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| "I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to being heaven." |
Wuthering Heights
Emily Bronte
337 pages
Rating: 8
This isn't a full review, because frankly, people have been discussing this book a hundred years and at least a few of them have written well-reasoned, comprehensive and nuanced reviews. Instead, I want to discuss expectations.
WHAT I EXPECTED:
I had avoided Wuthering Heights, not only because I tend to avoid 1800s classics, but because all I ever heard about it was ~doomed forbidden love~. I thought it was going to be a stupid, sappy love story about Cathy and Heathcliff pining across the moors for each other yet unable to be together, etc etc, cue more pining and moping and possibly brooding. I mean, for landsakes, it's Bella's favorite book and that girl has the dumbest opinions about romance. People always seem to talk about it as a great love story for the ages and whatnot.
I have never been so happy to find out that everyone is wrong.
WHAT I GOT:
On page 11, I knew I was going to like this book. That's when our narrator is at the old Heathcliff estate, trying to make pleasant conversation with his less-than-amicable hosts. He notices some cats sitting across the room and asks the lady of the house if they're her favorite animal, only to find that what he thought were some cats is actually a pile of dead rabbits.
The thing about Wuthering Heights is that everyone in the story is an awful, awful person who does awful things. It's practically a Jerry Springer episode. These people are monsters and they deserve what they get. I kept cackling as I read at each new horror that they brought upon each other. When Cathy says that her soul is the same as Heathcliff's, she's right: they're just both awful, conniving, cruel people. This isn't a book about forbidden life, it's a book about how the actions of despicable people can poison even their children. It's not so much about love as about obsession. It's a soap opera where all the characters are practically the villains. I loved every minute of it.
The Bronte sisters are now two for two with me. I need to read something by Anne next to complete the set.
I'd rather say, everybody in the story has both good and bad intentions, just like us. They're complex, flesh and blood characters. Not good, not bad either. It's hard to identify, since they're not your typical, stock characters. And, that makes the book even better.
ReplyDeleteThat's true! It was so refreshing to read a book where the main characters weren't your typical "good people fighting a cruel world" stock. Not everyone who falls in love is going to be a kind, selfless person- sometimes there are going to be Heathcliffs and Cathys too.
Delete(Thanks for reading!)