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Wuthering Heights

by Emily Brontë

3.71 · rating details · 180,539 ratings · 10,270 reviews

"My greatest thought in living is Heathcliff. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be... Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure... but as my own being." Wuthering Heights is the only novel of Emily Bronte, who died a year after its publication, at the age of thirty. A brooding Yorkshire tale of a love ...more

Mass Market Paperback, 324 pages

Published September 30th 2003 by Bantam Classics (first published January 1st 1818)

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Sep 08, 2011

karen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: youre-a-graphic-novel, smotherings

just a bad idea all around.

my own damn fault, really - i should have done some research before ordering this. it is not a graphic novel version of wuthering heights. it is more like an illustrated cliffs notes version of wuthering heights, put out by barron's. it's not as though they commissioned a proper illustrator for it, and made a genuine graphic adaptation, which is a bummer. sorry, nick spender, but you aren't charles burns...

and jim pipe, who gets cred...more

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Oct 30, 2007

Larissa rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: 2007, read-together

Certain novels come to you with pre-packaged expectations. They just seem to be part of literature's collective unconscious, even if they are completely outside of your own cultural referents. I, for instance, who have no particular knowledge of--or great love for--romantic, Anglo-Gothic fiction, came to Wuthering Heights with the assumption that I was picking up a melancholy ghost story of thwarted, passionate love and eternal obsession. Obsession turned out to be only accurate part of this pre...moreCertain novels come to you with pre-packaged expectations. They just seem to be part of literature's collective unconscious, even if they are completely outside of your own cultural referents. I, for instance, who have no particular knowledge of--or great love for--romantic, Anglo-Gothic fiction, came to Wuthering Heights with the assumption that I was picking up a melancholy ghost story of thwarted, passionate love and eternal obsession. Obsession turned out to be only accurate part of this presumption.

Having an image of Heathcliff and Cathy embracing Gone with the Wind-style on a windy moor ironed in my mind, I was almost completely unprepared for the hermetic, moribund, bleak, vengeful, perverse, and yes--obsessive--novel that this really is. Don Quixote is not about windmills and Wuthering Heights is not really a love story. Heathcliff and Cathy's love affair (if it can be called that) is a narcissistic ("I am Heathcliff!" Cathy exclaims at one point), possessive, and imminently cruel relationship predicated on self-denial and an obsessiveness that relies not on passion, but rather borders on hatred. They are selfish, violent, and contriving people who have borne their fair share of abuses (mostly Heathcliff in this respect) and in turn, feel no compunction about raining similar abuses on those who they find beneath them.

Given this dynamic, it seems perhaps inevitable that these two characters would make not only themselves miserable, but everyone around them miserable--even after death. This is particularly easy to accomplish mainly because there are--with the exception of Mr. Lockwood, the tenant who rents a home from Heathcliff--no outside characters. Everyone in the novel (including the servants) is isolated, trapped between the same two homes, with the same two families, and have truly no chance of escaping any of the events and repercussions that occur.(One character makes a temporary escape, only to suffer all the more for it later.)

More important, however, is the fact that Heathcliff and Cathy don't even need be present (although they usually are in some fashion) for their influences to be felt by the other characters. The sins of the father, are literally, inherited and distributed among the next generation. The children of Wuthering Heights are not only physical doubles of their parents (At least 3 characters look like Cathy, and one resembles Heathcliff), but they are also spiritual stand-ins. They must suffer for past transgressions, and they must find a way to make amends for them. All, I might add, without the particular benefit of ever having the full story, the context that might be necessary to actually change their circumstances. Misery, it seems, is inevitable.

There is, of course, much more to be said about this novel. One could spend quite some time dissecting all the various repetitions and doublings, the narrative structure (the story is told by the housekeeper to the lodger who then writes it down as a diary entry), or the archetypal analogies and semi-biblical symbolism that seems to be implicit to every part of this story.

The point being, I suppose, that while Wuthering Heights may not be the wistful romance one (or maybe just I) expected to be, it is a particularly satisfying one for all of its dark and layered surprises. (less)

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Dec 07, 2009

karen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: littry-fiction, smotherings, favorites

"all i care about in this goddamn life are me, my drums, and you"...

if you don't know that quote, you're probably too young to be reading this and isn't is past your bedtime or shouldn't you be in school or something?

but that quote, hyper-earnest cheese - that is romance. wuthering heights is something more dangerous than romance. it's one long protracted retaliation masquerading as passion. and goddamn do i love it. i can't believe i haven't reviewed it before ...more"all i care about in this goddamn life are me, my drums, and you"...

if you don't know that quote, you're probably too young to be reading this and isn't is past your bedtime or shouldn't you be in school or something?

but that quote, hyper-earnest cheese - that is romance. wuthering heights is something more dangerous than romance. it's one long protracted retaliation masquerading as passion. and goddamn do i love it. i can't believe i haven't reviewed it before - i mention this book in more than half of my reviews, i have a whole shelf devoted to its retellings, so why the delay?? but better late than never.

no, it's not a perfect novel; it's a flawed structure revealing the actions of seriously flawed people. the framing device-within-a-framing-device? totally awkward. having nelly dean tell the story even though where was she for most of the action? totally wrong move, bronte; it makes the beginning such a slog to get through. but that's just stale loaf - the good stuff is all the meat in between.

and oh, the meat... the swarthy stranger of mysterious origins being raised in a family of sheltered overmoist english mushrooms, all pale and rain-bloated, the running wild, two-souls-against-the-world adolescence...childhood indiscretions... vows and tantrums, bonding, unspoken promises, yes i will yes i will yes i will. oh, but wait, what's this??...it's blond and it's rich and it's whats expected of me. very well then. see ya, heathcliff...

it's just textbook gothic from here on out: revenge-seduction, overheard conversations, mysterious disappearances, murdered puppies, swooning, vindictive child-rearing, death, ghosts, moors, phoar...

but this to me, is a perfect love story, even though it's more like torture. the unattainable is always more romantic than the storybook. i don't like an uncomplicated ending, and a story is more impactful with nuanced characters, preferably heavily unlikeable throughout. (this is where i plug head-on - one of my favorite movies ever. do it.)this story just makes me feel good. and i'm well over my teenage fascination with the "bad boy"; i realized pretty quick that "bad boys" are usually pretty dumb. so i moved on to "emotionally disturbed", which is the same thing, really; plenty of drama, and they will leave you drunken "presents" on your lawn (road signs, carousel ponies..), but not complete burnouts, at least. but my teenaged dating pool is neither here nor there, the point is that heathcliff can be romanticized as this victim/villain without having to correspond to the ideal. it's about the level of passion, the size of the grand romantic gesture. devoting your life to destroying the people who kept you from your true love is an amazingly grand gesture. (less)

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Aug 16, 2007

Jake rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

I first read this in AP English Literature - senior year of high school. This book is dense and thick and confusing, and with a class full of haters, it was hard to wrap my head around it. I subsequently read it three or four more times for classes in college and every time I read it, I loved it more. I always found some new, fascinating piece of the story I had never picked up on.

The last time I read it, I suddenly realized that there were many hints and clues that Heathcliff cou...more

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Oct 21, 2011

Leanne rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classics, uk-19th-century, own-or-gaveaway, gothic, life-changing, to-re-read

Most people either adored or hated this book. But I think, it really depends on how you interpret this book as a whole- is Heathcliff an evil, wrathful, raging villain with no redeeming qualities or is he a dark, wild, passionate, and cleverly-drawn antihero? What about the romance between Catherine and Heathcliff? Is Catherine and Heathcliff's love abusive, vile, and much too dramatic, or is it raw and passionate, one of the greatest love stories of all time? And does Emily Bronte write with ho...more

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Nov 17, 2007

Chelsea rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: melodrama enthusiasts

Shelves: anti-recs, classic, own, romance, multiples, toswap, 2006, fiction

I've tried it three times. I know people are obsessed with it. I hate everyone in the book - and I just can't care about a book where I actually hate the characters.

And, sure, I get the interpretation that as terrible as Heathcliff and Cathy are, it's their love that redeems them, and isn't that romantic.

No.

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Jul 02, 2008

Ellen rated it

· review of another edition

I never expected this book to be as flagrantly, unforgivably bad as it was.

To start, Bronte's technical choice of narrating the story of the primary characters by having the housekeeper explain everything to a tenant 20 years after it happened completely kills suspense and intimacy. The most I can say is that to some extent this functions as a device to help shroud the story and motives from the reader. But really, at the time literary technique hadn't quite always gotten around to ac...more

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Feb 07, 2008

Kellie rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: books-that-should-cease-to-exist

I read this book for my AP Literature class. I loved the teacher, loved the subject matter, and loved pretty much everything else we had read, so I had high hopes for this book. I must say, I made a genuine and sincere effort to like this book, I really did. I got half way through with no hope in sight, yet I perservered, hoping the second half would show promise in the next generation. No such luck. Although nothing tops the finale "love scene" between Heathcliff and Katherine, w...more

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Oct 14, 2007

Russell rated it

· review of another edition

I have a confession: I never read this book in high school, so this is the first time I’ve read it.

This is a stellar book. Heathcliff is a ‘moral poison’ of the worst sort, and yet there is a part of me that can understand why he was so obsessed and why his obsession led to a hardness and a madness of mind and morals. I can almost appreciate his will, the desire to see his plan execute to the final end, regardless of the cost to others, or to himself. Almost.

His withholdi...moreI have a confession: I never read this book in high school, so this is the first time I’ve read it.

This is a stellar book. Heathcliff is a ‘moral poison’ of the worst sort, and yet there is a part of me that can understand why he was so obsessed and why his obsession led to a hardness and a madness of mind and morals. I can almost appreciate his will, the desire to see his plan execute to the final end, regardless of the cost to others, or to himself. Almost.

His withholding of his hand to destroy Cathy and Hareton wasn’t because of a change of heart, but because he lacked the passion to keep going.

Heathcliff is not a Romantic Hero, despite all the ink spilled otherwise. He could have been, he’s set up to be, but his decision to cause pain and exact his revenge on his enemies and their children diverts him from that path.

After reading several essays about it (huzzah Google) I think something that is overlooked as to why Heathcliff acted they way he did wasn’t solely for revenge, or that he was so miserable he wanted to make those around him more so. Not just that, he wanted Catherine to haunt him.

In his madness I think he was hoping that the destruction of both houses would cause Catherine’s spirit to be moved enough to haunt him for his deeds.

Then again, maybe not. Nelly Dean confronts him at the end and tells him that he should repent of his wickedness. Heathcliff denies that he has done anything that needed repentance. Perhaps he merely saw this as fitting punishment for those that he felt had wronged him.

But in the end, Catherine apparently does haunt Heathcliff, haunts him to the point he dies from lack of interest in the living world.

Cathy and Hareton’s relationship and presumed marriage nullifies anything Heathcliff did. It was almost like he never existed. The two houses ended up intertwined, despite his scheming and plots.

The book was satisfying, and touched on far more themes then I am going to discuss. If you are like me and haven’t read the book, I recommend it. (less)

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May 14, 2010

Elizabeth rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Stephenie Meyer: try it again, girl

Recommended to Elizabeth by: Virginia Woolf

Shelves: victorians-and-wannabes, revenge-of-the-goths, in-by-of-england, reviewed, romance-with-a-capital-r, virginia-woolf-recommends, boston-janeites

This review will contain spoilers but it's Wuthering Heights people, if you don't already know the story, move along now, there's nothing to see here.

It's a train wreck, and I'm the sicko gawking at the barrier and asking people what they've seen and lingering until the emergency crews are gone, and eventually getting dragged into the police station as a suspect because no one can be that interested in the disaster without having contributed to it in some way. My name, officer? Why, ...more

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Jan 28, 2008

Samantha rated it

· review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This wasn't on my preordained Summer Reading Program list. It's an extra one, one I picked up from work a couple weeks ago after finishing Jane Eyre and thought I should give it another try. I write 'another' because I supposedly read this in Junior High, but really just listened in class and skimmed Cliffs Notes. I remember hating most of what Mrs. Edmondson made us read, especially The Scarlet Letter, but that's neither here nor now.

Wuthering Heights has been touted as a classic roma...more

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May 19, 2011

indri rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classic

#2011-19#

Seseorang yang tidak pernah dicintai, akan sulit untuk memahami bagaimana caranya mencintai.

Heathcliff, tanpa nama belakang, ditemukan di pinggir jalanan London oleh Mr. Earnshaw, pemilik Wuthering Heights. Dibesarkan dengan kebencian keluarga Earnshaw terhadap dirinya, kecuali Mr. Earnshaw yang berumur pendek.
Tumbuh bersama Catherine Earnshaw yang riang dan ketus, yang menjadikannya teman bermain, kenakalan anak kecil, seseorang yang ia tidak ingin kehil...more

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Jun 02, 2010

Kerstin rated it

· review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. There is no doubt that Emily Brontë’s masterpiece and her only novel Wuthering Heights is a modern myth. And superior to Charlotte Brontë’s (nonetheless, excellent) period piece Jane Eyre. The ingenious mind of the latter’s younger sister recognized, consciously or subconsciously, the archetypal structures of myth and the timeless forms of its characters and made them act on behalf of her own ferocious imagination. But those expecting to take a nice stroll down a comfortable literary landscape a...moreThere is no doubt that Emily Brontë’s masterpiece and her only novel Wuthering Heights is a modern myth. And superior to Charlotte Brontë’s (nonetheless, excellent) period piece Jane Eyre. The ingenious mind of the latter’s younger sister recognized, consciously or subconsciously, the archetypal structures of myth and the timeless forms of its characters and made them act on behalf of her own ferocious imagination. But those expecting to take a nice stroll down a comfortable literary landscape amidst a bunch of likeable, easily understandable characters, do not need to bother with this one. Because nothing about Wuthering Heights is easy. It is a complex and uncompromising, almost morbid study of the dark side of human nature.

The dissection is done through several characters - ambiguity and immorality isn’t attributed to the protagonist only, even if he towers above everyone else. Despite that, the book itself does not lack a moral center, which is personified by the narrative voice of the housekeeper Nelly Dean and to an extent by her co-narrator Mr. Lockwood. They are the two people who, no matter how affected by what they see or have to live with, never once lose their way.

The first volume of the novel follows the growth and transformation of Catherine Earnshaw and the second volume that of her daughter, but on the whole it is an observation of the character of Heathcliff. He remains an enigma, from the day he is brought to live with the Earnshaws - a little gipsy kid - to the day he dies, in circumstances also unexplained, leaving us to speculate whether he might have been coaxed into it by the phantom of Catherine herself. Heathcliff embodies the so called literary Byronic hero - basically a variation of an anti-hero defined as a brooding and tormented semi-romantic male and often described as clad in black and having dark eyes or hair. Generally, he expresses a hateful attitude towards the world and himself and is dominated by obsessive love for one woman. In classic fiction we need look no further than the figures of Dracula or Rochester; the more modern version of this archetype can be found in J.K. Rowling’s Severus Snape - a creation of another British female author. Heathcliff’s major personality flaw is common - pride, and his thirst for revenge Shakespearean. Though oddly stoic (when you think about it, psychologically he doesn’t really change much during the course of the book), his presence is so powerful that it grips us like a vice and doesn’t let go. A wide range of emotions is aroused - hope, sadness, pity, fear, terror, frustration, anger… even secret admiration and attraction, for he is a handsome, strong-willed and intelligent man. Unfortunately he is too far gone to be saved.

Catherine is a passionate and selfish woman suffering from severe bipolar tendencies. Her anxieties - partly self-imposed, partly caused by her mental disorder - reflect the poetic duality of her nature. There’s the wildness that corresponds to her fundamental love for Heathcliff and on the other hand a greedy desire for a life of a higher standard than what she is provided with at the residence of Wuthering Heights. The collision of these two forces inside of her renders her existence unbearable for her. Whilst maybe less memorable than, for example, Margaret Mitchell’s Scarlett O’Hara, Cathy is a tragic heroine of her own right. A sort of a beastess, always craving and hardly ever satisfied. Looking at the bigger picture, the flesh-and-blood being seems to dissolve into something abstract and ethereal… like a fragment of Heathcliff’s soul, violently ripped from him. The creepy inhuman quality that she has makes us ask the question: was she alive at all? Or did she just convince them, and us, that she was real…

For me, the third most fascinating and perplexing character might be Heathcliff’s and Isabella’s son Linton. An androgynous, relentlessly moody and lethargic boy, whom cruel fate robbed of any chance for a normal life the moment his biological father decided to claim him. Would he have survived and developed into a better person, had he been able to stay at Thrushcross Grange? He serves as a romantic red herring as well, because at some point we start to believe that him and Catherine junior are meant to be.

The tale told is so heavy on dramatic irony that it feels as though we encounter it at each new turn of the events. When drunken Hindley Earnshaw drops baby Hareton from the top of the stairs, it is his sworn enemy, Heathcliff, who catches the child. Hareton is then someone Heathcliff perhaps, against his wishes, becomes fond of. Disregarding her father’s efforts to secure her future at Thrushcross Grange, young Catherine Linton is drawn to her mother’s old home and its inhabitants and later ends up imprisoned in there. Catherine and Hareton together stand for what her mother and Heathcliff failed to obtain. And the ultimate twist - the dirty underdog and stable boy eventually raising as the triumphant master of Wuthering Heights.

The imagery is delicious and strewn with stylistically pure elements of the horror genre, and, on occasion, motifs from Nordic folklore. We have the grim interior of the house of Wuthering Heights; people getting lost in snowstorms or drenched in rain; moonlight walks, churchyards and gravestones; ghostly pale faces and locks of hair kept in lockets. Heathcliff (bless him) can’t rest before he digs out his lover’s coffin, and he gets so annoyed at his legal wife, he flings a kitchen knife at her. He is compared to a wolf, a vampire, a goblin, and numerous times to the devil. The idyllic Yorkshire moors play such an important role that they resemble a living, breathing entity. To the characters the heather moors symbolize freedom, a peaceful paradise, but are simultaneously a desolate place that spurs superstitious ideas about the world of the dead.

With its dynamic and tightly wound tapestry of murky, unsettling themes, Wuthering Heights represents the pinnacle of tragic storytelling. A gothic dream that lingers to haunt you for a long-long time. (Freud and Jung would surely have heaps of fun reading it.)

(less)

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Jul 13, 2010

Ben rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2010

I stopped at page 42. I couldn't stand the writing. Not only was it difficult to decipher -- call me dumb if you must -- but sentences, even paragraphs, that could have been summed-up with a few words were expounded upon pompously for pages. This is a shame, because I love dark love stories -- and that, along with what I had heard about this novel's strong character development, and its generally strong reputation -- made me think I'd love it.

But I can't take anymore of the prose, ...more

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Jan 15, 2009

Eliszard rated it

· review of another edition

Ah the classics. Everybody can read their own agenda in them. So, first a short plot guide for dinner conversations when one needs to fake acculturation, and then on to the critics’ view.
A woman [1:] is in love with her non-blood brother [2:] but marries her neighbor [3:] whose sister [4:] marries the non-blood brother [2:]; their [1,3:] daughter [5:] marries their [2,4:] son [6:]; meanwhile, their [1,2:] elder brother marries and has a son [7:]. Then everybody dies, 1 of bad temper, 4 of ...more

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Sep 21, 2007

Jackie "the Librarian" rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classics, gothic, hated-it

If you think that spitefulness is romantic, and that people destroying their lives is dramatic, go ahead and read this book. But don't say I didn't warn you.

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May 19, 2008

J rated it

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When one thinks of books of the past, one typically thinks that today’s novels and entertainments are far more violent and vicious. There is a tendency to think of our own generation (or the one or two immediately preceding ours) as having invented sexual perversions, brutal literature, and genre bending and mixing. No one truly believes this intently, but it is a kind of humming substratum to our lives. That previous ages were “simpler” and “more innocent” and “better” and “more pure and wholes...moreWhen one thinks of books of the past, one typically thinks that today’s novels and entertainments are far more violent and vicious. There is a tendency to think of our own generation (or the one or two immediately preceding ours) as having invented sexual perversions, brutal literature, and genre bending and mixing. No one truly believes this intently, but it is a kind of humming substratum to our lives. That previous ages were “simpler” and “more innocent” and “better” and “more pure and wholesome” is not only a nostalgic commonplace, but it also one of the traditional props to conservatism. “Back when I was a kid” is a statement denoting how old you’ve become and is either followed with “things were a lot more etc.” or “we never etc.”

The first few pages of Wuthering Heights must surely disabuse of anyone of this notion of the good old days. We are introduced to Mr. Lockwood, a young man in retirement from some private sorrow, who ends up at Thrushcross Grange. Upon visiting the home of his landlord, the famed Mr. Heathcliff, he is set upon by a dog, Heathcliff abuses both him and all of his servants, Joseph, Hareton Earnshaw (who is also Heathcliff’s nephew), and his own daughter-in-law. What unfolds is a tale of madness, revenge, rage, and abuse that puts many a melodramatic serial killer novel of today to shame for the sheer vituperrious spite.

And as the book progresses, Emily Brontë shows herself no slouch in putting plain savagery and abomination on the page. Catherine, the young sister of the adopted Heathcliff, with whom he falls in love, as just a teenage girl slaps a servant, beats a small baby, then turns on her cousin Edgar Linton and boxes his ear. Her older brother, Hindley, gets drunk and attacks everyone, plays with his rifle, abuses his child, and tries to shove a carving knife down his servant’s throat. Isabelle Linton, the sister of Edgar (and Heathcliff’s later wife), on being held by Catherine, sinks her fingernails into the woman’s arm. After her departure, Catherine tells Heathcliff that such nails would dart for his eyes; to this he promises he’d wrench them off her fingers should she even try. When a boy, Hareton throws a rock at his nurse and damns her when he first sees her after many years.

All in all, the book is a primer on the vicious circle that is revenge and hatred. One can easily imagine, while reading this book, all the characters in a circle, everyone beating the person first in front of him or her and being beaten by the one behind in turn. And so it turns, on and on. If literature of that time was generally expected to demonstrate some kind of moral, Wuthering Heights demonstrates it in the inverse.

What sets everything in motion is the maltreatment of the found orphan, Heathcliff which starts from the very beginning with everyone calling him an “it.” His ferocious revenge is, while truly awful in all senses of the word, such a profound manifestation of hatred against everything, against the entire world, himself included, that he rises (or is it sinks) to the level of supreme tragic hero. He is like a Samson destroying the temple with his own soul within it. Emily Brontë is remarkably less sympathetic to Catherine, with whom she deals rather sternly whereas Heathcliff gets the backlit, shadowy, windswept fen romanticism. She is Frankenstein, while he is Shelley’s monster, a tortured agent of vengeance.

What is amusing about this kind of novel, amusing for literally dozens of novels of the nineteenth century, is the level of suspension of disbelief the mechanics of the book require. Firstly, there is the narrator himself, Mr. Lockwood, Heathcliff’s tenant, who tells the story of being told the tale by Ellen Dean, the nurse who witnessed most events and tells it in a pastiche of letters, personal recollections, gossip told to her, and other such secondary type narrative devices. It is a story about a story about various stories. And we are to accept Ellen having such a detailed memory as well as Mr. Lockwood.

This is something we simply overlook after a certain point; that we disregard that we overlook it is rather interesting and a stirring testimonial to Emily Brontë’s skill as a novelist. That this should be her only novel is a powerful statement to its lasting fame and a melancholy fact: that such writing should be confined solely between two covers and no more. I never finish Wuthering Heights but wish there were a second Emily Brontë novel to read. Alas for the tuberculosis that ravished the family (at least three of the sisters died from it, and there is conflicting evidence that it killed the remaining sister and the only brother). That Emily had two sisters who were also novelists is scant consolation, no matter how enjoyable their novels may be. That she died at just thirty is as tragic as Keats death at twenty five. That the Oxford English Dictionary to this day doesn’t recognize and define “wuthering” is a shame in and of itself.(less)

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May 18, 2008

Mike rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. It's not often that I hate a character. Sure, I've read plenty of books with all manner of villains and antagonists, but they've always been people that either had good reason for what they were doing or were simply Snidley Whiplash style evil-for-no-good-reason sorts and it's hard to really hate either brand. Heck, a lot of the time the villains are more interesting and enjoyable then the heroes. So I have to pause here and say congratulations Miss Bronte, you've managed what no one else to dat...moreIt's not often that I hate a character. Sure, I've read plenty of books with all manner of villains and antagonists, but they've always been people that either had good reason for what they were doing or were simply Snidley Whiplash style evil-for-no-good-reason sorts and it's hard to really hate either brand. Heck, a lot of the time the villains are more interesting and enjoyable then the heroes. So I have to pause here and say congratulations Miss Bronte, you've managed what no one else to date has been able to accomplish. I hate Heathcliff,

He is arguably one of the stupidest, pettiest, most self-centered and spiteful characters in literature. And by stupid I don't mean unintelligent (throughout the entire book he displays, if not a book-larnin' type of smarts, at least a serious level of cunning and guile), I mean this is a man who makes a critically poor choice - his love for Catherine. Catherine manages to rival Heathcliff by being a conceited, spoiled, tantrum-throwing baby all the way through her womanhood, and therein lies the crux of the problem with this whole book. The entire plot hinges on Heathcliff and Catherine's love, and Heathcliff's revenge after her death against those he blames for keeping the two lovers apart. But Catherine is so blatantly unlikeable that I just couldn't buy into their romance, and, by extension, the rest of the novel. It would be like writing Pol Pot a love letter - no matter how pure the words and intent, the entire basis of the act is so ludicrous it would be impossible to take seriously. Every time he performs some loathsome deed it's multiplied a hundredfold when you remember the daffy bitch who's memory he's doing it for; by the end of the book you can't help but feel that the only true injustice in the story is that Heathcliff dies in his sleep instead of being torn apart by animals.

Not that I can really lay all of the character flaws at Heathcliff and Catherine's doorsteps; the dramatis personae for Wuthering Heights is a veritable buffet of loathsomeness. Cathy is almost as spoiled and conceited as her mother. Linton is spineless, manipulative, whiny little husk and clearly not a bully for the sole reason that he's too sickly to be one. You get the feeling that he's the kind of kid that would torture animals if he could, and Cathy's affections for him make as little sense as Heathcliff's love for Catherine. Hindley is spiteful, cowardly, drunken wreck, and his abuse of Heathcliff at the beginning of the book probably makes him the most responsible for every bad thing that happens in the story next to Heathcliff himself. Isabella is a brainless, starry-eyed idiot; Edgar falls in love with Catherine, marries her, and suffers the consequences despite mounds of evidence that bitch be crazy; Joseph is a raving fundamentalist. The only two characters in the entire book you can feel at all bad for are Nelly Dean, who's drug into pretty much everything bad that happens against her will, and Hareton , who's character flaws are by and large thrust on him by others and aren't his fault.

In the end, the characters torpedo the story. Although the novel is beautifully written and evocative, there's just so little to enjoy here that it's hard for me to imagine opening this book up again any time soon.(less)

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Jul 28, 2007

Nicole rated it

· review of another edition

The first time I read "Wuthering Heights" (in English class, senior year) I could not stand it. Turns out, I couldn't stand my Senior Year English teacher. (Had to) re-read it for a Gothic Lit course in college and, though dreading it, I had the complete opposite reaction to the book.

It's now one of my top five favorite books I've ever read.

It is so layered and complex - emotionally, psychologically, technically - that every time I read it (my copy is so bat...more

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Jul 01, 2007

Aerin rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: lit-ra-chur, read-for-class

This book could have ended halfway through, and while that wouldn't have made me like it any better, at least it wouldn't have earned itself a place on my Most! Hated! Books! Ever! list. As it is, though, this book is not only entirely too long, it is boring, and whiny, and there are at least TWO characters for every name. Two Catherines. Two Lintons. Two Heathcliffs. So it's way more confusing than it needs to be! I guess if you're into moody tragic romances where nothing ever happens, yo...more

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Aug 31, 2011

Shovelmonkey1 rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who champion the underdog

Recommended to Shovelmonkey1 by: too many English teachers

Shelves: 1001-books, almost-chick-lit

As a youth I was very resilient to classic literature. Why? The reasons I would now give are as follows:

1. It was written a long time ago and therefore in my yoof-mind ( which FYI was a tight nucleus of hormones surrounded by a swirling miasma of rage)it was the book equivalent of black and white TV -dated, not relevant and generally unappealing to the eyes.

2. My teachers raved about it. Nothing is guaranteed to make you bang your head against the blackboard more than a dish...moreAs a youth I was very resilient to classic literature. Why? The reasons I would now give are as follows:

1. It was written a long time ago and therefore in my yoof-mind ( which FYI was a tight nucleus of hormones surrounded by a swirling miasma of rage)it was the book equivalent of black and white TV -dated, not relevant and generally unappealing to the eyes.

2. My teachers raved about it. Nothing is guaranteed to make you bang your head against the blackboard more than a dishevelled English Literature teacher swooning, flailing and waxing lyrical about open shirted, brooding hero types.

3. Oldy-worldy verboseness. Obviously most of us here at Goodreads are now embroiled in a torrid love affair with wordiness in general. We all clatter away at our keyboards, directing our day to day verbosity at a medium which allows us an outlet for all the words we have broiling in a big word soup inside our heads (but which many people outside of this cosy niche in cyberspace are not interested in listening to), however Georgian verboseness or even Victorian period verboseness represented a sort of textual turgidity to me.

4. Belligerence. The world thinks these books are a heart breaking work of staggering genius. I therefore, will not.

Anyway, it's been a good few years since I left school, probably more than I care to admit and while I still retain elements of both the hormonal and belligerent aspects described above, I've finally made my peace with classic lit. Prior to reaching this zen like state of literary understanding, I'd always had a little corner of my book-soul reserved for the exception that is Wuthering Heights.

Wuthering Heights is good. It is even good when you're a teenager because it is a never-ending-cycle-of-bleak. A bit like being a teenager. It fed into my inner EMO, well at least that's my excuse.

Everything about this novel is bleak. Bleak, bleak, bleak. The moors, the house, the squalid, damp, mouldering self-destructive hatred of the people brought about by intense jealousy, sibling rivalry and the great social experiment which is nature versus nurture coupled with the bleak doomed to fail love of Cathy and Heathcliff.

The story examines the slow decay of a once prosperous family, which could be directly attributed to presence of the cuckoo in the nest (the family fortunes and relations begin to deteriorate following Heathcliff's arrival). Heathcliff is regarded as another romantic ultimate, much like Mr Darcy in Pride and Prejudice he has come to define a type of man. The unobtainable, dark and brooding figure - the sort that certain ladies see as a "challenge". Someone to be caught and domesticated but all the while admired for his good looks. Immortalised on the silver screen and by mad-as-a-box-of-frogs singer Kate Bush. A gothic soap opera on a grand scale and also a gentle reminder that its grim up north!(less)

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Mar 02, 2010

Ceridwen rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Ceridwen by: Morwenna Steinersen

Shelves: fiction, ghost-stories, gothic, necrophilia, rule-britannia, sexy-nihilists, incest-is-best, capital-r-romantic, celts

A quick disclaimer: I betcha there are some spoilers in here, but I absolutely refuse to hit the spoiler box on books this old.

------

My sister and I recently got into one of those stupid cage matches about which was better: Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights. Before everyone starts popping their monocles and baying about how this is a stupid comparison & as meaningless as comparing chalk and cheese, I know. I totally know. But five hours in a car will send conversations to r...more

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Nov 02, 2011

Michela rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: hearts-books

"Cime Tempestose"- Emily Bronte (1847)

Quando leggi "Cime Tempestose" a 15 anni, lo apprezzi.
Quando leggi "Cime Tempestose" a 25 anni, lo ami, pazzamente.

Secondo me, la differenza sta tutta nel fatto, che se non hai mai provato,almeno una volta, un amore folle e disperato non possiamo addentrarci dentro questo libro pienamente. Se non sappiamo cosa significa struggersi per amore, come potremmo anche solo lontanamente rispettare Heatcliff...more

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Dec 07, 2007

Silvana rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: romance lovers

Shelves: classics, romance, dark-haunting, used-to-own, donated

I feel good after reading this book. It's as good as the movie (yay! usually the movie version is worse), I'm talking about the one with Ralph Fiennes and Juliet Binoche.

Anyway, now I know why I dislike Jane Austen's novels. Wuthering Heights offers a more interesting theme, it does not focus in Victorian culture and ways of society *cough* which is boring*cough* and it has more intriguing characters.

The romance is just awesome. Who could forget Heathcliff's dedication and u...more

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May 25, 2007

karenology rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: pre-teen girls, kate bush fans and british people

Melodramatic to the max. This novel couldn't help but be; seriously, have you seen where the Bronte sisters lived? Some little crappy town (literally), where the streets were full of sewage and filth, in a house planted next to hundreds of rotting graves (crammed into a tiny cemetery and stacked on top of each other). The only escape Emily and her sisters had were the moors, which were "wild" and sufficiently far enough from the town to provide clean air, free of corpses and cholera...more

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Nov 29, 2010

Mariel rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: John Cusack in a Kate Bush t-shirt

Recommended to Mariel by: Two in the fist is worth Kate Bush

Shelves: morrissey-readinglist, babywecouldbefamous

I'm afraid of this story and of these people. I read WH when I was fourteen. That the pins still prick speaks of it's power over me. I could easily take in the insanity, the ferventness... But I hate them. Child of abusive relationship here. I hate them. If they jumped off a cliff (Heath), I would not Thelma and Louise it too. I hated to be suffocated. WH smothered me. Power or not, did I need that kind of passion? Hells no. Some things are too bad of an influence. Happy Thanksgiving! I'm going ...more

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Jun 23, 2011

Alex rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: coralie-bickford-smith-covers, victorian, 2011, reading-through-history, particularly-drunk-reviews

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Well, that was a surprise. Like the writer of the Penguin edition's preface, I had been under the impression that Wuthering Heights was a great love story. Instead it's a great hate story. A likable - even tolerable - character doesn't show up before Catherine junior (we'll call her Cathy); until then we have to negotiate the milquetoast Edgar, the narcissistic and mentally unstable Catherine, the nurse Ellen, who makes Juliet's nurse look like an angel, and, of course, Heathcliff, who is pos...moreWell, that was a surprise. Like the writer of the Penguin edition's preface, I had been under the impression that Wuthering Heights was a great love story. Instead it's a great hate story. A likable - even tolerable - character doesn't show up before Catherine junior (we'll call her Cathy); until then we have to negotiate the milquetoast Edgar, the narcissistic and mentally unstable Catherine, the nurse Ellen, who makes Juliet's nurse look like an angel, and, of course, Heathcliff, who is possibly possessed by a demon.

Toward the end of the book we get a mirror image of the Catherine / Heathcliff relationship in Cathy and Hareton. Cathy has Edgar's sweetness and Catherine's spirit, which turns out to be a pretty good mix; and although Heathcliff tries to turn Hareton into himself, since Hareton is not possessed by a demon he just turns out rugged. While Cathy can be impetuous and cruel, like when she says "He's just like a dog...or a cart-horse" (Ch. 32), Hareton refuses to take her bait. Cathy isn't as nuts as her mother, but still, I think the point here is that Catherine might have had a chance at happiness, but was destroyed by Heathcliff's malice.

I can see why a book about awful people destroying each other might turn some folks off. But I like my coffee black, so I loved every minute of it. This is a book that knows fiercely what it is.

Whether I know what it is is another question. Wuthering Heights takes place in a dark, tiny, parallel place, like one of those rolled-up dimensions string theorists like to talk about. Whether the supernatural exists there is uncertain. The law doesn't, except abstractly. It's a more violent world than ours. I felt like an outsider there - a feeling heightened by the book's storytelling framing device, which serves (as an epistolary does) to distance the reader from the action. I don't fully understand that world - but Emily does, and she adheres scrupulously to its weird rules. It's amazingly tightly plotted and conceived. And a total page-turner, which isn't unimportant. It's black, and melodramatic, and strange, and brilliant.(less)

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Apr 30, 2011

K. rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: this-shelf-is-divine, brit-lit, gothic-or-just-creepy, own, hit-me-in-the-heart

I understand why many people hate this book. Catherine and Heathcliff are monstrous. Monstrous. You won't like them because they are unlikable. They are irrational, self-absorbed, malicious and pretty much any negative quality you can think a person is capable of possessing without imploding. They seek and destroy and act with no thought to consequence. And I find it fascinating that Emily Bronte chose them to be her central protagonists.

When this was first published it was met with an...moreI understand why many people hate this book. Catherine and Heathcliff are monstrous. Monstrous. You won't like them because they are unlikable. They are irrational, self-absorbed, malicious and pretty much any negative quality you can think a person is capable of possessing without imploding. They seek and destroy and act with no thought to consequence. And I find it fascinating that Emily Bronte chose them to be her central protagonists.

When this was first published it was met with animosity because of how utterly repugnant these two characters were. The way they go about their business caring nothing for others but themselves was enough for me to shake my head in complete and total judgment, as if Catherine and Heathcliff could see me and are then effectively shamed by their actions.

Wuthering Heights is epic, in my humble opinion, because I believe that the scope of this story is monumental. Let me explain: it is a simple tale between two families that are bound in such a way that their fates are irrevocably linked. What affects one, affects the other. Its about Catherine and Heathcliff who fall in love and how their relationship ruins the lives of those around them. The book, all 400 pages of it, occur almost entirely at Wuthering Heights, the estate of the Earnshaws, and at Thrushcross Grange, the estate of the Lintons with only a couple of miles of land in between.

And yet it is not a small story.

The emotional magnitude of this book is great and far reaching. The provoking and unapologetic quality of Bronte's writing is seductive. The process of reading this story can feel so masochistic sometimes that its almost if she's daring us to stop reading and throw the book away. Like its a game of personal endurance to see how much we can take, how far we can go. She pushes at us, challenging us and all the while knowing that we have to keep reading because redemption awaits. It is nothing like its contemporaries.

The moors, the darkness of the moors, that curses the household of Wuthering Heights and its inhabitants is ever present. Nature is personified. It is its own character; its there, lingering and simmering ever so quietly, saturating every scene with its silent threats of doom...okay, I have to stop talking like this...what am I anymore?

There is poison in this book, but let me ease your mind by saying that it is balanced with goodness also. This isn't a perfect novel. There were still moments I found myself in perplexion (recently invented word). And while everything about Catherine and Heathcliff may be corrupt, there is hope in Wuthering Heights. If you can journey through the menacing forest of Emily Bronte's imagination, do it because the view is something to behold.

Ha ha ha, this review...what even is this?(less)

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Mar 16, 2011

KatLynne rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: classic, gothic-dark, 2011-reads

Finished my re-read today and what I had forgotten about this novel is "brilliance".

How often do we find an author who can make your heart bleed with tenderness and compassion for a character while only a few chapters later, your greatest desire is to thrash said character in the throes of anger. And the remarkable thing is that while you are wanting to hurt him in some measure to convey your dislike for his dastardly deeds, still inside and trying to lure its way to th...more

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Jul 18, 2008

Jeff rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: literature-classic

Wuthering Heights was one of the books that I was supposed to have read in high-school. I didn't. Too cool for that! "Just give me Cliff Notes!", was my motto. But those classmates who did read it loved it. So...years later, while browsing an absolutely HUGE bookstore in New York City (wish I could remember the name of that store) I happened upon a copy and decided to discover what my classmates saw in it; see what I was missing. Wow! I wasn't sorry. This has become one of my a...more

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About Emily Brontë

Emily Jane Brontë was a British novelist and poet, now best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights, a classic of English literature. Emily was the second eldest of the three surviving Brontë sisters, being younger than Charlotte and older than Anne. She published under the masculine pen name Ellis Bell.

Emily was born in Thornton, near Bradford in Yorkshire to Patrick Brontë an...moreEmily Jane Brontë was a British novelist and poet, now best remembered for her only novel Wuthering Heights, a classic of English literature. Emily was the second eldest of the three surviving Brontë sisters, being younger than Charlotte and older than Anne. She published under the masculine pen name Ellis Bell.

Emily was born in Thornton, near Bradford in Yorkshire to Patrick Brontë and Maria Branwell. She was the younger sister of Charlotte Brontë and the fifth of six children. In 1824, the family moved to Haworth, where Emily's father was perpetual curate, and it was in these surroundings that their literary oddities flourished. In childhood, after the death of their mother, the three sisters and their brother Patrick Branwell Brontë created imaginary lands (Angria, Gondal, Gaaldine, Oceania), which were featured in stories they wrote. Little of Emily's work from this period survived, except for poems spoken by characters (The Brontës' Web of Childhood, Fannie Ratchford, 1941).

In 1842, Emily commenced work as a governess at Miss Patchett's Ladies Academy at Law Hill School, near Halifax, leaving after about six months due to homesickness. Later, with her sister Charlotte, she attended a private school in Brussels. They later tried to open up a school at their home, but had no pupils.

It was the discovery of Emily's poetic talent by Charlotte that led her and her sisters, Charlotte and Anne, to publish a joint collection of their poetry in 1846, Poems by Currer, Ellis, and Acton Bell. To evade contemporary prejudice against female writers, the Brontë sisters adopted androgynous first names. All three retained the first letter of their first names: Charlotte became Currer Bell, Anne became Acton Bell, and Emily became Ellis Bell. In 1847, she published her only novel, Wuthering Heights, as two volumes of a three volume set (the last volume being Agnes Grey by her sister Anne). Its innovative structure somewhat puzzled critics. Although it received mixed reviews when it first came out, the book subsequently became an English literary classic. In 1850, Charlotte edited and published Wuthering Heights as a stand-alone novel and under Emily's real name.

Like her sisters, Emily's health had been weakened by the harsh local climate at home and at school. She caught a chill during the funeral of her brother in September, and, having refused all medical help, died on December 19, 1848 of tuberculosis, possibly caught from nursing her brother. She was interred in the Church of St. Michael and All Angels family capsule, Haworth, West Yorkshire, England.(less)

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Books by Emily Brontë

Wuthering Heights, Agnès Grey & Villette

Selected Works: Jane Eyre / Villette / Wuthering Heights / Agnes Grey / The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

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Quotes from Wuthering Heights

“If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger.” — 828 people liked it

“If he loved you with all the power of his soul for a whole lifetime, he couldn’t love you as much as I do in a single day.” — 440 people liked it

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