WUTHERING HEIGHTS

• by Emily Bronte
• [rated by PBS readers as #21]
• 416 pages

You know how I had the initial mission and excitement about this ten year project, forcing me into new lands, words, phrases and images and seeing the beauty and mastery of each of them?

Wuthering Heights does not fit.

Initially, when I was younger, I saw the film of Wuthering Heights and just didn’t get it. Like everyone, I thought this was supposed to be a ripping, passionate love story. And instead, I thought Merle Oberon wasn’t even attractive and Olivier was hideously overacting!

So I guess I figured that they had just made a mess of the book. And nothing about it made me inclined to investigate further.

When I picked this title and read one of the introductions, it absolved the reader of any romantic expectations, saying it was about far different themes. That probably relieved me. Could it surprise me with being complex and great?

Wrong again! More than halfway through this dirge, I find it almost hopeless. The group of main characters is without a single thing to recommend them. They are hideous and completely unsympathetic.

I still have 160 pages left and can’t imagine how it will get any better. Ah well. This one puts Gulliver to shame. It is just plain awful. If anyone can make an argument in

its favor, I would love to hear it. Providing that they are fit enough mentally to have a discussion with afterward.

Sheesh!

If Heathcliff is some romantic icon, then Quasimodo is a sex object. By the time you finish this, the only thing you would fantasize about would be roasting him on a spit!

Since it is written kinda sudsy, this made the read easier. If everyone who is rejected starts to die slowly, you can dispense with searching for any subtlety you might be missing! You got yourself a soap opera, fair and square – drama but fun nonexistent.

DONE.

My first all encompassing love in my life was film. I watched everything I could get my hands on. I had a blog, sort of before there was a blog, where I reviewed films.

I saw great ones. I was single then, so I could and did do things like a weekend of terrible movies (I wouldn’t suggest this. It was a brutal experience.).

And through it, I shared two dreams with truly dedicated film lovers everywhere. The first was to see every one I could and the second was to be able to evaluate them by what the director intended. If I wasn’t personally pulled to it, I was dedicated, in reviewing it, to see everything I could see with as few filters as possible.

But. There were those films – I fancied far fewer of them than your average biased viewer but still – that I couldn’t get past my aversion to. I could understand them but I could not get to appreciation or like. They just turned my stomach, for whatever reason.

Such was the case with this book, on this blog. After finishing, I was wildly thrilled to wash my hands of it. But, even then, a creature of habit or ethic, I went back and read the introduction that described the book’s genius. I had waited as it promised spoiler alerts and I must say it did read better after having read the book.

I wanted to understand its genius or at least its staying power. Reading about the authors themes and continuing modes of fences, love, power, brutality, explained why it

had elements that were advanced and groundbreaking.

And you know? I just don’t care. With films and with books, I maintain one standard above all others – will I meet and fall in like or love with at least one of the characters? I MUST CARE! I must root for someone. If every one in there would benefit the world by just leaping off of it and sparing us their miseries, then I don’t care how brilliant some writer might capture them.

When I hate every character, I cease to be passionate – or even dispassionate! I just want to get off that train.

Looking forward!