A review by jlkenneth
Wuthering Heights by Emma Rice, Emily Brontë

5.0

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth."

Here it is, folks: Wuthering Heights is the quintessential gothic novel.

I've owned this book since I was 13, and have "read" it 4 times now—but this was the first time I managed to finish the novel. I always got in a *moody* teenage phase on a rainy day (we've all been there, right?), and would read 100 or so pages in one sitting, entirely entranced. Sadly, Colorado only gets rainy days once in a blue moon, and once my sad Victorian aesthetic had faded into glorious sunlight, I could never stand to spend more time with these atrociously volatile characters.

See, I think too many people approach Brontë's novel with the expectation of a) romance, and b) the stone-faced seriousness of a ~classic~ and end up missing a lot of what's actually going on here. I was shocked in revisiting this book to note the complexity of the narrative (21st-century lit major reads a classic and is surprised it's well-written. Ironic, I know). The narrative is intricate and complex, and as the novel unfolds, we are exposed to a shifting set of voices, one focalization winding into another in a fashion as labrinthine as the Heights itself. This was my first clue that, just maybe, I'd been misreading this book in thinking of it as a romance. I mean, surely a writer this adept in her narrative devices wouldn't actually mistake the hubris and selfishness of Heathcliff and Catherine for love, right?

Themes of devilry and haunting lead us further into the Miltonian inversion of society this book presents. We are first exposed to Heathcliff through the indignant eyes of Mr. Lockwood, a civilized Londoner who takes great offense at his treatment by Heathcliff, his new landlord. As the events of the past 40 years are related to him by his housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange, we see a hellish presentation of English society; the lord of the Heights is nameless and low-class, while the rightful heir is ignorant and uneducated. Love is replaced with selfish ownership and possessive rage is the standard for how these backcountry lords and ladies relate to one another. In place of manners and genteel company, we are left with the utter dregs of human passion, and watch as unchecked passions tear goodness and love to shreds.

If it's a romance, it's an infernal one, only fit for the inmates of hell. Wuthering Heights is an earthly hell, and the story which unfolds in Brontë's gorgeous prose and with unwavering psychological insight is more tragedy than romance. What Brontë does with this devilish inversion is utterly expose the hellishness just around the corner in every human heart; Wuthering Heights is the inverse of Jane Austen's parlour-room settings. It's eerie, haunting, and acts as both culmination and critique to the great romantic poets with their idolization of emotion and experience, and one I'll be thinking about for a long time.

Also I definitely think Game of Thrones' Robert Arryn, the creepy/sickly child ruler of the Vale, was inspired by Linton Heathcliff.