Wuthering Heights
By Emily Bronte
Read: March 2009
Rating: Poison
I give up. I quit. I want nothing more to do with this torturous mess. I decided it was time to try Wuthering Heights because my TiVo had picked up a documentary on the Bronte sisters, which was of course full of people who think they’re the most brilliant writers ever. They gave me a romantic notion of what I might find. I didn’t go looking for summaries or cliffnotes or reviews beforehand, because I wanted to have everything unfold naturally. This did not help me to like the book.
It comes down to: My GOD, the way this book is misrepresented is criminal.
Oh, the tragic love of Heathcliff and Catherine! Paramours, starcross’d lovers, pinacles of romance. Yeah, fuck that, this is sick.
And I stopped around page 120.
I want to make it clear up front just what it is I’m objecting to. When the book was first published there was a horrified outcry, because the book dared to represent violence and cruelty. People didn’t think it was ‘proper’ for a woman to even think about such things, nevermind read, or WRITE a book that revolves around them. I’m ok with books that center on harsh things. (See Bishop, Anne.)
What I don’t like are characters with pisspoor motives.
Catherine is the daughter of a fairly well-off family. It’s not the best environment, as there’s alcoholism and suchlike. Her father drinks himself to death and her older brother isn’t much better. Small wonder that, with a natural dose of spunk, she grows up running wild on the moors.
Heathcliff is an urchin adopted into this family by the well-meaning father, who dotes on him over and above his real son, and promptly dies, leaving Heathcliff with no protection. The older brother treats Heathcliff like dung, making them enemies.
But Catherine and Heathcliff, in this difficult environment, become close friends. From what I can make out, they’re partners in adversity. There’s no out and out love affairs between them–they’re more like twins who are inseperable.
Until they’re separated. One of their misadventures injures Cathy’s leg so badly that she stays at the nearest neighbor’s, the Lintons, for several weeks. She comes home pampered and well-dressed and fancying herself a young lady now. The rift begins between her and her foster brother. The Linton boy becomes infatuated with her, and she decides to marry him. Heathcliff overhears her describing a marriage to him as ‘beneath her.’ He runs away. Cathy is beside herself, but marries Edgar Linton anyway.
On Heathcliff’s return, three years later, Cathy is ever so delighted to see him. I don’t pick up much in the way of festering UST (Unresolved Sexual Tension), but Edgar is certainly displeased. And Edgar’s little sister, Isabella, starts to crush on the brooding Heathcliff. Take note, all. Isabella is every deluded fangirl of the next 200 years. She swears he MUST be a good man, despite Cathy telling her straight up that he’s selfish and greedy–and she’s his friend! Heathcliff is at first disgusted by this–until he realizes he can get vengeance at Edgar and inherit Edgar’s property to boot. I stopped reading at this point, but the Intarweb(tm) tells me that Heathcliff marries the girl, abuses her, and it all just spirals out into really hideous people doing really hideous things to each other.
Ok. I believe that in the hands of a really sensitive writer, this plot is salvageable. If you empathize with these characters, you’re going to want to weep for them. But I really don’t give a damn about ANYONE IN THIS BOOK.
Catherine is a prissy, self-important little chit. She has a temper and breaks things. She’s nasty. And everything must go her way. I don’t see much evidence of her deep and abiding LURVE for Heathcliff, in either the scene where she’s unburdening herself to the housekeeper, Nelly, or when Heathcliff returns. They’re damn good friends, but what else? Basically, she’s a cow.
Heathcliff… I can’t find much to recommend him. I was really hoping he’d be like Rhett Butler, who was an ass to Scarlett but was smart as hell and had good reasons. Heathcliff has had a hard life and is cold and bitter from the beginning. Things might have been different if his foster father had lived long enough for him to finish his education. Instead he and the brother have a sort of vendetta against one another. Apparently, Heathcliff passes on his loathing for the brother to that man’s son, even though he likes that kid better than HIS OWN son! Heathcliff is messed up. And dangerous. He does things with the sole intent of hurting people. Does his love Catherine? If he does, he’s keeping his lips buttoned. I was going with a theory of Darcy-esque reluctance to speak his true feelings, but then he started preying on Isabella and I lost all sympathy.
Edgar is a pussywhipped pile of dung. He witnesses Catherine at her worst–she gets angry and throws things and has a complete fit over something trifling. AND THEN HE ASKS HER TO MARRY HIM. Heathcliff’s contempt for the man is well founded.
Isabella is a blonde who likes bad boys. Surely her love can bring him out of his brooding shell and they shall be happy together! Idiot girl is too stupid to listen to reason, and probably provoked a lot of Heathcliff’s ire. Running away is probably the smartest thing she does in the entire book.
That’s the primary cast I dealt with. They’re all rotten people. They deserve each other. And they become even WORSE people as the story goes on. Dammit, I don’t want to read that. It’s frustrating and annoying.
Then… oh THEN we get to talk about the actual format of the book. Cuz, see, all of these could be complete bullshit. It could all be a ton of half-truths, but we’ll never know because THERE IS NO RELIABLE NARRATION AT ALL.
See, the primary narrator is Lockwood, this disembodied “I” who moved into a house on the adult Heathcliff’s property, and started sticking his nose in everyone’s business. He chats up Nelly, the old housekeeper, and she’s only too glad to go into the sordid details with him. So the “I” is no longer Lockwood, it’s Nell, but there’s no clear distinction in the text itself. No italics, no chapter breaks between voices, no quotes. And then… THEN… we have Nelly recounting her conversations with Heathcliff about what he did earlier.
So, Lockwood is telling us about Nelly’s telling him what Heathcliff told her he did. That’s three first person narrators squished in like nesting dolls. There no way in effing heaven that everything in there is accurate. Bonus evidence? All three have a very vivid way of describing things. In fact, it’s like each knew their REAL audience would be a reader, and so they go on about the sort of atmospheric descriptions one isn’t damn well supposed to find in secondary storytellers! Tertiary! ARGH!
This is compounded by the fact that Nelly is… a reasonably educated housekeeper? It’s strange. She has some education, a lot of it more than her station could ever require. She’s not tutoring, so she doesn’t have to pass it on. She certainly doesn’t exhibit a great love of learning, or a desire to be part of the upper classes. In fact, the only reason Nell has an education seems to be to serve the writer, so Miss Bronte can put eloquent words in the woman’s mouth with some legitimacy. Fail.
Add to our character summary:
Nelly: Plot device with cursory backstory.
Lockwood: Plot device. …
In fact, the Book-A-Minute summary plays on that.
Wuthering Heights
By Emily Bronte
Ultra-Condensed by Katherine Walters
Lockwood
I think I’ll stay here. Tell me a story, woman.
Nelly Dean
I’m no gossip, mind you, but this guy Heathcliff got adopted, everyone hated him, and his love Catherine died.
Heathcliff
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! (dies)
Lockwood
I’ll be on my way.
THE END
Book-A-Minute Classics: http://rinkworks.com/bookaminute/b/bronte.wuthering.shtml
I would add only one more line, in the most annoying Daddy’s Princess voice you can imagine.
Catherine
Edgar is being silly, he doesn’t like me saying nice things about Heathcliff just because they used to hate each other. It’s so unreasonable. And Heathcliff’s a beast to have made me worry while he was gone, even though what I said hurt him deeply. But I love him so much that I’ll be magnanimous. Cuz Heathcliff and me are, like, THE SAME PERSON, practically. “Should the meanest thing alive slap me on the cheek, I’d not only turn the other, but I’d ask pardon for provoking it; and, as a proof, I’ll go make my peace with Edgar instantly. Good-night! I’m an angel!”
That last bit is a direct quote from Chapter Ten. The little bitch.
I think I might have enjoyed the process more if I HAD been assigned this in school. Then I would’ve had the outlet of class discussions and papers to fully express my disappointment and disgust.
