Wuthering Heights

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Summary: the best book in the world
Review: I read Wuthering Heights for first time when i was 12 years old.Now I`m 18 and I`m still reading this book.And at everytime i read it, I can`t hold myself from crying. I think I read it for at least one hundred times.It is the best love story ever written.from the first chapter, it starts to effect you and you cannot give it up till you wil finish it.At each chapter you start to ask yourself "what will happens?, what will he or she do?" or questions like this.I want to say here if you want to read it, don`t think anything.Buy it and read it.you will see that it will become your bedside book.I can`t describe it in words because i can`t find the best words to describe it.It is the best book.I CANNOT FIND WORDS TO DECRIBE IT.

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Summary: Beautiful Love story
Review: I was assgned this book to read for my 12th grade english class. While reading the first chapter, I thought the book would be boring. But as I contuned to read, I fell in love with the characters (even mean old Heithcliff.) The move was a dissapointemnt because it did not even go on to tell the story of the second generation, which by far was even more exciting then the first generation. I love this book, I encourage all to read it.

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Summary: The best romantic novel written
Review: If anyone doesn't like this book, it is indeed because they are either a high-school student forced to read it, someone who doesn't like 19th Century literature, or someone who expects "nice" characters. The strength of this story is that it is written about very flawed people. It is dark and passionate and very non-PC. It would never be written today. In short, it is a masterpiece.

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Summary: No Words describe it...
Review: I read this book when i was sick and asked my father to bring me one of his books. He brought me this one, and I could not put it down. I cried and wondered and thought about everything in it for days afterward. I still think about it. It was a whole experience, the reading of it, and taking it all in. i can understand why some high school people wouldn't just love it, but i think that has something to do with being "made" to read it. I read it before anyone made me, so reading it again was easier. I seriously think that it is one of the best books ever written...

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Summary: Nelly Dean tells the story
Review: I read this book, initially, many years ago. Then I sought out the Oliver/Oberon movie. While I loved the movie, it was only half the book! So I went back and read WUTHERING HEIGHTS again! It was even better the second time. The characters of this incredibly intense story acquire so vivid a uniqueness as the narrative goes on that the reader, sometimes, even becomes unable to distinguish the characters from the "real people" around him, for he is inevitably beguiled into feeling for them all kinds of sentiment; from love to contempt, from pity to hatred; in a wild kaleidoscope of feelings which no sensitive reader will ever forget. But probably, the greatest triumph of this story is the character Heathcliff. Emily Brontë creates a being singular in all its ways, especially its revengeful impulses. She renders Heathcliff something more than human, a true entity!, as she describes his life in that ingeniously exerted gossip fashion. By revealing to us only as much information as the closest person to his whole story (Nelly Dean) has, the writer presents him more as a legend of a superstitious countryside place than an ordinary person. There's just too many factors to go into when describing this book, but suffice it to say that if you miss this one, you've missed a great deal. Also recommended: Of Mice and Men, The Bark of the Dogwood, A Tale of Two cities

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Summary: Love Among The Damned
Review: Published in 1847, WUTHERING HEIGHTS was not well received by the reading public, many of whom condemned it as sordid, vulgar, and unnatural--and author Emily Bronte went to her grave in 1848 believing that her only novel was a failure. It was not until 1850, when WUTHERING HEIGHTS received a second printing with an introduction by Emily's sister Charlotte, that it attracted a wide readership. And from that point the reputation of the book has never looked back. Today it is widely recognized as one of the great novels of English literature.

Even so, WUTHERING HEIGHTS continues to divide readers. It is not a pretty love story; rather, it is swirling tale of largely unlikeable people caught up in obsessive love that turns to dark madness. It is cruel, violent, dark and brooding, and many people find it extremely unpleasant. And yet--it possesses a grandeur of language and design, a sense of tremendous pity and great loss that sets it apart from virtually every other novel written.

The novel is told in the form of an extended flashback. After a visit to his strange landlord, a newcomer to the area desires to know the history of the family--which he receives from Nelly Deans, a servant who introduces us to the Earnshaw family who once resided in the house known as Wuthering Heights. It was once a cheerful place, but Old Earnshaw adopted a "Gipsy" child who he named Heathcliff. And Catherine, daughter of the house, found in him the perfect companion: wild, rude, and as proud and cruel as she. But although Catherine loves him, even recognizes him as her soulmate, she cannot lower herself to marry so far below her social station. She instead marries another, and in so doing sets in motion an obsession that will destroy them all.

WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a bit difficult to "get into;" the opening chapters are so dark in their portrait of the end result of this obsessive love that they are somewhat off-putting. But they feed into the flow of the work in a remarkable way, setting the stage for one of the most remarkable structures in all of literature, a story that circles upon itself in a series of repetitions as it plays out across two generations. Catherine and Heathcliff are equally remarkable, both vicious and cruel, and yet never able to shed their impossible love no matter how brutally one may wound the other.

As the novel coils further into alcoholism, seduction, and one of the most elaborately imagined plans of revenge it gathers into a ghostly tone: Heathcliff, driven to madness by a woman who is not there but who seems reflected in every part of his world--dragging her corpse from the grave, hearing her calling to him from the moors, escalating his brutality not for the sake of brutality but so that her memory will never fade, so that she may never leave his mind until death itself. Yes, this is madness, insanity, and there is no peace this side of the grave or even beyond.

It is a stunning novel, frightening, inexorable, unsettling, filled with unbridled passion that makes one cringe. Even if you do not like it, you should read it at least once--and those who do like it will return to it again and again.

GFT, Amazon Reviewer

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Summary: You don't read this book, you experience it!
Review: I've been trying to read more classic literature recently. And Wuthering Heights was really worthwhile. Yet I find myself almost at a loss for words in describing this book. This gothic romance was a very intense read...and I felt almost in another world as I read it. It creates a "feeling" that remains with you long after bedtime!

The main characters Heathcliff and Catherine are larger than life somehow. How do you describe their dark and stormy love? It is a deep love that descends into obsession, despair, and revenge. Typical of gothic literature, the brooding and haunting landscape of the moors somehow seeps into the characters. And seeps into you... My words can not do this book justice. My advice? Read it!

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Summary: Must-Read
Review: This classic by Emily Bronte is a must read. The language is archaic, but the story is so compelling I just rushed through the book with no problems.

The story is about the passionate love between mismatched Catherine and Heathcliff. Catherine is beautiful and refined, but underneath the ladylike exterior, she shares the same wild and free spirit as her soulmate. Heathcliff is one of the most complex characters of literature. You either love him or you hate him. Indeed, most of the characters in Wuthering Heights are complex - not all good, not all bad. This complexity in a novel published in 1847 was far ahead of its time.

The setting of the lonely moors of England and the fine country mansions make the story easy to visualize. The tale is told from the first person point of view of Nelly, the maid who saw it all, and a young boarder who seeks to live with now-older Heathcliff in Heathcliff's dark and imposing estate called Wuthering Heights.

The story is epic because it does not stop with Heathcliff and Catherine. It continues with Heathcliff's son and Catherine's daughter. The consuming yet doomed love of Heathcliff and Catherine has tragic repercussions for their descendants. Wuthering Heights is a study of the haunting, eternal power of love. Emily Bronte's story reminds us that sometimes love is not always beautiful and sweet. It can also be selfish and twisted.

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Summary: Darkest Kind Of Love
Review: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is a tragic love story that has bitter and vengeful aspects to it. I dislike this novel because of the characters Catherine for her "I'm beautiful everyone must love me" attitude and Heathcliff for his "Catherine doesn't love me so I must become bitter and ruin everyone else lives." But this story has its good parts it shows raw and everlasting love. Even though the years have passed Heathcliff's and Catherine's love will last forever. This novel shows the darker side of love. It shows how love can put together or destroy people. Wuthering Heights is one of the greatest gothic novels like To Kill A Mockingbird.

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Summary: Disturbing
Review: I was expecting something in the vein of Jane Eyre when I began to read this book. I was sorely disappointed. True, the violent love between Heathcliff and Catherine is heartwrenching; however, the most difficult part of this novel for me was that there was no character that was lovable, or sympathetic. Just when I started to think that Heathcliff was not so bad after all, he would commit another shocking deed of horrific cruelty. Catherine was just annoying. I also found the plot hard to follow, what with a third person telling the story, and then swinging back to first person narrative. If you want a really powerful, uplifting love story, read Jane Eyre, or The Blue Castle by L.M. Montgomery.