is gentler than the Phantom - no murderous rages, of course - but he fills the same role... essentially.
(Ignoring, of course, that Rochester is far more romantically-inclined than the Phantom, as is to be expected, and that he's not hideously deformed, as is also to be expected.)

The dodginess of adapting Jane Eyre

You know, I've seen three BBC adaptations of Jane Eyre - the 1973 one, the 1983 one and the 2006 one.
Only one of those three actually gets it right, which is quite astounding.

We're told in the novel that Rochester actually loses one of his eyes, and he himself calls his arm a "mere stump".
In both the 2006 and 1973 versions, Rochester retains both eyes and gains barely visible scarring from the fire.
In the 2006 version, he has almost full use of both arms - the "mere stump" becomes a bandaged hand - and the 1973 version has his 'lost hand' constantly in his waistcoat pocket, which is a bit of a cheat.

Of course, the 1983 version... Rochester loses an eye, a hand, gains some fairly painful-looking scarring on his face.
It's the most accurate by far.

You'd think the BBC would use the far-advanced technology now available to them to make those burns, those losses, all the more horrific and real... but then they remove the losses altogether!
It doesn't make much sense, does it?