From the Bookshelf of Classics for Beginners…

Wuthering Heights

Emily Brontë

Start date: March 6, 2011

Finish date: March 31, 2011

Discussion: Current Group Read

Why we're reading this: Voted for our March read by the members of Classics for Begginers!
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What Members Thought

Oct 13, 2009 Lazarus P Badpenny Esq rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: england, 2-kewl-4-skewl, pre-twentieth-century, death, stories, penguin-classics, nature, 1001-before-i-die, littlekrakowton-litchat-chit-chat, hopeless-romantics

Way-back-a-while the emerging middle classes, rich with the self-loathing that comes from having too much time on their hands and the attendant guilt of enjoying comforts earnt sitting on their arses at the expense of a labouring poor, decided that the novel should evolve into an instrument for injecting their jaded existences with a case of the restorative collywobbles. Thanks to which the world ended up saddled with the lesser Bronte's invidious intellectual equivalent of a rape fantasy and ev ...more

17 likes · Like · see review

Jan 04, 2009 Miss Amelia rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: annoying-characters, classics, required-reading, british-lit

It's been 9 years since this novel was assigned as reading homework. 9 years since I first threw this book across the room in a fit of drowsy late-night cramming and annoyance at something one of these characters said or did. So I reckon it's high time for me to write a decent review of Wuthering Heights. I'm actually glad I got the chance to read this book for AP English IV. My teacher was brilliant, and his commentary on the saga of such conflicted and (sorry) pathetic characters made the stor It's been 9 years since this novel was assigned as reading homework. 9 years since I first threw this book across the room in a fit of drowsy late-night cramming and annoyance at something one of these characters said or did. So I reckon it's high time for me to write a decent review of Wuthering Heights. I'm actually glad I got the chance to read this book for AP English IV. My teacher was brilliant, and his commentary on the saga of such conflicted and (sorry) pathetic characters made the story come alive.

I'm divided between how I feel about the characters and how I feel about the novel itself.
For being such an evocative, highly thought-provoking story, I would give 4 stars.
For the characters themselves - and having to trudge through 300+ pages of melodrama, hissy fits, tempter* tantrums, and downright reviling behavior - I would give 2 stars.

The foundling Heathcliff is certainly edgy, and I understand the alluring nature of his character, but I can't help but be just a little shocked by how many girls (my high school friends included) absolutely love him. Like, the guy is verbally and physically abusive and shows all the signs on mental instability. And that sets girls' heart a-pitter? Uh, wuh?

And Cathy...Catherine? The older one. Oh, don't get me started on her!

I assert that she's the real villain of the story and the cause of EVERYONE's misery (including mine at having to read through all this crazy). And good riddance that she died (of what? Raining sickness? Autoimmune hyperfainting syndrome?) and left everyone else to live in misery.

I swear, Catherine and Heathcliff were aggravating, but at least they had personalities. Everyone else in the story (except I guess Lockwood and Nelly Dean) were wallflowers and shrinking violets. So I assert that if Catherine had accepted Heathcliff's proposal in the first place...ultimate tragedy could have been avoided. Or at least, that's what my no-nonsense 16-year-old self thought. But my teacher pointed out that if Catherine hadn't rejected Heathcliff, there would be no story. And then he made some comment about how sometimes people don't know how to be happy. Like, it's a foreign and scary concept to them. And couldn't that be just the slightest bit truthful for all of us - in some way? Or that sometimes simple errors in judgment can be nicely and neatly fixed up - little to no harm done. Other times, though, a judgment error (like Catherine's initial rejection of Heathcliff) can have far-reaching consequences. This novel is a case-in-point.

So maybe all this revisit to my senior English class hasn't just been a completely random "review." I like books that make me think. And even with the cast of slap-worthy characters, Wuthering Heights still has me thinking...even today. And I think that is at least one of the requirements of a great book.

*(view spoiler) ...more

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Sep 18, 2011 Sherri Rudnick rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This was my third or fourth time reading this book and it was good but not as good as the first few times I read it. Didn't seem to have as much of the romantic aspect as I remembered. I forgot how hard the classics are to follow. ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Dec 24, 2009 Circa Girl rated it really liked it

Shelves: romance, classics

I wouldn't go into this read expecting a personal, passionette romance like in the film adaptions because the entire book is in third person outside the relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff. That being said, the melodrama of the first and second generations along with Ellen's awesome, sensible narration sucked me in. ...more

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