kdwarn reviewed Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë by Emily Brontë
None
3 stars
Over-rated just a bit?
mass market paperback, 320 pages
English language
Published Nov. 29, 1959 by New American Library.
4 stars
(132 reviews)
There are few more convincing, less senti- mental accounts of passionate love than Wuthering Heights. This is the story of a savage, tormented foundling, Heathcliff, who falls wildly in love with Catherine Earn- Shaw, the daughter of his benefactor, and the , violence and misery that result from their thwarted longing for each other. A book of immense power and strength, it is filled with the raw beauty of the moors and an uncanny understanding of the terrible truths about men and women—an under- standing made even more extraordinary by the fact that it came from the heart of a frail, inexperienced girl who lived out her lonely life in the moorland wildness and died a year after this great novel was published.
kdwarn reviewed Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë by Emily Brontë
Review of 'Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
Over-rated just a bit?
Review of 'Wuthering Heights (a Classics Novel by Emily Brontë)' on 'Goodreads'
Review of 'Wuthering Heights (a Classics Novel by Emily Brontë)' on 'Goodreads'
5 stars
I admit it. I picked up this book when I was 19 because my mother said, "I can't relate to Catherine because she's too willful!" and she always called me willful, too. ;)
Emily's sisters were both Victorian social novelists, but Emily was a Romantic--as in Romantic poet, not as in Romance novel. I make that distinction because I don't think we're supposed to sigh over Heathcliff and Catherine, I think we're supposed to see something that would be natural and positive if it hadn't been blasted and twisted into something dark by the social pressures that kept them apart.
One of the things I like about this novel is the way Emily wasn't afraid of ambiguity, the way she would build up something as being possibly supernatural and then carefully pull that possibility apart, unravel it so that it's all up to the reader. She's also not afraid of …
I admit it. I picked up this book when I was 19 because my mother said, "I can't relate to Catherine because she's too willful!" and she always called me willful, too. ;)
Emily's sisters were both Victorian social novelists, but Emily was a Romantic--as in Romantic poet, not as in Romance novel. I make that distinction because I don't think we're supposed to sigh over Heathcliff and Catherine, I think we're supposed to see something that would be natural and positive if it hadn't been blasted and twisted into something dark by the social pressures that kept them apart.
One of the things I like about this novel is the way Emily wasn't afraid of ambiguity, the way she would build up something as being possibly supernatural and then carefully pull that possibility apart, unravel it so that it's all up to the reader. She's also not afraid of being ugly and dark and sick, and devoid of socially redeeming value.
It's also an interesting book structurally--sort of a first person narrative inside a first person narrative, and neither narrator is reliable.
