While most people were required to reading Wuthering Heights in high school, I was fortunate enough to be reading The Hobbit. When I say fortunate, I cannot thank my lucky stars enough. In my effort to read all the books on BBC’s The Big Read Top 100, I finally came around to reading this novel since it was a free gift (collecting dust on my counter). I loved Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre. I want to make it clear, I love passionate love, all-consuming and undying and beyond. This was the impression I got from past reviews of Wuthering Heights.
I’m going to skip the summary—just watch the BBC version with Ralph Fiennes. For the most part, there weren’t many love scenes. The novel is a story within in a story told by Ellen Dean, the housekeeper of the Grange to her new tenant, Mr. Lockwood, who is curious about Heathcliff. Heathcliff’s character is bias from this description as a rough, rugged, often dangerous and manipulative man not to be dealt with. He is like the devil incarnate roaming Wuthering Heights, masterminding the ruins of all those who took away from what he wanted most. He curses himself to be haunted by Catherine but goes on torturing her daughter, imprisoning and forcing her to marry his son.
I don’t understand how any woman could find such a brutish man appealing. For someone who says he loves a woman, he was quick to marry someone else out of vindication. Does revenge run deeper than love? Maybe Catherine was right to die soon. She, on the other hand, has to be one of the most annoying female characters I’ve read. Selfish, spoiled, rotten, vain, and self-important, she actually thought men would love her enough to stop their quarrel. Really? How naive! The book spans two generations with swearing, arguing, fighting, physical and mental abuse. It is a book about a messed up trash family in the middle of nowhere England. I can probably see how it appeals to certain people who grew up with a rough childhood. But how it appeals to the romantic, I’m still not sure.
Can someone explain how someone sadistic, cruel, vindictive can be deem a romantic hero? Is love cruel, heartless, and violent? Is it mean to take away everything and curse you? It is a perverse, depressing, and a gloomy read. Although the language and the writing is intriguing, the plot line killed it for me.
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