Wuthering Heights
Wuthering Heights is a wild, passionate story of the intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature.
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Community Reviews
Horrible people who are all stuck with each other and yelling at each other. Themes of race, class, and generational trauma are surprisingly in-depth and painful.
In defense of this book, which I have often declared that I dislike, I have only read it all the way through one time. And so it is probably high time, that I opt to re-read this book with fresh eyes and an open mind...easier said than done.
The "love" existing between Heathcliff and Cathy always disturbed me. I've never loved to the extent that I wanted to dig up the bones of a former love...I'm not there yet, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to get there. HA!
The "love" existing between Heathcliff and Cathy always disturbed me. I've never loved to the extent that I wanted to dig up the bones of a former love...I'm not there yet, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to get there. HA!
How does one review one's favorite book? I'll try...
It's a classic novel set in ... bleakness, which seeps into everything, straight into the souls and the essence of characters. Imperfect people who seek connection and their quest for finding happiness by displacing their soul into someone else is mistaken by love.
Their love is not the kind we generally think of when we think about healthy love: it's tainted, toxic, co-dependent, magnetic, destructive and powerful enough to ruin their lives, the lives of the ones who have the misfortune of loving them in healthier ways...
I still have the bad habit of reading on my Kindle before I go to sleep. This one was no exception and I ended up waking up my then-boyfriend with my sobs when I read this passage:
Heathcliff and Catherine are not heroes. Their only redeeming quality, if it can even be considered as that, is the mutual addiction for one another, which ends up being all consuming, burning them up from the inside. Both of them are hateful, arrogant, mean, and they eventually they become empty shells, waiting to be filled by the other and resenting them when they fail to love them in return.
By the time Catherine dies, Heathcliff is so used with the torture of wanting and not having her, that he can't accept the reality that his longing for her would never end. Even being haunted by her, even when it meant endless suffering, was enough if it only meant being with her.
I can't possibly be objective about this book, and I blame it, at least in part, for some of my failed relationships...
It's a classic novel set in ... bleakness, which seeps into everything, straight into the souls and the essence of characters. Imperfect people who seek connection and their quest for finding happiness by displacing their soul into someone else is mistaken by love.
Their love is not the kind we generally think of when we think about healthy love: it's tainted, toxic, co-dependent, magnetic, destructive and powerful enough to ruin their lives, the lives of the ones who have the misfortune of loving them in healthier ways...
I still have the bad habit of reading on my Kindle before I go to sleep. This one was no exception and I ended up waking up my then-boyfriend with my sobs when I read this passage:
"You said I killed you — haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe — I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
Heathcliff and Catherine are not heroes. Their only redeeming quality, if it can even be considered as that, is the mutual addiction for one another, which ends up being all consuming, burning them up from the inside. Both of them are hateful, arrogant, mean, and they eventually they become empty shells, waiting to be filled by the other and resenting them when they fail to love them in return.
By the time Catherine dies, Heathcliff is so used with the torture of wanting and not having her, that he can't accept the reality that his longing for her would never end. Even being haunted by her, even when it meant endless suffering, was enough if it only meant being with her.
I can't possibly be objective about this book, and I blame it, at least in part, for some of my failed relationships...
What a dark and sad read. It’s one of my mums favourite movies and I remember trying to understand it as a child... it never made sense to me.
Is it an enjoyable read? No. Do I feel empathy or sympathy for the characters? Not really. They are highly flawed, self absorbed, negative and sometimes nasty people. Catherine made a stupid decision based on status. Which I guess is easy to judge her for now. At the time those decisions were expected. Still I wish Heathcliff had enough independence and pride to create a happier chapter for himself alas not.. instead this totally tragic love story went on to unnecessarily affect so many lives!
At least there were pockets of hope in the next generation.
Still it’s brilliantly written, the stark scenery is apt and the characters are complex and annoying.
Is it an enjoyable read? No. Do I feel empathy or sympathy for the characters? Not really. They are highly flawed, self absorbed, negative and sometimes nasty people. Catherine made a stupid decision based on status. Which I guess is easy to judge her for now. At the time those decisions were expected. Still I wish Heathcliff had enough independence and pride to create a happier chapter for himself alas not.. instead this totally tragic love story went on to unnecessarily affect so many lives!
At least there were pockets of hope in the next generation.
Still it’s brilliantly written, the stark scenery is apt and the characters are complex and annoying.
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