12/14/2023 0 Comments Highbrow bathStarting out as a homeless orphan on the streets of Liverpool, when he is found and adopted by the kindly Mr Earnshaw and brought into his middle-class home, Heathcliff is made to feel inferior by his new community. I count myself among those who are at least Moderately Online, and am, every now and then, exposed to Manosphere-adjacent content as such, it’s my belief that Heathcliff might just be the original Black Piller. The plot itself is a remarkably modern one. Telling the tale in such a way gives the story a sense of unreality, of ethereality, a mythic quality. It’s even told like a ghost story that is, the events are recounted like a round-the-campfire tale, by a woman who was sometimes once, twice, or three times removed from the action, and whose understanding of the story often came to her through hearsay and the speculations of others, whispered accounts and gossip about goings-on behind closed doors. It’s a ghost story, right from start, opening, as it does, in a haunted house, and ending in a graveyard. What on earth, they might say, did I just read?Īnd that’s actually a really good question, because Wuthering Heights is, in many ways, an un earthly tale. The lovers never found their way to each other. Readers came with certain expectations, and they were the wrong ones. The reputation of Wuthering Heights being such as it is, people usually come to it expecting a love story-a Yorkshire-based, highbrow bodice-ripper of sorts, starring a roguish, lock-up-your-daughters-handsome bad boy Heathcliff, something only a few steps removed from Mills and Boon-and I do wonder whether this is the reason behind the book’s poor reputation in some quarters. Wuthering Heights probably is all those things-but the thing I can’t quite grasp is, why should any of that put you off from reading it? After all, who approaches Wuthering Heights as if they’re about to read Summae Theologica, or the instruction manual that comes with their dishwasher? No, you come expecting a different kind of experience-not to be informed, or taught, or lectured to, but to be, truly and completely, well, wuthered. That old Emily Bronte really could have done with a holiday or a jolly good lie down or something. The characters are all a bit much, they’ll say. Someone somewhere has explained to you, pertly, that Wuthering Heights is one to avoid. You’ve likely Heard Things about this book. Ten points from Gryffindor if you just started singing that Kate Bush song in your head. Why?: It’s a rare thing to read such pure, raw, honest emotion articulated so well. Who should read?: The sceptic and the rationalist, because you guys are the ones most likely to miss out on this gem.
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