Τί να μπορέσω να γράψω ειλικρινά για να αποδώσω
την αγάπη μου γι’ αυτό το μυθιστόρημα φαινόμενο;
Ό,τι και να γράψω, δεν μπορεί να περιγράψει
το πόσο με είχε συνεπάρει όταν το διάβασα για πρώτη φορά πριν αρκετά χρονια, μα και πόσο με επηρέασε τώρα, στη δεύτερη ανάγνωση.
Τώρα ναι. Το κατάλαβα καλύτερα.
Το έζησα.
Πέρασε μέσα μου αργά και σταθερά η πολυεπίπεδη γραφή και η ποίηση του λόγου και με βύθισαν σε ένα αριστούργημα της φύσης, βαθύτερο, πολύ βαθύτερο απο την πραγματικότητα.

Σε καμία περίπτωση δεν είναι μια απλή ρομαντική ιστορία αγάπης.
Η Έμιλυ Μπροντέ με την λαμπρή ιδιοφυΐα της, την ποιητική πεζογραφία που δημιουργεί και την προσωπική της εμπειρία συνθέτει μια «εξημερωμένη» αρχαία ελληνική τραγωδία.
Είναι ένα βίαιο διαχρονικό κομμάτι άγριας ομορφιάς. Είναι μια θεραπεία της αγάπης που κινείται στα σκοτεινά της ψυχής και καταναλώνει πάθη και λάθη.

Υπάρχει πολλή σκληρότητα σε τούτο το έργο μα σίγουρα η κύρια έμπνευση και η ουσία στηρίζονται βασικά σε μια καταθλιπτική διαβάθμιση.

Η ποιήτρια Έμιλυ Μπροντέ γράφει με όραμα, συναίσθημα και μαρτυρία. Ήταν μάρτυρας των ίδιων των συναισθημάτων της. Η υπόσταση και η γραφή της δεν προοριζόταν για την πραγματική ζωή,
φυσικά ούτε για την Αγγλία του 19ου αιώνα.
Ήξερε πως οι άνθρωποι δεν πεθαίνουν για την αγάπη και έτσι έγραψε για το βάρβαρο και άγριο είδος φυσικής αγάπης.
Θριάμβευσαν δυο ψυχές που χωρίστηκαν απο προπαγανδιστικές περιστάσεις και στοιχειώθηκαν ώσπου να ενωθούν σε μία.

Το σκηνικό εξημερωμένο άγρια, η ατμόσφαιρα γκρίζα, σκοτεινή, γοτθική, το ύφος που διαχέεται σε κάθε ανθρώπινη σχέση είναι σχεδον ψυχωτικό, με έναν τρόπο που ξεπερνάει το θάνατο.

Έργο γεμάτο αγάπη, πάθος, εκδίκηση, βία.
Δεν σταματάει εκεί, καλύπτει ιδέες και καταστάσεις εποχής, σχετικά με τη φύση, τη θρησκεία, τη δεισιδαιμονία, τις κοινωνικές αξίες.
Η ρεαλιστική μορφή του κειμένου είναι απομονωμένη, κοινωνικά ανάρμοστη, παρθενική, προβληματική και έντονα δυαδική. Η επιτομή της αντίθεσης σε όλο το μεγαλείο της φύσης.

Σε κάποια σημεία αγγίζει την απόλυτη γυναικεία φαντασία και απο την άλλη, ανατρέπει όλες τις συμβάσεις του ρομαντισμού με παραβατικό τρόπο.

Θυελλώδες και συγκλονιστικό, με μυρωδιές και εικόνες, με θλίψη και απομόνωση, με χαρακτήρες κατά κύριο λόγο αντιπαθητικούς ( προσωπικά εξαιρώ τον Χήθκλιφ).

Τοπία ανατριχιαστικής γοητείας, σκηνικά πέρα απο κάθε φαντασία, η ανάπτυξη της γραφής αφήνει
τη φαντασία μας να ευδοκιμήσει. Να τα ζήσει όλα.
Ναι, είναι μια φρικτή ιστορία, ακραία και διπολική, μα έτσι όπως ξετυλίγεται δημιουργεί αρμονία χαρακτήρων και γοτθικών προσλήψεων καταλήγοντας σε μια μακάβρια λυτρωτική αποδόμηση που επιδοκιμάζει την αναγνωστική εμπειρία αυτού του μεγαλείου.

Όλοι οι ήρωες και ο καθένας ξεχωριστά θα μπορούσαν να αποτελούν ομάδες καθημερινών σημερινών ανθρώπων.
Τα ανεμοδαρμένα ύψη εισάγουν θέματα πολλαπλών διαστάσεων.
Βλέπουμε έντονα τα αποτελέσματα του αλκοολισμού, την άξεστη συμπεριφορά του αναλαφαβητισμού, γενικά θέματα εξουσίας, πλούτου, κοινωνικών τάξεων, φεμινιστικές ιδέες, καρικατούρες θρησκείας, οικογενειακά και κληρονομικά πλούτη
-υλικά και πνευματικά-
θεσμοί δικαιοσύνης, δικαιώματα έγγαμης τυραννίας και πολλά άλλα, που αναφέρονται πολύ μπροστά απο την συγκεκριμένη εποχή.
Προσβλητικά για το βικτοριανό κοινό, υποσχόμενα προοπτικές σε πιο σύγχρονο αναγνωστικό πολιτισμό.

Η μοναδική πένα της Έμιλυ Μπροντέ γράφει ξεκάθαρα με μία προοπτική, αρνείται να δώσει στον αναγνώστη το τέλος που ίσως θα επιθυμούσε.
Αντιθέτως, ρεαλιστικά μπορεί ο καθένας να συνδεθεί με το δικό του συμπέρασμα.
Ταξιδεύει μέσα σε δυο σύνολα αφήγησης, σε μία ταλαντευόμενη χρονολογική σειρά, που μεταφέρει με επιτυχία πάνω απο δυο γενιές χαρακτήρων.
Ο κάθε χαρακτήρας με διαφορετική προσωπικότητα, υποκειμενικες ιδέες, αντικειμενικές συμπεριφορές.

Αυτοί οι παράγοντες ρυθμίζονται απο τη συγγραφέα με θαυμάσιο τρόπο. Διαφορετικά, ασυνήθιστα,
όλα όμως, πραγματοποιούνται με κάποιο τρόπο και για συγκεκριμένο λόγο που δεν είναι ποτέ σαφής και τελειωτικός. Άσκοπη αναζήτηση αιτίας και αποτελέσματος. Επιτυχές κάθε συμπέρασμα εξαγόμενο απο συλλογισμούς σε γενικό πλαίσιο δεδομένων.

Ευρύ φάσμα αμφισβητούμενων ιδεών, άψογα δομημένοι χαρακτήρες, με μια φρικτή τελειότητα και ισχυρούς δεσμούς, που πολλαπλασιάζονται όσο διαιρούνται, καθιστούν αυτό το έργο ένα πολιτικό αριστούργημα της αγγλικής λογοτεχνίας.

Εν κατακλείδι, ας μου επιτραπεί μία υπερβολική δήλωση που προέρχεται απο την μεγάλη μου αγάπη Γι αυτό το βιβλίο.
Αν αποτύχει να αγγίξει τα βάθη της ψυχής ή να κάνει υποβλητικά ξεχωριστή εντύπωση, πρέπει ο αναγνώστης είτε να είναι νεκρός ή να διαβάζει λανθασμένη ιστορία.
Καμία σχέση δεν έχει το βιβλίο με οποιαδήποτε μεταφορά στην μικρή και μεγάλη οθόνη.

Αν έχετε αγαπήσει ή δεν έχετε αγαπήσει ποτέ,
διαβάστε το.
Θα κλονιστείτε, θα λατρέψετε!!!



Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.

5 tormenting and passionate stars for a reading experience like no other, because never have I read a book that altered my emotions so many times in one book. My feelings moved in waves between compassion and despair, admiration and loathing, pity but always regret. Victims or tormentors – that’s for you to decide.

For me, Wuthering Heights is an epic and timeless classic that has everything; obsession, greed, revenge, grief, emotional abuse, inequality, and even light horror. Everything except the thing most associated with this story. In my opinion, this is not a love story – it is the most beautiful love story that never happened, and in that lies the tragedy and the power of this book.

It is a sobering waste of life and love, as the cruelty and selfishness of the characters shape their own story against the rigidity of an intolerant class system that pretty much predestined their fate anyway. Yet the unbreakable bond that existed between the two main characters sees them pursue each other – but always when it was too late, with the haunting realisation that this self-destruction is set to continue into the next generation as the sins of the parents threaten to live on through the children with the same cruelty and brutality they heaped on each other.

A brutal yet passionate story. A story about love, desire, and obsession but with ugly consequences, made all the more intense for its Victorian England setting.

In fact, Victorian realism at its best. Raw, rigid, unforgiving, and profoundly devastating.

The plot

Heathcliff becomes part of the family as Thrushcross Grange, when Mr Earnshaw takes the orphaned boy home to be part of the family. Accepted by Cathy, but bullied by Hindley, Heathcliff’s early start in life is sad and pitiful. Contrast that to the man who becomes obsessed with Cathy, and whose life is turned upside down when the teenage Cathy ultimately chooses wealth over love and marries Linton.

Overhearing a conversation where Cathy admits that Heathcliff will never be a man of means, he flees the Grange and only returning when he has acquired a fortune. What he didn’t hear from the last part of the conversation was Cathy professing her unwavering love for Heathcliff with the iconic words ‘I am Heathcliff’, and later ‘I cannot live without my life. I cannot love without my soul’, despite now being married to someone else. A haunting tale as the flawed decisions and their self-destructive nature dam the lives and outcomes of these soulmates.

However, in an act of revenge Heathcliff marries Cathy’s sister-in-law, Isabella, and fathers the son who is then to meet Cathy’s daughter in the second half of the book. Hope or hopelessness?

Review and Comments

Not all stories have to be cheerful with happy endings – after all that’s life, but it is how we respond to those that defines us. This brings me straight to the characterisation in the book, which is absolutely superb. Whether you like or loathe these characters, there is no doubt they were brilliantly cast. In fact, as a character study not one of the characters can elicit a single ounce of admiration from its readers, with the exception of the young Cathy and Hareton. Yet they all make tremendous book characters.

The writing style is perfect for the storyline and even the dull palette colours depicting the moors and weather reflects the mood of the book and sense of forlorn and hopelessness, as does Wuthering Heights itself. A place naked to the elements, with surroundings that are untamed and raw that mirror the characters central to the story.

A Love story? – Although romantism has a powerful influence on the story, this is not a love story. Instead, it is a powerful story of love and unity of two souls, in life and in death. The iconic words will resonate with many, "I am Heathcliff", as Cathy explains .. "because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same". Those words get me in the feelers every time. Powerful and heartbreaking.

From the outset and throughout, I was invested in this story, the writing and particularly with the characters as you feel this connected sense of cruelty, self-destruction, and mourning for the countless memories and happiness for the life and love that could have been - but never was. Yet as a reader we are left with guarded optimism for the future of the young Cathy and Heathcliff, or are they too caught in this perpetual cycle of self-destruction, like their parents.

The writing in these classics is not for everyone, and I confess to struggling with it at school. If you can embrace this writing style, then you will love it. In fact, I just finished a mainstream thriller and I turned to my husband and said 'now I really do need a fix from the classics'. If I had one niggle, I don’t like authors writing in local dialect that is too cryptic. For example “aut ne’ink” meaning “ought not think”. For me personally it disrupts the flow of the story, spoils the beautiful writing in these classics but brings little to it. Back to the book.

A painful drama and an unapologetic portrayal of the flawed and imperfect human mind and heart. Dark, chilling and so vividly depicted. Beautifully written but not a beautiful story. A book where love, grief, and betrayal fuel cruelty and revenge.

Heart-breaking, savage, and self-destructive. Nevertheless, a masterpiece, particularly in its characterisation and the character development.

"all i care about in this goddamn life are me, my drums, and you"...

if you don't know that quote, you're probably too young to be reading this and isn't it past your bedtime or shouldn't you be in school or something?

but that quote, hyper-earnest cheese - that is romance. wuthering heights is something more dangerous than romance. it's one long protracted retaliation masquerading as passion. and goddamn do i love it. i can't believe i haven't reviewed it before - i mention this book in more than half of my reviews, i have a whole shelf devoted to its retellings, so why the delay?? but better late than never.

no, it's not a perfect novel; it's a flawed structure revealing the actions of seriously flawed people. the framing device-within-a-framing-device? totally awkward. having nelly dean tell the story even though where was she for most of the action? totally wrong move, bronte; it makes the beginning such a slog to get through. but that's just stale loaf - the good stuff is all the meat in between.

and oh, the meat... the swarthy stranger of mysterious origins being raised in a family of sheltered overmoist english mushrooms, all pale and rain-bloated, the running wild, two-souls-against-the-world adolescence...childhood indiscretions... vows and tantrums, bonding, unspoken promises, yes i will yes i will yes i will. oh, but wait, what's this??...it's blond and it's rich and it's whats expected of me. very well then. see ya, heathcliff...

it's just textbook gothic from here on out: revenge-seduction, overheard conversations, mysterious disappearances, murdered puppies, swooning, vindictive child-rearing, death, ghosts, moors, phoar...

but this to me, is a perfect love story, even though it's more like torture. the unattainable is always more romantic than the storybook. i don't like an uncomplicated ending, and a story is more impactful with nuanced characters, preferably heavily unlikeable throughout. (this is where i plug head-on - one of my favorite movies ever. do it.)this story just makes me feel good. and i'm well over my teenage fascination with the "bad boy"; i realized pretty quick that "bad boys" are usually pretty dumb. so i moved on to "emotionally disturbed", which is the same thing, really; plenty of drama, and they will leave you drunken "presents" on your lawn (road signs, carousel ponies..), but not complete burnouts, at least. but my teenaged dating pool is neither here nor there, the point is that heathcliff can be romanticized as this victim/villain without having to correspond to the ideal. it's about the level of passion, the size of the grand romantic gesture. devoting your life to destroying the people who kept you from your true love is an amazingly grand gesture.

come to my blog!

First book for 2023, and it’s a classic, gothic fiction.
My first read by a Brontë sister since reading 'Jane Eyre'.
First and only novel by Emily Brontë.
Second buddy read with Marge Moen: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/2...
And I can't wait to read Marge's insights.
Emily is one of the three Brontë sisters who initially needed to publish their novels under male pseudonyms - I think that spells volumes about their writing on repression and societal norms of the time.

I can understand why people either love or hate ‘Wuthering Heights’, or are the very least perplexed by it. This is not an easy, pleasant read. And that's probably its appeal for me.

I sit firmly in the 'love' camp.

So much meanness, violence, ugliness. So many characters suffer from fragile health. Such contrast between strong (aggressive) and weak (sickly) characters.

Revenge is a major aspect of the apparent tortured love storyline. How else can it be described, but a kind of warped love story?

It is dark, broody and harsh, at times excruciatingly cruel.

How did Emily Brontë think up these characters and themes? Surely she drew from some of her own experiences? I must do some post-read research.

A few takeaways =

My expectations were met.

I also responded well to the symbolism:
‘Catherine’s face was just like the landscape - shadows and sunshine flitting over it in rapid succession; but the shadows rested longer, and the sunshine was more transient…’

Ellen, the devoted, long term nanny, maid-come-servant endured so much. Too much.

The old religious-fanatic Joseph, another servant who also suffered through generations of the main characters, spoke in a Yorkshire dialect. Brontë was clever to capture this, but I couldn’t understand a lot of it. I fear I’ve missed some important plot details. Maybe there’s an edition with a translation as footnotes?

At times, I got a little confused who was who. Brontë invariably switches from Christian names to titles or surnames, and gives offspring the same names as their parents or relatives.

Ah, now I’m nitpicking, and I didn’t want to do that!

I was a little bewildered how Heathcliff, the male anti-hero, turned out so badly. I wanted to like him more. Then again, I’m glad Brontë didn’t give us stereotypical characters. Maybe I would have been critical if Heathcliff turned out to be all lovey-dovey?

See what this novel has done to me? I’m babbling.

Kate Bush’s hit by the same name makes a lot more sense to me now.

An expected 5-star rating just falls short, but that's not to say I didn't love it!
4.5 stars from me.
I thought about that trick of raising it to 5 stars, but then thought no, that doesn't paint the right picture.
Ah, still babbling thanks to Cathy and Heathcliff...

I don’t love this book for its perfection, for the way it meets expectations, for playing by the rules. I love it for the opposite of those things, and I love it with the kind of passion I imagine Emily felt for things she loved: personal, indefensible, aesthetic, undaunting.

The only easy-to-explain reason I have for loving it is the structure, the multiple narrators that don’t allow you to forget you’re being told a story. While the wind blows through the heather, settle in and listen to a tale unlike any you’ve ever heard …

“There was no sound through the house but the moaning wind, which shook the windows every now and then, the faint crackling of the coals, and the click of my snuffers as I removed at intervals the long wick of the candle.”

It seems this is a book written by a young woman exposed to very little except a family of diverse characters, the early death of loved ones, the harsh conditions of the Yorkshire moors, and a whole lot of moralizing from religion and social expectations. All of that comes across in her story.

Looking out on the landscape around her, I imagine Emily, intimately in touch with her surroundings, tried to make sense of it all. Why is the winter so bitter and deadly? Why does the heather grow so strong in the sunshine? To better understand, she turns them into characters: Heathcliff is the storm, Cathy the heather. Perhaps each day brings the possibility of danger because of a deep and enduring love between the two forces, a love gone wrong. Perhaps this provides some explanation to Emily, for the wild nature in which she lives, the restrictions on her existence, and the anguish that love has brought to her short life.

There are so many ways to read this novel:
1.tIt’s about Heathcliff, that evil monster, and all the destruction that can be caused by one bad dude.
2.tIt’s about Heathcliff that poor orphan boy, dreadfully abused as a child.
3.tIt’s about the powerful, timeless love between Heathcliff and Cathy.
4.tIt’s feminist. All the men are either evil or stupid or weak. The women have strong natures, a moral compass, and fight hard for what is right.
5.tIt’s an anti-romance novel. There is a marriage early on, but the reader doesn’t hear any wedding bells. It’s skipped right over in the text, as if that didn’t matter to Emily. Marriages are just means to an end. “Blessed events” are treated similarly, often leading to death.
6.tIt’s about the dangers of a patriarchal society. Emily shows how easily society’s propriety and the laws of primogeniture can be used for evil.
7.tIt’s a mystical novel, showing lives that reflect the natural world that contains both sunshine and shadow, that maintains life and destroys it, that provides both beauty and destruction, and beings that live on beyond death in a world we neither see nor understand.

For me it’s a combination of all of these, and more.

And to those who say this is no love story, I beg to differ. It’s a love story alright, just not the kind we have learned to expect, which provides my favorite literary twist. In Wuthering Heights, going for the happily-ever-after is a deal with the devil. It sets in motion all manner of horrible things, including death and destruction. EM Forster says “Only connect.” This story is about a connection, a connection discarded for want of happily-ever-after. But a true connection cannot so easily be undone, as the story proves.

“If he loved her with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn’t love as much in eighty years as I could in a day. And Catherine has a heart as deep as I have: the sea could be as readily contained in that horse-trough as her whole affection be monopolized by him.”

Aristotle said, “There is no great genius without some touch of madness.” This book is a celebration of Emily’s madness, and her genius.

I think the reason I’ll keep returning to this book is the depth and complexity of feeling it contains. I expect to re-read it many more times, and expect each read to bring a different connection to it, a different sympathy, and a reminder to embrace the wildness and danger that living brings.

n  n    “People feel with their hearts, Ellen, and since he has destroyed mine, I have not power to feel for him.”n  n

Okay, I know that Wuthering Heights is so many people’s favorite book of all-time, and so many people’s least favorite book of all-time, so I went into this not really knowing what to expect. I will be honest, I didn’t really love it, but I was for sure not expecting the wild ride that this story took me on. I just truly found all of the characters (Except for Ellen/Nelly) to be so damn insufferable.

But this is a story set in 1801, about a man named Mr. Lockwood, staying the night at Wuthering Heights. He meets a man named Heathcliff, who seems absolutely miserable, and he meets a housekeeper named Ellen Dean who will eventually help us figure out why Heathcliff is so miserable. Oh, and when Lockwood goes to sleep that night, he is awoken by a ghost! He then tells Ellen this, and she promptly throws us back into a flashback, where she becomes the new narrator, and we get to see what went down at Wuthering Heights many years ago.

Wuthering Heights, at its black heart, is a story all about abuse, and cycles of abuse, and how abuse can impact so many hearts and so many generations repeatedly. Abuse and cruelty truly breed violence, and Heathcliff and everyone he has been forced to interact with just showcase that theme over and over. Heathcliff was orphaned and taken in, but everyone reminds him that he constantly is an outsider. But this story focuses on him and the three young people he grew up alongside of, and they are all shitty in their own ways.

➽ Heathcliff is shitty because he only cares for Catherine.
➽ Isabelle is shitty because she only cares about Heathcliff.
➽ Edgar is shitty because he doesn’t care about his sister.
➽ Catherine is shitty because she only cares about herself.

n  n    “Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.”n  n

And friends, it is a truly wild ride seeing these characters interact with one another. And we eventually get to see their children who (you guessed it) are shitty, too! Again, cycles of abandonment and abuse is truly heartbreaking in every aspect.

I don’t want to say too much more without spoiling, because I really do think the twists are pretty decent in this and figuring out more about the ghost was a big highlight for me. Also, the atmosphere was phenomenal, and the Yorkshire moors truly set a beautiful stage for this dark tale. And I feel like this is a little bit of an unpopular opinion; but I actually really liked Emily’s prose, too.

I do want to say that upon finishing this story, I immediately started to look up things about the entire Brontë family, and my heart just broke. The things that those sister, and their entire family, had to go through. I know 2019 is kind of a dumpster fire, but I am so thankful that I wasn’t born in the 1800s, good Lord. Also, reading about how closely tuberculosis impacted this story and Emily’s life truly fucked me up, especially because I’m close to Emily’s age when she died. Seriously, I have so much love and respect in my heart for these three sisters, originally writing their dark tales under male pseudonyms, who will now never be forgotten.

Overall, even though I didn’t love this story, this book was enjoyable enough to read. But you’re never going to find me romanticism anything that Heathcliff did. But I truly couldn’t wait to find out what happened next to all these insufferable characters. And I still firmly believe that Ellen/Nelly deserves the entire world. Also, I had the biggest giggle while reading about someone throwing hot applesauce at someone else, because like, just imagine that.

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Content and trigger warnings for use of the word g*psies, death, loss of a loved one, a lot of physical and emotional abuse, alcohol abuse, child abuse, animal abuse, humiliation, self-harm, and abandonment.

This is a review I never imagined I’d write. This is a book I was convinced I’d love. I just have to face the facts, Emily is no Charlotte.

I’m going to start with the positives. The characterisation of Heathcliff is incredibly strong. He is a man who is utterly tormented by the world. As a gypsy boy he is dark skinned and dark haired, and to the English this rough, almost wild, look makes him a ruffian. He stands up for himself, and bites back; thus, he is termed a monster. In a very, very, Frankenstein’s monster like sense, his perceived outer image begins to permeate his soul. Call a man a monster, and eventually he may start acting like one.

“He’s not a rough diamond - a pearl-containing oyster of a rustic; he’s a fierce, pitiless, wolfish man.”

He is a very complex man, capable of great cruelty and kindness. The world has made him bitter, and in a way ruined him. He reaps revenge, but revenge always ends the same way; it doesn’t solve problems but creates more. So he becomes even more tormented, this time by his own actions. tHe is very Byronic, and by today’s standards a little bit of a bad boy. He has all the standard tropes of an anti-hero, one that becomes a figure that can be sympathised with and hated. He’s a very complex man.

The Bronte’s were directly affected by Byron’s poetry. Rochester is Charlotte’s portrayal of a similar, albeit less vengeful, character. Love is the key torment in both works. Heathcliff has been rejected, as Rochester cannot open his heart because of his secret wife. But, rather that overcome his personal loss, and subject the world to his dark and broody personality, Heathcliff actually seeks to do others harm. He is a very sensitive man when it comes to his own emotions, though he lacks any real empathy. He does not care that he is creating more pain for others. He spends his life spreading more hate into the world. His only redeeming quality is his love for Catherine, but that doesn’t excuse his tyranny. He knows how nasty he is:

"She abandoned [her home] under a delusion," he answered, "picturing in me a hero of romance, and expecting unlimited indulgences from my chivalrous devotion. I can hardly regard her in the light of a rational creature, so obstinately has she persisted in forming a fabulous notion of my character and acting on the false impressions she cherished."

He's so self-centred:

  

So I rather like his character, well not like but appreciate the complexity, though the novel’s structure itself was abysmal. I have quite a few problems with the narrative.

Why is a servant telling us this story as she speaks to a visitor of her master’s house? Why are we hearing someone’s interpretation of the events rather than the events themselves? Why is it twenty years later in the form of an extremely long conversation? Why is the servant still actually working for Heathcliff? She would have left. Nobody would choose to work for such a man. It just doesn’t make a lot of sense. At times it felt like the credibility of the story was stretched to breaking point. Nelly (the servant) actually being in some of the scenes was almost laughable. Often it was followed by a terrible explanation attempting to justify her presence. It sounded very desperate to me.

This leads perfectly on to my next point. Half way through the story (the start of volume ii) we are told that the conversation has ended. We then hear the visitor’s description of the servant’s narrative about Heathcliff’s life. I mean seriously? So there are three layers of storytelling. Isn’t that completely unnecessary and overcomplicated? Why not just have Heathcliff tell the story or at the very least have the servant tell the story from start to finish in one story arc with no time shifts. For me, it felt like Emily wrote herself into a corner with her choice of narrative and desperately tried to write herself out of it to the point of ridiculousness. How much of the story can we believe? How much bias is in the narratives?

Then there was the dialogue overloads. Large parts of the novel were entirely conversational. The narration was minimalistic and bare. The only character whose thoughts we were privy to, again Nelly the servant, was completely irrelevant to the plot. Who cares about the servant’s emotion and reactions? This isn’t her story; thus, the dialogue was packed out to the point of unnaturalness to fit in the thoughts of characters whose minds we weren’t privy to. Simply put, the characters said things people wouldn’t realistically say in conversation. It was overflowing with emotions and private thoughts. It was awkward. I’m not talking about private conversations, those don’t happen as Nelly is awkwardly present for every single event, but announcements or decisions (that should be internal) announced to a group of people. This is why plays have asides and soliloquies. And this is why novels aren’t told from the perspective of a random servant.

There is clearly a great story here. Plot wise the novel is wonderful. But the way in which Emily told her story was nothing short of disastrous. It felt like a wasted opportunity. I’m absolutely horrified at how poor it is. This novel needed to be taken apart, re-wrote, and put back together again. Perhaps then it would have been worthy of the story it failed to tell. I’ve never been so massively underwhelmed in such a blatant lack of skill in a canonised piece of literature, one that has immense critical reception.

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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!

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.

this is my third (3!) time reading this novel and every time is just like the first one. i know i say this about almost every five star but it doesnt get any better than this. if anyone still haven't read this HANDS OFF THE WHEEL, DROP WHATEVER YOU ARE DOING, GO TO THERAPY AND LOCK IN.

im going to say a very scary and disturbing thing, but i first found out about this novel from the Harry Styles fanfic ‘After’, as one does at the age of 12, and after reading the novel itself and discussing it with my mom, i constantly began to wonder why all the heroines in romance novels are reading ‘Wuthering Heights’ like crazy. my guess is because when an author writes a romance book, they google ‘the greatest romance novel’ and immediately BINGO—top result is ‘Wuthering Heights’.

!SPOILERS AHEAD!

the lore, for anyone uncultured—once upon a time there lived a brother and sister, Catherine and Hindley, on a remote estate with their family, until one day their father brought Heathcliff, a homeless guy whom he had picked up dying of hunger in Liverpool, and decided to shelter him, and even then no one in the house besides the old man really cared if he lived or died. every day this handsome boy wins more and more sympathy and love from Cathy and her father, who demanded that the children accept the guy into the family and consider him a worthy family member. to which Hindley responds ‘BARS

Me resulta increíble haber estado tantos años retrasando esta lectura. Por miedo, básicamente. Tenía tantas ideas preconcebidas sobre lo que me iba a encontrar con las Brönte, que no me atrevía. Hubo una época en la que pensaba, incluso, que Cumbres Borrascosas era una novela romántica. Maldita ignorancia.

Una de las primeras cosas que impactan de la novela es el tono tétrico. Las descripciones sobre Cumbres Borrascosas y su recorrido hasta la granja de los Tordos serán imposible de olvidar. Al igual que sus personajes. Cosa curiosa porque la gran mayoría de sus personajes resultan extremadamente desagradables. Prácticamente todos. Pero aún así, consiguen que te intereses por cada uno de ellos y leas este libro sin parar. La lectura es adictiva y claustrofóbica a partes iguales. Ansioso estuve, incluso.

Creo que pocos personajes he visto tan crueles en la literatura como Heathcliff. Es curioso que cuando era peque su nombre me hacía identificarlo con galan de películas románticas. Catherine tampoco se queda atrás. No llega al nível de crueldad de é, pero eran tal para cual. No voy a entrar en detalles de la trama, porque no es necesario. Y para quien conozca poco de la historia, como era mi caso, le recomiendo que siga siendo así hasta que lo lea. Cuanto más a ciegas vaya, más se sorprenderá y más maravillado acabará.

Y si hay algo que sigue flipándome es pensar que Emily Brönte escribió esto. Una mujer, que por lo poco que sé, era extremadamente introvertida y vivía apartada de la sociedad al cobijo de sus hermanas y su hogar. Una mujer así fue capaz de escribir una historia con tanta profundidad y personajes tan ricos. Pareciera una mujer de 80 años que hubiera vivido una vida excitante.

En fin, solo me queda unirme a ese gran pesar de todas las personas que han caído en las redes de Emily Brönte. ¿Por qué la vida no le dejó escribir más novelas? Vida llévate las novelas de 50 sombras y las de After y traenos más historias de Emily.

Anne es tu turno :)

I first read this book back in school for the English class and remember disliking it very much. The characters were too black and the story was too dark for my preference. But with my recent turning back to reading classics again, I felt maybe I should give this book another chance and see if my teenage prejudice was ill-founded. After this second reading, I can safely draw two conclusions. Yes, my prejudice was ill-founded, for I have not appreciated the characters in their given context, and yes, the characters are still black and the story too dark for my preference.

The story mainly revolves around Heathcliff, a young orphan adopted by the rich Earnshaw family. This action of Mr. Earnshaw, however, causes a rivalry and resentment between his natural son Hindley, and the adopted son, Heathcliff. After the demise of the father when Hindley became the master, Heathcliff tastes the flavour of ill-treatment. But the daughter of the family, Catherine Earnshaw, forms a close attachment to Heathcliff, and the two eventually become lovers of a sort. Heathcliff bears all abuse and contempt for the sake of Catherine to whom he is devoted. But Catherine's fancy towards Edgar Linton, and the misinterpretation of a part conversation between Catherine and Ellen Dean, make Heathcliff believe that Catherine is indifferent to him. So he leaves only to come back three years later, a rich man, to avenge for all his grievances. This new Heathcliff was violent, wicked, and almost inhuman, and with him, Emily Bronte has created one of the darkest characters in the history of classics.

Emily Bronte has based the book on three different themes: love and despair, complexities of human nature, and similar to the contemporaries of her time, on the class difference. The relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine is one of love and despair, which sees the former ending up as a mad inhuman and the latter paying up with her life. With the use of dark and imperfect characters, Bronte accomplishes brilliance in portraying the prejudices of the human mind, the violent and wicked inclinations of humans, and the extremity of vengeance a human mind is capable of when injured. Catherine senior’s wavering between her true love Heathcliff and Edgar Linton, since the latter was similar in status her, and Catherine junior’s preference of Linton Heathcliff over Hareton although both of whom were her cousins, show how strong the class and status difference mattered at the time the author lived.

I had a serious issue with the narrator, however. This whole story was narrated by Mrs. Ellen Dean, the housekeeper. Mrs. Dean entertained a dislike for Heathcliff and Catherine senior from their younger days. This dislike was felt through most of her narration. So, one cannot truly rely on either the accuracy or the sincerity of her narrative. I'm truly surprised that Bronte used such a prejudiced narrator. It sort of affects the readers' view of those two main characters. I sincerely wish Bronte had chosen an unbiased person as a narrator to recount this tragic tale.

The passionate, engaging writing style, the easy flow, and the beautiful metaphoric language of Emily Bronte have made Wuthering Heights a beautiful classical tragedy of the Victorian era. This second reading certainly altered my prejudices about the book, and though I still didn't quite like the characters, I was able to appreciate them better.