For a long time I felt like I had failed as an English major for never having read this book by Emily Brontë. Then Book Riot challenged me to read a book published before 1850, and when I realized Wuthering Heights was published in 1847, that sealed the deal for me.
Part of the reason I hadn’t bothered to read this book before now was the fact I hadn’t heard from anyone who actually liked it. I know it’s considered a classic and there are lots of people out there for whom this is their favorite book, but I just don’t get it. As far as I can tell, it might as well have been called Heathcliff: The Story Of One Miserable S.O.B.
For those of you who don’t know, no one knows where Heathcliff came from. He just kind of showed up one day and was adopted by Mr. Earnshaw, the owner of Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff (which serves for both is first and last names) is raised alongside Earnshaw’s two children, Catherine and Hindley. Catherine and Heathcliff fall madly in love, but after Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley does his best to keep Heathcliff at a low status by restricting his education.
Neither Heathcliff nor Catherine are likable. They’re both mean and spiteful and fully deserve each other.
Instead Catherine marries Edgar Linton, a respectable gentleman who lives only a few miles away. She chooses him over Heathcliff because Heathcliff is a bastard with little education and no prospects.
Heathcliff disappears for a few years and returns a very wealthy man. No one knows how he got his fortune. He visits Catherine regularly, but Edgar is very jealous of Heathcliff, and Catherine is so sick of the two of them fighting she goes crazy and dies, but not before she gives birth to a girl, whom Edgar names Catherine.
That happens only half way through the book. Then Heathcliff spends the next 18 years or so conniving so he can become the sole owner of both Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange (the Linton’s home). He cheats, steals, lies, beats his son, and locks a helpless teenage girl in his house for days on end, all on some misguided plan to revenge Hindley and Catherine for rejecting him, even though both of them are already dead. And I’m supposed to root for this guy? Dude, we all have our disappointments in life. Most people have been disappointed in love at one time or another without turning into total pricks over it. Get over yourself.
Heathcliff succeeds in attaining both properties, but to no one’s surprise, it doesn’t make him happy. All he accomplishes is making everyone around him miserable and hateful towards him.
Heathcliff dies suddenly and unexpectedly without having written up a will. He had forced Catherine to marry his son, Linton, but Linton was sickly and died before Heathcliff, so when Heathcliff dies, Catherine inherits everything, which she should have anyway because her maternal grandfather owned Wuthering Heights and her father owned the Grange. She also gets to marry her cousin (her mother’s brother’s son, who was raised by Heathcliff, but is still a good guy despite that) and live happily ever after.
WTF?
Why did I just spend a week of my life reading this? What was I supposed to get out of it? There wasn’t a single character I could ever root for and all I felt at the end was relief that I could finally move on and read something enjoyable.
Even the housekeeper/nurse, who narrates the story, talks about Heathcliff with nothing but disdain. She said even when he was a child he was malicious and spiteful. So if the person telling me the story doesn’t have any sympathy for Heathcliff, why should I?
I also didn’t understand why Brontë chose that particular narrative structure. Mr. Lockwood shows up at the Grange to take possession of the establishment he rented from Heathcliff. He visits Heathcliff and tries to be friendly, but Heathcliff is so miserable he makes that impossible. Lockwood asks his housekeeper what Heathcliff’s problem is and the rest of the book results from the housekeeper (who was also Catherine Jr.’s nurse) telling Lockwood the whole story. It seems to me an overly complicated method of storytelling, but I suppose that’s just one of those things that was more common at the time it was written.
What about you guys? What did you read this week? Any other classics that failed to live up to expectations? I want to hear all about it!
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