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

[MsAmerica]

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

Glad that you mostly agree with me. I don't find him either romantic or a hero.

John

He's a gripping character for a novel, but you'd run a million miles from the festooned bunting of red flags flapping wildly around him in real life.

Basically, he's not much craic, is he?

Sorry, I don't know what "craic" is.

He is a Romantic hero, as in the literary movement, but he is basically a twat. But then the lot of them are.

Utterly brilliant book though.

I'm pretty sure he wouldn't like your calling him a twat.

:)

Can you all just stop, you're spoiling my favourite book.
I thought that the whole point is that the characters are "flawed", make terrible decisions and behave badly. This is how people are in real life. The fact that some women aspire to Heathcliff as a romantic partner highlights this. I think that most people likethe idea of the soul mate bit and gloss over the part where Cathy and Heathcliff wreak havoc while wallowing in their self induced misery.
It's C19th Eastenders.

Heathcliffe was a black devil but so in love with Cathy that my young teenage heart was captured by his agony. The Bronte sisters were all longing for a romantic figure like the Duke of Wellington and alone with their imaginations they conjured up their own particular sexual fantasies. As an adult you wouldn't touch him with a barge pole.

MsQueenie I too have loved this book. Cried buckets over it but as I have just said he was a devil. I loved the book so much I called my daughter Cathy.

I first read WH as a teenager and to my me Heathcliffe was a poor misunderstood soul whose love for Cathy knew no bounds etc, etc. I was definitely influenced by Kate Bush.

However, having read it several times since then, I definitely agree that Heathcliffe was a selfish bully and a control freak. Cathy, a bit of a madam!

That said, I still love the book.

at C19th Eastenders

I read it in my 20s - still a naive and very 'young' woman - and really did not get what all the fuss was about. Certainly did not like Heathcliff, but then neither did I like Cathy. IIRC I found him a shellfish buly, and her a feeble wuss. I liked the melodrama and atmosphere, though.

On the back of this thread, I'm going to re-read WH and see how my more mature and experienced self interprets it.

As for favourite romantic hero, that has to be Darcy (And NOT because of the swimming scene on TV.) Closely followed by Hornblower (does he count?).

I read it a few years ago so I must have been around 30 I guess. Its not always nice, romantic people that fall in love, sometimes horrible people do as well and I loved the novel for depicting that. I was stuck by how much of a love story it was though as I had heard ppl complaining that it wasn't any such thing. That's how I read it anyway.