Wuthering Heights: The Wild and Wanton Edition

For the most part this is Wuthering Heights as Bronte wrote it, but every so often the text changes to bold print and those mark the additions made by Bloom, which can just be a line added to make a character's anger or illness more pronounced or it can be a sexual encounter between Heathcliff and Cathy. Or Cathy and Linton. Or Heathcliff and Isabella. Let's just say that in this version, the tenant, Mr. Lockwood, gets an eyeful.

I read Wuthering Heights maybe 20 years ago and didn't like it for two reasons. First, I had just recently read Jane Eyre and loved it so much that it became my favorite book for many years. I'm sure, in my mind, there was a comparison of the two Bronte sisters, and Charlotte won. Secondly, Heathcliff and Cathy are a couple of immature brats. But reading this has brought a new appreciation for the author. The story has so many well-written characters with their distinct voices and complex layers. How can anyone really like young Linton Heathcliff with his whining and manipulation, but hate him either, as he is put into a hopeless situation? I have to admit that my rating is coming from the original text, as I don't really know how to rate the additions. Sometimes they did nothing to change the story, other additions altered how characters would feel towards each other when the original text resumed. ( )

This was my second reading of Emily Brontë's masterpiece in little more than a month's time but I didn't mind the repetition because I knew it would be substantially different. How? That would be the "wanton" part. Yes, Haworth meets Harlequin - perfect for Valentine's Day, or so I thought.
Wuthering Heights is already such a passionate novel, I didn't think I'd mind a little embellishment here and there. After all, little Hareton, Linton and Cathy were beget in the natural way and we all knew what was occurring between the pages of our beloved classic.
While additions like Catherine and Heathcliff's desperate clutch out on the turbulent moors, or even Hareton's wild pursuit of Cathy in the Heights were entertaining, what I (quickly) grew tired of was Lockwood's incessant masturbation. So if that puts you off - be forewarned. I am convinced dear Em is fairly unquiet in her grave to see the poor man thus represented.
So, it's bawdy, which is nothing new to the British, but it was a bit heavy-handed for me. Back into the cloisters with my virginal original I go. ( )