Well, well, well…

Hell should not be a surprise. We live surrounded by the notion that it threatens us all at the end of our days. What I did not expect was to find it in this book. My delusion had made me avoid reading Wuthering Heights for years. I had thought it was a passionate, histrionic and corny love story draped in gothic garb.

But this was evil on earth, with Bosch’s horrid Tree-Man reappearing under the name of Heathcliff, swallowing into its vile frame anything that dared approach it, while watching the process with an expression of sarcasm, delight and spite. And even if there is a sort of Redemption, with visions and all, that seems to solve away the hideous, this novel, and its language that revels in hatred, does not provide its own atonement. Just like Bosch. It is its viciousness that is attractive.

How could a young woman write this wicked, and brilliant, invention at the time and place that she did? It has shattered several of my misconceptions about the (early) Victorian age.

I am left with the enigma.


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The missing star is because at times the characters develop in not altogether convincing ways.

Motivul pentru care i-am dat 5 ⭐️ si nu 4 (desi asa aveam de gand), ultimele 150 de pagini (aproximativ) m-au facut sa mai adaug o steluta, iar asta datorita personajului Heathcliff care m-a enervat atat de mult incat am zis: ok, e de 5!

My first re-read*

This story is still one of a kind!

First read (November 2019)*

This book is truly one of a kind! I have never read a book so full of dislikable characters, but still feeling so attached to them at the same time.
I am in awe of the Brontë sisters and can't wait to keep reading more of their work.
Few books make me feel as if the setting is its own character, and Wuthering Heights is definitely its own entity. I could feel her descriptions in my bones! The cold harsh rain storms that overpower the Moors, the vast hills and twisting trees!! It was an incredible reading experience, and now I am so excited to delve deeper into Emily Brontë's poetry since this is unfortunately her only novel! Yet, what a novel it is!!

How to win over a girl??

1. Go down on your knees and say "BE MINE "

or else

(Heathcliff style )

**Spoilers**

2. Wait for both of your spouses to die and then force both of your kids to marry each other as a part of your decade long revenge plan and gain control over everything.

Rest in peace Catherine.

Reading "Wuthering Heights" is like popping a piece of chocolate in my mouth only to find out it's filled with espresso beans. I thought it would be sweet, but it turned out to be too dark and bitter for my taste. I cannot fault Emily Bronte for a deficiency in writing, though. The fact that she was able to create a constant state of tension while keeping me interested, alludes to her genius. In my opinion, it's a horrible story well told.

You know the sayings: "Love conquers all", "All you need is love", "Love is a many splendored thing"?
Well, how about this one: "Love is incestuous, psychologically damaging, manipulative, violent, digs up your corpse when you die, and wants to be haunted by your ghost forever and ever"?
The latter may not be the sentiment on most Valentine's Day cards, but it sure is the depiction of "love" in "Wuthering Heights". I used to think this was a romantic novel untiI I've read it. I bet most people who haven't read the book have the same perception as I had before.
Forget the romantic candlelit dinners, the wine, and the roses. Catherine and Heathcliff's love exists on an entirely different plane! The one that involves ghosts, corpses, the possession of souls, and revenge. Speaking of revenge, Heathcliff, who harbors more than one grudge against his adoptive family, the love of his life, and his neighbors, manages to make every revenge drama look like kids' play.

It was a difficult read, but I highly recommend this book. I think, Bronte created one of the most passionate love stories ever told. Sure, its idea of love is psychotic, way unhealthy, and it makes "Blank Space" look like a really level-headed approach to love --but that's the point. Sometimes "madly in love" means just that: that love has rendered you literally mad. Sometimes it's not healthy. It's not a good idea. It is all-consuming, stay-up-all-night, hurts-worse-than-a-root-canal kind of love, and Bronte tells it as it is.

So take a trip to Wuthering Heights, where love will tear you apart, follow you every step you take, and come in like a wrecking ball!

Wuthering Heights is many things. A late-gothic ghost story. A tale of love and revenge. A chronicle of violence -- physical, mental, emotional and social. A dark peek into human nature. A condemnation of England's broken class system. A sort of anti-Austen book without manners.

I've loved it since I first read it in grade eight. It's another of the books my crazy cool Mom foisted upon me in her big, three year pushing of classics that defined my reading tastes for the rest of my life. I love the book so much, and Emily Brontë's leading man, that I named my daughter Brontë (dooming her, no doubt, to a life of pain, depression, and unfinished business, sorry Të).

This time through, however, I found myself not caring a whit about Heathcliff and Catherine the Older, or Hareton and Catherine the Younger, or Edgar, or Isabella, or Linton the king whinger. I found myself caring about Nelly Dean, and only Nelly Dean. And in so doing I discovered another thing that Wuthering Heights is: the most circuitous character sketch in the English language.

To read Wuthering Heights caring only about Nelly is to read an entirely different story. Suddenly the ill-fated love of Heathcliff and Cathy -- the torture and pain and ghosts and revenge -- becomes the way Nelly reveals herself, and the unreliability of Nelly as a narrator becomes the very stuff of herself. Every action she comments on, every action she claims to take, every piece of those tales she tells Lockwood cease to be about her subjects and, instead, reveal her as the subject. She is the star of her own narrative, and all those characters she claims to love or hate are mere supporting players to a servant's tale of herself. Which, for me, makes Wuthering Heights even more brilliant than I've always believed it to be.

I wonder what a stage version of this would look like if one were to use Nelly's perspective AND make her the focus, subverting her attempts to obfuscate her importance. Maybe I should take a crack at it. Or maybe I could just pass the idea on to my very own Brontë. I bet she could do something magnificent with it someday.

I've tried it three times. I know people are obsessed with it. I hate everyone in the book - and I just can't care about a book where I actually hate the characters.

And, sure, I get the interpretation that as terrible as Heathcliff and Cathy are, it's their love that redeems them, and isn't that romantic.

No.

- "كل ساقٍ سيسقى بما سقى"، لم يبارحني هذا القول معظم الرواية، مثل طيف "كاثرين" الذي لازم "هيثكليف" :)

- من الروايات القليلة المربكة على صعيد الشعور، فالصراحة لم اعرف اذا كنت قد احببتها او كنت قد كرهتها! فمن جهة تعاطفت مع "هيثكليف" في البداية لما يعانيه من يتم، ومعاملة سيئة، وتنمّر ابن صاحب البيت وفي النهاية احتقرته واشمأزت نفسي منه ومن افعاله! كذلك كاثرين فقد راق لي عطفها على الغريب بدايةً، وكرهت انانيتها وتسلطها وغرورها لاحقاً وهذا يسري على جميع الشخصيات تقريباً.

- من ناحية البناء، نحن نتكلم عن رواية تقّصها علينا خادمة، ورغم ان الخدم يطلعون على معظم الأحداث التي تجري في بيوت مخدوميهم، الا ان هذه المعرفة تبقى ظاهرية وسطحية، من هنا كانت الشخصيات قريبة الى التسطيح، والسذاجة لا بل مثيرة للشفقة في العديد من الأماكن! لو ان الرواية كانت على لسان "هيثكليف" كانت لتكون اعمق بكثير (وهذا من وجهة نظري).

- وتدور الدوائر، فلسفة القصة دائرية، عودة على بدء في كل شيئ، القصة التي ابتدأت بالقلب الناصع العطوف لوالد كاثرين انتهت بذات القلب الأبيض لأحفاده! وما بينهما كان الموت والسواد والإنتقام، والمصادفة العجيبة ان هذا الموت تجسّد في شخصٍ أسود! شممت العبير الإنكليزي ههنا!!

- الحبكة الدينامكية المستعملة كانت ممتازة لوقت كتابة الرواية، لكن ذروة الرواية بعودة "هيثكليف" وبدء الإنتقام كانت ضعيفة وضبابية، خصوصاً ان التغيير الذي حصل له بقي مجهولاً ولم اقتنع بنوعية التغيير في زمن قصير! كما ان التصوير الشيطاني لهيثكليف كان مبالغاً به خصوصاً في تعاطيه مع ابنه ومع ابنة حبيبته المفترضة ومعشوقته الأرضية!

- الرسالة التي ارادتها الكاتبة بتغليب الحب على الأنانية كانت ممتازة في نهاية القصة خصوصاً ان قصة حب "كاثي" مع ابن خالها هي اعادة لقصة حب "هيثكليف" مع "كاثرين" لكن كاثي لم تتمادى في انانيتها وسخريتها بل اخذت على عاتقها تعليم ابن خالها ونجحت في كسبه. وكل ما حاول "هيثكليف" فعله طوال عشرين سنة ذهب ادراج الرياح.

- الترجمة كانت جيدة، هناك مشكلة بسيطة في الطباعة فالأسطر جدّ قريبة من بعضها!

I read this book for my AP Literature class. I loved the teacher, loved the subject matter, and loved pretty much everything else we had read, so I had high hopes for this book. I must say, I made a genuine and sincere effort to like this book, I really did. I got half way through with no hope in sight, yet I perservered, hoping the second half would show promise in the next generation. No such luck. Although nothing tops the finale "love scene" between Heathcliff and Katherine, with Heathcliff foaming at the mouth and a verbal battle of "no, YOU killed me" "no, you killed yourself" (a stupidity hiterto unknown since the "no YOU'RE prettier" battles). Eventually, the final pages came into view and I was desperate- there must be some redemption for this junk! Some message, some ending sequence, SOMETHING that makes this worthwhile. The characters are so self-absorbed and posses an unprecendeted lack of intelligence, yet are still portrayed as intelligent by the literary world, that it seemed like the only fitting ending would be the characters realizing their stupidity and engaging in a mass suicide. No such luck. Every last word was idiotic and as empty as the first. But you know what grinds my gears even more than the fact that I wasted a week on this worthless pseudo-classic? It kills me that people not only mistake this hoax for real literature, but reference it for ROMANTIC value! Foaming at the mouth, marrying someone you don't love, wow.... now that's a level of romance lovers fantasize about achieving.

I am very happy to have read this book again, it gets better every time. All the romanticism, and I don´t mean this in the Disney sense of the word, but the real, out of this world romantic notion of life and love is there. Heathcliff is probably the most hated character in the history of all novels, but he's in the end someone who you see for all the suffering and all he has endured. And with only one person in the world who he ever connected with. And there is this thing with nature which is pretty great, they are in the middle of nowhere, so its frustrating that Heathcliff can get away with anything. I loved reading this again, and more after reading a biography of the Brontes, they are pretty great, and their lives reflect on their stories, just as this book seems like such a reflection of the Bronte way of life and Household. Loved it very much, thank you!

Doceniam, ale nie dla mnie. Egzaltowana niemiłosiernie, a problemy bohaterów można by załatwić dwiema poważnymi i spokojnymi rozmowami. Ale generalnie tę książkę się albo kocha, albo nie cierpi, więc moją opinią się nie przejmujcie!

As a youngster this book mystified me. Adults said I should read it so I did my best. Later, teachers said I should read it, so I read it again. Then it cropped up on a syllabus and got a third and fourth run through. I even watched the movie. And still I didn’t enjoy it. Families at each other’s throats, spitting raw cruelty. Heathcliff horrible, savage. Cathy spoiled and selfish. What was there to like? In the end I thought they both got what they deserved.

Which is not to say the book is not well written. Bronte's plot - like so many gothic plots - is highly improbable but holds up, her characters real enough even as they shock and sicken us and the author’s prose style keeps us going to the end. Why? Ask me another. Better still, read it for yourself and see what you think.