Selected projects on the theme of reading
2017 - Talk about the importance of libraries, in Seattle,
as retold in 'Year of the Monkey' © 2019
“I really was
introduced to the Brontës through my sister and we’re very close. She’s
one year younger than I. When I married, I moved quite a bit away, and we kept
almost daily correspondence by reading all of Charlotte’s books.” (BBC
interview)
2014 - Introduction to the Folio Society’s limited edition of
Emily Brontë’s 'Wuthering
Heights' - by Patti Smith:
In West Yorkshire, in the village of Haworth, behind the parish church, stands the Brontë parsonage Museum. Passing through the rooms, one may view the humble yet precious possessions of the Brontë family. Among these affecting treasures, in the corner of a glass case, is a white porcelain cup. It attracts the eye by the strength of the name emblazoned in gold script upon it: Emily Jane Bronte. A singular cup for a singular girl.
Emily, the fifth of six children, was born on July 30, 1818,
in the village of Thornton, to Maria Branwell and Patrick Brontë, an Irish
Anglican clergyman. In 1820 they moved to Haworth, where Patrick was appointed
perpetual curate. Sadly Maria died not long after the birth of their youngest
child, Ann. In 1825, the two eldest sisters tragically succumbed to
tuberculosis. The remaining Brontë children were schooled beneath their
father’s watchful eye. In their free hours, ignited by a collective creative
impulse, they became vigilant architects of a detailed country of their own
design. All displayed various talents, though Emily stood somewhat apart from
her siblings, in stature and in her solitary and independent disposition.
As a child she was described as having the eyes of a
half-tamed creature, being drawn to the unnatural, with a penchant for
improvising tempestuous fairy stories. A disorderly daydreamer, she carved a
bold letter E onto the mahogany surface of the common writing table and played
Mozart and Brahms on a cabinet piano. Her father singled her out as the genius
in the family, though not always in ways that could be conventionally measured.
He taught her to shoot a pistol and no doubt sensed her likeness with his Irish
kin, the strong-willed people of county Down.
She grew tall and willowy, with dark heavy tresses and
somber, secretive ways. She shunned people, preferring her geese and an injured
Merlin hawk she called Hero. With her rough dogs she patrolled the moorland
where the windswept heather was like a billowing sea of long fragrant hair.
Rejecting petticoats, she climbed the rocky terrain blanketed in mist, and
tramped through cold streams that penetrated the leather boots laced beneath
her skirts. Absorbed by turbulence, her deep hazel eyes barely concealed the
evolving duality of her soul.
Emily had no want for guides nor earthy gain. But the time came when all four siblings had to step out to make a living. Only Charlotte was offered the prospect of marriage, which she duly declined. After some failed attempts Emily found employment at Law Hill School in Halifax. She endured the excessive duties for she was well capable of bending to a heavy workload. She too noticed of her environs, with its crumbling architecture and defaced griffons, as well as the histories of strange residents. She wrote poems in the night, known to no one. Initially, sustained by her vibrant imagination and the familiar rolling landscape, she bore the labors of Law Hill. But the mounting sense of confinement, combined with insomnia and melancholic fasting, eventually broke her.
Emily had no want for guides nor earthy gain. But the time came when all four siblings had to step out to make a living. Only Charlotte was offered the prospect of marriage, which she duly declined. After some failed attempts Emily found employment at Law Hill School in Halifax. She endured the excessive duties for she was well capable of bending to a heavy workload. She too noticed of her environs, with its crumbling architecture and defaced griffons, as well as the histories of strange residents. She wrote poems in the night, known to no one. Initially, sustained by her vibrant imagination and the familiar rolling landscape, she bore the labors of Law Hill. But the mounting sense of confinement, combined with insomnia and melancholic fasting, eventually broke her.
Her malaise resulted in her liberation from employment and
she gratefully returned to Haworth. Emily was home — and moorland-bound. Here
she physically prospered, free to stride the countryside in contented solitude.
She delighted in her chores and at day’s end she would retire to the narrow
unheated child’s study and curl up to sleep in the small bed that she once
shared with her sister Charlotte.
In the summer of 1845, plagued with emotional setbacks, the four siblings once again joined at the parsonage [Charlotte, Emily, Branwell their brother and Ann]. It was not an altogether happy reunion as Branwell, facing professional as well as personal disgrace, arrived in a greatly deteriorated state. Indeed he painted himself out of a group portrait as if he did not merit being in his sisters' company: a poignant, perhaps prophetic tableau, considering their coming accomplishments.
In the summer of 1845, plagued with emotional setbacks, the four siblings once again joined at the parsonage [Charlotte, Emily, Branwell their brother and Ann]. It was not an altogether happy reunion as Branwell, facing professional as well as personal disgrace, arrived in a greatly deteriorated state. Indeed he painted himself out of a group portrait as if he did not merit being in his sisters' company: a poignant, perhaps prophetic tableau, considering their coming accomplishments.
Branwell’s volatile behavior governed their daily life,
causing much uncertainly about the future. In the midst of such anxious turmoil
Charlotte discovered Emily’s poems in her open portable writing desk. Convinced
of their merit, she strived to see them published. After much protesting by
Emily the mission was accomplished, with a selection of poems written by the
three sisters under pen names — Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell — thus blurring
the gender line. Though it produced no financial gain, the spark of ambition
was ignited. Echoing the creative pastimes of their youth, the sisters
initiated a new ritual. They put up their sewing at nine p.m. and, as Branwell
made his rounds of the pubs, they clandestinely converged in the sitting room.
Each turned to their novel, preying upon their muses, pacing around the table
like players in musical chairs.
Through the endless winter of 1847 the Brontë sisters paced,
sparred and provoked one another. They had written since childhood: a form of
comradely self-entertainment, inventing scandalous histories, warring
countries, dueling kings — their own game of thrones. At the ink-stained table,
scarred in the center with a candle-burn the size of a small hand, each
conceived of her heroine—drawing from the sap of their particular situations.
Anne offered her own double with the gentle, empathetic Agnes Grey. In an act
of proud defiance, Charlotte created the small, plain and beloved Jane Eyre.
Agnes Grey and Jane Eyre each would be obliged to overcome numerous trials
before securing constant and fulfilling love-on-earth by book’s end.
And what hath Emily wrought? No such earned splendor. She
drew from her restive pulse and unleashed the unquiet apparition of Catherine
Earnshaw, whose pale fingers reached from the grave as if to paralyze the
breath of her soul’s predestined mate. Those who are not passionate are pallid,
and those languishing from passion develop a color of their own – that of
death. Charlotte and Anne’s protagonists sought redemption, equilibrium. Emily
courted no such outcomes. She created a heroine spawned from interesting winds,
reflecting her own emotional range, from inner waywardness to the deep
restraint of self-deprivation. Emily was like a small volcano, dormant yet
restlessly bubbling, and erupting through the words and actions of her chosen
characters. She sternly adhered to her own sense of morality from which she
would not waver, not even to appease her extremely vexed sisters. Snipping the
chains of convention, Wuthering Heights was declared uniquely powerful,
yet so savage and morally repellent that it was to plunge Ellis Bell, like it
or not, into the public forum.
Emily died on a bright December afternoon. She was but
thirty. Where did she go when she turned her eyes from the sun? Perhaps to roam
unfettered in the wild and desolate Yorkshire hills. Let us not interfere with
her. She stood her ground. Her untied mind did not create a neat package. In
the writing of Wuthering Heights she did not give what she wanted;
she gave what she had.
~~~
Another side of the heroic mirror.
Moorland twilight spellbinding bleak.
Wrapped in the full light of dreaming.
He could hardly bear to look into their face
When the shroud of illusion dropped
As God made them. As God made them
Absolute cruelty redeemed by absolute love
The black hole of a moonless night
The suddenness of punishing sin.
Moorland twilight spellbinding bleak.
Wrapped in the full light of dreaming.
He could hardly bear to look into their face
When the shroud of illusion dropped
As God made them. As God made them
Absolute cruelty redeemed by absolute love
The black hole of a moonless night
The suddenness of punishing sin.
Patti Smith
