Wuthering Heights

Summary (from the publisher): Heathcliff, an orphan, is raised by Mr. Earnshaw as one of his own children. Hindley, Mr. Earnshaw's son, despises him, but his sister, wild Cathy, becomes Heathcliff's constant companion, and he falls violently in love with her. When Cathy will not marry Heathcliff, his terrible vengeance ruins them all and carries over to a second generation, but still their love will not die.

Review: Somehow, I managed to make it through high school and college (even as an English major!) without ever being required to read Wuthering Heights. I know this is probably not what an English major should say, but I rarely enjoy so called "classics" and often whine while reading them that I don't understand how they ever even got the title of a classic or received a place in the western canon. I do, however, think fondly of Jane Eyre, so I thought Charlotte's sister Emily might help me change my mind in this novel.  

My other hesitation with "classics" is it sometimes seems fairly pointless to even review them since thousands of students, etc. have already discussed them ad nauseum. I'd rather talk about something where there's a chance that I may contribute something original. But here's my two cents anyway!

This novel has such an interesting narrator set-up. The novel is introduced by a tenant of Wuthering Heights, some twenty years after Cathy lived and died there. A servant, Nelly Dean, tells the tenant Mr. Lockwood the story of Cathy and Heathcliff, the star crossed lovers, and subsequent fall out when they don't end up together. So in a way, the reader is two degrees of separation from the actual plotline of the novel. I found it odd to distance the reader so far from the main characters both in terms of perspective and time.

Although I did not enjoy this novel nearly as much as Emily Bronte's sister's novel Jane Eyre, I do see many similiarities. Both are gothic, have similar tones, similar dark male protagonists, and it's clear the authors were raised in the same setting because the moors and lonely wildnerness is the same in both. My main issue with this book though was that I didn't like any of the characters. Not a one. They were all either foul, obsessed with revenge, or self-centered. If Cathy had just gotten over herself and married Heathcliff in the first place, known of us would have had to deal with these wretched characters and Heathcliff's ornery, revengeful ways.

I'm glad I'm able to say I read this book, and I do appreciate the setting and precedence Bronte's novel set, but I didn't love it.

Stars: 3