I’m trying to fill in the gaps of Classics I Never Read, and I had never read any of the Brontës. What better place to start than Wuthering Heights? If nothing else, it would give me an opportunity to care a little more about the new movie, which looks very pretty.
But reader: I hated it. I’m glad I read it, and I love that I have an opinion now, and I get that this is about toxicity and bad choices and enabling and finding a way to course correct after your parents’ terrible examples, but the whole time I just kept sighing with frustration. Catherine, please date literally anyone else. Heathcliff, please get over yourself, come on dude. How many Lintons are there again; which one is this, the older one or the younger one? Isabella, what are you doing girl. You know, you guys could just…not go go Heathcliff’s house? Aren’t there any other people on the Moor? Could you all please just go hang out with Susan Sowerby for a while?
It is a wonderful (?) study of psychological tricks, of toxicity and abuse in our most intimate of human relationships. You can see how Catherine would be enamored of Heathcliff, how their proclivities would feed off each other, and how they would think there’s just no other option. You can see how Heathcliff just…gets away with things? Because he’s brash and decisive and a little insane and cares not one whit for the propriety that guides other people’s decision making. You can see how Catherine and Isabella would look at their limited options and – of course – pick the most exciting one.
Anyway, I read it, I don’t need to read it again, and I’m ready to move on to my next classic (Dracula!)
