Classics: Wuthering Heights

[dragoness_e]

Courtesy of my e-book reader and FREE BOOKS from Project Gutenburg, I am reading classics I avoided reading as a student, or re-reading some I did (and was bored by). I have also re-read many things I liked as an adolescent/college student. I find a mature adult perspective changes my attitude remarkably.

I find I like many of the classics *now*; I would not have enjoyed them as an adolescent or college student. I recently read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, which is a totally awesome train wreck of dysfunctional characters. The author very carefully keeps your sympathies from battening too hard on to characters doomed to destruction, and preserves the characters she finally does let us like. I greatly enjoyed the book. I would have hated it as a student and not "gotten" it. I rather doubt I'd push it on adolescents in general, as I think they'd miss half of what's going on in that story, and care about less.

I have yet to re-read The Great Gatsby to see if it still sucks as much as it did in high school, though.

Having read and understood Wuthering Heights, what I'd like to know is this: What idiot got the idea that Heathcliff is any kind of hero, Byronic or otherwise? Heathcliff is the freaking villain!

Comments

[seawasp]

I heard people describing Wuthering Heights as a novel which could be interpreted as a vampire novel with Heathcliff as one of the villains.

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

*looks sideways at the book*

It could be... though instead of hypnotism/mind control, Heathcliff uses financial control and physical and social isolation to control his victims. Instead of draining blood in the night, he uses systematic abuse and malicious neglect to destroy women and children, and financial ruin to destroy the men.

He's a terrifying villain, because what he did, was entirely "doable" in that time and place in the real world, and still is, sometimes.

[wrongly-amused.livejournal.com]

Haha, I once heard Wuthering Heights described as "a romance between two sociopaths who destroy the lives of everyone around them." I keep meaning to get around to reading it. Did you know Stephanie Meyer's Twilight series based on her love of WH and its "romantic" storyline. Explains a lot, doesn't it?

I remember really enjoying Gatsby in high school, though I think it's something I'd understand better now that I'm older.

[dragoness-e.livejournal.com]

That's a pretty good one-line description of it, yes.

There is a viable romance in Wuthering Heights between two of Heathcliff's victims (and final survivors). Heathcliff and Catherine, on the other hand, are two sociopaths obsessed with each other. I wonder which pair Meyer had in mind?

[wrongly-amused.livejournal.com]

Some critics have accused her of basically ripping the third book's premise off of WH, while others claim it's a homage. But the primary plot centers predominantly on Bella and Edward, so unfortunately I'm thinking she's the one of those who saw Heathcliff as a romantic hero.

Although, if one good thing came out of it, Eclipse actually helped knock Wuthering Heights back onto the top ten list.