Rating: Summary: Seventy times seven Review: King Lear, with Heathcliff as Edmund, and Milton's vision of hell come to mind while perusing Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Lockwood, the tenant at Thrushcross Grange, visits Heathcliff his landlord and the latter says "walk in" in a manner that sounds like "go to the deuce" to Lockwood. When Lockwood visits Wuthering Heights for the second time the area sees heavy snow and he is marooned there over night with Miltonian ice and snow around him, his hades complete with a half dozen four footed fiends like the hounds of hell inside. Catherine is even pretending to weave some black arts to tease Joseph. So we see that Bronte has painted us a picture of hell at Wuthering heights with ,as we shall see later, Thrushcross Grange it's polar opposite. After retiring for the night Lockwood reads the names Catherine Earnshaw, Catherine Heathcliff, Catherine Linton written by someone in an old book. As we shall see this series of names tells the story of Catherine Earnshaw to her relationship to Heathcliff and then to marriage to Edgar Linton, read in the opposite direction it is the story of her daughter Catherine Linton who ends up an Earnshaw. Lockwood dreams of going with Joseph to hear a Reverend Jabes Branderham preach on Seventy time seven and the first of the seventy first which was in a book he had been reading, and that Catherine had scribbled in. In a truly funny scene Lockwood is exposed as the first of the seventy first sinner and the congregation starts smiting him with their pilgrim's staves as Lockwood stuggles with Joseph, his most enthusiastic assailant, for his staff. It ends in everyone smiting everyone else which I guess is what we come to without forgiveness. Bronte paints in Heathcliff as a kind of wild demon that digs up graves and torments the living but looking deeper we see his torment at the loss of Catherine. Bronte gives us multiple narrators with Nelly Dean being the primary one as she relates the history to Lockwood. This book is a brilliant and wild piece of literature.
Rating: Summary: Haunting Tale of Ruthless Love Review: All of the novels of the Bronte sisters exhibit a genius of passion well surpassing their age. Emily Bronte's WUTHERING HEIGHTS, however - though perhaps not quite so endearing as the novels of her sister, Charlotte - possesses the most adeptly pondering prose, egregiously fathoming the terrifying extremes of love and hate.Born amidst the feral landscape of England's Yorkshire moors, the Earnshaw family and their ramshackle farm estate, Wuthering Heights, are at the center of this manifestly heartrending story. Mr. and Mrs. Earnshaw, with the help of several servants - most notably their poignantly observant maid Nellie, and their pious and stoic manservant Joseph - are raising two children: a son, Hindley, and his younger sister, Cathy. On a cold and drizzly evening, when Hindley's but a teenager and Cathy still a very small child, Mr. Earnshaw returns from Liverpool carrying a young urchin he'd found starving in the streets. Despite wary opposition from his family, he adopts the four or five year-old child and names him Heathcliff. Mr. Earnshaw, over the next several years, develops a fond affection for Heathcliff that surpasses even that which he feels for his own son. Mrs. Earnshaw dies not long after Heathcliff joins the family, then Mr. Earnshaw dies several years afterwards. From thereon, Hindley relentlessly vents a deeply embedded bitterness borne of jealousy upon his adopted younger brother. Hindley's hatred of Heathcliff is the force that drives this story on. His sister Cathy, however, from a very young age is as drawn to Heathcliff's quiet thoughtfulness, as he to her flighty impulsiveness. The two of them nurture a very deep friendship as children, which grows to an almost otherworldly love as young adults. This tempestuous love gets devastatingly shaken not only by Hindley's efforts to keep Heathcliff in the drudge, but also by wooings for Cathy from a wealthy blue-eyed suitor from Thrushcross Grange, a neighboring estate. This young strapping is Edgar Linton, and he as well as his sister Isabella cut a very severe contrast to Heathcliff. The Lintons are fair-haired, refined in manner, and have very openly expressive countenances. Heathcliff, on the other hand, casts a dark, gloomy aspect: intensely handsome despite dirty, messy hair and thick-browed brooding eyes. Truly Cathy's audacious, tempestuous spirit, wild as the blustering wind on the Yorkshire moors, is pure soul mate to Heathcliff's moody, devil of a gypsy, hot-blooded heart. "My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods," she says, "time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary." Never - in all of the novels I've ever read - have soul mates been so intensely, so uncannily written. The only fault I find in this story is the utter lack of endearing qualities in either Cathy or in Heathcliff. Each displays, at turns, some form of careless frivolity or ruthless cruelty in either their actions or their words. And though I certainly cannot help but feel for their struggles and their pain, neither are the type individuals with whom I would possibly want to become a friend. They are amazingly self-absorbed, and wholly blinded by the radiance of each other. Mistake me not, though - reading WUTHERING HEIGHTS was indeed a wondrous experience. The writing interweaves the earthly elements, the people, and the landscape haunted by their ghosts with a deftness that's extraordinary. There is undeniable genius here - a brilliantly intense story of a love that refuses to be thwarted, coursing through the heart and soul of the next generation, thence onward, and beyond the grave.
Rating: Summary: Society of Sociopaths Review: Perhaps the author, Emily Bronte, had the need to write an anti-Jane-Austin story, because this sure qualifies. This tale of interleaved sociopaths is the antithesis of Jane Austin. The people of Quality and Breeding are all mentally disturbed, only the female servant is with sense (she declares herself so in Volume I, chapter 12, page 1). Given the continuum: Perfect Family - Normal Family - Dysfunctional Family - ?? (my vocabulary fails me), these folks rate the "??". Clearly the quality of the literary effort is superb, the writing and characterization is terrific. The story does have a useful function in illustrating the Darwinian nature of life, but don't read it for its ability to elevate. Is this book entertaining? Yes. But it raises a disturbing question about ourselves that this should become a Classic (think gawkers at a terrible car wreck). The story does conclude by throwing a contrived happy ending as one might throw a bone to a starving dog.
Rating: Summary: Wuthering Heights Book Review Review: "Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronte is one of the greatest romances in history." -Kristen Murphy. Within the text of this book, Emily describes events that take place revolving around a romance. The main characters of this book are: Catherine, Cathy, Edgar, Linton, Hareton, Hindley, Isabella, and Heathcliff. Isabella is very spoiled, and soon has a son that dies (Linton). Heathcliff's love life turns into a mess and turns into a lonely old man. Hindley is a jealous and rebellious child that soon becomes jealous of Heathcliff. Hareton is Hindley's son that eventually marries Catherine. Throughout the book the characters run into a lot of problems and adventures. For example, there is a tremendous amount of tension that burns off Heathcliff. My favorite character in the book is Heathcliff. The reason that I like him so much is because he keeps your eyes open. He is always changing, his appearance and his location. The themes that are reveled within the book are: Good vs. Evil, Revenge, Crime and Punishment, Passion vs. Rational Love, Ignorance vs. Education, and Selfishness. The characters display these themes in many different scenes and emotions. My overall opinion of this book was excellent. I would not change anything at all, and I believe that the ending is perfect. I would recommend this book to anyone that in joy's romance novels. It is a novel that keeps you wondering and not knowing what is going to happen next. You may think that you know how this book is going to end, but really you don't. This book sits way ahead of all the other romance novels.
Rating: Summary: i lost sleep over this book! Review: I have had Wuthering Heights in my possesion for 2 years and could at first only get past the first few pages.I bought it after reading Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte. As soon as I got into it and got to know the characters of Heathcliff and Catherine I couldnt put it down! I found myself staying up till late at night just to see what would happen next and trying to study for a test but ending up opening it and getting totally absorbed in the plot and characters. I guess it is a curse to love books sometimes, and weird to make bad grades because of them at points. Get the book it is great for men and women! My dad loves it! Heathcliff is a very strong male character that boys will enjoy. And Catherine is a very real woman character and that girls will enjoy because she is far from perfect and has a nasty temper but the men in her life adore her anyway.
Rating: Summary: The Definition of Passion Review: If I were a contributor to a dictionary and was asked for a definition of the word passion, I would simply write...."See Wuthering Heights". All the basic human emotions- love, hate, jealously, pride, are on display in this novel but at their penultimate height. Cathy just doesn't love Heathcliff- he is part of her very being. Heathcliff just doesn't hate his son Linton- he must fully destroy him. In real life, no one would want to meet, let alone spend any time with any of these people (except perhaps for Ellen Deane, a housekeeper who recounts the story to her new employer-good eye for detail as she spins her tale). But to live with them through the pages of a novel-pure heaven. No other book I have read from this time period even comes close to the modernity of this novel. Heathcliff and Cathy are not destined to be together, because Cathy is unable to forgo the warm pleasures that money can bring. She marries Edgar Linton, a good man devoted to Cathy and for a time Cathy settles in to this life. But as soon as Heathcliff re-enters her life, she is determined to possess him as she did before and Edgar must just understand. Why should he be jealous? Cathy asks. There is not hint of a sexual relationship between Cathy and Heathcliff but something deeper, deeper than even love. Edgar, like most human beings, feels unable to share his spouse in this kind of relationship and being thwarted in her desires, Cathy pines and eventually dies. But this happens in the first half of the book-what are the remaining 150 pages about? Since Heathcliff can never be happy since Cathy is gone, then he decides that no one will be happy and he takes his revenge. And what revenge! Just from general knowledge, I knew what to expect in the first half of the book but the second half was a revelation. Emily Bronte has created a character in Heathcliff that breaks almost every moral code of the time and yet the reader sympathizes with him, no matter how monstrous his actions. I can't think of another writer alive or dead who could have pulled off this feat so well. The writing is beautiful and the dialogues between Cathy and Heathcliff are richly poetic. If you haven't read Wuthering Heights, do yourself a favor and run to find a copy. Reading experiences such as this are rare- a perfectly written novel with characters you will remember forever. The world lost a great novelist with the death of Emily Bronte after only one novel. It makes the reader wonder what else she could have produced.
Rating: Summary: Emily Bronte can convert you. Review: Wuthering Heights is Emily Bronte's only novel. If you are like me and normally dont have the time for sap (eg. Thomas Hardy) but perchance get the opportunity to read one 'classic', this book should be it. All the characters, including the narrator, are flawed at some level and at some level. And whom you sympathise with or hate in this book may even reveal some of your own personality.
Rating: Summary: The Most Beautiful Book Review: Perhaps it's the winsome imagery, perhaps the profoundly real characters one switches between loving and hating, or maybe even the dry humor that is the style of the British, but Wuthering Heights is my all time favorite book. How can words possibly do it justice...the only way to surely judge it is by reading it. Never before have I been so moved by a story; it might be Heathcliff's overflowing love for Catherine that drives him mad yet, ingenious in his revenge, or Cathy's shallow duty to society that denies her the power to be true to herself (I believe the main point of this novel is to not deny your feelings; go with what you feel rather than what should be), but I always find myself reading it on days I need to be cheered up or am really lusting after a good book. If one's not paying attention, you know, one of those days where you just read to take your mind off of something, it can get rather dull and confusing (the diction isn't as simple as say...Ethan Frome), but if you're concentrating, Bronte's words are so amazingly beautiful, it's hard to put it down. When read aloud it sounds like Shakespeare, and I like Emily's work a lot more than Charlotte's, for some reason. Gothic literature is so peculiar and wonderful: a class of it's own, and she really masters it. At the same time she avoids stereotypes and entertaining happenings (the spectre that appears to the somewhat insecure Lockwood early on foretells the chilling story, while at the same time hinting there is something deeply wrong about Wuthering Heights that needs to be corrected), actually writing the book with a purpose behind it. All the characters have very cool qualities about them; all have the potential to be irritating, but hey, we're all human. By imperfecting her people she has perfected the novel, and I'm so thankful I've had the privilege to read such a piece of art. This book forever remains with me; it's a part of me.
Rating: Summary: Real in a time of Blantant Romanticism Review: Wuthering Heights makes Jane Eyre (more popular, but untimately predictable) and Austen's book look like schoolgirls wrote them. Everything about it is bitingly real. Though most of the novel is bent on Heathcliff's revenge, it is more about how far a person would go acting on the powerful love they feel for another. Some might say his character shouldn't exist (absurd! He is more real than the pining Edgar or the dashing men of what I call 'heaving bosom' stories). Cathy, the heroine, who never acts like the typical one, does a typically human thing: she marries a man she has mild feelings for because he's rich and Heathcliff is MIA. But her death scene: all I can say is read it! Haunting. It is a little awkward because we are removed from the story, hearing it from a maid's point of view and the parts about Cathy(Jr. her daughter) and Linton and Hareton are not as moving as Cathy and Heathcliff's destructive love, it's still absolutely amazing! I've read it three times and I still get chills at the end!
Rating: Summary: A Relief From The Onslaught of Mass Produced Books Review: Before I put in my two bits, I made a point of reading other reviews and most of what I read I agreed wholeheartedly with, But for the other 10%, I was extremely dissapointed. For those of you who complained, and said that Wuthering Heights was a dull and boring book, maybe the book isn't the problem, and you are. Could it be possible that you need to open your narrow vision and broaden your veiw of this worlds literature? I am fourteen and I totally understood this book. I was wrapped up it the whole time, and there was never one part that I thought was boring. I admit, at times it was confusing, but never boring. This book is without a doubt the best written peice of work I have ever read. The description blew my mind, and as for the characters, they were fully developed and I was able to bring them alive in my mind as easily as I ever have in any other book. Brontte made it so easy to imagine Heathcliff that I had to make no effort whatsoever on my part to bring him to life. As for Catherine, she was developed so well that I can honestly say I saw her as a real person. This novel left me wanting nothing more but a sequel.
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