Wuthering Heights

I don't know why people recommend this as a angsty romance, it's not, it's a revenge story.
a psychological horror revenge story and if you go into it knowing that then it's pretty good. (although I wish this would've been told in a chronological third person narrative)

Just because the main characters are/were in love, and the revenge is mainly plotted around Heathcliff's anger at his lost of Catherine, his motives are also driven by his anger at being treated shitty by almost everyone since he was brought to the Wuthering Heights as a child, although that doesn't excuse his horrid behavior towards everyone (including animals) as an adult. Heathcliff has mental health issues, and to say that his 'love' is unhealthy is an understatement. Dude straight up dug up Catherine's grave cause he wanted to see her, spent his whole life trying to get Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange just becase he wanted to demolish them, wanted to be haunted by Catherine and then thought he was, and not to mention that he starved himself to death because he wanted to see her again. my guy needs some therapy Also, I can't say that I liked any of the characters, I honestly didn't care what happened to any of them, they were all dicks, it wasn't just that they were 'villains' or 'anti-heroes' the were just assholes. They were the type of unlikeable that I think Jane Austen thought the character Emma would be, but upped by a hundred percent. For me, they didn't have redeeming qualities. (Nelly was okay, but let's be real she was just a narrative device)

If you want a ‘classic' romance then pick up Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, or Northanger Abbey (any Jane Austen for the matter). Honestly, I'd put this in the same category as Frankenstein, it gives off similar feelings/tones. This is more for if you want a story about miserable people being miserable.

I listened to an audiobook version.

For some reason I imagined that this book would be more interesting, that it would contain some great tragedy, blazing fits of the extremes of toxic love, that it would be an intense and heavy experience.

A while back I tried to read it and the first chapters would contain a lot of description, as I listened to it now it contained a lot more narrative and wasn't like the start at all. I thought it would be more difficult, but I ended up thinking that the whole drama and conflict was too simple. Some accents were a pain, but that's as far as the difficulty went for me.

For the length of the book I wanted so much more. I wanted fuller, more mature characters, not children engaging in conflicts. The amount of disturbing stuff that happened is minimal and I thought that stuff would be at least a little paranormal with the dream at the start, with so many mentions of the devil, but it wasn't. A lot of conflict in this book is due to the fact that its characters are not smart.

I expected the narrative to be rich and deep with psychological insight, but this was no Flaubert, I found no such a thing, it was very simple which has happened. It was so boring and plain and I feel bad for having this opinion because I had such expectations. There were so many events yet no proper reflection on them, no proper comment on them from the author and the main narrator would sometimes give her christian insights which I could not care for.

Well, I thought this would be a somewhat dark romance. Well it was maybe a little darker.

I am honestly so unsure where to place this? Like in terms of my star rating. I mean on one hand it was good. I was just maybe not a fan of HOW it was executed. I am generally not a fan of jelousy like at all. So that entire consept of what it is about was just not that great from me. Expecially when the jelousy of somone being closer to a person that you are. I mean make the fucking effort and fix it. Jelous of money I can understand ish but just... well idk, personal opinions.
The whole idea is executed good tho. Considering that the entire consept is something I am kind of against. I like the thought of having the patience, like being abel to WAIT, and be patient for a mounth. let alone YEARS. So that is unbelible for me.
I do not like just how.... not great all the caracters are. They just have little to no likebility, like in general. Atleast they did not for me.
I like the exeution, and I cant blame the author for not followng my personal likes and dislikes.
It was deffently dark enough for me. It had small drops of emotional moments that did make you feel connected even tho i disliked the caracthers. I mean when Heathcliff visit the grave after she died. Why was I feeling all emotional?
So yes it was a mix, not the best but it was quite good.
3.75/5

my retort to wuthering height stans:

I understand the complexities which emily bronte strives to broach and explore throughout this book but, at the end of the day (to me) all it succeeds in accomplishing is reinforcing that people suck.

the techniques employed to structure the story's narration as being told from several people - oft, at times, being recycled across a lineage of individuals - is impressive especially when considered to be in conjunction to the quality of language wielded by bronte to outline her multi-faceted world with intentional detail.

however, while these elements are praiseworthy, I personally did not find the subject matter particularly enriching; terrible people doing terrible things, squandering any hope of redemption, makes for a rather taxing read to me. With life's inherent challenges, I question the appeal of reinforcing negativity through a gothic romance when I could simply watch the news 😭

now, i understand that others may find value in the themes i struggled with &, my critique isn't to discredit their admiration either but, only to explain why, for me, the book's messages left me largely disenchanted.

simply put: good read but it was just not my style. i hope this clarifies that my mediocre reception of the novel isnt a dismissal of its literary merit, but rather a reflection of my own personal taste. excessive praise for a narrative that extensively dwells on human depravity strikes me as overdone.

Summary: This story is told through several frames. The narrator is Mr. Lockwood, who has moved into a house called Thrushcross Grange. He is recounting a story that the housekeeper, Nelley, is telling him about the owner of Thrushcross Grange (Heathcliff) and the people he grew up with. Heathcliff was adopted by the parents of Catherine and Hindley, and Nelley tells about the relationship that developed between Heathcliff and the other members of the dysfunctional family. She traces the story all the way to Heathcliff's adulthood, and she tells Mr. Lockwood of the surprising amount of cruelty that took place in his house.

It's confusing, depressing, weird, boring, and I really don't see the romance. I mean, Cathy haunting Heathcliff could be seen as romantic, but he was an a-hole, and she wasn't much better, besides, she died, so... i suppose it's the Gothic theme of a dark vortex of Heathcliff and his obsession with Cathy sucking in all life and light around him...

Frankly, the mere detail that Stephenie Meyer referred to this book in Twilight should say all anyone needs to know about both that book and this. :-(

Gothic wilderness, madness, first loves, betrayals, childhood best friends parting and meeting again, castles, the highlands, wild, unbridled, intoxicating passions.

Wuthering Heights is phenomenal. Emily Bronte only ever wrote one book during her lifetime, and died not long after this one was published, but as it stands, Wuthering Heights is rightly enough to put her on the list as one of the best writers in the history of English literature.

This book is moody, fierce, brooding, intense, tragic and very, very beautiful. The prose alone is a pleasure to read.

When I first read Wuthering Heights, I spent the first half despising Heathcliff and Cathy. They were whiny bitches for the larger part, and when I was finished with the novel I couldn't figure out just why it was that I put the book down having another perspective to look back at those same characters now. Of course, they still made you want to punch them in the stomach, but you couldn't really avoid liking them as characters. It was the first book that inspired such intense dislike and yet made wonderful reading all the same.

This book is one of my all time favourites.

A dramatic and classic tale of Victorian literature, quite a whirlwind from start to finish despite its plodding onward in drama. The psychological aspects of it were what made it so interesting, as well as Brontë's illicit and descriptive prose, although if I had been Lockwood, I would have departed from the Grange long before I ever learnt the history of the house. At times, the dramatics are so much, I think it more of a satire of the ideals of the time period, of romance and ghostliness and hauntings and madness, and that thought endears it to me. I found myself frustrated in parts of it, although the characters do not stray very far from their “I am irredeemable” pathways. And I liked the ending the best, how it's very circular. Read for the experience, not necessarily for the plot, as it's told in abstract and detached narratives - listening to another's account alongside Lockwood, for an example. It's made of a lot of telling as opposed to doing.

The other Brontë sisters' books are much better than this one. I feel bad for not liking it (it's my grandmother's favorite) but I could not find a likable character in the whole book. I understand and completely agree that characters don't have to be likable, and there are numerous books that I do enjoy with very few likable characters, but I just couldn't understand the reasoning behind any of the actions of any of the characters.

The only thing I knew going into reading Wuthering Heights was that it was some sort of love story with a guy named Heathcliff. Unfortunately Heathcliff is a pretty terrible person and there is a love story but it's very tragic. Overall though it is impressive that Emily Brontë managed to write something like this in 19th century England.

The plot idea is intriguing (hateful ghost story) and I enjoyed how all the characters are grey, unlikeable and just shitty people. However, it was utterly boring even though it is well written. This tends to be my overall issue with the books from the 19th century. They tend to drone on and never reach the point. The ending feels unfinished.

i am finally free of this book ! just kidding, but not really. a lot of time id no idea what was going on, but i'll try to analyse. what i got is that young heathcliff and catherine were girlbosses, and fuck everyone else. i think what they had was true love and they deserved to be together. i think after cathy (earnshaw/linton?) died, heathcliff became overcome with grief and later on, greed. i think he used his son to his advantage, encouraging him to marry catherine (heathcliff) for the inheritance. i really did like linton though, i thought he was such a sweet kid. and the way catherine described him was really lovely, too. i'm just gonna flat out say that i hated catherine heathcliff. she was this little pretentious brat who cried every time she didn't get her own way. i didn't like hareton at first, but he ended up becoming one of my favourites. catherine treated him like a literal science experiment, and she was so bipolar with with him. one moment she'd be like “ew don't touch me you're dirty asf” and the next she was like “i wanna be friends lol” like ??? it was weird, and i think hareton was treated badly because he liked catherine so much that he just gave into all of it. also the theme of death is so present in this fucking story LOL. you just kinda get used to all of the characters dying. at some points, i didn't even know WHO was dying, just that someone was gone. my favourite quote is probably, “it would degrade me to marry heathcliff, now; so he shall never know how i love him; and that, not because he's handsome, nelly, but because he's more myself than i am. whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same.” it's such a beautiful love confession and i just think that those two were made for each other.

This book is fun to read for the first part of the book, when you are just learning about the characters and how they interact with each other, however they really stay the same spoiled and obsessed as they were in the beginning. During the second part of the book really just drones on for me. It wasn't really interesting for me, so it was a struggle to get through the second half. The prose is formal, for this time period, but not too formal that it is too hard to understand what is going on. Plus, I like the occasional challenge of figuring out what a certain phrase or word means through the context of the story. Overall, I can understand why it is part of the classics, and in some areas, part of the curriculum.