Reviews with content warning for Racial slurs - Wuthering Heights

Re-read

Continuing to reread books that should not have been picked up in adolescence, I came to this gothic-romantic classic. Unfortunately, this experience left me somewhat disappointed.

As a teenager, I was able to empathize with these heroes, at least on some level. As an adult, I saw an endless cycle of evil and violence that no one tried to stop. Like a great love story, all the couples lacked direct love.

Also, the reading process seemed very unpleasant and challenging due to the non-linearity of the plot, complex style, and unreliable narrators. In combination with everything, I leave this book on the shelf for the main characters of Twilight.

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ghostsversion's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

This book really was… something. Compared to Agnes Grey, this was like going from learning how to swim to diving in the middle of the ocean. This is of course a different type of book so it isn’t really a shock. I was shocked though when finding out that

the POV of this book were a Mr Lockwood and Ellen Dean, and not at the very least Catherine Linton nee Earnshaw.

It was a really interesting read and I might have rated it higher if not for

the excessive amount of incest and the constant racism and stereotyping of Romani people.

Also to the people who consider this a romance, I hear you and I somehow get you but please don’t go looking for this.

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spiderelsa's review against another edition

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5.0

What a journey! A good-faith, but unthorough, effort by one kind-hearted person rippled cruelty for three generations, all presided over by a Bible thumper servant.

Everyone in this book needs therapy, a Warmie, and a new book they've never read before.

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bashsbooks's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Writing reviews for classics that I like is never easy - I always feel immense pressure to say something profound and original about a work that 1) I enjoyed and 2) so did everyone else. Of course, the trouble with such a well-liked book is that everything profound and original about it has already been said, more or less.

So let me say some basic and trite (but none the less true to how I feel) things about Wuthering Heights.

First and foremost, Brontë's toxic, passionate speeches from Heathcliff and Catherine (Sr.) about each other fuck severely. Catherine's "Nelly, I am Heathcliff" confession? Healthcliff's proclamation about the depth of Catherine's affection for him compared to Linton? The "You say I killed you - haunt me, then!" argument? All bangers. Go off, you absolute maniacs.

Secondly, and speaking of the haunting by Catherine of Heathcliff, the thread of her ghost trying to get into Wuthering Heights throughout the tale is sewn into the story with just enough detail to be compelling without being overwrought - from the early scene Lockhood witnesses all the way to Heathcliff's death under the open window. I especially like the lack of concrete proof of the ghost and the skepticism of the storytellers themselves.

And now, thirdly, the storytellers and the frame story in general have been fun to turn over in my head. From the beginning, I wondered, why are Lockwood and Nelly our narrators? I think there are dozens of valid answers to this question. Two of my favorites includeto create distance from the narrative to drop details & increase unreliability and to provide perspectives closer to the intended readers. I'm especially obsessed with Nelly Dean and the constant interjections of her opinions into her retelling.

Something specific to the audiobook version that I listened to - the Spotify version read by Billie Fulford-Brown - is that it was read fantastically. Fulford-Brown clearly had a great handle on the text, reading all the dialogue with accurate emotion. She also gave the characters distinct voices without being over-the-top. Her performance made Brontë's mid-19th century prose much more accessible.

Anyway. There's a lot more I could say about Wuthering Heights - for example, Brontë's descriptions of the moors are a masterclass in thematic use of setting - but I'll cut myself off here, lest I write a whole paper. Let me end by saying it's fucked up that Kate Bush managed to successfully summarize and convey the main storyline of such a complex book in a 4.5-minute song after only watching the last ten minutes of a movie adaptation.

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kimveach's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I assumed this novel was a romance, but it was a tale of class, obsession, and revenge. While I can appreciate this classic, I didn't enjoy it.

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whitelotusreads's review against another edition

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dark reflective sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

a gothic story about cycles of abuse with truly insufferable characters — love it

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yourbookishbff's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional reflective sad tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

Wuthering Heights is a stunning, claustrophobic nightmare of a gothic novel that I appreciate more in my 30s than I did in my teens. I went into this with little memory of the plot - the entirety of my recollection of my senior-year English essay on the subject was “everyone’s awful.” But two of my childhood besties were game for an impromptu buddy (re)read, and there is nothing quite like revisiting a book you didn’t understand on your first read and realizing it’s actually more horrifying than you previously understood (as a parent, the generational cycle of abuse and the childhood trauma wrought by severe isolation, confinement and emotional manipulation color the story for me, now).

Also on this read, I was more interested in the structure and style. The use of two unreliable narrators is so brilliantly done, where Mr. Lockwood’s diary-style narrative depends entirely on an abbreviated version of Nelly Dean’s narrative, which depends entirely on her retelling of events that happened to other people nearly three decades ago. The layers of bias between us and the events of the story create a feeling of always viewing the action through a fun-house mirror, with the melodrama rendered farcical and the broodiness of the characters and the moors deepening into supernatural terror.

Ultimately, who but an isolated and introverted young woman confined to the English moors, writing under an alias, defying the strictures of her zealous Christian family members could have written a story even her own sister would later caution is maybe too dark? (Charlotte’s posthumous introduction to the novel is overly apologetic and explanatory to a degree that I really dislike, but her note that her sister’s writing was “moorish, and wild, and knotty as a root of heath” is perfectly said).

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