What to say about Wuthering Heights…I don’t know if I could recommend it. I certainly wouldn’t read it again. Perhaps I didn’t read it in the right spirit, or maybe I wasn’t fully prepared to jump back into the prose of the Bronte sisters. I was quickly reminded of the annoyances felt as I read Jane Eyre and couldn’t stand Rochester. This time, it was Heathcliff, and he was a brute. And yet…I couldn’t stop reading. I wanted to see how low he would go, because like every great English novel, you know he will have a great redemption, in one form or another. Heathcliff ended a little less gloriously than Rochester, but he did pull his weight at the end. There were also a lot more characters to keep track of, that spanned three generations, and two households, and yet, again, I had to know what happened to all of them!
My wise mother once told me that a book has 50 pages, and 50 pages only, to hook you. If that sacred bond is not fulfilled, the book is to be forgotten and never touched again. She didn’t ever say it so dramatically, but…that was essentially the rule. So despite my disgust with eighty percent of the characters, I really was hooked. I really wanted to see how it ended, and it was a pretty good book. I also don’t think I’m very good at analyzing deeper themes from literature. If I was, I might see a larger value in the Heights. However, I just started One Hundred Years of Solitude and it promises to be a lot more interesting thus far. I’ll keep you posted. Ha, get it?
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