Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

After a winter of reading lighter novels and memoirs, my literature major alarm went off, and a little guilty part of my conscience started screeching "Read a classic! Read something with substance!" So, I pulled a book off my shelf that I've been meaning to get to for some time, Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte, and dove in. This is not to say that Wuthering Heights is the greatest capital-L Literature ever (not that I really care about these sorts of things too much), but it's a classic and something I felt compelled to read at least once in my life. So, I did. And now I feel sated.

Now, I think when most people think of Wuthering Heights they picture this: Heathcliffe looking crazy and dirty standing on the moors yelling "Kathy!" and Kathy standing on the moors looking mostly clean and proper yelling "Heathcliffe!"And maybe most people will also think of how Kathy and Heathcliffe are connected in their very soul and that is why their love is such a big deal blah blah blah. And this is definitely half of the story. The other half of the story is that KATHY AND HEATHCLIFFE ARE AWFUL AND EVIL AND TOTALLY F-ED UP AND NO ONE SHOULD WANT TO HAVE LOVE LIKE THEM. I mean REALLY.

Heathcliffe, right before running off with his future wife, HANGS HER KITTEN using his handkerchief. Kathy spends the majority of the novel being mean and holier-than-thou to everyone in her whole life, treating people as if they are dirt and only exist to please her. And they torture each other! Even after one of them has died! It's just awful! I kept thinking throughout the whole thing - how did this novel come to be a part of our cultural conversation when it comes to love? This is not love, this is self-centered torture.

Going off of that for a moment, can we please acknowledge how weird it is that Stephanie Meyers supposedly structured the second book in the Twilight series around showing how her hero and heroine are connected like Kathy and Heathcliffe were to each other? As is that is a good thing? Dear Stephanie Meyers, can you read? And if so, why would you ever reference this novel that is so clearly not about good love in trying to promote the worth and value of Bella and Edward's relationship? Were you trying to make your readers contemplate the self destructive and negative aspects of their relationship? I think not, given that I cannot imagine you trying to speak to your readers on a deeper level given that you struggle so much on just the surface level of your narrative. But maybe the love trainwreck that is Wuthering Heights actually fits the love trainwreck that is Twilight more than you could have predicted? ... Okay, rant over.

All that being said, I actually quite enjoyed reading Wuthering Heights. Although the main characters are awful, it's an interesting and compelling narrative that spans 30+ years, using a frame tale that consists primarily of a nurse retelling Heathcliffe's story to a new tenant of his, long after Kathy dies and things have gotten screwed up with the following generation. The framing gets a little silly and exhausting at times, as there are times when the present day gets mentioned with no purpose aside from just reminding the reader that they're getting told a story, but I enjoyed the nurse's voice and was glad she was my main point of contact with the story, as she is maybe the only likable character in the whole novel.

I'm not sure I'll ever go back to Wuthering Heights, but I'm glad that I read it, and I feel much more in the know surrounding many cultural references that stem from novel. It was an interesting deconstruction of the traditional love story, and I'd recommend if you're into the classics, and up for a slow march through 30+ years of dysfunction and revenge.