The Brontes discussion

What do you remember about reading this book for the first time? What do you think of it now (even if you've read it recently).

I tried to read this book last year, but I couldn't get past the first chapter. But, I started it again this weekend and once I made it to the part where Ellen starts to tell the history of Heathcliff, Catherine, and Hindley, I was hooked! I enjoy Ellen's perspective of the other characters. I am intrigued by the fact that no one in these two families are "normal". They all seem to have interrelated personality disorders like narcicism, antisocial personality, etc. This is fascinating to me.

Yes! I think the violence with which all these characters interact feels like gunpowder running along the ground between the two houses and families.
Does anyone remember the first meeting between Cathy, Heathcliff, Edgar, and Isabella? We see the beginnnings of future trouble for all four in this first meeting. What did you think about the scene?

One of my favourite metaphors used in literature is the one Bronte used with the gunpowder that was simply waiting for the spark to be set alight. I think she is a brilliant writer and Wuthering heights is a tragic love story but it's so much more than that as well.

I did my high school study on Wuthering Heights so I enjoyed weeks of dissecting it's ideas and metaphors. characters and cultural background. I thought it was a profound book then and I think it's a profound book now.

I adore Wuthering Heights immensely, although I would have prefered a happy ending, I still enjoy the sadness because it is so different from most books. Nearly every book has a happy ending, which is why I think I love Wuthering Heights so much, it is not like any other book I have read.

Wuthering Heights is my all time favorite novel. I read it for the first time when I was 17 and not even for a school project but just because I wanted to read it, which I think improved my chances for liking it. No one told me what to expect or said that it was suppose to be a romance novel. Going into it with a completely open mind, I never took the book to be a normal romance novel but a book about revenge and to what lengths a man will go to seek it. To say this book is heavy is an understatement it goes to the core of human nature to our base. That is what I love about this book is there is no fluffy foo foo romance but soul searching questions that it brings up. Now on my 6th read through and it is just as good as the first time.

Leah wrote: "I love stepping into the dreary and haunting atmosphere every time I read this book."

Hi Leah, are you currently reading "The Bronte Myth"? I was planning considering buying it, is it worth?

Not a favorite of mine, but there's something about WH that fascinates me. Definitely a well constructed story with an intriguing cyclic plot. The only likable characters in my opinion were Nelly, Mr. Lockwood and Miss Catherine Linton.

I love 'Wuthering Heights' for so many reasons, first and foremost it is a tragic love story of course, but there is so much more to it and from an analytic point of view it is great to sink your teeth into! You can just take it as it is or write endless essays on all manner of things from characterisation to signs, symbols and motifs. Just my favourite book that I have read so far in my life!

A very fascinating piece of literature, even when it isn't your cup of tea.

I highly recommend the annotated version of Wuthering Heights. I was in the middle of reading Wuthering Heights for the first time when I ran across the annotated version in a museum gift shop and had to have it. It send me down so many rabbit trails with its footnotes that it actually took me a couple of months to read the book. But it was well worth it. I think it led me to a better appreciation of Emily than Charlotte's introduction gave me. She wasn't the innocent and naive kid that Charlotte made her out to be which led to a very different reading.