Emily Bronte - Wuthering Heights: Classic or Dud?

Kate didn't think so - she redid the vocals for her greatest hits.

New opinions, please.

But while people go mad, no one starves themselves to death. Really, you need people starving themselves to death to make a rockin' novel.

Seven years later, I still stand by this claim.

This is the story of a dude so bitter about not getting a girl that he devotes the entire rest of his life to making everyone involved as miserable as possible, even people who weren't born yet and had nothing to do with anything.

It's like the Bronte equivalent of a slasher flick!

What's not to love, right?

it reminded me of a victoria (virginia? the one who wrote flowers in the attic) andrews novel. grim grim grim.

This is the story of a dude so bitter about not getting a girl that he devotes the entire rest of his life to making everyone involved as miserable as possible, even people who weren't born yet and had nothing to do with anything.

Twilight?

I reread it every year.

I've just been made to read this for one of my MA modules. Was expecting to hate it, but I really quite liked it. Mainly because I was expecting the traditional 'oh he's a bit of a bastard but dark and brooding and in love' romance thing, but what you actually get is pages and pages of violent misanthropy with nothing (or very little) to counterbalance them. Which is a bit like life, really.

Also, I love Lockwood -- he's just so clueless.

And Linton is kind of like the Ned Flanders of the story.

^ If I were making a modern dark-comedy film of this, Lockwood would be played by Keanu Reeves, who would sit there the whole time listening to the story and going "Dude. Dude. Whoah, dude!"

It's such a hateful novel. Although Heathcliff, Cathy, and Linton speak the language of love, they only know these Euripidean shades of hate.

I would pay good money to see that. xp

Hindley would be played by Paul Rudd.

I didn't like the ending, though. Too light and fluffy. Should have ended with them all killing each other and Lockwood bumbling in to pay his back-rent and finding a bunch of decomposing bodies with Cathy #1's disinterred head on top. Or something.

i like the score of the 1992 telefilm starring ralph fiennes & juliet binoche

it's pretty cynical for its time, and therefore great. if its misanthropic, its because its author *was* misanthropic, not "romantic," (how are dark, countryside reclusive women really ever romantic?) - a common misconception. kind of explores the "love is madness - thwarted love is dangerous," meme well in its violence....while it's really about the sillyness of the incest taboo (as heathcliff & cathy were raised as brother & sister, right?)

Hm, I highly doubt that. Bear in mind that the cousins are getting it together all the time without anyone batting an eyelid, and H & C are not *really* brother and sister, and in fact are not treated as such after the death of Cathy's father. The taboo involved in their 'love' is more about racism than incest.

Wonderful book, one of my favorites. I haven't read it in a few years, though. I should go back.

well cousins and siblings are quite a different beast, and they may not be "really" brother & sister but they definitely had a v. close sibling-like relationship as they grew up as children. ..

>The taboo involved in their 'love' is more about racism than incest. - really? how...I know Heathcliff is described as "swarthy," but how is he racially different? the classist angle is just TOO obvious for us to talk about, so i like how we're speculating here abt everything else haha

also, cathy's character, no matter how you slice and dice it, was always kind of just as hateful to me as his. maybe his actions can be justified in the "love made him mad, desperate," argument - but you never doubt his intentions for her, which is supposed to redeem him a bit

but she knowingly and openly betrays him - and goes into the marriage with edgar knowing she doesn't love him, and that she's "betraying her soul," etc. that kind of knowing deception always bothered me...

see more proof it's a great novel as we can talk about them as 3rd dimensional real characters, as opposed to, oh, mr. hardy's output (or even some of dickens' creations - "Lucy," i'm looking at you)

Yeah, it's obviously about social class and place in society, although Bronte does kinda compound this with Heathcliff -- he's dark and swarthy, yeah, and I feel like there's something in there about how they suspect he's part Indian or Chinese.

(And I'm pretty sure that's not me having a bad memory -- that's actually them speculating that he's Indian or Chinese; I have some vague memory of laughing at that and thinking "hahaha maybe he's Thai.")

Dude, you need to reread the book, the racism directed towards Heathcliff is all over the place, in no uncertain terms.

I wouldn't have liked the book if the two main characters hadn't BOTH been hateful. Neither are redeemed nor redeemable.

xpost

ee more proof it's a great novel as we can talk about them as 3rd dimensional real characters, as opposed to, oh, mr. hardy's output

haha, here we part company. Tess, Jude, Henchard, and Grace Melbury have the vividness of a daguerrotype, which is what Cathy and Heathcliff are. Bronte and Hardy didn't create 'characters' in the James/Flaubert way.

Yeah, it's obviously about social class and place in society, although Bronte does kinda compound this with Heathcliff -- he's dark and swarthy, yeah, and I feel like there's something in there about how they suspect he's part Indian or Chinese

I never thought about his ancestry much (has Edward Said?). I thought the hatred was more a class issue.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3100/2632702707_963d63067b_o.jpg

uh wrong thread

To be honest, I think trying to separate social class from race/racism in this period we're talking about is a fool's game -- they are the same thing

will a mod please move that to the tommy lee jones thread

why is there racism directed towards Heathcliff when he is in fact, not Thai or whatever? I think Nabisco does have a point though: I vaguely remember the paragraph where they are speculating at his origins, and I think the word "Moor" is used, yes? Or someone dark and swarthy *like* a Moor... or was it gypsy ? lol

...but that still doesn't mean he was anything but Anglo, necessarily. it's definitely more a class thing

You mean Heathcliff doesn't look like Lawrence Olivier?

oh btw, Hweathcliff is v. obviously an archetypal afflicted, obsessive Scorpio male, and Cathy is a shrill, headstrong Aries. Poor Edgar is an effete Libra. Linda Goodman confirmed it!

They call him a gypsy type, yeah. Which is a pretty good example of the kind of inextricable class/race thing I mean.

Ignoring the fact that where Heathcliff is from remains a mystery, and therefore he is neither necessarily 'anglo' or 'non-anglo', racism doesn't have to be accurate. If one is discriminated against because people *think* you are from a different race, is that not still racism?

I'm not denying the class angle here, either, but I think the two parts are working in conjunction to look at the wider social picture. (That was an xpost, nabisco otm.)

are allusions to his race brought up after he's an adult? i don't remember them later in the book - but it's been a long time

Twilight?

― Ned Raggett, Friday, November 21, 2008 7:14 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

now that you've mentioned it, from a recap of the third book:

Edward on Wuthering Heights: "The characters are ghastly people who ruin each others' lives. I don't know how Heathcliff and Cathy ended up being ranked with couples like Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. It isn't a love story, it's a hate story." See, he totally agrees with me. If this is foreshadowing another couple of romaaaaantic suicide attempts, though, I'm going to reach into this e-book and slap both of them.

Bella: "Well, I hope you're smart enough to stay away from someone so selfish. Catherine is really the source of all the trouble, not Heathcliff." This is probably the most self-aware statement in the entire series so far.

Why do you think I revived this?

ha picturing scores of victorian girls promising themselves to heathcliff. no vampire baseball though.

I read this novel in late 2004. I hated it. It's horrible. It was hard to get through it, but I managed it. I hope I never read any of it again.

Utter Dud.

Utter classic, with the caveat that the more hateful the characters become, the better the book is. I don't give a damn what happens to most of the characters in the second half, but since they are supposed to be the objects of the previous generation's anger and resentment, I'm not sure it matters.

It doesn't actually matter where Heathcliff is from.

the pinefox's hate would make Heathcliff happy.

i thought i would hate this book but i read it last year and i thought it was great, so dark. i remember not liking the end though i don't remember what happened in the end so i guess it wasn't that important.

as a side note, the Bunuel adaptation of this as a Mexican soap opera is pretty terrific, and makes hash of William Wyler's version.

Literary rip-offs in soap operas/other trash TV - S/D

This is the story of a dude so bitter about not getting a girl that he devotes the entire rest of his life to making everyone involved as miserable as possible, even people who weren't born yet and had nothing to do with anything.

― nabisco, Thursday, November 20, 2008 12:02 PM

Twilight?

― Ned Raggett, Friday, November 21, 2008 7:14 AM

now that you've mentioned it, from a recap of the third book:

Edward on Wuthering Heights: "The characters are ghastly people who ruin each others' lives. I don't know how Heathcliff and Cathy ended up being ranked with couples like Romeo and Juliet or Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy. It isn't a love story, it's a hate story." See, he totally agrees with me. If this is foreshadowing another couple of romaaaaantic suicide attempts, though, I'm going to reach into this e-book and slap both of them.

Bella: "Well, I hope you're smart enough to stay away from someone so selfish. Catherine is really the source of all the trouble, not Heathcliff." This is probably the most self-aware statement in the entire series so far.

― Disco/Very (Roz), Thursday, November 20, 2008 3:37 PM

Why do you think I revived this?

― nabisco, Thursday, November 20, 2008 3:50 PM

Spot on, all of us:

New 'Wuthering Heights' Gets 'Twilight'ed

"I'd not exchange, for a thousand lives, my condition here for Edgar Linton's at Thrushcross Grange -- not if I might have the privilege of flinging Joseph off the highest gable, and painting the housefront with Hindley's blood."
"Hush, hush!" I interrupted.

i'm about 40 pages in, and it's rather bracing how everyone's kind of an asshole (except the woman servant telling the story to the narrator).

what a coincidence

No Nelly is also an asshole.

this is a great book. it should be given to every young person who believes it is a smart or mature idea to hold onto their dreams. they could then decide whether the perverse integrity of heathcliff is really what they want for themselves.

to be a psychopath or not to be a psychopath

you gotta pick

you can be a dick

or

you can be a total dick

i mean, i think part of the idea of the character is that he instantiates the most dangerous element of Romanticism, that is, he abhors compromise. like other writers of her generation bronte was, i guess, attracted to this idea, but she was astute enough to see that it was also completely incompatible with any sort of decency or morality. in then end heathcliff is not a hero or even an antihero: he is a monster.

i don't really buy the critique that the book excuses or rationalizes heathcliff's behavior. the all consuming, self-destructive love he and cathy have for each other is definitely rendered in all its power, but once cathy dies heathcliff's lingering obsession leads him to become a cruel, sordid, and ugly character.

i agree

i think the point is to lead you into believing at first that he is romantic but then pulls the rug out when you realize it’s a cul de sac of blind rage & destructive obsession

also reading it at different ages changed my impression over the years. i first read it as a teen

It's also why I find myself irritated by people who want to expunge the second half of the book.

Not rationalizing his behaviour, but obviously he's exposed to harassment, racism, bullying of all kinds growing up, and both he and Cathy react violently to being told they have to stay in their place in the world, Cathy making a not completely successful choice to suppress that anger, Heathcliff letting it run rampant. He's not a sympathetic character in the end, or a guy you want a heroic end for, but obviously there's a look at society too - not just the literary Romantic hero.

Not a single sympathetic character in the novel. I love it.

agree!

btw I'm a fan of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall too.

I love that one too

happy 200th, Em

<3

I'm rereading Wuthering Heights. I can't think of another English Victorian novelist whose prose was as spare as EB's.

I keep forgetting how intense the violence – emotional and physical – is in this novel: Catherine bashing her head against the arm of a chair, Heathcliff calling Isabella a slut, etc.