Reading the Classics discussion

We can discuss Wuthering Heights here.
Anyone is open to join in on the discussion.
Please indicate any spoilers!

I'll be starting this in the next day or two. It's been a long while waiting to be read on my shelf!

Yes! This book has been sitting on my shelf forever, and I just haven't gotten around to it until now.

Same! I'm kinda tired of looking at it, to be honest. :)

Well, I'm seven chapters in now, and I have to say that I am very well entertained. Through narrator threw me at first- I wasn't expecting an outsider to be narrator. I like it, though. His impressions of the people he meets at Wuthering Heights are amusing and his bumblings are hilarious. The character of Mrs. Heathcliff got my admiration for pretending to curse old Joseph! All of the characters so far are very lively and amusing. I'm looking forward to getting deeper into this one.

You actually have 3 narrators in the totality if Wuthering Heights-and two are insiders. Not a spoiler, but a key to better understanding this marvelous tale.

I'm on chapter 11 now and really loving it. The first couple of chapters took a bit of getting used to and I was slightly confused by who everyone was. Now I've established how most of the characters connect and I'm interested to find out what happens next!

Spoilers, kinda?
I'm on chapter 23 now and I have to say I was not expecting this story to go the way it has. I've always heard of the great romance between Cathy and Heathcliff. I was never told what horrible people both of them are! Heathcliff especially. He's a sociopath at best and psychopath at worst. His scheming to make everyone pay for his life's misfortunes are frightening in their complexity; even Cathy was not safe from his wrath. I felt bad for him in the beginning when he was a mistreated child but now I'm just disgusted by him. One thing is for sure, this is unlike anything from this period that I've ever read! Despite myself, I can't help but find that refreshing.

tysephine wrote: "Spoilers, kinda?
I'm on chapter 23 now and I have to say I was not expecting this story to go the way it has. I've always heard of the great romance between Cathy and Heathcliff. I was never tol..."

I agree with all of that, except that I never did feel bad for him because from the first time we saw him he had all the opportunities he needed to live a decent life. If we had seen him in his earlier habitat and seen him there not knowing that he was about to be rescued from it, then I would probably have felt sorry for him. But not when we saw him only after he had been rescued from all that.

I think this is one of the few books that I hated all the characters yet still loved the story. Very rare for me. I tend to be character driven in my taste of books.

Spoilers again (up to ch. 34).
Honestly, I felt bad for Heathcliff after Earnshaw died and he was left to endure Hindley as his master. My pity didn't last long. The character I felt most sorry for was Hareton. The poor child! First Hindley treats him like trash, almost killing him, then he's stuck under Heathcliff. I still have about 5 pages left to read (I fell asleep whoops) but I like where his story is going. I'd say if I had to pick a favorite character out of all these frankly terrible people, I think it would be Hareton.

Did anyone finish reading this? I did and had very mixed feelings, but agree with you Kathy about hating all the characters!

I finished it. I didn't like any of the characters (except Hareton, who was the least bad) but I liked the story itself. That action kept me interested and the fact that all the characters were so vibrant made me want to find out what happened next.

I'm on chapter twelfth, and so far, sooo good ! I'm thoroughly amused by Catherine, Edgar Linton and of course, Heathcliff. Catherine's undying love for Heathcliff, so much that she becomes delirious when he leaves Wuthering Heights, and Heathcliff's unspoken love for Catherine, and the fact that he leaves the house to return as a sober man only so he can be good enough for her speaks of the intensity of love between them.

Coming to the other characters, I find Isabella Linton and Ellen Dean to be annoying, Mr. Lockwood rather foolish and Hindley and Joseph absolutely disgusting! Waiting for the story to unfold and Catherine and Heathcliff's re-union.

I studied this book at school, so I read it a long time ago. I have seen it described as a Gothic Horror story here and in another forum elsewhere. I never knew it or considered it to be a Gothic anything, but a tale of consuming love and cold blooded revenge. Wuthering Heights is underpinned by Heathcliff's evil, but that alone doesn't make this a Gothic Horror. To be Gothic Horror my understanding is that the story should feature a supernatural or grotesque and unnatural/abnormal evil, (like Dracula and Jekyll & Hyde). I didn't read this novel as having any of these, only a tragic abundance of misery and unfulfilled human lives.

Stuart wrote: "I studied this book at school, so I read it a long time ago. I have seen it described as a Gothic Horror story here and in another forum elsewhere. I never knew it or considered it to be a Gothic a..."

I have also heard it described as a horror story and never understood that. In fact, when my mom got it for me originally and I asked her what it was about, she said it was all about a ghost. I agree with you that it's not a Gothic anything.

The beginning is kind of Gothic, with the gloomy setting and there is a ghost, but I agree that overall the story is not Gothic.

It's described as gothic because of the dark characters and the dark story. Kind of like Jane Eyre. Not scary but dark story... When Wuthering heights were written it was in a time when gothic litterature was very popular and gothic today is a bit different from how it was back then. Personally I don't like it.

Ah, Wuthering Heights. I read this book about a year ago and thoroughly enjoyed it. It's definitely in my top five favorite books.
Heathcliff is one of my favorite characters of all time. Despite being insane and terrible, I still pity him. He is haunted by love that could have been, should have been, would have been... if Catherine wasn't such a snob.

I definitely agree with everyone about how unlikeable the main characters are. I read this book in high school for the first time and hated it. It was right after I read Jane Austen for the first time and I think I was so enchanted with her work that everything else just paled in comparison. But I re-read it a few years ago and really liked it. Somehow, being older, and reading about jaded, disappointed characters in destructive relationships doesn't seem quite so depressing as it used to. It's actually a little refreshing.

I think there are definitely Gothic elements in the novel. Heathcliff's character certainly draws on contemporary ideas of the Gothic villain. Jane Eyre also has traces of the Gothic; perhaps it's something about the landscape and the architecture of Yorkshire that inspires those kinds of ideas?

A dark read that I need to revisit. I don't think I fully appreciated it before, and might understand more now that I am older.

Jan and I are going to be reading and discussing Wuthering Heights beginning the 1st of May. If anyone would like to join us, please do.

One must remember I think that this novel is from the Romantic era and the belief in the "tabula rasa". I agree with Brooke about Heathcliff. I think Bronte was making that Romantic point about how our experiences shape us (and, according to the zeitgeist of the time, shape us completely). As an adolescent I strongly identified with Heathcliff, having been the subject of psychological abuse by my siblings. He's a man of extraordinary passion, I think, and thus is passionate about revenge. He has had the one good thing in his life snatched from him. Yes, it is his fault for letting it embitter him, but I too have great sympathy for him. Or, at least I did when I read it in high school. Looking forward to finding out if I will still feel that way.

I'm going to be listening to the audiobook version... and there are quite a few to chose from. I'm going to start looking into the reviews of narrators. This will be my first time reading this book Jan. I'm really looking forward to it.

Just finished this. Love so much. Drew me in from the first page.