From the outset I want to be clear. Twelve chapters in I am NOT a fan of this book at all and am currently questioning its place on the the 100BYSRBYD. The reason it has taken me weeks to write a blog post on it is because it has taken weeks for me too get through the first one hundred and eleven pages. I sit down, read a few paragraphs and then I'm seized with an urge to do something else, anything else.
My lovely, long suffering wife has asked me multiple times why I don't just chuck the book and move onto the next one. In response I cite the necessity to report it back to you, dear reader, on the blog. She scoffs affectionately and becomes a bit more resistant to my whining and complaining. Indeed, I have questioned the choice to continue on. More than once I've wanted to use the book as starter for a fire...though I'm not in possession of an actual fire place. I have read worse...(Twilight...ok I can't honestly say I've read the WHOLE thing. Two paragraphs are enough) and I would chuck it but for one thing. I've been told that I'm ten times as entertaining when talking about something I dislike. I used to have a friend who would bate me into topics just to watch me go off. I may have said this before but, if you want to watch someone explode then in person ask me my feelings on Star Wars Episode III. Hopefully blood won't shoot from my eyes the next time I give a dissertation on that topic.
I think it is wholly appropriate that Wuthering Heights is being turned into a high school drama on the Lifetime channel. The drama is pretty much Gossip Girl level so far, but that comparison will be further explained later.
From the first page I had this image of young Emily Bronte watching how successful her older sister was and decided to just give it a go. The scenes where Lockwood, our spy glass into the lives and history of the denizens of Wuthering Heights, narrates are thoroughly intolerable. I was predisposed to liking him at the beginning when he describes himself as a lonely sort who was as much of a grumpy bugger as I can tend to be, but there seem to be two distinct authors at work here. The Lockwood perspective is ridiculously written. Honestly, it's as if Ms. Bronte wrote out the chapter in a normal voice and then took a thesaurus and upgraded all the words to an unnecessary level. I spent the first fifty pages thinking, "These are some pretty awful people" and I have yet to think otherwise.
When Nelly begins to tell the back story of the strange little group of interrelated figures then the verbiage eases up and we are able to relax into the story. Sadly the story of the past is no better than the present. It's a story of terrible people treating other terrible people terribly by doing terrible things.
If I was to compare Emily's work to her elder sister's I would say that Charlotte's is superior. Primarily this is because there is at least a ray of hope in Jane Eyre. In that novel terrible things happen to decent people who remain decent and even treat terrible people decently. There are no redeeming qualities in any of these characters save Nelly who is simply a bystander and storyteller. Earnshaw, Catherine's elder brother, is so abominable and abusive that he thinks nothing to threatening Nelly by forcing a knife between her teeth. Heathcliff is a savage child with no thought for anyone but Catherine. Catherine is the same but a "socially presentable" version and a complete idiot.
Catherine marries their neighbor, Mr. Linton, after Heathcliff has gone away for three years. Heathcliff returns and reinserts himself into Catherine's life. This quite naturally pisses off Linton to the point that he is crying about it and our "heroine" of the novel can't figure out why her husband is acting that way. Linton has been a bit of an idiot himself, doting on Catherine and appeasing her in all things to keep her "happy". It's so bad that when Nelly tells Catherine that she shouldn't test or push Mr. Linton like this she replies, "I have such faith in Linton's love, that I believe I might kill him, and he wouldn't wish to retaliate."
It was at this point that I realized I may not be reading just a book about horrible people...that may just be the point. It took nearly one hundred pages for me to go, "Wait a minute...maybe Emily Bronte is mocking the rich. She might just be pointing out to the rest of the world how horrible these people in estates far away from normal humanity are." If this is so then it doesn't make me love it any more. Unredeemable people being unredeemable doesn't exactly make for a redeemable book. We've seen into their future, miserable around an estate that is falling apart, so from the outset we see that this doesn't end happily.
The moment it gets all Gossip Girl is when Catherine's sister-in-law, Isabella, declares that she is interested in Heathcliff. Heathcliff gets all Charles Bass and smiles at how much damage he could do there. To wit; To marry Isabella which would piss of Catherine who still loves him and in order to get the fortune of Linton which settles one score and meanwhile Isabella is little more than collateral damage. Gossip Girl walked a fine line of glamorizing and viciously criticizing the lifestyles of the rich and famous. As a species we are never so vicious as when the stakes are so small...unfortunately their small stakes were people's emotions and reputations. My complaint with Wuthering Heights is exactly the same as I had with Gossip Girl...what's the point? I get the same feeling from both of those as when I read a graphic novel called Everyone Dies and Nobody Learns Anything. From the glimpse of the inevitable end I really don't see a point. Catherine and Heathcliff are pretty much Ross and Rachel to me. I don't even want to see them together. So wherein cometh the hero? What is the point of the novel? A cautionary tale to not be an egotistical abusive jerk?
I'm truly hoping the novel takes an unexpected turn and delights me, but one third of the way in I can't imagine that it will.
Pax,
W
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