William M. Sale (1899–1981)

How can I find and put together the suitable words and write a review about one of the most iconic creations in World Literature? One of those books that provoke such intense feelings that either you worship them or you utterly hate them. There is no middle ground. Every year, I revisit Wuthering Heights for two reasons. First, it is one of my personal Christmas traditions and secondly, I prepare extracts to use in class for my intermediate level students. This year, I finally felt confident show more enough to write a text. I will not call it a review, but a summary of what this masterpiece means for me, what I feel each time I gaze upon its title.

I was 12 when my mother made me a special gift. (I have a mother that gave me a book about self-destructive love and a father that gave me Crime and Punishment a year later. I know, they rock!) It was a thick volume with a dark cover. A cover as black as the night scene it depicted. A young couple running in the moors against the wind, and a black, foreboding mansion looming in the background. To this day, that cherished Greek edition of Emily's only novel is the most beautiful I've ever seen. I read it in a single day. I remember it was a windy day, a summer torrent rain that lasted all afternoon. It left me speechless. It shaped me. It shaped my reading preferences, it shaped my love for eerie, dark, doomed, haunting stories with twisted anti-heroes. It even shaped the choice of my profession.

When I was 15, one of the best teachers I've ever had gave us a project. She divided us into groups and asked us to make a presentation of our favourite book. She put me in a group with two classmates. Such kind and charming souls they were but would never open a book if their lives depended on it. I didn't care, I was happy because I'd get to choose the book. We left our teacher crying buckets in the classroom, marking a heroic A on our papers. During the 3rd year in university, we had to complete individual assignments. I'll let you guess the theme and the book I chose. My professor had to interrupt me at some point, kindly but firmly. ''Yes, thank you, Amalia, this is great, but there are others waiting, you know.'' Were they? Anyway, you get the point. My level of obsession with this novel equal Heathcliff's obsession with Cathy.

Emily Brontë's novel may not be for everyone. It doesn't matter. Nothing is for everyone. But, she has created an eternal tale -or nightmare- of a love that is destructive, dark, twisted and stranger than all the other sweet, lovey-dovey stories that have been written. She has created one of the most iconic couples in Literature, she has provided the first and finest example of the Anti-hero in the face of Heathcliff. She has ruined many girls' expectations, because who wouldn't want to be loved as fiercely as Cathy was? (For years, my notion of the ideal man was Ralph Fiennes as Heathcliff in the 1992 film. The best adaptation of the novel, with Juliette Binoche as Cathy) How many writers who have written only one novel can claim to have accomplished all these?

One of the reasons I became a teacher was to have the opportunity to teach this book. It is my greatest satisfaction when I see its impact on my teenage students. They are familiar with the bleak and twisted tales of our times, nothing shocks them anymore. They love it unanimously, it is a rare case where boys and girls love the same book equally. So, mission accomplished.

''I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!'' For me, this book is my soul. It lies there, making the question ''What is your favourite book?'' the easiest ever.

P.S. Please, God, when I die, put me in a sector where I can meet Emily. You can keep Shakespeare, Austin, Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I prefer long talks with a disturbed, fragile, wild girl... show less

Wuthering Heights is often derided as “Chick Lit,” a work that mostly appeals to women and barely a step above dime store romance novels. Nothing could be further from the truth.

I was stunned actually at how deep and dark this book was. Emily Bronte challenges virtually every norm of Victorian England, including gender roles, class, wealth, and decorum. I can really see why it caused such an uproar when it was published.

No character in the book was painted in black or white..they all had show more flaws, they all acted despicably, and they all had redeeming qualities. Within ten pages of the end of the book I was ready to classify the main character, Heathcliff, as an irredeemably evil personage. The last ten pages changed all that.

What a great book….all the more so because I had low expectations of it when I started. I love being surprised! show less

Good grief. I've read this book several times before, at various stage of my life. The first was when i was a young Catholic high school girl. What, in the name of all that is good and holy, were the nuns thinking of in having us read this? It's well-written, I'll give Emily Brontë that, but it is a long, painful saga about humans being cruel to each other. The little boy, Heathcliff, is "rescued" by a foster father who dies and leaves him to be neglected, abused, and shamed by his heir. show more Heathcliff lives up to the expectations we'd have for a child so abused, and grows up to be an abusive, despicable man who carefully plans the destruction of the man who made him miserable and all of that man's decendants. All of this, the novel suggests, is because Heathcliff loved Catherine so deeply and passionately that her loss to him warped his nature. Please. All of these characters are nutty. The men are selfish, manipulative narcissists and the women are, somehow, seduced into falling "in love" with the weakest and most igorant of the lot.

I'm glad I reread it. Won't do so again, because it just makes me upset to think of what life must have been like for the Brontë sisters. show less

So I reread this for the first time since high school. Completely overwrought and melodramatic, of course, but in a good way. I don't think I really appreciated Nelly when I first read it; she is a gem of a character but when you're young and reading for plot you don't notice that as much. (At least I did not.)

I am baffled that anyone thinks any of this mess is romantic, though.