Wuthering Heights Intro/General Discussion

[Kate]

Welcome to our October/November discussion! We're giving Wuthering Heights two months, so everyone has time to read and because there's a lot to talk about here! Additional discussion topics will pop up as time goes on, and if you have a topic you'd like to discuss, let us know in this thread - we'll start a new thread for you!

Also in this thread: Any general thoughts/impressions/etc. as we get started?

[Alice]

I'm really struggling with this book. It's Dorian Gray all over again. I strongly dislike most of the characters, I find them superficial and self-absorbed and just mostly insufferable. I get that it's a classic, but - never having read it before - I'm really having difficulty to see how anyone can actually enjoy the characters? Help.

[Lieselotte]

The characters are indeed often horrible. But the reason I got through the novel despite disliking the main characters is the fact that sometimes they do something nice and they seem way more real to me than the characters in Dorian Gray. To me they are a bunch of kids who were raised in a secluded environment without any decent education or role models. That combined with the fact that they were completely spoiled (especially Catherine and heatcliff while the father was still aluve) and only had each other makes their personality way more real. So despite not liking the characters I was still hooked and intreged and that made me continue with the book. I've read it three times now and I still love it!

[Isabela]

Well, despite the characters being horrible, I still think it is understadable why they act like that...and they even can do some nice things. Besides, Edgar, Hareton and Catherine Linton are not bad people, just spoiled or hurted by the circumstances...

[Shannon]

This is my second time reading it and I feel exactly the same about it as I did the first time. I TOTALLY see why it's considered so important (especially considering this was written by a woman at a time where she had to have a male pseudonym to be taken seriously) but I don't love it. I also have trouble reading books where I don't like any of the characters. This one does at least have redemption at the end.

A lot of what annoys me, though, is the fact that so many of the characters end up in their situations BECAUSE THEY WON'T LISTEN TO REASON and it drives me crazy. I know they're secluded and blah blah, but come on. Edgar and Isabela both had very STRONG warnings, as did young Cathy. The only one I feel any pity/likeness for is Edgar because he truly loved Cathy and did all he could for her. And I'll give young Cathy this: she didn't turn her back on Linton, even though his sniveling, crybaby self was so apparent. And she does escape to see her father before he dies, which does make her pretty likable, but all of her misery at Heathcliff's hands was her own fault.

But I digress. I do appreciate that she was able to end it on a hopeful note. I like the full circle nature of it. And it's a well done story, well written, very engrossing, but it's not one I'll be likely to read again because they all annoy me so much. I'll stick with Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre and Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey.

[Laura]

It was also my second time reading the story. I felt the same way as most of you. The characters continue to make the wrong decisions. I can make sense of why they do it but yet it clearly is a bad choice. I do like the ending though (despite the cousins thing).
I agree it is a classic, just about terrible people.