Mark Bostridge
Jane’s Hair
The Brontë Cabinet: Three Lives in Nine Objects
By Deborah Lutz
W W Norton 251pp £17.99
A walking stick, a brass dog collar, a portable wooden desk and a lock of hair: these are among the relics of the Brontë family utilised by Deborah Lutz in an attempt at a literary resurrection. What can such objects tell us about the lives of their former owners? Can they really help us return to other times and places?
Lutz takes us on a chronological journey through the lives of the Brontë sisters, interrogating these material witnesses to the past for the stories they can tell: scrutinising, touching and even sniffing them (when museum curators permit). In the case of the small surviving library once owned by the Brontës, we are returned to a world in which books were not simply receptacles of content, but objects to be appreciated in a tactile way, specially bound in leather or boards and personalised with precious inscriptions.
At a more
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Knowledge of Sufism increased markedly with the publication in 1964 of The Sufis, by Idries Shah. Nowadays his writings, much like his father’s, are dismissed for their Orientalism and inaccuracy.
@fitzmorrissey investigates who the Shahs really were.
Fitzroy Morrissey - Sufism Goes West
Fitzroy Morrissey: Sufism Goes West - Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan: The Fantastical Lives of Ikbal and Idries Shah by Nile Green
literaryreview.co.uk
Rats have plagued cities for centuries. But in Baltimore, researchers alighted on one surprising solution to the problem of rat infestation: more rats.
@WillWiles looks at what lessons can be learned from rat ecosystems – for both rats and humans.
Will Wiles - Puss Gets the Boot
Will Wiles: Puss Gets the Boot - Rat City: Overcrowding and Urban Derangement in the Rodent Universes of John B ...
literaryreview.co.uk
Twisters features destructive tempests and blockbuster action sequences.
@JonathanRomney asks what the real danger is in Lee Isaac Chung's disaster movie.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/eyes-of-the-storm