Let's get started with our fiftieth discussion: Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights
My Best Book Ever
I've made it no secret that this is my all-time favorite novel, now read 13 times—a much higher number than any other title I have read more than once. I can retell the entire story in detail, quote sections by heart, and can open the book, by feel, to within pages of a particular scene (the copy I own has been read at least five times). Yet, I cannot claim to be an expert. Each time I read it, I find a new aspect of the narrative to focus on and discover something I missed during all of the previous moments I spent with the book. Each time I return to WH, I approach it with enthusiasm because I know I will get something new from it.
Was this your first time reading Wuthering Heights? Or have you read it more than once? If you reread it for this discussion, did you discover anything new?
Appearing on a Syllabus Near You
A Technorati search for "wuthering heights" leads to many blog posts from students reading it for a class. For the most part, they're all behind on pages and they all hate it. A high school Brit lit class was my introduction, and it remains one of my few educational experiences that didn't ruin a book. In that same class, for example, I read The Mill on the Floss and hated it. I have since reread MotF and Silas Marner and Middlemarch and still cannot figure out why George Eliot is considered such an important author. All I can assume is that school forever scarred me against her. (A glutton for punishment, I currently have MotF in a TBR pile and will eventually get around to it again. Maybe age and time will help me warm to her.)
What was your introduction to Wuthering Heights? Did you ever have to read it for a class? If so, what was your impression at that time? Has school ever ruined a book or author for you?
A Classic, But Is it Great?
Emily Brontë's only novel was written at a time when Gothic fiction had fallen from popularity and received little critical acclaim at the time of publication. A year later, she died of tuberculosis. Her sister Charlotte, who edited and published the second edition, defends the work in the editor's preface against "what are termed (and, perhaps, really are) its faults" (p. xxxi). In it, she provides some explanation about the author, the novel's setting, and its characters. Yet, despite acknowledging Emily's talent, Charlotte wonders, "Whether it is right or advisable to create beings like Heathcliff, I do not know: I scarcely think it is" (p. xxxvi). Even today, the Brontës have their critics. During the recent unpleasantness of the Books, Inq., discussion, they were praised by some as being among the world's greatest novelists and reviled by others as writers of highbrow romance.
What do you think? Trash or treasure? What makes it trash? Or what makes it treasure? (Please provide concrete examples as evidence for your position. Simple statements like "It sucked!" or "Loved it!" are not very illuminating.)
Related Links
Searchable e-text of Wuthering Heights
Wikipedia: Wuthering Heights and Emily Brontë
The Literary Gothic: the premier webguide to pre-1950 Gothic-tradition literature
The Gothic Experience via CUNY Brooklyn
Internet Public Library Online Literary Criticism Collection
And if you didn't get around to reading the book and need a refresher:
