Synopsis: "Set amid the wild and stormy Yorkshire moors, Wuthering Heights, an unpolished and devastating epic of childhood playmates who grow into soul mates, is widely regarded as the most original tale of thwarted desire and heartbreak in the English language."
Summary: This book was told in a format I wasn't really expecting. The reader first meets Heathcliff, a young woman named Catherine who were are told is his dead son's wife, and another boy named Hareton. Soon an old servant/housekeeper begins to tell the tale of Heathcliff from when he was a child, up until the present. Most of the story the reader is kept in intrigue about Catherine (the elder) and Heathcliff and what has happened to them since they were children. I really enjoyed that mystery aspect of things.
As I read this book, I can honestly say this may be the only time I've ever wanted two characters to end up with one another so badly, despite my thinking that both of those characters were horrible, almost evil people. Anyone who reads this book and believes that Heathcliff is one of the best romantic characters in literature (and trust me, I've heard that), clearly doesn't remember all the abusive, cruel treatment he bestows on everyone in his path for love and revenge.
Definitely a dark, twisted sort of book, but an enjoyable read nonetheless.
Rating: I'm not going to rate this book because it isn't remotely like the other books I rate and I would feel compelled to compare it to them, which I really can't do. Know that I enjoyed the book however and would recommend it.
Other Recommended Books:
Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte
if by "format you weren't expecting," you mean "story within a story," and enjoyed that of it, i recommend Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley. it actually kind of ends up as 4 levels of story, w/ the 3rd level being the major level. the 4th just takes up 1 or 2 chapters, but still. asks a lot of really good questions too, like how would you react to a so-called disgustingly ugly creature, how would you react to something you created that you deemed disgustingly ugly, and even could it really have been that bad??
ReplyDeleteThat sounds interesting. I'll have to check it out sometime.
ReplyDeleteI'm really glad that someone agrees with me about Heathcliff! I had always heard that Wuthering Heights was an extremely romantic book and that Heathcliff and Cathy were the perfect, tragic couple -- akin to Romeo & Juliet.
ReplyDeleteWhen I finally read the book, I really enjoyed reading it, but I couldn't figure out what everyone else was thinking! They're abusive to each other and only deserve each other because they're both so equally selfish and cruel. It made for interesting reading, but Romeo & Juliet it was not.
I heard the exact same thing about Heathcliff and Catherine being the perfect, tragic couple! So I was definitely surprised to find them both as such flawed, rather horrible people. Honestly, by the end of the book the Hareton/Catherine (the younger one obviously) pairing was much more to my liking, even though it was featured much less prominently.
ReplyDeleteAdd me to those who had heard how romantic their love was, and then found both Heathcliff and Catherine (and pretty much everyone else) to be awful people. I just reviewed it on my blog, and I think I also used the words "abusive" and "cruel" in terms of their relationship.
ReplyDeleteI haven't read it yet but it's somewhere in my MASSIVE TBR pile. Ought to make for interesting reading based on the comments. :)
ReplyDeleteWhat a wonderful story. I read this book when I was in high school over twenty years ago. I have recently read it again. The vertical generational relationships are what makes this book brilliant.
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