I'm in a strange mental space upon finishing this book, so forgive me if that is reflected in this blog. I had intended to give a fiery denouncement of this book, and I still may, but it is less likely now. It's rather like attending a funeral of someone who had done you ill in the past. Death puts this weird perspective on things. Even the prospect of someone dying makes so much forgivable and we see that person in a rosier light than we did when they were healthy and seemed to have all the time in the world.
Given that, I think it would be best to section this post on Wuthering Heights into certain themes.
The End
The final third of the novel was actually more interesting than the rest of the novel. Cathy's father died and Heathcliff forced her to live under his roof and began to torture her especially after Linton died leaving everything to him rather than her...which of course was the plan all along.
There's this very subtle shift that occurs after Linton dies and Heathcliff wins. It's so subtle that I almost wonder if I'm making it up. There are moments and beats, shades of ways Heathcliff says things that seem to show that deep down he realizes how very hollow his victory is. He's fought, railed, abused, and tormented everyone his entire life. Now that everyone he could have been victorious against is dead and he's "won" there's nothing left. His life's actually without any sort of meaning. Certainly he continues to abuse Cathy and Hareton, but there are moments where he stops himself in the middle because he sees the dead looking right back at him through the eyes of the children. He's won...and nobody could care less. Indeed, the children have gotten to the point where they are just waiting him out. They don't say as much, but it's clear they can see an end to their torture, and so are less fearful of him.
Cathy's situation is particularly interesting to me. Here she was an intelligent and empathetic creature always trying to do right even if she got confused by romance, and once under Heathcliff's thumb she began to shift into this terrible creature. She causes discord for fun, delights in mocking Hareton for bettering himself by learning to read, and is generally spiteful to all. Here we go again, I thought, the apple isn't falling far from the tree. I was genuinely surprised to find what resistance there was in both of their hearts to this darkening. There were a few genuinely hopeful moments in the last third that indicated that these children (well, I say children but they were 23 and 18 years of age) would not make the same mistakes as their parents.
Heathcliff tells her that he will torment her as payment for living under her roof. She boldly looks at him with the eyes of her namesake and says "Mr. Heathcliff, you have nobody to love you; and however miserable you makes us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You are miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? Nobody loves you - nobody will cry for you when you die! I wouldn't be you!"
Right next to that piece is my notation in black ink, "Daaaang, sister!"
Later Hareton and Cathy start to fall in love when both realize their toxic ways are less than beneficial and apologize to each other. They begin to show kindness and tenderness in a house of abuse and naturally they are drawn to it. They decide to make a little flower garden to please each other. Unfortunately Hareton digs up the wrong bushes. They explain and Heathcliff turns on Cathy.
'"And who the devil gave you leave to touch a stick about the place?...And who ordered you to obey her?" he added, turning to Hareton.
The Latter was speechless; his cousin replied - "You shouldn't grudge a few yards of earth for me to ornaments, when you have taken all my land!" (Oh, snap!)
"Your land, insolent slut! You never had any," said Heathcliff.'
He goes to hit her, Hareton stands by her side and he pales. It's as if they're saying, "We're just waiting you out old man. You won't be able to torment us forever".
For Earnshaw, Catherine, Edgar, Isabella, and even Linton, to a lesser degree, Heathcliff was something they had to endure in one form or another for the rest of their lives. His obsession and abuse shaped them and there was little hope of a reprieve. For the kids, they can swallow it down and not be permanently shaped by it. With Linton dead, he realizes, he leaves nothing of his own behind. Neither of the titles or lands were ever truly his. He was a foundling replacement in the stead of a child who died at birth.
Any remorse he may have had fades quickly at the prospect of being reunited in death with Catherine...which was pretty weak in my estimation.
The book does end happily and I was quite pleased with the ending, but it is not even remotely a book I would read through again just for that ending. I'll but the book on my "100 Books" bookcase and it will travel with me wherever I go, but it will never be opened again. It's too infuriating and it's main characters too vile. Most of my favorite books I return to in order to welcome my "friends" with open arms. This book I'd only be capable of returning to with a clenched fist.
Love and Obsession/Passion
Much is made of the "Love Story" supposedly found within these pages. I've looked at so many reviews that say "Oh, how I wish I had a man who loved me like Heathcliff" and I can't help but wonder what they mean by that. He was abusive to every woman in his life including Catherine and terrible in general to every one else. If you want a man to beat you about the face and neck, threaten your relatives, and attempt to murder your pets then I'm pretty sure that your average psych ward could grant you some prospects.
Now, naturally, no one wants those terrible things. So, what could they possibly mean by that?
To my mind what they are saying is that they want someone who feels strongly, passionately, about them, and I get that. I know so many people who say, "Man, if the fireworks aren't there then there's no point at all." The problem with that is that fireworks inevitably fade. They HAVE to. The proverbial "fireworks" are nothing more than chemicals in the brain. "Love" shoots us up with a crazy cocktail of hormones that are not unlike a drug. It is AMAZING to feel that way for weeks or even months. We easily become addicted to it. Just like any drug our bodies necessarily acclimate to it and need more in order to just feel buzzed. Instead of taking more hits we escalate situations in order to get the high. This leads to fighting, and abuse. As someone who was once the victim in an abusive relationship I can tell you that this happened to me and I stayed. Why? The mental and physical abuse was hell, but the makeup time was just the dose I needed to get high. One of my friends at the time described it perfectly. He said, "Imagine being in a cold, black box. You're in there for weeks at a time and then she opens the lid letting in the warm sunshine. You hope she'll take you out of the box, and she swears she will. You believe it every time because it feels so good." When you are addicted to passion you make the other person your "dealer" and you'll bow to nearly any whim for another high.
What Heathcliff and Catherine have is not love in any way shape or form. It can be loosely described as "passion". It is a wind storm devastating everything in its path leading to nothing in the end. There's nothing tangible or real about their "love". It's abusive to one another and everyone around them.
The real tragedy is that Catherine had love and didn't want it. Edgar Linton treated Catherine with dignity, respect, and doted on her in every way he could. Even to the end he was at her bedside refusing to leave or even sleep. It wasn't loud, it wasn't exciting, but it was healthy, wholesome and, if she had let it, it would have nurtured her. Genuine love is recognized not by how it feels but, rather, by what it does. Passion will get you high, but love will sustain you when you are in the depths. The fireworks do not last, and I thank God that they don't. When you're high on endorphins you can be the blindest you've ever been. You'll drink poison and swear it tastes like champagne. When the passion fades you can see things rightly. You can see what the two of you need to work on and how best to be each other's helpmate. Getting high on passion is always self centered and genuine love is other centered. Without some sort of morality healthy love cannot exist. It's merely passionate, self centered obsession.
Why, Emily? Why?
I've scanned a few articles on the net as to why Emily Bronte wrote Wuthering Heights and have discovered that there is nothing on the subject directly from Emily or any of her sisters. We are left with, as I declared in the first place, a terrible story about terrible people who do terrible things to each other. Now I am compelled to add, "with a little hope at the end."
I do not believe that Emily Bronte wrote this book in order to celebrate this abusive "love". It's much in the same way that Trainspotting was not, as many moral people believed and declared loudly, a book/movie that glorifies heroine usage. Seriously, all you have to do is watch the first fifteen minutes of the movie to get that it's about the horrors of heroine usage.
All we need do is to look at who the "hero" of the book actually is; Nelly. She is our perspective through 90% of the novel (the other 10% being made up of the unnecessary Mr. Lockwood). Nelly endures the sufferings, celebrates the joys, and accurately predicts the demise of every character. She's the only one throughout who cares about the others. She's the only one who holds any hope of redemption for anyone. Even Heathcliff she calls a Goblin or a Devil from the moment she sees him as a child and still keeps hoping she can nudge him into some sort of morality.
Charlotte Bronte, in speaking of the novel after it was published...sadly after the death of Emily, stated that it was the most accurate portrayal of life in those obscure manors that were such a distance from town. Isolation from the rest of the "herd" produces these strange abuses and odd behaviors.
Once I realized that it is a critique of such people and life then it became infinitely more tolerable. Still...not tolerable enough to read again. How this book is on the top 100 of all time is still a mystery to me, but then again so is Phillip Pullman's His Dark Materials.
Thank you one and all for sticking through this lengthy process of reviewing this book. I appreciate how frustrating it must have been to wait so long between posts, but I just couldn't handle it all at once as I normally try to do them.
Next is George Orwell's 1984 which I expect will be a read that delights me. Sadly, I will only be able to get a copy sometime after the first of next month. Until then I'll be reading classic sci-fi magazines from the 60's in order to recover from this 100 Brontes on the Austen/Bronte scale...which only goes up to 10.
Pax,
W
Showing posts with label Heathcliff. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Heathcliff. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 20, 2015
Wednesday, May 13, 2015
A Case To Be Made (Wuthering Heights Ch 11-21)
Gentle ladies and, to a lesser extent, gentlemen of the jury, if you will indulge me, I would like to present my case.
There have been many love stories written over the eight millenia or so since human beings invented written language. From those first chicken scratch cuneiform syllables to the garish modern implementation of Comic Sans and even upon entering into the all forgiving, healing light of Helvetica there has been much debate on the subject of what does and does not constitute a love story. Certainly it can take many forms.
Some would have us believe that for a tale to truly be a love story it must end happily. Romeo and Juliet, arguably the greatest of all love stories, would then be out of the running entirely. Indeed, the modern romantic classic Possession by A. S. Byatt would only count because the modern couple gets together though the past couple does not.
I submit to you that for a love story to truly be that in name, it must actually show the protagonist couple in love and doing loving things to and for each other. At it's very base element this must be present.
I further submit, therefore, that Wuthering Heights is the furthest thing from a love story since Machiavelli's The Prince or perhaps Mein Kampf. I don't use these comparisons lightly at all. When we look at Wuthering Heights what do we see between Catherine and Heathcliff? Only passion; animalistic and self serving passion. I do believe that I could excuse the novel as merely a tawdry little work if it was just animalistic passion. Tawdry but not nearly a love story.
Seriously, though, what am I supposed to think about this Heathcliff? A brute from the moment we meet him, cast into a family of brutes and selfish prigs, who has a certain amount of passion for a beautiful, sniping, selfish, conniving...wench. All he knows is beating people into submission and all she knows is manipulating people for her own uses. Why am I supposed to cheer for this couple? At all?
I last left these people with Heathcliff having returned to find Catherine married Linton, who is now one of two people who actually seem virtuous. It seems that Linton actually loves Catherine though her standards of "passion" are clearly not met in that relationship. She teases and taunts Heathcliff with the marriage and disrespects her new husband in many respects by allowing/demanding that Heathcliff be allowed to visit whenever he likes.
Heathcliff reveals his plan to destroy Earnshaw through the son he neglects, Hareton, and then gets the bright idea to revenge himself on Linton, for marrying Catherine, by taking up with his little sister, Isabella. Catherine correctly sees what Heathcliff is up to and says, not considering for a second that the same might be said of her, "Your bliss, like his (Satan's), lies in inflicting misery." The husband overhears all, steps in, Heathcliff threatens to beat him, she says it's all his (Linton's) fault and how dare he accuse Heathcliff of being horrible...Seriously. She declares "If Edgar will be mean and jealous then I will break their hearts by breaking my own." Yes...she's intentionally going to pitch fits because her husband won't allow her to see a man who is passionately in love with her and has threatened to beat her husband bloody. And this is love? She spends the next few chapters being not so much a Drama Queen as a freaking Drama Empress. She claims she'll kill herself and it's only out of selfishness that Linton wants her around.
It's about this time that Heathcliff comes around, scoops up Isabella to elope and, as any lover would do, hangs a dog by the neck so that it should die. It would be belong to his new wife, Isabella.
When news reaches Catherine then she predictable falls into a brain fever.
This section is where I pretty much lose it. Before, at Wuthering Heights, it was terrible people doing terrible things to other terrible people. Now they are leaving a trail of broken hearts and damaged psyches in their wake because they insist on involving decent people. Linton attends to Catherine and dotes on her before, during, and after the illness. Sure, he's not the most passionate guy, I mean her prefers books to strangling puppies to death, but he cares. Isabella warmly invited Catherine into their lives and she ends up repaid with abuse, physical and mental.
Isabella writes a letter to Nelly and asks if Heathcliffe is a man. If not is he insane or a devil? Seriously, honey, if you have to ask...you're in deep Bantha poodoo. Upon Nelly pressing Heathcliff for an explanation he declares it was all Isabella's fault. Hanging up her dog, beating her, no brutality had any effect on her so he continued to be brutal.
Gosh, he's dreamy.
Catherine takes ill even more. Apparently her fake tantrums took their toll especially in light of her pregnancy (surprise) and near to giving birth Heathcliff gets wind of her illness and stands outside the house, hidden. He's lurking, waiting until the husband isn't home and the door is accidentally left unlocked. (So freaking gallant and not at all creepy!)
"Oh, Cathy! Oh, My life! how can I bear it?" he says upon forcing his way in.
"'What now?' said Catherine, leaning back and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: Her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices. 'You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied...(ain't she a gem?) You have killed me-and thriven on it, I think....How many years do you mean to live after I'm gone?'"
Chapter sixteen begins with the fact of Catherine's death in childbirth...to which I could only manage to say, "Then why is there so much freaking book left?!?!".
Loving, chivalrous Heathcliff responds as anyone would expect a caring individual who just lost the love of his life would.
"May she wake in torment!...Why she's a liar to the end!...haunt me...only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you!" Yeah, cause you treated each other so well when she was alive. I mean, she must be in hell not being abused by you or be able to watch you tormenting her sister in law with a freaking KNIFE shoved between her teeth (actually happened). She must be missing you something fierce.
As ever Nelly has the right of it when she says, "Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies."
We fast forward...Isabella escapes Heathcliff and Earnshaw to London, pregnant but more than happy to make it on her own than around those two. She gives birth and names the child Linton, hoping that will disuade Heathcliff who only declares, as a good father would, "When I want it, I will have it." Edgar Linton has named his child Catherine, after her mother, and sixteen years pass. During that time Earnshaw died leaving Heathcliff with Hareton. Isabella dies and Edgar goes off to fulfill his sister's wish of having Linton live with him. Heathcliff objects and the poor, sickly child is brought into his care. And why would he want him? One simple reason; to have the ultimate in pathetic revenges; Linton to marry Cathy and then when Linton dies, because of the language of the law, Heathcliff would rule over both estates. Of course he can't help but encourage Hareton to try for Cathy and thereby cause even more discord. It's not enough to play with and ruin the lives of adults, but now he has to destroy the lives of children.
The worst part of it all? There is still one hundred pages to go, and we already know how this ends because the beginning is the end; Heathcliff abusing both Hareton and Cathy around a fire.
I could spill all of my feelings about this book, what all it's taught me, and that sort of thing, but I think it's best left for the final entry.
I will say, however, that I got on multiple sites and read reviews for this book by many people. The one thing that amazed me was how many people think that this is such a good love story, and how amazing Heathcliff is. Seriously?
Renee commented on my last post about how there's a sort of Heathcliff arc in fiction. Edward Cullen, Four, Christian Gray and all these guys who are dark, brooding, abusive types are so lapped up by readers as so dreamy. I'd even go so far as to put Lestat in that category. I guess it's likely human nature on some level. When I was in high school who did all the girls want? That guy who was no good for them at ALL...but gosh they want them. They give their bodies and their lives to them and then when they are used up, abandoned with kids, past their "prime" they wonder where all the good guys are.
Now the interesting question, of course, is what would Charlotte Bronte think of her sister's work and does Rochester apply as the dark, brooding, abusive type?
I'll leave that to your gentle hands, dear jury, to type out into the comments below. :)
Pax,
W
There have been many love stories written over the eight millenia or so since human beings invented written language. From those first chicken scratch cuneiform syllables to the garish modern implementation of Comic Sans and even upon entering into the all forgiving, healing light of Helvetica there has been much debate on the subject of what does and does not constitute a love story. Certainly it can take many forms.
Some would have us believe that for a tale to truly be a love story it must end happily. Romeo and Juliet, arguably the greatest of all love stories, would then be out of the running entirely. Indeed, the modern romantic classic Possession by A. S. Byatt would only count because the modern couple gets together though the past couple does not.
I submit to you that for a love story to truly be that in name, it must actually show the protagonist couple in love and doing loving things to and for each other. At it's very base element this must be present.
I further submit, therefore, that Wuthering Heights is the furthest thing from a love story since Machiavelli's The Prince or perhaps Mein Kampf. I don't use these comparisons lightly at all. When we look at Wuthering Heights what do we see between Catherine and Heathcliff? Only passion; animalistic and self serving passion. I do believe that I could excuse the novel as merely a tawdry little work if it was just animalistic passion. Tawdry but not nearly a love story.
Seriously, though, what am I supposed to think about this Heathcliff? A brute from the moment we meet him, cast into a family of brutes and selfish prigs, who has a certain amount of passion for a beautiful, sniping, selfish, conniving...wench. All he knows is beating people into submission and all she knows is manipulating people for her own uses. Why am I supposed to cheer for this couple? At all?
I last left these people with Heathcliff having returned to find Catherine married Linton, who is now one of two people who actually seem virtuous. It seems that Linton actually loves Catherine though her standards of "passion" are clearly not met in that relationship. She teases and taunts Heathcliff with the marriage and disrespects her new husband in many respects by allowing/demanding that Heathcliff be allowed to visit whenever he likes.
Heathcliff reveals his plan to destroy Earnshaw through the son he neglects, Hareton, and then gets the bright idea to revenge himself on Linton, for marrying Catherine, by taking up with his little sister, Isabella. Catherine correctly sees what Heathcliff is up to and says, not considering for a second that the same might be said of her, "Your bliss, like his (Satan's), lies in inflicting misery." The husband overhears all, steps in, Heathcliff threatens to beat him, she says it's all his (Linton's) fault and how dare he accuse Heathcliff of being horrible...Seriously. She declares "If Edgar will be mean and jealous then I will break their hearts by breaking my own." Yes...she's intentionally going to pitch fits because her husband won't allow her to see a man who is passionately in love with her and has threatened to beat her husband bloody. And this is love? She spends the next few chapters being not so much a Drama Queen as a freaking Drama Empress. She claims she'll kill herself and it's only out of selfishness that Linton wants her around.
It's about this time that Heathcliff comes around, scoops up Isabella to elope and, as any lover would do, hangs a dog by the neck so that it should die. It would be belong to his new wife, Isabella.
When news reaches Catherine then she predictable falls into a brain fever.
This section is where I pretty much lose it. Before, at Wuthering Heights, it was terrible people doing terrible things to other terrible people. Now they are leaving a trail of broken hearts and damaged psyches in their wake because they insist on involving decent people. Linton attends to Catherine and dotes on her before, during, and after the illness. Sure, he's not the most passionate guy, I mean her prefers books to strangling puppies to death, but he cares. Isabella warmly invited Catherine into their lives and she ends up repaid with abuse, physical and mental.
Isabella writes a letter to Nelly and asks if Heathcliffe is a man. If not is he insane or a devil? Seriously, honey, if you have to ask...you're in deep Bantha poodoo. Upon Nelly pressing Heathcliff for an explanation he declares it was all Isabella's fault. Hanging up her dog, beating her, no brutality had any effect on her so he continued to be brutal.
Gosh, he's dreamy.
Catherine takes ill even more. Apparently her fake tantrums took their toll especially in light of her pregnancy (surprise) and near to giving birth Heathcliff gets wind of her illness and stands outside the house, hidden. He's lurking, waiting until the husband isn't home and the door is accidentally left unlocked. (So freaking gallant and not at all creepy!)
"Oh, Cathy! Oh, My life! how can I bear it?" he says upon forcing his way in.
"'What now?' said Catherine, leaning back and returning his look with a suddenly clouded brow: Her humour was a mere vane for constantly varying caprices. 'You and Edgar have broken my heart, Heathcliff! And you both come to bewail the deed to me, as if you were the people to be pitied...(ain't she a gem?) You have killed me-and thriven on it, I think....How many years do you mean to live after I'm gone?'"
Chapter sixteen begins with the fact of Catherine's death in childbirth...to which I could only manage to say, "Then why is there so much freaking book left?!?!".
Loving, chivalrous Heathcliff responds as anyone would expect a caring individual who just lost the love of his life would.
"May she wake in torment!...Why she's a liar to the end!...haunt me...only do not leave me in this abyss where I cannot find you!" Yeah, cause you treated each other so well when she was alive. I mean, she must be in hell not being abused by you or be able to watch you tormenting her sister in law with a freaking KNIFE shoved between her teeth (actually happened). She must be missing you something fierce.
As ever Nelly has the right of it when she says, "Treachery and violence are spears pointed at both ends; they wound those who resort to them worse than their enemies."
We fast forward...Isabella escapes Heathcliff and Earnshaw to London, pregnant but more than happy to make it on her own than around those two. She gives birth and names the child Linton, hoping that will disuade Heathcliff who only declares, as a good father would, "When I want it, I will have it." Edgar Linton has named his child Catherine, after her mother, and sixteen years pass. During that time Earnshaw died leaving Heathcliff with Hareton. Isabella dies and Edgar goes off to fulfill his sister's wish of having Linton live with him. Heathcliff objects and the poor, sickly child is brought into his care. And why would he want him? One simple reason; to have the ultimate in pathetic revenges; Linton to marry Cathy and then when Linton dies, because of the language of the law, Heathcliff would rule over both estates. Of course he can't help but encourage Hareton to try for Cathy and thereby cause even more discord. It's not enough to play with and ruin the lives of adults, but now he has to destroy the lives of children.
The worst part of it all? There is still one hundred pages to go, and we already know how this ends because the beginning is the end; Heathcliff abusing both Hareton and Cathy around a fire.
I could spill all of my feelings about this book, what all it's taught me, and that sort of thing, but I think it's best left for the final entry.
I will say, however, that I got on multiple sites and read reviews for this book by many people. The one thing that amazed me was how many people think that this is such a good love story, and how amazing Heathcliff is. Seriously?
Renee commented on my last post about how there's a sort of Heathcliff arc in fiction. Edward Cullen, Four, Christian Gray and all these guys who are dark, brooding, abusive types are so lapped up by readers as so dreamy. I'd even go so far as to put Lestat in that category. I guess it's likely human nature on some level. When I was in high school who did all the girls want? That guy who was no good for them at ALL...but gosh they want them. They give their bodies and their lives to them and then when they are used up, abandoned with kids, past their "prime" they wonder where all the good guys are.
Now the interesting question, of course, is what would Charlotte Bronte think of her sister's work and does Rochester apply as the dark, brooding, abusive type?
I'll leave that to your gentle hands, dear jury, to type out into the comments below. :)
Pax,
W
Wednesday, April 8, 2015
Terrible People (Wuthering Heights Ch 1-10)
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
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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