Wuthering Heights
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I love it, personally. Read it for the first time in high school and found the prose to be a little thick at first but I got a handle on the language quickly enough.
As for the story, there's a lot more going on here than just a romance novel. It's the kind of thing you should read slowly and pay attention to what Bronte's doing. There's symbolism and recurring motifs all over the place.
As for the story, there's a lot more going on here than just a romance novel. It's the kind of thing you should read slowly and pay attention to what Bronte's doing. There's symbolism and recurring motifs all over the place.
Personally, I think it was one of the worst books I've ever read in my life. Boring, bland and uninteresting, with utterly stupid characters. YMMV
Loved it as a young student.
Loved Olivier in the movie, old one.
But I've loved all the Bronte books I've read.
If you haven't read any by the sisters, try it out.
Loved Olivier in the movie, old one.
But I've loved all the Bronte books I've read.
If you haven't read any by the sisters, try it out.
Weird story. The characters are obviously motivated in large part by sexual obsession, yet the content and style is so prim and Victorian that "sex" never enters into the story. I've never seen such a total disconnect between content and form. But it's kinda cool that way.
You really have to have a high degree of tolerance for very archaic stylistic forms, such as the insistence on sublimating sex almost entirely out of a sexually charged story, simply because to do otherwise would have resulted in an unpublishable story. And maybe the sublimation was entirely unconscious rather than contrived on Bronte's part - hard to imagine it could be otherwise.
If you watch modern TV and movie adaptations, they allow the sexual content to come to the forefront and the story suddenly makes "sense." But if you read it with the understanding that there's a level that couldn't be addressed in a literal, or maybe even conscious, way, then the novel can also make sense. The characters seem "stupid" because without the sexual motivation, their behavior makes zero sense. They are literally written as though they are sexless children, yet their actions are that of crazed, horny, frustrated adults.
NOW I remember why I thought it was cool: it's like a story about grownups told from a child's perspective, with a child's understanding of the world, and of grownups.
You really have to have a high degree of tolerance for very archaic stylistic forms, such as the insistence on sublimating sex almost entirely out of a sexually charged story, simply because to do otherwise would have resulted in an unpublishable story. And maybe the sublimation was entirely unconscious rather than contrived on Bronte's part - hard to imagine it could be otherwise.
If you watch modern TV and movie adaptations, they allow the sexual content to come to the forefront and the story suddenly makes "sense." But if you read it with the understanding that there's a level that couldn't be addressed in a literal, or maybe even conscious, way, then the novel can also make sense. The characters seem "stupid" because without the sexual motivation, their behavior makes zero sense. They are literally written as though they are sexless children, yet their actions are that of crazed, horny, frustrated adults.
NOW I remember why I thought it was cool: it's like a story about grownups told from a child's perspective, with a child's understanding of the world, and of grownups.
I think it's a marvellous book, but like pretty much everything else it's not for everyone. To each their own.
In the book's defence Heathcliff isn't meant to be a likeable character, but that's a good point if you are a reader that likes to have a main character to like/relate to then it can be very hard to get into Wuthering Heights.
Not a fan. I basically couldn't stand anyone in the book, and I'm one of those readers who likes to have some character they can like. If you're going to try any of the Bronte sisters, Jane Eyre's my pick.
But, unless you're someone who compulsively has to finish everything you begin, why don't you just start it? If you're not liking it and it's grating on you, put it down.
But, unless you're someone who compulsively has to finish everything you begin, why don't you just start it? If you're not liking it and it's grating on you, put it down.
A waste of time imo. I had to read it for school and I ended up tossing the book into my neighbor's pool. Go read Kafka's Das Schloß.
This is a good critique of the original story. In some of the Victorian literature, you could glean a little sense of the sexuality in the stories. At least horror novels later that era like 'Dracula' were a lot more upfront about it. Unfortunately Emily Bronte was never that expressive about it. 'Wuthering Heights' always seemed too disconnected because it could not honestly address what got the characters so stirred up.
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