Book Review: Wuthering Heights

Bronte, Emily. Wuthering Heights. HarperCollins Publishers: New York. 2009. (427 pages)

 

            The experience of reading Wuthering Heights was definitely a new one for me. This book was extremely challenging and there were many aspects to it that I was not used to nor were they very enjoyable in my opinion. This timeless classic that included everything from love, cruelty, passion, hatred and supernatural elements was a read that I won’t forget.

            There were many things in this novel that made this read challenging. First, the beginning of the story started with too many characters. I found it difficult to focus on what was happening in the plot because I had to keep going back or checking my resources just to remember who the characters were or who is related to whom, for example. Also at the beginning of the book, I had a hard time understanding who was narrating, whether it was Nelly or Lockwood. Once I took the time to search for clues I eventually was able to come to a conclusion about the narrator.

            The difficulty was increased as well because this novel took place over the course of a long period of time. From beginning to end, the book spans over 32 years and two generations. In addition, Emily Bronte used a bit of repetition with the characters. Names were recycled, such as Catherine from mother to daughter, or last names became first names such as Isabella Linton Heathcliff gave birth to Linton Heathcliff. This was extremely confusing to keep straight and made it difficult to follow. As this classic takes place in the late 1700s and early 1800s and was written in the mid-1800s, the use of old English was also a challenging aspect. The bit of Yorkshire dialect was almost impossible to comprehend, but luckily it wasn’t necessarily key to understanding the plot.

            There were definitely bits and pieces in Wuthering Heights that I enjoyed. First, it was truly satisfactory when I would finish a chapter or section and I felt like I understood what was going on in that section. Due to of all the challenges it felt like an accomplishment when this would occur. Once I was about a third of the way through the novel, this became easier because I was accustomed to the time period and the characters. I also seemed to find a bit of humor in some areas of this book because it was so absurd. I understand this was written a very long time ago but the way that the characters interacted with each other was absolutely ridiculous at times.

            The last book I read that was similar to Wuthering Heights was probably the classic, Jane Eyre which I read two years ago. This shows that this classical genre is also new for me. Jane Eyre took place a long time ago and had many characters to get accustomed to as well. I remember that book also contained difficult vocabulary words and confusing plots, similar to Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre did not incorporate any supernatural elements nor did it have as much of a destructive or dark theme. After reading this book I can say that it was very frustrating and difficult at times, but in the end I am glad that I had the chance to experience this classic novel.