Wuthering Heights

If you really want to make progress in reading Wuthering Heights, I can personally recommend getting stuck in a hospital for several hours with no other form of entertainment close at hand. If you are experiencing bouts of dizziness, however, I recommend the LARGE PRINT version.

Obviously, I wasn't reading this classic for fun (book club tyranny prevailed), but I'm trying to look at it as though I were. I spent about a third of Emily Bronte's book, trying to get the Monty Python semaphore version out of my head, then I spent a third of it, really entranced (YES! I can't believe I'm saying that) and then I spent the last ten or so pages thinking that Heathcliff sure was taking a long time to die. Oh, did I give something away?

This was my third reading of the supposed tragic story of Catherine and Heathcliff on the moors. The first reading doesn't count since it was in high school. The second reading was for a college class and it was interesting to reread the marginalia that I felt compelled to add at the time. I wrote things like "boo" or "Lockwood is an idiot." Really useful bits of information.

Lockwood IS an idiot, though. I never liked that he is used to frame the story. I don't care that he's supposed to be our way into hearing the story of the foundling Heathcliff who grows up to be a nasty human being, consummed by his obsession with an equally nasty woman. Why have the old housekeeper retell the story instead of simply telling the story? I suppose that's just some 19th century construct, but I digress. I'm trying to look at this not as a classic, but as a straight story. Did I enjoy it? Would I recommend it?

The short answer is still what it was after the first two readings: no. I do not like any of the characters, I don't like that they all turn out nasty just because they were treated poorly. I'm not saying I like my characters to be like the Disney version of Cinderella, where no matter how mistreated they start off, they remain sweet and get their happy rewards, but still, can there exist one person who compels me to care about their fate? I did like some of the book. I thought it was interesting to see the character of the weakling young Linton--who had seemed as if he might be able to break the cycle of evil between the two houses--turn increasingly awful. He might be the character I liked the least, but he was nicely written. I kept trying to see something good in Heathcliff--honestly, you want to like him--but I suppose Bronte was turning the James Dean, bad boy ideal on it's head (um, I know that seems anachronistic). The brooding, handsome stranger who turns out to be the hero? Nope, not in this book. Heathcliff really has no redeeming qualities, unless you count loyalty.

This is considered a love story. The back of my Signet classic reads: There are few more convincing, less sentimental accounts of passionate love...Well, it's certainly not sentimental, and I guess it is passionate, but the passion is driven by hate. I suspect that so few people read this anymore that it's simply gained a reputation as a true love story by hearsay. All people know is that Cathy and Heathcliff loved each other passionately and were kept apart by status and money. Yeah, whatever. Read Romeo and Juliet. Read Sense and Sensibility, if you must, or Cold Mountain. Or...well, you get the point. There's lots of tragic love out there with characters who are better people when they are together as a couple, and not worse.

If you listen to singer Kate Bush's lyrical summary, you'd think that love beyond the grave was a good thing in this book. If you manage to get through the book (because, for instance, you're trapped in a sterile environment for many hours), you realize that it's really a story of how to make the most of your awful circumstances so that you can really poison the world of those around you. Excellent!

Frankly, the semaphore version is a lot more entertaining.