Wuthering Heights

The drama in this book! The sheer amount of stupid and petty choices people make! And the fact it's all told through the POV of a maid who is totally not gossiping.
I feel like if I set out with the idea of taking this book seriously, I would be pretty mad. As it stands, I wasn't expecting it to be a book where people make good choices. I had a good time seeing the sheer depths of depravity Heathcliff could reach, and how selfish Cathy could be. It shows, in a quite over the top example, how classism (and racism) can destroy perfectly good people.
Now, I think one reason for my high rating was the narration by Billie Fulford-Brown, which was exceptional. If you are going to read the audiobook, I definitely recommend this edition. If I'd show more been reading it on paper, my rating might be different. show less

At the back of my copy of 'Wuthering' Heights, above the blurb, it is described as "One of the greatest love stories ever told." On the front cover is a giant white flower (or lily... I, er, don't really know much about flowers) floating down a dark, shadowy staircase, and the tagline "Love Never Dies..." I went into this book expecting the 1800s equivalent of a supernatural romance, something akin to a dark, tragic, melodramatic 'Pride and Prejudice' meets the movie 'Ghost'. I can't say I was disappointed with what I actually ended up reading, but I would hesitate to even call this a love story, let alone "one of the greatest love stories ever told."

If so, is whose love story is it? Catherine and Heathcliff's? Catherine and Edgar's? show more Cathy and Linton's? Cathy and Hareton's? The back cover blurb suggests it is intended to be that of Catherine and Heathcliff, in a tragic 'Romeo and Juliet'-esque star-crossed-lovers fashion. And sure, their doomed romance does drive the first third or so of the book, and is the catalyst for many events to follow, but when A) one half of that unrequited union is a truly awful human being and B) there are several other examples of genuinely sweet, healthy romantic entanglements, one can't help thinking that Cathy was quite lucky to have never ended up with her psychopathic crush, and that Heathcliff deserved every inch of the shitty hand he was dealt.

This isn't a criticism of the book itself, simply the odd reputation it seems to have gathered in the century and a half since it was published. This is no more of a romance than your average episode of Law & Order: SVU is a romance (I'm using the modern connotation of "romance" here, I will add), and that isn't actually a bad thing: Emily Brontë's story is considerably more interesting than a straight love story would have been. 'Wuthering Heights' is, at it's heart, a tale of jealousy and vengeance and hated, and the damage it wrecks on a person's psyche and on everyone around them, and while love, particularly of the unrequited variety, is a significant element of the story, this is not a love story.

Likewise, I dispute any interpretation of Heathcliff as a "tortured hero", even a "byronic anti-hero", as Wikipedia describes him . He is the villian of the story, pure and simple. As a child and teenager, certainly, he seems a fundamentally good if deeply troubled person, and it's easy to sympathize with him and his poor treatment by Hindley Earnshaw, and to understand his desire for vengeance. By the time he has reached adulthood, and especially once Cathy dies, Heathcliff has become a complete psychopath. He shows shreds of humanity here and there, even a few signs of remorse for his increasingly horrible actions, but he is still, unambiguously, the bad guy of this story, one who takes out his grudges against Hindley and Edgar Linton (the former grudge is completely justified, the latter less so - Edgar seems like a altogether decent guy who made the mistake of marrying Heathcliff's woman) on a succession of entirely innocent individuals, including the daughter of the woman he loved and his own son! Early on in the book, I rooted for Heathcliff and wanted to see him get one over arrogant snobs like Hindley. By the halfway point, I pitied poor, mad Hindley and his truly unlucky son Hareton, and had grown to loathe Heathcliff. By the end, I just wanted to see Nelly violently murder the awful sociopath.

For a book written over 150 years ago, 'Wuthering Heights' is surprisingly readable tome, the one exception being the incomprehensible babbling of the servant Joseph, whose impenetrable accent (written phonetically, like a blind-drunk Hagrid with a speech impediment) I initially attempted to decipher, and soon learnt to just skip entirely. Otherwise, this a compelling, often heart-breaking piece of 19th century fiction that is still powerful so many decades later. And while this is generally a depressing and tragic story, it ends on a lighter and happier note which is genuinely affecting after so much suffering.

Unrequited love sucks. I've certainly experienced that particular variety of misery. I assume that most people have at one point in their lives or another. Most of us have managed to avoid carrying out multi-generational roaring rampages of revenge on everyone remotely connected to said lost love. This again is not in any way a criticism of Brontë's writing or characterisation, rather the subsequent interpretation of Heathcliff as some form of tragic anti-hero and the male half of "one of the greatest love stories ever told." He's the truly hateable antagonist of a grim, sad, gothic melodrama and 'Wuthering Heights' is all the better for it. show less

I anticipated an insipid romance: it was that, but not for reasons expected. Rather than mawkish and treacly behaviour, Heathcliff & Catherine display a wholly unexpected level of obsession (devotion?) to one another, contrary to any evidence of tender feeling or even physical attraction. Not only are they not doe-eyed in their expressions or interactions, each instead appears manic and possessive, verging on feral, and I am mystified as to what either sees in or feels for the other.

Beyond that central mystery, this is a bat-shit crazy novel. Perennial criticisms of genre fiction (which typically I consider unfair generalizations) legitimately apply here: the plot is preposterous; most everyone is cynical if not sadistic in behavior to show more one another; coincidence triumphs over reasonable expectation at every turn. How Brontë's novel came to be regarded as a Classic is frankly dumbfounding. How it came to be shorthand for Gothic Romance, is equally mystifying. Perhaps Heathcliff's & Catherine's obsessive devotion in the face of (what they apparently perceive to be) universal approbation by their peers and elders underwrites so many readers' love for these two. It only left me cold.

I do have some faint curiosity regarding Brontë's motives for writing the novel. Was this a cautionary tale? If so, whom did she expect to reach? The story involves mean-spirited people behaving selfishly at every turn with scarcely an empathetic character to be found. And then, Brontë chose to relay the story in perhaps the most convoluted way possible, as though recounting a soap opera family drama from the vantage of the mail carrier, and chronologically backward. (I freely acknowledge the "mail carrier", Lockwood, to be an hysterical character study worth the price of admission. To be accurate, however, he is merely the secretary, taking dictation from Nelly Deal, the house gossip who recounts him the tale over her knitting.)

It occurs to me my reaction here is similar to what I've read others describe in reference to The Catcher In The Rye. I find Holden Caulfield infinitely more sympathetic and relatable.

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Reading presented an excuse to re-acquaint myself with the Kate Bush single: was the song perhaps critical of the couple? No, not a bit. Kate was 18, and apparently genuinely impressed with Heathcliff and Cathy. The vignette she captures in the lyric is the best part of the novel, and ignores the swaths I find so exasperating. Oh well, a good tune, but I found it wholly disconnected from my experience of the book. show less

The opening of Wuthering Heights is unnecessarily confusing. The reader is dropped into a household with little context, where multiple characters share names across generations, and relationships are unclear. It takes time to sort out who is who—Catherine, Cathy, Heathcliff, Hareton, Linton—and until that clicks, the narrative feels disorienting rather than intriguing.

Once the structure becomes clear, however, a different issue emerges: this is often described as a love story, but it reads far more convincingly as a story of obsession rooted in petty injustices and emotional immaturity.

Catherine and Heathcliff are not tragic lovers in any meaningful sense. They are bound by fixation, pride, and an inability to grow. Catherine is show more vain, self-absorbed, and deeply immature—driven more by how she is perceived than by any stable sense of self. Her decisions are not tragic inevitabilities but the result of her own contradictions and emotional volatility.

Heathcliff, in turn, takes grievance and transforms it into a lifelong vendetta. His actions go far beyond revenge into sustained cruelty. The way he treats his descendants reflects not depth of feeling, but an obsessive need for control. His suffering does not ennoble him; it calcifies him.

The second generation is often interpreted as a form of resolution or redemption, but that reading relies heavily on Nelly Dean’s account. Nelly is not a neutral narrator. She is deeply invested in the outcomes of the younger generation, and her framing raises questions about reliability. If Cathy is truly “better” than Catherine, it is largely because we are told so—not because the text convincingly demonstrates meaningful change. There is reason to suspect that Nelly’s perspective is shaped by a need to justify her own role in how both generations were raised.

Rather than a story of love or redemption, Wuthering Heights reads as a study in arrested development, inherited damage, and the consequences of emotional immaturity left unchecked. The structure reinforces this: the past dominates the present, and the characters are unable—or unwilling—to break free from the patterns that define them. show less

Oh boy. I have no idea where the love for this angsty novel comes from. I'm glad that I waited until adulthood to read it, because I know I wouldn't have given it half a chance in high school. The classic story tells the tale of Heathcliff, an unfortunate orphan who is adopted by Catherine's family. He and Catherine fall in love, and their forbidden love is doomed from the start, darkening Heathcliff's heart, and leading him to hatefully seek revenge on her entire family. NONE of these characters are loveable, and I would argue that none of them are even likeable. Heathcliff is a nightmarish beast and Catherine is petty and selfish. Their flaws are so numerous that it was impossible for me to get emotionally invested in any of the show more characters. This is supposed to be a classic love story, but where is the love? Where is the kindness? The patience? The sharing and caring? OK, so I've read this "masterpiece" once, and I'm glad I did, due to the many Heathcliff/Catherine references in pop culture, but now that the last page is turned, I'm glad to be rid of these people. show less

On the surface, Wuthering Heights is a story of a man who spends his life exacting revenge on everyone who wronged him, most notably members of the Linton and Earnshaw families who prevented him from marrying the love of his life, Catherine. But the “love story,” which is foundational to the entire novel, didn’t ring true. Heathcliff and Catherine were fast friends in childhood, but Heathcliff was such an awful person from the beginning that their adult passion seemed improbable. After Heathcliff’s rejection he disappears for several years, returns as a wealthy man, and takes ownership of the Wuthering Heights estate. Where has he been? How did he acquire his wealth? This was never explained, although how Heathcliff got his show more money is ultimately less important than the way he used it to exercise power. Themes of social class and inequality run through this novel, and perhaps Emily Bronte wanted to show how wealth alone was not enough to put Heathcliff on equal footing.

Catherine was, not surprisingly, expected to marry someone of equal standing, and deliver an heir to continue her husband’s legacy. Meanwhile Heathcliffe also marries, but only to further his lifelong ambition to exact revenge on Catherine’s family. Over the course of the novel another generation is born and comes of age, and Heathcliff continues his cruel campaign.

I began this novel interested in the story of Heathcliff and Catherine, and by the halfway point I was less interested in the characters and plot than in how Emily Bronte’s life experience influenced her writing. Love is present, but poorly depicted, as if the author was unable to write from experience. Death is everywhere; in some cases it’s a convenient plot point but it also seems that its frequency and the characters’ expectation and acceptance of death reflect Bronte’s own loss of her mother and two siblings. It seems Emily Bronte was a troubled soul, and her best-known work is, similarly, a story of troubled souls. show less

I first read Emily Brontë’s masterpiece, Wuthering Heights, as a preteen and fell in love with it then. There is something about Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship that always made me swoon. They have so much individual trauma and are truly awful people, but together they make so much sense.

Also, you know how much I love a good, dark revenge story, and more than half of Wuthering Heights is all about revenge. Hell, Heathcliff devotes his entire life to seeking revenge against those who abused him. I never could blame him for that. I mean, they made his life miserable, and there was no such thing as therapy back then.

Holly reminded me how much I love this story when she asked me about it for a term paper. Talking about show more Wuthering Heights made me anxious to do another re-read, as it had been a few years since the last time. This time around, I opted to listen to it versus read it.

Unfortunately, no matter how great an actress Joanne Froggett is, I did not enjoy the audio version. Ms. Froggett’s performance is fine. I think my lack of enjoyment is because I have read it so many times that I have my own way of interpreting the dialogue. On top of that, some books are simply better in print, and, for me, Wuthering Heights is one of those.

I know some people detest this book or question why people consider it a romantic story. Me? I will go to my grave thinking Catherine and Heathcliff are one of the most romantic couples in all of literature. Now, I do recognize their relationship is not healthy and would never set them up as examples of true love. But they are perfect for each other, and that is what makes them such a powerful couple. Man, I love Wuthering Heights! show less