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Original poster

Do you consider Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights a favorite romantic hero?

36 replies

MsAmerica · 22/02/2015 23:27

It's a startling idea for me. But I ran across this remark from Anne Tyler:

Q: What book did you feel you were supposed to like, and didn’t? Do you remember the last book you put down without finishing?

AT: I somehow made it to adulthood without ever reading “Wuthering Heights,” but then I found out that several of my women friends considered Heathcliff their all-time favorite romantic hero. So I read about three-quarters of it as a grown-up, and immediately developed some serious concerns about the mental health of my friends.

www.nytimes.com/2015/02/08/books/review/anne-tyler-by-the-book.html?_r=0

OP posts:
Showy · 23/02/2015 09:16

Oh good heavens no. I had massive concerns about Mr Rochester at the same time. I was only a teen when I read both, but they both struck me as terribly flawed and not at all romantic.

JohnFarleysRuskin · 23/02/2015 09:08

I did. I was 17.

I thought I was Cathy. I said to my BF. "You are more myself than I am".

He was a mild mannered fella. He said, "er, yeah, Ok."

funnyossity · 23/02/2015 09:05

I skipped to the end, I have to say.

hackmum · 23/02/2015 08:37

No! Heathcliff is vile. I think maybe Anne Tyler's friends saw the film version with Laurence Olivier at an impressionable age and are just pretending to have read the book.

FatSwan · 23/02/2015 00:22

I loathed Heathcliff. Cathy too. Just horrible people.

Jux · 23/02/2015 00:18

Horrible bloke. Cathy was a ghastly specimen too. In fact, I can't think of any character in that book who was worth the Endurance of having to read it. I was an adult by the time I got round to it though.

funnyossity · 22/02/2015 23:48

He is so obviously one to avoid.

mammuzzamia · 22/02/2015 23:36

I was wrong both times. Isabella Blush

That's Isabella Linton, obviously.

The unrequited, tragic, inevitably doomed love story always has a hint of romance to it (I think). But Heathcliff himself the romantic hero, well that;s just a bit twisted.

treaclesoda · 22/02/2015 23:35

I was only about 16 when I read it. It's a long time ago. I think I thought he was a creepy grumpy hard to be around pain in the arse. But then I also concede that at that age I might have completely missed the point of the entire book...

mammuzzamia · 22/02/2015 23:32

Isobel (or was it Isabel) certainly can't have thought so.

HollyBdenum · 22/02/2015 23:30

I don't see how anyone who has actually read the book can see him that way, if you mean "romantic hero" in the having-a-crush sense rather than the literary sense.

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