My second foray into my Year of Brontë was Wuthering Heights, by young
Emily. Emily Brontë only wrote one book, presumably because nothing could
overdo this one. I read this when I was a young’un. I think I was maybe 17, or
something. Maybe younger. And I didn’t like it. I think it’s because I wasn’t
good enough in English, so maybe I didn’t get the book completely. So I tried
again, because I didn’t feel sad enough, I guess.
Plot
So this book starts out in 1801 with a man named Lockwood, who is
currently lodging at Thrushcross
Grange.
He goes across the moor and ends up at Wuthering Heights, where he meets his
landlord; Mr Heathcliff. He seems like a gentleman, but a bit uncouth. He also
meets a young Mrs Heathcliff, Mr Heathcliff’s daughter-in-law, and a young man
named Hareton Earnshaw. They seem quite unhappy. He’s trapped in the house over
night and is haunted by someone who wants Heathcliff. The next day Lockwood’s
housekeeper starts telling him the unhappy story of Heathcliff, Catherine
Earnshaw and their just catastrophic love story. When Cathy is young her dad
adopts Heathcliff and they become best friends. Heathcliff is a bit dark and
rude, and he is not loved by Catherine’s brother Hindley. When Earnshaw senior dies
Hindley terrorizes Heathcliff, and to an extent Catherine. Catherine marries a
neighbour, Edgar Linton, basically to get away, and Heathcliff leaves. He
promises to exact his vengeance on Hindley, and Catherine, for daring to marry
someone else.
Thoughts (spoiler city)
I actually liked it this time. Well, that’s maybe an overstatement, I
guess. It was beautifully written, and it was strong, and gorgeous. It was also
exhausting. I feel like people say it’s a love story. I guess. If the love
stories you read are full of abuse, arrogant assholes, vengeance plots, and
people digging up the people they love. So yes.
Every single person in this book was at some point a horrible person,
except Lockwood, but he doesn’t really feature so much. They’re all awful. So
you can’t really relate to anyone. Some people say Nelly Dean is good, no.
She’s an unreliable narrator, she’s self righteous, she flip flops, she also
puts herself first pretty much all the time. She’s like, I hope Cathy doesn’t
tell her dad this was all my fault, even if it fucking was, because I’m a
horrible nanny. God. Take some responsibility dude. I realize she has a
self-preservation instinct, but in that case she should try to be a better
person.
Heathcliff… He is quite possibly the least pleasant person I’ve ever
read about. He’s a villain, but not like Voldemort, he’s scarier somehow for
being a person without magic. He is arrogant, he’s conceited, he’s rude, cruel,
and he is downright abusive. When they’re kids he and Catherine are friends,
and he loves her, and so when she marries he goes completely off the fucking
bend and decides that he will destroy the lives of those he feels has wronged
him; Catherine Earnshaw, Hindley Earnshaw, which includes Hareton, even though
he’s never done anything wrong, Edgar Linton, and then goes on to try to ruin
Cathy’s daughter, Catherine Linton. He basically decides to raze the fucking
ground. He tricks Cathy’s sister-in-law to marry him, openly derides her,
abuses her and tells her openly that he hates her and loves Cathy. When
Isabella dies and he takes control of their son he physically and
psychologically abuses him. He tricks Hindley out of his money and lands. He
forces young Cathy to marry his son so he will get the Lintons’ land when her
father dies. He beats her as well. This is how psychotic he is: he buys off
Linton’s lawyer so Linton can’t change his will, and then tries to make sure
Linton isn’t buried next to Catherine. Because you know, he’s a complete piece
of shit. I’ll give him this: he has follow-through. And if you hope he has any
redeeming qualities, he doesn’t, in my opinion, he’s the scum of the earth. He
made me angry and uncomfortable, and good God.
So does anyone else have redeeming qualities? No. Catherine Earnshaw is
pretty, she’s spoiled, she’s mean. She’s cruel. There’s this part in the book
where she’s sick, and she’s angry, and being a petulant child, and she says
something to the effect of: “I know like, Edgar (her husband) is behaving
badly, and I’ve been a bit outrageous, but I like, thought everyone really
liked me and liked waiting on me.” Although she sounds less like a 2015
teenager. And when she said that I felt like it completely explained her
character. She has no insight into her own character. I feel like I read that
and thought: “bitch you’ve been refusing to eat for three days because you had a fucking tantrum. And you’re
surprised people are pissed at you?” She’s cruel. She marries Edgar even though
she loves Heathcliff, and she seems to blame Edgar for this, for some reason.
She acts unreasonable, she is conceited and fucking horrible. I’m a bit angry
with her.
Her husband does have some redeeming qualities. I don’t see why he
marries her, that’s one thing. She’s completely crazy, you jackass. He’s not
the most awful person in the book. But he seems to feel sorry for himself for
loving Catherine. Dude! She loves Heathcliff and she straight up physically
attacked you, and you just thought: yeah, I need to get up on that. He is
however a good father. He walks with his daughter, he truly loves her and when
his sister dies he steps up to help his nephew, even though Heathcliff comes
and fucks that up, because of course he does. He tries his best to keep Cathy
away from Heathcliff, in the hope that his daughter might avoid the awful fate
of the rest of the family. He really tries.
Cathy Linton, and her cousin, Linton Heathcliff, are more annoying than
anything else, well Linton is a piece of shit. Cathy is a lot like her mother.
She’s spoiled, she’s conceited and beautiful. The first time she meets Hareton
she is furious when told he’s her cousin, because she thinks he’s stupid and
mean, and she refuses to acknowledge that he is her cousin. She’s impatient and
rude. She does however try very hard to better herself, particularly towards
Hareton, at the end. She’s very teenager-y, so I felt like I could forgive a
lot of her behaviour. And she is… very loving and devoted to both her dad, and
Linton. She will do anything for them both, which is a sympathetic trait, and
she is very tortured by Heathcliff the older, and it turns her to this sort of
darkness as well, but she slides out of it again. So I liked her, but she also
annoyed me.
Linton Heathcliff is sickly and whiny, and he wants everyone to look
after him, which, surprise, surprise, is incredibly grating for his dad. He is
clearly abused by his father, which doesn’t really help his constitution. He
knows Cathy loves him, and even though he has been abused, he doesn’t try to
turn this to something better, but turns around and abuses her as well. She
tries to be kind and helpful, and he’s just a jackass. A sickly, whiny,
petulant, abusive, jackass.
So pretty much none of the characters are kind, relatable or in anyway
pleasant, and I couldn’t find anyone to like. I still really liked the book. I
mean it was exhausting and depressing, and it made me feel like I’d never be
happy again, but still. The way it was written was just amazing. It was
beautiful, and it’ll sound a bit sick, but I liked that it seemed like the horror
would never end. Because it was just very consistent, and it was impressive
that she made me feel like the world was just full of darkness and no hope. I
don’t know why I liked that, but I did. I might actually buy a new copy, one
that matches my Jane Eyre, because I only have this cheap Penguin version and I
don’t really like it. I might, who am I kidding? I will.
Finally
It was good. I liked it, it made me feel hopeless and a bit depressed,
but I still liked it and I like unlikeable characters, so that part didn’t
necessarily bother me. Because even though I hated them all I still wanted to
know what happened to them. So I liked it, I guess. Rave reviews.
