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Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

List Price: $19.98
Your Price: $13.59
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A stark image
Review: When this book first was published in 1847, many critics were not enthused. A lot felt that this book was too corse. That the characters were too disgusting. That people like this did not exist, and should have never been written. But the critics as usual were wrong. They were degrading one of the most haunting novels in the English language! At first read you may feel that you have heard the story before. After all it is basicly the tale of a good girl falling for a bad boy. But you should not dismiss it so fast. This tale is a little more sinister(and haunted!) that what it may seem. And you need to remember that Emily Bronte was writing in a time where women were not viewed as having enough impotance to write a meaningful novel. So won't you give it a try? And as you read think about how many more enjoyable novels Miss Bronte would have written if tuberculosis had not cut her down in her prime.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Perverse Peasant Palookaville
Review: Yes. I agree. This book is compelling and atmospheric. I love the hints of the supernatural. Heathcliffe's lycanthropic qualities. Almost a werewolf on the moonlit moors. The ghostly hauntings and the attentions to and realisations of character's dreams are all very effective. I also like the dichotomy between the two houses. Wuthering Heights is a veritable Hell and Thrushdown Grange is Heaven. BUT... I have never encountered such an utterly repellant motley crew of characters in my life! Who on Earth could have ANY feelings for these people? Heathcliffe is a mad-dog that needs putting to sleep. Hindley is an abusive, maniacal drunkard. Joseph is an hysterical religious bigot. Catherine is a pain... But, worst of all none of the characters show any inclination to extricate themselves from their mess. Rather, they actively encourage each other's dissolution and disarray. There is no-one in the book strong enough or intelligent enough to check these processes of atrophy and attrition. How pointless, don't you think? And for all the reviewers who defend this book with the charge that real-life is similarly evil... Well, yeah, maybe real life according to Jerry Springer and his idiot dysfunctional redneck guests. I found these characters so repellant and downright sinister I couldn't stop thinking of Myra Hindley and Ian Brady.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: A thoroughly boring account of boring things...
Review: Far too drawn out, poorly written- Not at all engaging or otherwise, this book brings on suicidal tendancies to it's unfortunate readers. The Bronte sisters are known for their works, notoriously boring and wholly uninteresting... Wuthering Heights was slightly reminiscent of a dark, boring soap opera, that made me long for the end of it...

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A Darkly Romantic Novel
Review: Wuthering Heights is a disturbingly dark book about love, obsession and revenge. It is a romantic novel full of twists and turns that nearly requires the reader to keep a running dictionary of characters, especially since names have a tendency to pop up in different places and on different people throughout the novel. I read this novel for a class assignment in Victorian Literature but it is helpful to know that the book employs many themes of the Romantic literary genre as well. Victorian ideas of social class are brought up as well as the fantasies of adolescence. Some of the Romantic ideas found in the novels include the idea of the tragic landscape. The landscape of the novel is foreboding and isolated, borrowed most likely from the gothic novel. The characters are extreme in their varying passions and the concept of the dream is used in a type of ghostly communication. One of the story's narrators has a dream of being visited by the ghost of Catherine, which causes a startling and dramatic reaction in Heathcliff. The belief that the reader cannot fully hate Heathcliff because of how he was mistreated as a child is also a Romantic ideal.
The story contains a great deal of darkness and some cruelty, which may turn readers away. Love is often extreme to the point of violence in the novel while the romances themselves are nearly incestuous in tone. Cousins marry and adopted siblings hold lifelong affections and obsessions for each other. The novel also illustrates an element of cruelty that can be slightly disturbing at times. Heathcliff, the novel's antagonist, goes as far as to string up the beloved dog of the young woman he courts after Catherine rejects him.
The main focus of the story is the rather twisted love story element that develops between Catherine and Heathcliff. Heathcliff is adopted into Catherine's family at a young age and the pair become close, though Catherine rejects him because he is poor and instead marries a rich neighbor. Though throughout the novel, other romances develop between the two highly inbred families, they are side stories in comparison to the main romance.
The love of Catherine and Heathcliff eventually develops into an obsession that lasts, and in fact becomes even stronger with the eventual death of Catherine. Her spirit seems to haunt Heathcliff and further fire his obsession. Even before Catherine's death this obsessive love broadens to include an equally obsessive drive to ruin the lives of all the people who mistreated him and stood between him and Catherine, including her husband and older brother.
These obsessions eventually lead to the last of the major themes of the novel, revenge. A good part of the book is spent upon Heathcliff's attempts to destroy the lives of anyone and everyone who mistreated him or got in the way of his relationship with Catherine. His need for revenge does not lessen as the book moves on and Heathcliff continues to take his revenge even upon the next generation, including Catherine's daughter and his own son. Whether or not Heathcliff succeeds in his attempts I leave to the reader.
Personally, I enjoyed this book a great deal, if for no other reason than the simple fact that it was quite different from the usual school assigned reading. I was pleasantly surprised by how well woven and engaging the book was. The calculating lengths that Heathcliff goes to in order fulfill his quest for revenge are nearly reason enough to read the book. The old style language of the book, which I expected to be a hindrance, was hardly noticeable. In short, if you can handle (or enjoy) the book's darker aspects, then I highly recommend this classic to you. (And I'm not just saying that because I have to! ;))Enjoy!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wuthering Heights- Review
Review: Wuthering Heights is a novel that oozes with romance. It is a story of unbridled love that has no boundaries and no restraints. The love that exists between Catherine and Heathcliff is an all consuming almost maddening love. The way Emily Bronte attacks your senses and emotions is both exicting and devastating. Her style of describing the surroundings and landscape is gothic in style. It is rugged, isolated and atmospheric. It gives you a sense that the Earnshaws and Lockwoods are the only two families in existence. The landscape seems to be a direct reflection of the personalities of the characters. It is a clever way to describe the families in a atypical way. Because of the unusual style of this romance novel, it may be hard to dive into at first, but it will soon capitivate your attention. It is hard to determine who you should hate and who you should pity.
Healthcliff is a dark and mysterious man who you absolutely want to love, but every word he speaks and every action he makes drives you to despise him. Catherine whom you want to side with, drives you mad with her selfishness and snobbery. It leaves you with a feeling of desperateness for a happily-ever-after ending, yet a sense it may never happen. Wuthering Heights is a passionate, all consuming pyscho-romance. It made me want to jump into the pages and set things straight. I really enjoyed the use of love and hate and how it is able to bind people together in a circle that never ends. Once a wrong has been committed, it is so hard to break the cycle. Once someone has been hurt it is so hard to forgive and forget. Healthcliff's emotional side had been trampled on at such an early age that his whole life was soon consumed with revenge towards anyone that was involved in the mistreatings. I despertly wanted Catherine or at least someone to break through the shield that Heathcliff had built, but if someone does want to be loved they never will. The saying goes, you must love yourself before you can love someone else and Healthcliff was not able to accomplish this.
The combination of love, love lost and love denied makes Wuthering Heights a romance that I fully recommend. It is a mixture of life and death, twists and turns and vengence that would attract all genders and all ages. It leaves you confused and frustrasted in a way that books do not do anymore. It may have you puzzled in the beginning because it does not follow the norm of a modern romance, but by the end you will feel that every romance should have this quality. I feel that everyone should sample the taste of a tragic romance.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Wuthering Heights - A review
Review: Wuthering Heights tells the immensly passionate tale of betrayal, sorrow and unrequited love. It is an amazing novel, capturing the reader and drawing them into Cathy and Heathcliff's world, devided between the two contrasting houses of Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights. The writing style of Bronte conveys the emotion extremley well throughout the intricate and intertwining storylines. The story is told over the course of two generations, in the moors of England, creating a good backdrop for such a story. It is, in my opinion deserving of its status and leaves the reader with thoughts regarding fate and predestination. A dramatic and sadenning book, Wuthering Heights is a novel which, at the time it was published pushed back the barriers of what was considered "acceptable" in literature.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Wuthering Height's
Review: I enjoyed reading this book, though I did not find it as interesting as some of the other Brote sister's work. Emily is definatly a much better writer than Charlotte. The book Wuthering Height's reflects Emily's character very well, Emily was a very shy person who did not associate with people much outside her family. It is a shame that this is Emily's only novel.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: An Interesting Book
Review: I recommend the novel Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. The plot is clear and simple to understand but it is charged with energy throughout the whole book. When Emily Bronte writes there are no questions as to what she means about scenes that she describes. She does this through her choice of words. She always gives a clear description of places and people. Heathcliff and Catherine are her most passionate characters in this novel. She expresses their love and devotion to each other by their actions through out the whole novel. She does not come out and tell the reader things, she makes them use their imagination and interpret scenes and characters themselves.
One of the negative aspects to this novel is the ability to understand the vocabulary. Bronte uses a lot of extensive vocabulary through out the whole novel and this makes some of the sentences and scenes hard to comprehend. This is because Bronte knows exactly what she wants her readers to get or see out of Wuthering Heights.
One of the main themes in this novel is love and hate. Catherine is a prime example of this theme. Her feelings for her husband, Edgar, and her feelings toward Heathcliff should be in reverse. Through out the whole novel she loves Heathcliff. The hate comes into play because Heathcliff hates Edgar because he with Catherine and he is not with Catherine. He hates anyone that tries to come in between him and Catherine.
The characterization of the characters by Bronte was very excellent. She lets the reader know certain characteristics of the characters by scenes and background information. She demonstrates certain connections between different sets of characters very well. For example the scene when Heathcliff and Catherine went to see the two Linton children it compares both sets to each other.
Overall this book is interesting and has many different themes and interesting topics. I recommend this book to anyone that enjoys reading and likes different characters and plots. Although the vocabulary at times is hard to understand it can be dealt with.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: a really exhausting novel!
Review: Emily Bronte sure knows how to write about destructive love! I thought both Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff the stupidest people ever! I could hardly understand Joseph's tongue...perhaps because my language is too polished:)
Ok, maybe I'm being too harsh. Wuthering Heights really isn't that bad. I actually understood it (for a thirteen year old, you've gotta give me credit)It was written nicely as Ellen {Nellie} Dean for the orator of Heathcliff's complete past. Catherine is pretty stupid though. And Heathcliff stupider for not trying to convince her to marry him BEFORE she married Linton. But I felt pretty sorry for Heathcliff when he called for Catherine the night that Lockwood spent the night. My favorite character was Hareton because i loved his speech! It was funny when almost every time he spoke, he sweared. I have to say that I hated Linton for being such a weakling, even though he could hardly help it. Despite Heathcliff's trickery with Isabel and hatred for Cathy, I couldn't help liking him a teeny bit, because he's just so unique! I really wanted Hareton and Cathy to make the match, and i positively despised Heathcliff and Linton for making him look so stupid. And i just loved Hareton's "thundercloud" face! Go ahead and read Wuthering Heights. You'll probably both hate and love it. It was a rather exciting and tiresome novel. Then again, I may be to young to criticize this "great classic" novel :)

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Magnificent
Review: Charlotte, Emily Brontë's elder sister, wrote that "Wuthering Heights was hewn in a wild workshop, with simple tools, out of homely materials". This makes sense when we learn that Emily Brontë did not care for social life (perhaps due to her extreme shyness) and seemed to scorn the outer world, living contentedly in the bleak scenario of the Yorkshire moors where her clergyman father's parsonage was located. Thus, it was with these "homely materials" - the wild Yorkshire landscape and its dour inhabitants - that she fashioned her only novel, which is, however, anything but homely.

... The book is at the same time beautifully passionate and completely spare in its imagery and the depiction of its characters. The narrative is multifaceted and skilfully employs the technique of using several narrators: Lockwood, the naive Londoner who rents a Yorkshire farm in his search for picturesque landscapes; the commonplace and down-to-earth witness to the novel's amazing events, Nelly Dean; Isabella, the scorned and unloved wife; and so on. Each of these characters lends his or her particular voice to the story, thus making it a sort of patchwork where there seems to be no "official" version - but which is at the same time seamlessly cohesive.

One reviewer, surprisingly, goes so far as to say that Cathy married Edgar for the money (she belongs to the same social class as he does - it is Heathcliff, the slum waif, who is the outsider) and that Heathcliff takes the kid Hindley and teaches him to hate his father (incidentally, the boy that Heathcliff takes under his "care" is not Hindley but Hindley's son, Hareton). In order to be qualified for writing a review, readers should make at least a honest effort at reading and understanding the book.

I believe that the biggest mistake that readers tend to make on approaching "Wuthering Heights", a mistake perhaps fueled by Hollywood, is to think of it as a romance or love story - which it only secondarily is. This is, above all, a family saga, spanning some three decades and concerned with one individual's revenge on the families he considers to have wronged him. It is also a portrait of human passions - love, hatred, anguish and grief - in a wild, desolate setting where the forces of nature cannot be kept at bay.

All in all, a work of great strength and beauty. It would have done Emily Brontë a lot of good to know that her masterpiece has at last received the recognition it deserves.


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