The Brontë Parsonage Museum, Haworth, West Yorkshire
with Lily Cole (inset)
As a member of the D. H. Lawrence Society, the recent fuss concerning the appointment of the very lovely model and actress Lily Cole to a prominent role within the forthcoming bicentenary celebrations for Emily Brontë, has, technically, nothing to do with me. What the Brontë Society choose to do (or not to do) is entirely a matter for trustees to decide (although one would like to think they also consider the views of ordinary members, which is not, regrettably, always the case within literary societies).
However, as someone who cares a good deal about Emily - her novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), has been discussed on this blog on several occasions [click here, for example, or here] - and as someone who hates snobbery and bigotry, I feel that I should say something ...
However, as someone who cares a good deal about Emily - her novel, Wuthering Heights (1847), has been discussed on this blog on several occasions [click here, for example, or here] - and as someone who hates snobbery and bigotry, I feel that I should say something ...
Miss Cole, who first graced the cover of Vogue aged 16 and who was also named as Model of the Year in 2004 by the British Fashion Awards, is not just a pretty face. She has 'A' levels (at A grade) in English, Politics, and Philosophy. And she graduated from Cambridge in 2011 with a double first in the History of Art. She has since shown herself to be a canny entrepreneur with a strong social conscience; along with (rather predictable) humanitarian and environmental involvements, she's a founder of impossible.com a social network and gift economy website.
So, as I say, not just a pretty face ...
In fact, I would've thought she'd make an ideal creative partner to any literary society and can't see why her appointment has been criticised in some quarters. To describe it as an insult to the memory of Emily Brontë, is, ironically, to bring shame upon the latter's name. This isn't merely a triumph for the modern obsession with celebrity or an attempt to be trendy. For Cole wasn't chosen because she once modelled for many of the top fashion houses, or once acted on-screen alongside Heath Ledger - but because she's clearly a strong, independent, intelligent, and talented young woman, just like one of the Brontë sisters.
Nick Holland's decision to quit the Brontë Society in staged outrage is up to him. He might be an expert on all things Brontë, but his presumptuous claim to possess superior insight into what Emily might think about Miss Cole's appointment is simply ludicrous and reveals his own resentment towards those whose fame and success is greater than his own rather than any mediumistic abilities.
Miss Cole's considered response to Holland's provocative nastiness and rank stupidity proves that the Brontë Society have made a smart move in enlisting her and allowing him to leave. I'm only sorry the D. H. Lawrence Society didn't first attempt to enlist Lily as a member and representative.
So, as I say, not just a pretty face ...
In fact, I would've thought she'd make an ideal creative partner to any literary society and can't see why her appointment has been criticised in some quarters. To describe it as an insult to the memory of Emily Brontë, is, ironically, to bring shame upon the latter's name. This isn't merely a triumph for the modern obsession with celebrity or an attempt to be trendy. For Cole wasn't chosen because she once modelled for many of the top fashion houses, or once acted on-screen alongside Heath Ledger - but because she's clearly a strong, independent, intelligent, and talented young woman, just like one of the Brontë sisters.
Nick Holland's decision to quit the Brontë Society in staged outrage is up to him. He might be an expert on all things Brontë, but his presumptuous claim to possess superior insight into what Emily might think about Miss Cole's appointment is simply ludicrous and reveals his own resentment towards those whose fame and success is greater than his own rather than any mediumistic abilities.
Miss Cole's considered response to Holland's provocative nastiness and rank stupidity proves that the Brontë Society have made a smart move in enlisting her and allowing him to leave. I'm only sorry the D. H. Lawrence Society didn't first attempt to enlist Lily as a member and representative.
As a former resident of Haworth and sometime member of the Bronte Society, I know personally some of the strange and controlling people who now occupy the sisters' Parsonage. The Society itself has been blighted by internal traditionalist vs modernising warfare for years - a classic case, in Jungian terms, of a failure to hold the archetypal tensions of such over-determined oppositionism.
ReplyDeleteAs Stephen makes clear, even if, as Juliet Barker has commented, Lily Cole is no academic/Bronte specialist on the face of it, she's not just a pretty one, but a bright, educated spark (and a woman to boot). Hence, Nick Holland's authoritarian attempt to tie down ownership of Emily's artistic legacy comes over as reactionary and out of touch, even if there is some merit in critiquing the trendily stupid imperative of upholding 'relevance' in relation to creative genius.
PS Snobbery is difficult to evade. The irony of looking down on snobs is that it makes oneself into the thing one despises.
At least these curious difficulties afflicting the Bronte Society are all out in the open. It's clear from this that Celebrity = Publicity. But, these skirmishes, while offered up as a bit of fun for the bemused public, serve to remind how central is the fullest critical appreciation of an authors work. For the dedicated reader, possessed of due reverence for the writer and their philosophy of life, the literary society offers just an optional additional buzz.
ReplyDeleteSerious conflicts, relating to key issues, in the comparatively tiny D.H. Lawrence Society, have been kept low profile.
The loss of the wonderful, world famous, panoramic, literary heritage 'Country of my Heart' view from Lawrence's former home (from the age of 6 to 18) on Walker Street in Eastwood, obliterated by the construction of an ugly school block, resulted in only a minor, local uproar.
The decision of the ruling elite - the D.H. Lawrence Society Council - to hold monthly meetings at the Eastwood Conservative Club, thus helping fund the Tory Party. . . those stalwarts of the money-system that Lawrence so despised, has been condemned as a gross betrayal of Lawrence. But, to no avail. The national press couldn't care less.
So, now, it is as though one 'visionless mediocrity' is supporting another. Each of them as far removed from Lawrence as you can get!