Wuthering Heights

Rating:
Summary: An Honest Opinion...
Review: Wuthering Heights is a very slow book. Not much happens and you shouldn't read it if you want an interesting story. After reading it, I feel that the book could have been shortened greatly. Even though there are some excellent themes in it, I don't see WH as an example of fine literature. Authors such as Hemingway (For Whom the Bell Tolls), Dumas (The Count of Monte Cristo--Unabridged), and Frank (Alas Babylon) spin much better tales with much stronger themes and meaning. My advice: skip this book and read the unabridged version of The Count of Monte Cristo.

Rating:
Summary: Mean horrible awful people and personal redemption
Review: The movie American Beauty reminds me of this book. Both pull off the near impossible task of presenting the reader (or viewer) with horrible nasty people and then at the last moment making us see them as simply angry human beings fully capable of redemption and understanding, even if its too late to do anything with their lives.

The book starts out with one of foppiest of English fops touring the Manor with a utter contempt for these people and their ways. The stories that he hears from the servants only confirm his view, but they are intriguing. No one tells what they want to tell and there are times when you want to strangle the servants telling the stories (especially the one that PURPOSELY hid a note that would have eased some of the tensions because she didn't feel that it would be right. How many interfering old bitties like this are in the world? Probably more in the Victorian era.)

The love between Heathcliff and Catherine might have worked out in different circumstances, if Heathcliff had not been the hated adopted gypsy child, if Catherine's brother hadn't been an idiot drunk, if Catherine hadn't been pledged to marry the idiot next door. Of course, then it wouldn't have been such an intriguing novel. Heathcliff comes back the conquering hero to find that Catherine is married and her idiot brother is still a drunk and he can't have her so he plays dangerous games with people's hearts and gears everything to his twisted revenge. Included in his schemes are the marrying of Catherine's sister-in-law and the corrupting of Catherine's nephew (the son of the drunken idiot).

It's pretty rough going and you want to like Heathcliff at least more than the rest of the people in this book, but he gives you no room to excuse his actions. He's just horrible. Then like Kevin Spacey at the end of American Beauty, he reveals himself and comes to a point of self-reflection and repentence that fulfils the hope you had for him at the beginning of the book. It's very rare that this happens and its believable, but in this case it's very believable.

Rating:
Summary: Melodramatic and overly tragic
Review: A good example of pseudo-Shakespearean tragedy written about the time of Jane Austen. Lacks the crackling wit and sparkling satire of Miss Austen's works, and focuses on a love between Heathcliff and Cathy (neither of whom can the reader relate to, for they are larger than life and their peculiarities are never explained)which is, of course, doomed. Lockwood is the only character whom we can possibly hope to understand, for he tells the reader about himself (he is the narrator, except when Mrs. Dean is telling the story to him) during the course of the story. Maybe it's just me, but I found it depressing. Now, I can cry over a realistic novel like Sounder or Bridge to Terabithia, but these dudes and dudettes (forgive the modern Yank term, I do that sometimes (<:) are acting really stupidly for no apparant reason. Now, I understand that time period, and I understand love. But you must agree that there was no earthly reason for H. to marry Isabella. ?

Ah, well. I'd reccomend Jane Austen over Charlotte Bronte any day.

Rating:
Summary: I'm glad that I was forced to read this!
Review: I was forced to read this in my AP English class but was wholeheartedly glad that I did. This is an incredible book! The thing that fascinates me is the realness of the characters. I have never read a book with characters as complex as Heathcliff and Catherine. The emotions contained in this novel are so real. Bronte created a masterpiece with Wuthering Heights!

Rating:
Summary: Wuthering Heights
Review: Wuthering Heights is a novel full of love,hate and revenge. This is a story about Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff and the strange love that they share. Their love changes in many ways, taking many different forms, from anger, to happiness, to violence. Their love changes because of people who come in and out of both of their lives, making them different. Through the book though, Catherine and Heathcliff find ways to share their love. Wuthering Heights was an interesting book that I found getting stuck in, and I never wanted to stop reading. Bronte twisted the plot a lot so I found that you had to pay close attention. It kept me reading it

Rating:
Summary: Wuthering Height - A Students Perspective
Review: I recently read the novel Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte. As a student, I would not recommend this book to other readers. Unless falling asleep after every chapter of a book classifies it as good, Wuthering Heights is only good as a bedtime story. In the novel, it is said that Heathcliff and Catherine are in love, if this is so they wouldn't have spent their times together trying to hurt one another for pleasure. Heathcliff would have not wished that Catherine not rest in piece because she didn't mention him in her last breaths of air before dying (even though she was unconscious). This relationship that the author portrays as love, really is not love. It is more of a hate than anything. Another thing about this novel in which, I did not quite enjoy was its exaggeration in descriptions of everything. It is great to describe things well enough for the reader to create an image on what is happening in the story, in their mind, but don't push it overboard. For example, Liam O'Flaherty an author of short stories and novels uses great descriptions in his works. In his stories, he was able to create a mental image of the story in reader's imaginations, without letting the story get boring, and without over doing it. The thing is in Wuthering Heights, Bronte explained things out far too well and made the story less interesting. So coming from a student, I would not recommend this book to another student.

Rating:
Summary: A Worthwhile Study.
Review: Actually I was not assigned to read this book. But I felt that if I was going to be an English Major I should have some knowledge of this book. This is not the drum I march to. Also, this book does not really match "Jane Eyre." Nevertheless, it is still an important piece of literature. Emily Bronte presents us with very beautiful images. She also offers us deep psychological insights into human nature. She also makes the characters fairly convincing. Emily Bronte also does a pretty good job in helping us to see why the characters act the way they do, and she does keep us in suspense. I can not say I cherish this book, but what I can say is that I am glad I took the time to read it even though it was not assigned.

Rating:
Summary: Not for the "immature" reader...
Review: I read what the self-proclaimed "immature" reader wrote, and I beg to differ. I love this book not because I'm supposed to, but because I just do. The austerity of the language, which you term "dull", is what sets the whole tone for such a troubling work. I doubt that Bronte set out to write a classic romance; I believe she was denouncing the sins of her characters. This novel is multi-faceted with its never-ending parallels: two houses (Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange), two love stories, two heroes, two heroines, two narrators, etc. The inexplicable love that two heartless people like Heathcliff and Catherine share is fascinating to say the least. When Catherine cries out, "Nelly, I AM Heathcliff," I'm sure many a girl's heart has thudded in her chest. This book sweeps you away to a place and time far removed from us and gives us a view into a harsh and distant world. You don't have to like the book. But don't be so dumb or immature as to assume that no else does either. The longer you study literature, the more you'll see that some books have passed the test of time, because, well, they're just that damn good.

Rating:
Summary: The best I ever read!
Review: When I had to pick a book for my English literature lessons in high school, a friend advised me this book. When I started reading it, I had much trouble with it, because of the words that were used once in a while. But I gradually got used to the style of the book, and I really loved reading it. This book really made a huge impression on me...reading it seemed a bit like having a strange dream. It was absolutely great, and, luckily, my English teacher shared my love for the book. so we had an interesting discussion afterwards. Too bad this is her only masterpiece!

Rating:
Summary: The Literary Equivalent of Valium
Review: Style: boring Characters: Either boring all the way to thoroughly detestable Themes: Unmoving and not particularly well-developed Plot: Non-existant

Reading a book like this, I sometimes wonder what a character like Zorba the Greek would do in such a novel. He'd probably take each of the characters by the shoulders, smack them silly, and toss them in the back of a fruit truck. This book is the literary equivalent of valium. It gives new definition to the word somnolent. Someone should outlaw the novels from the Victorian period