Wuthering Heights - Just read for the first time. ANyone care to discuss

[suzywong]

My laptop was in the repair shop over the weekend so I read it.

Pretty strong stuff

IMO the key issue is not the romance but the shockingly systematic chld abuse.

And how is it that no one ever mentions the cruelty to Isabella when raving about this novel? Hmmmmm ?

Message withdrawn

There is a really good book about the brontes, by Lucinda .... I think it is called the Bronte Myth, i will try and find it.
It deals with Mrs Gaskells autibiography and her whitewashing of certain aspects of Charlotte, Charlottes own attempts to defend Emily and her writing after her death, which actually were probably disloyal as she talkeda about Emily as being an Innocent who had unwittingly written something contentious. She played the "Oh we all live on the Moors, never meet any one" card, which Gaskell then took up, and some would argue that this same Myth has been kept alive today.
People end up romantising the Brontes, and actually they did meet other people and go to Leeds and read a lot (of course) and didn't spend all their time playing amongst the grave stones.
Its a brilliant book, so will try and remember for any one who might be interested

I have read and re-read WH several times and always get something new about it (like the idea of the Russian dolls).

I think what spoils Charlotte Bronte for me is that she edited her sister Emily's poems after her death and toned some of it down, adding some of her own (vastly inferior) words instead. So I have a grudge against her.

NineunlikelyTales, you would like this book, if I only I could remember the damm name It makes that point, although it is not anti Chalotte

Yes I think I would like that book and would love to have the details if you can remember! I read loads of Bronte biographies about 10 years ago and none of them said anything like that...I wonder where she got her material from?

Prefer the song.

The book got tedious as far as I remember.

FOUND IT It is called "The Bronte Myth" and is by Lucasta Miller. I am afraid I am no good at doing links to Amazon or similar.
"A sharp witted study in literary reputation...Miller supplies a deft and immaculately detailed tracing of the many'constructions' of Charlotte Bronte.
It does look at the other two as well, esp Emily, but it concentrates on Charlotte as the survivor not necesscarily as the better Author, but as the Bronte who most contributed to their to the "Myth"

I got foxed with the Catherine and Cathys but I think that most people can relate to the awful despair that H & C (senior) go through. It's not one of my favourite books from the Brontes though.

Thanks overrun, I will see if I can get it from the library....yes they have it. I'll pop in tomorrow to reserve.

Pointydog

I read it aged 17 when I had (or thought I had) my own Heathcliff. obviously I loved the book and it shaped my perceptions of this particular relationship. Out of interest I re-read it a couple of years ago, partly to see if, in all these years of claiming it as my favourite book, I'd been depending more on my teenage passion than the book itself. I was pleasantly suprised to find not. of course my attitude to Heathcliff - or rather to the reality of life and love - was not quite what it was when I was 17. but I still think it's a great book. it's a rip-roaring story of incredible passion and - like the characters or not - I've never read anything that can touch it. it leaves me, 20 years on, with so much. interesting to read some of the more educated comments on it.

Hatwoman, thats a nice story I remember thinking that I had my own Heathcliff when i was 17, god he was downright abusive looking back on it
NineunlikelyTales - hope you enjoy it

Read a number of 'classics' but found this one hard going - so gave up.

I did Wuthering Heights for A level and remember being blown away by it - mind you anything was better than Jude the Obscure. I have it somewhere and might be tempted to reread. Read Jane Eyre recently and have to say it was the first book in years that made me cry.

Heathcliff was a twat and Catherine was a bitch.

True expat, but that you say that like that is a bad thing

Heathcliff is supposed to be some sort of dashing, brooding romantic hero. Instead of the abusive tit he really is.

I was forced to read this pile of drivel as a teen, and later as a young adult.

Failed to see what was remotely engaging about either Heathcliff the wife beater or Catherine the stuck up bitch.

Wish they'd both drowned in a bog in the first few pages and spared us all.

Jane Eyre far better. Especially when she ditches his ass after she finds out he's still married.

but you don;t have to like protagonsists for it to be a good book. some of my favourite bokos are about twats. Tom Wolfe? Martin Amis?

I thought it was a shite book with shite protaganists.

If you don't care for the central characters, how are you, the reader, supposed to be engaged enough to find it a good book?

I'm reading 'Eat, Pray, Love' just now. It's excellent!

I liked the passion in WH - I love that ' I love this woman and damn the bloody rest of it' - I liked the spiritual and the gothic and all the rest. BUT I did like Jane Eyre far far better - I liked the social comments and issues it brings in.....

I'm a Thomas Hardy fan meself, prefer anything of his over the Brontes tbh.

I'm shockingly badly read especially considering I did English as part of my degree

I only read WH for the first time about a year ago and I have to agree with expat. H was a bullying, moody, abusive arse. No redeeming features as far as I could see. I felt cheated and put the blame fully onto Kate Bush! I'm re-reading it at the moment but still having difficulty remembering who all the characters are. I need a cast list! I suppose I was expecting the usual dark, brooding, bastard-but-you-can't-help-loving-him type of hero so I shall try and read it with a more open mind this time.

FWIW, I looove Far From The Madding Crowd and can complete understand why Bathsheba wet her knickers over Sgt Troy (waggling his big sword about and piercing the caterpillar? on her bust ) - who is a complete bastard but gets away with it.

Heathcliff's got nothing on Mr Rochester.

Now that is passion, folks!

I love that line, 'Mr. Rochester was about forty, and this governess not yet twenty, and when gentlemen of his age fall in love with girls, they are like as if bewitched.'

but h is like that because the others are all so horrible to him. society pretends to rescue him from death, then rejects & belitlles hime. he is their nemesis. until they pay for their smug mc crimes, he will continue. once the balance is corrected, he disappears & the new generation can re-enact the happy life that he & Catherine would have had, if other people hadn't been so mean.
it's their fault & they deserveit. comeon, is there really no-body here who's been sneared at & wanted to wipe that smug grin off their face?

I just love Mr Rochester. Too sexy - reread Jane Eyre a couple of months ago, had forgotten just how much I love it.

think it is true that the treatment of children WAS appalling back then so what's in WH wasn't so shocking back then. People really did think that children were little devils and inherently evil. Awful

me too MrsJC - JE is so romantic. I don;t care if its badly written crap {WWB ) it just makes me want to be Jane