― fritz, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Nick, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Ned Raggett, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― valence, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
But while people go mad, no one starves themselves to death. Really, you need people starving themselves to death to make a rockin' novel.
― Nicole, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Menelaus Darcy, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― maryann, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Don't worry though, Josh. It's been a couple years since I last read it. Right now I'm read Anna Karenina. It seems much healthier so far. It's all about . . . oh.
― sundar subramanian, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Geoff, Monday, 5 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― , Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― Tim, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
― RickyT, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
So which film version is the best to watch? i haven't seen any unfortunately
― Menelaus Darcy, Tuesday, 6 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
Kate didn't think so - she redid the vocals for her greatest hits.
― Nick, Thursday, 8 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-two years ago) link
New opinions, please.
― nabisco, Thursday, 20 November 2008 19:49 (fifteen years ago) link
Seven years later, I still stand by this claim.
― Nicolars (Nicole), Thursday, 20 November 2008 19:55 (fifteen years ago) link
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, 20 November 2008 20:02 (fifteen years ago) link
It's like the Bronte equivalent of a slasher flick!
― nabisco, Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:04 (fifteen years ago) link
What's not to love, right?
― Nicolars (Nicole), Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:06 (fifteen years ago) link
it reminded me of a victoria (virginia? the one who wrote flowers in the attic) andrews novel. grim grim grim.
― i hope you don't pray to jesus with that mouth (Rubyredd), Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:09 (fifteen years ago) link
Twilight?
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:14 (fifteen years ago) link
I reread it every year.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:18 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― emil.y, Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:21 (fifteen years ago) link
Also, I love Lockwood -- he's just so clueless.
― Nicolars (Nicole), Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:22 (fifteen years ago) link
And Linton is kind of like the Ned Flanders of the story.
― Nicolars (Nicole), Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:23 (fifteen years ago) link
^ 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!"
― nabisco, Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:24 (fifteen years ago) link
It's such a hateful novel. Although Heathcliff, Cathy, and Linton speak the language of love, they only know these Euripidean shades of hate.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:25 (fifteen years ago) link
I would pay good money to see that. xp
― Nicolars (Nicole), Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:25 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― emil.y, Thursday, 20 November 2008 20:27 (fifteen years ago) link
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?)
― Vichitravirya_XI, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:02 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― emil.y, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:07 (fifteen years ago) link
Wonderful book, one of my favorites. I haven't read it in a few years, though. I should go back.
― fiscal liberal (kenan), Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:09 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― Vichitravirya_XI, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:15 (fifteen years ago) link
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)
― Vichitravirya_XI, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:19 (fifteen years ago) link
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.")
― nabisco, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:24 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― emil.y, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:25 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:25 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:26 (fifteen years ago) link
http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3100/2632702707_963d63067b_o.jpg
― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:27 (fifteen years ago) link
uh wrong thread
― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:28 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― nabisco, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:29 (fifteen years ago) link
will a mod please move that to the tommy lee jones thread
― cool app (uh oh I'm having a fantasy), Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:30 (fifteen years ago) link
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
― Vichitravirya_XI, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:31 (fifteen years ago) link
You mean Heathcliff doesn't look like Lawrence Olivier?
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:33 (fifteen years ago) link
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!
― Vichitravirya_XI, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:34 (fifteen years ago) link
They call him a gypsy type, yeah. Which is a pretty good example of the kind of inextricable class/race thing I mean.
― nabisco, Thursday, 20 November 2008 21:39 (fifteen years ago) link
maybe if it took place somewhere less windy maybe the people would be slightly less assholish
i read it a few times as a teen but now as an adult, it's like manipulation city
still love it, it's so grim & angsty & black
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 31 August 2015 18:34 (nine years ago) link
great book
masterful nesting of unreliable narrators
― conrad, Monday, 31 August 2015 18:43 (nine years ago) link
It's a Gothic Novel not a 'romance' (in terms of what we have come to think of as meant by that term).
I just love that it is a giant middle finger to the notion that characters in novels have to be "likeable" in order for it to be great fiction.
― Suggest Autobahn (Branwell with an N), Monday, 31 August 2015 19:40 (nine years ago) link
I was genuinely angry when I got to the end of this book around age 14/15. Lol teenagers.
― on entre O.K. on sort K.O. (man alive), Monday, 31 August 2015 19:42 (nine years ago) link
xpost otm
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 31 August 2015 19:49 (nine years ago) link
tbf Yorkshire
― MC Whistler (Noodle Vague), Monday, 31 August 2015 20:08 (nine years ago) link
Whilst working in Bradford I used to pass through Bronte Country every day and it's stark beauty (especially in the winter) was quite a contrast from the infernal Guardhouse estate we were en route to.
― xelab, Monday, 31 August 2015 20:11 (nine years ago) link
I'm baffled every time I see someone argue they didn't like this book because the characters weren't likeable. That's not a reason. But it happens all the time. The book is its own monster, I wouldn't put any genre label on it. When I first read it, after knowing the basic story for years, I was shocked. It was a harrowing read. The 2nd half is so good because that's when it starts to get really unpleasant.
― abcfsk, Monday, 31 August 2015 20:42 (nine years ago) link
the three Brontes specialized in this kind of violence. I push The Tenant of Wildfell Hall on anyone who still thinks Victorian fiction is staid.
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 31 August 2015 21:00 (nine years ago) link
ooh i haven't read that one yet, i should check it out
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 31 August 2015 21:23 (nine years ago) link
xxpost yeah it takes a while to convince ppl that it DOES get awesome, to not quit after the first few chapters
― Flamenco Drop (VegemiteGrrl), Monday, 31 August 2015 21:25 (nine years ago) link
To clarify, I wasn't using "unlikeable" as a criticism against WH; just noting how, for years, my vague understanding of the novel had been as one thing, and how the experience of actually, finally reading it revealed it as something quite different.
I'd second the recommendation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, btw, for anyone who is digging WH and wants something more of the same.
― The New Gay Sadness (cryptosicko), Tuesday, 1 September 2015 00:10 (nine years ago) link
I read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall recently after our Brontë poll, and it is a wonderful, twisted book.
But it's annoying in that it has an actual happy ending!
I know Anne was the kind of sensible killjoy-of-Gothic of the bunch, but that irks.
― Suggest Autobahn (Branwell with an N), Tuesday, 1 September 2015 07:51 (nine years ago) link
Well it has a happy ending because the abusive shithead dies. I think that's ok.
― abcfsk, Tuesday, 1 September 2015 09:43 (nine years ago) link
Does he die because syphilis or just general alcoholism?
I think I may be mixing it up in my head with the movie of The Libertine.
Oh yeah, BTW, SPOILERS.
― Suggest Autobahn (Branwell with an N), Tuesday, 1 September 2015 11:46 (nine years ago) link
Stopped (after Catherine's death) for about 2-3 months, burning through last third now.
All these characters are masochists. Very kinky.
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, 16 December 2015 16:46 (eight years ago) link
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.
― treeship 2, Wednesday, 6 December 2017 06:03 (six years ago) link
to be a psychopath or not to be a psychopath
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 December 2017 06:30 (six years ago) link
you gotta pick
― treeship 2, Wednesday, 6 December 2017 06:30 (six years ago) link
you can be a dickor you can be a total dick
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 December 2017 06:31 (six years ago) link
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.
― treeship 2, Wednesday, 6 December 2017 06:39 (six years ago) link
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.
― treeship 2, Wednesday, 6 December 2017 06:41 (six years ago) link
i agreei 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
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 December 2017 06:48 (six years ago) link
It's also why I find myself irritated by people who want to expunge the second half of the book.
― Matt DC, Wednesday, 6 December 2017 10:20 (six years ago) link
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.
― abcfsk, Wednesday, 6 December 2017 13:48 (six years ago) link
Not a single sympathetic character in the novel. I love it.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 6 December 2017 13:59 (six years ago) link
agree!
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 December 2017 15:09 (six years ago) link
btw I'm a fan of Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall too.
― morning wood truancy (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, 6 December 2017 15:09 (six years ago) link
I love that one too
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Wednesday, 6 December 2017 15:11 (six years ago) link
happy 200th, Em
― a Mets fan who gave up on everything in the mid '80s (Dr Morbius), Tuesday, 31 July 2018 16:54 (six years ago) link
<3
― Squeaky Fromage (VegemiteGrrl), Tuesday, 31 July 2018 19:03 (six years ago) link
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.
― recriminations from the nitpicking woke (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 16:11 (five years ago) link