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.
― Chopper Aristotle (Matt DC), Friday, 21 November 2008 00:40 (fifteen years ago) link
the pinefox's hate would make Heathcliff happy.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 21 November 2008 00:41 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― bear of the teddy (harbl), Friday, 21 November 2008 00:44 (fifteen years ago) link
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.
― Alfred, Lord Sotosyn, Friday, 21 November 2008 00:48 (fifteen years ago) link
Literary rip-offs in soap operas/other trash TV - S/D
― Chopper Aristotle (Matt DC), Friday, 21 November 2008 00:54 (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, 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
― 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
― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 18 February 2010 15:56 (fourteen years ago) link
"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.
― Treeship, Sunday, 12 October 2014 21:39 (nine years ago) link
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).
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 31 August 2015 01:48 (nine years ago) link
what a coincidence
― conrad, Monday, 31 August 2015 14:46 (nine years ago) link
No Nelly is also an asshole.
― abcfsk, Monday, 31 August 2015 15:22 (nine years ago) link
Nelly has a nasty side (as you'll see later).
― The burrito of ennui (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Monday, 31 August 2015 15:38 (nine years ago) link
Being the least asshole-ish asshole in Wuthering Heights is kind of an accomplishment tho.
― Suggest Autobahn (Branwell with an N), Monday, 31 August 2015 16:45 (nine years ago) link
I read it for the first time about a year ago (for a grad course) and was surprised at how something that is often cited as one of literature's greatest romances (and the inspiration for such a lovely Kate Bush song) was so full of malice and ugliness and just plain unlikeable characters.
― The New Gay Sadness (cryptosicko), Monday, 31 August 2015 18:26 (nine years ago) link
just like romance in the flesh!
― skateboards are the new combover (Dr Morbius), Monday, 31 August 2015 18:27 (nine 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