After almost 170 years of popularity, there is nothing I can hope to add. But it's still a great book to discuss with friends!

I didn't know what to expect when I started reading it. I didn't remember why I had downloaded it years earlier. Perhaps it was free? I only knew it was old. It starts as a horror story, which was quite unexpected.

Then it turns out not to be a horror story, but a family drama spanning three generations (30-40 years). The story and characters were probably revolutionary at the time of writing, but I think have diffused so much in our culture by today, that they hold little novelty for a current reader. (They are still interesting though.)

What I enjoyed the most is the language of the book. I forgot to take notes, but especially when the extremely dramatic characters talk about their feelings, every line is a gem that you could use in everyday life. One line I remembered to highlight is:

The red fire-light glowed on their two bonny heads, and revealed their faces animated with the eager interest of children; for, though he was twenty-three and she eighteen, each had so much of novelty to feel and learn, that neither experienced nor evinced the sentiments of sober disenchanted maturity.

It is a challenging read for a non-native speaker, but very rewarding.

It seems everyone finds a different meaning in the book. For me it was that the sins and tragedies of one generation will not necessarily spoil the life of the next. Heathcliff won. He had the children of his enemies in his hands, free to continue exacting revenge on them even after the enemies, and perhaps himself, were all dead. But he found no motivation to do so. Happy end!