Wuthering Heights

[Danielle]

Has anyone read Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë? Loads of teenagers in France have started reading it because of the references to it in Twilight. Take a look at this article

[halogencat]

That's an interesting story, I read Wuthering Heights a couple of years back because we were staying in Haworth (the village in Yorkshire the Brontes were from) and thought it'd be suitable reading. I was surprised by how dark the story is, but I definitely enjoyed it, the writing flows beautifully and the whole story is very dramatic and gripping. I'm trying to think what books/movies have made me try out a book - I guess seeing Little Miss Sunshine was followed by my (failed) attempt at reading Beyond Good and Evil by Nietzche. Although I will admit that I only picked that one over his other books because I enjoyed the video game of the same name. >.>;

[Harmanicus]

The writing is definitely at a very high standard, and the plot is involving. But it did seem like it had been overrated by the people who always went on about it. I guess I never really went in for the whole 19th centruy 'get inside peoples' heads' schtick. Or maybe because I'm a guy.

[Rozzy Stardust]

Wuthering heights has to be the most depressing book i have EVER read. My mum forced me to read it at the young age of 11 so i didn't quite grasp the story line. I put the leather bound book to one side and i left it there picking it up only 5 years later. This time i became immersed in a novel where every line screamed out bleakness, pain and sadness. The books essence is gloomy and heavy, the end a twisted happy tragedy. God knows what Emily was feeling to have written that.

[Green Gecko]

I think I've read it. I don't know, because I know most of the plot and haven't seen any films. Short-term memory, I guess. It seemed a little doom-and-gloom, though, but my friend likes it. Maybe I'll give it [another?] go. I just remember hating Heathcliff because I'm under the vague impression he made a horse lame out of spite.

[Harmanicus]

Don't recall it being soul-crushingly depressing, just it got a bit dull after a while.

[Pwnin Rwnin]

Did you know she was a spinster?

As far as anyone knows she never had a relationship with a dude, and yet she managed to produce one of the most intense, moving romance novels of the english language, and two of the most frighteningly passionate characters we've ever seen. Wow (she was crazy =P).

[defy_gravity]

Have you seen they've re-released Wuthering Heights so it matches the Twilight covers?! Now, I've tried & failed to read Wuthering Heights too many times but I apreciate it is a very, very good book when given the time and effort it so deserves.

But really, re-releasing a classic because it's been COMPARED to one of the worst written series of books in the history of ever? To be honest, I've read the series & I can't see any links there... other than they're both mind-numbingly dull...

But I'm bias I suppose. I'd much rather read a book by an author who actually has a remote bit of tallent... -is mean-

[RonPrice]

It would appear that whatever talents I have at writing, at writing to any significant extent, I need some tranquillity in which to work, in which to liberate the forces within me. --Such were also the needs of Emily Bronte. See Winifred Gerin, Emily Bronte, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, p. 144.
-------------------------------

[RonPrice]

GRADUALLY AND HALTINGLY

From 1837 to 1848 Emily Bronte, the author of the famous novel Wuthering Heights, wrote a collection of poetry known as 'the Gondal Poems.' These poems were peopled with heroes and heroines. They tell of the life of the imagination, the place of her retreat. These poems were a hymn to the imagination, to her private world. It was a world where she expressed a vision of the essential oneness of life. It was a vision, too, that came to find its apotheosis in Wuthering Heights. It was a vision gradually and haltingly articulated of a radiant world "marred by her growing awareness of humanity's misery." These years were a decade, for Bronte, in which the unity of the individual with the universe formed the basis for her intuitive sense of humankind's oneness. -Ron Price with thanks to Winifred Gerin, Emily Bronte, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, pp.144-154.

Your vision, too, was one of death

to which we all advanced

with those wild-eyed charioteers,

our day-to-day hours,

drawing us to be with those we love,

undivided, all and only one--beyond the veil,

where finally our sleep was lifted in eternity.



Your vision, too, brooding as it was

on the nature of things,

had a converse with angels,

holy, heavenly, surely a leaven

that leavened your world of being

and furnished the power

through which your art

and its wonders were manifested.1

1 due in part, at least, to the new forces emerging in the world in the 1840s. Perhaps Bronte experienced what the Bab had prayed for during these years; namely, for that which will bring comfort to their minds, will rejoice their inner beings, will impart assurance to their hearts.(The Bab, Selections, 1976 p.179.)

1 there is no question, too, of the great power released into the world in the 1840s: all the world's which the Almighty hath created benefited through the power released by the Babi martyrs of the 1840s.(Gleanings, p.161)

Ron Price

6 July 2001