Book Review: Wuthering Heights, by Emily Brontë

[inverarity]

One-line summary: Broody McBrooderson starring in Emily Brontë's pioneering work of dysfunctional obsessive lovers may shed some light on why so many chicks dig Snape.

Comments

[ebilgatoloco]

D:

I can't believe you read this! I read like the first couple of pages and then threw the book across the room.

Seriously! I am in awe that you read it all and then WATCHED SEVEN VERSIONS! What the hell?! D:

Lol.

Good for you, I suppose ;)

Personally, I still intend to finish reading the book. I mean...Pride & Prejudice only took me about a year to finish D:

[inverarity]

Pride and Prejudice is actually enjoyable. Wuthering Heights was a slog to get through. I kept hoping someone would kill Heathcliff, but no such luck.

[ebilgatoloco]

You might enjoy this then: http://bookshop.livejournal.com/1010612.html

Just for hte lulz.

[inverarity]

Bwahahaha! That's awesome.

[anonymous]

It's nice to see a viewpoint that recognizes what a horrible person Heathcliff is. Post-Twilight, there seems to be an even bigger push to paint Heathcliff as a romantic hero. Every time somebody admires the "romance" of Wuthering Heights, I want to gag. Many kudos to you for watching seven movies!

[sesqui_pedality]

I had to read Wuthering Heights my junior year of high school. All of my friends were going on about how Heathcliff was *so romantic* and I *hated* him. I also didn't realize Catherine was pregnant until Cathy was born.

If you ever review Jane Eyre, I'd love to hear your take on Rochester, who I also pretty much loathe.

[inverarity]

Really, when I'm not being snarky I can (kind of) see how some girls might like Edward Cullen, who at least was intended to be sexy and romantic by the author, but the idea that anyone could think Heathcliff romantic boggles my mind. Did they not read the book?!?!?

[fpb]

Of course not. Most people don't re-read books they were made to read at school; especially when they made an imperceptive comment such as "Wow, Heathcliff is wicked cool" (having come to about the fourth page) and the teacher slapped them down for imperceptiveness.

I would add to your comments about unreliable narrator types, that Lockwood himself is set up practically from the start as a posturig prat, and that one of the points made by the story is the distance between his bookish Byronizing and the real fury and horror of Heathcliff. Certainly bitter irony is not a minor part of this dreadful romance (I use the word in its literary, not its sentimental meaning) by the angry, atheistic daughter of a brutal churchman; even the conventionally consoling mention of "tranquillity" in the close does nothing but underline how little Lockwood has really understood.

I would take you on on racism and such, but what's the point?

But, seriously...

[fpb]

...the real reason why anyone ever imagines that WH is anything like a love story is the magnificent movie by the same title which you seem to have missed. Made in 1939 - during that astounding four-year period, 1938-42, in which Hollywood produced more outright masterpieces than it probably did in the rest of its whole history - it is a stunning movie, directed by William Wyler and featuring Lawrence Olivier and Merle Oberon, and has about as much to do with the real novel as Hollywood's versions of Captains Courageous and The Jungle Book have with poor Rudyard Kipling. And likely enough more people have seen the film than read the book.

[anonymous]

Suppose someone two hundred years from now reads Twilight and assumes that Stephanie Meyer was actually describing how teenagers acted in the early 21st century?

You mean she wasn't?

-TealTerror

[inverarity]

Hey sport, when someone doesn't like a book that you like, it doesn't mean they failed to see the complexities, it just means that what you liked, they didn't. Feel free to write your own review where you focus on the things that were most interesting and relevant to you.