Has anyone’s view of a favourite book changed on rereading? Just reread Wuthering Heights

[Duchessofmuchness]

I’ve just finished re reading Wuthering Heights. When I read it at 20 i remember I couldn’t put it down. Read long into the night and cried. (proper uncontrollable sobbing) reading the ending. I would always say was one of books had loved reading most.

This time around (reading 40 years later) I dragged myself through it I couldn’t bring myself to like any of the characters- except the loyal Ellen and Hareton. I felt empathy for Catherine and Cathy - young and impulsive.

I suppose I must have been crying because Heathcliff is determined and happy that he will be reunited with Catherine but I didn’t feel it way I felt at 20. This time I felt such strong dislike for Heathcliff and his anger and control and sorry for the lack of agency Catherine and Cathy have.

I’m actually amazed how differently it hit me this time. Be so interested in whether anyone else has experienced this. Was it just age or also that times have changed?

There are writers that get better with age and authors that get worse. WH is definitely on that gets worse. Great Expectations, on the other hand, was boring at A-level and very funny 30 years later.

I recently read The Bell Jar. If I'd read it at 20 I would have loved it. In my mid fifties, not so much. I've lived through too many mental health crises (some mine, some of close family) to want to put myself through that for a novel.

Oh, Heidi is one for me. Loved it as a child, found it unbearably priggish when reading to my own children.

I never liked WH and nothing has changed. I loved Pride and Prejudice as a teenager and really dislike it now. I know the clue is in the title but I don't like any of them.

I loved GH books in my teens and twenties but some are more problematic as a more mature reader but the one I really liked was An Infamous Army. I think I learned more about Waterloo from it than I ever did in a history lesson. I think I might have to read it again to see how it seems now.

Was the book you read Friday's Child? Sounds like something that might happen to Hero, she seemed a sweet heroine to me 50 years ago but thinking about her now she seems a bit annoying.

Brilliant thread!
I adore Thomas Hardy, but I must admit that my recent rereading of Jude the Obscure felt like a different novel to the one I read in my teens. It is so, so unrelentingly sad.

I adore Wuthering Heights and always have, since I first read it at 13. My view of the novel as a whole hasn't really changed. The characters are so well drawn, their emotions and psychology strike me as fully convincing. As an aside, I've always thought WH should translate well to the screen, but every adaptation has been horrendous IMO. I haven't watched the most recent version, but from the few excerpts I've seen it looks like yet another monstrosity.

As for books I read differently now, I find some of Virginia Woolf's novels virtually unreadable these days. I will always love To the Lighthouse, but some of her other novels such as The Waves leave me absolutely cold now.

I love GH too, but there are some pretty 'off' scenes in some of them. I love The Grand Sophy but the antisemitic scene is unpleasant. Pretty much all of Cousin Kate is a nightmare, and the casual murders in The Tollgate.

I re read Mansfield Park the other day after like 35 years. I now think Fanny Price was autistic.

I did WH for A level and I absolutely hated it. Melodramatic wank and I hated all of them. Lots of my pals loved it. I tried to reread it about 5 years ago and still hated it. Madame Bovary is one of my favourite classics and I reread it every few years. Every time I read it my opinion of Emma Bovary changes depending on what stage of life I am at. First time at 20 I thought she was a spoilt twat but over the years I have had more and more sympathy for her.
I loved the Go Between at 20 I reread it recently and hated it. Wish I hadn't.