I know some people really really love this book, I am not one of them. Sorry, not sorry. But hey, this review will tell you in great detail what were my issues with Emily Brontë's only novel. So let's do this!
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| ★★★☆☆ |
Wuthering Heights is not a love story, but it does follow the tragedy of the love between Heathcliff and Catherine. Oh, shush, this is not a spoiler and the book has almost two centuries on us, plus it spoils itself from the first chapters.
Before we talk about this particular gothic novel, let me tell you that Emily's sister, Charlotte Brontë wrote one of my favourite gothic novels ever: Jane Eyre. So I guess my expectations were high, even though I was warned (thank you, TikTok) that this is not a romance novel. I like the dark and the gothic and I usually adore unlikeable characters, the more unhinged the better I say! But for whatever reasons, this book just did not work for me.
"If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger."
How to Spoil Your Own Novel
I am sure that when it was published, the structure of the novel was innovative and surprising. Maybe the timeline too. But as a modern reader, having read a plethora of books that use similar structure and timeline (and do it so much better), I had issues with this.
I liked and did not really like the way the novel is narrated. The idea of a frame narration from the perspective of an outsider, who knows things by witnessing them or by someone telling them the story, is intriguing and fun, and Nelly, our main narrator, is not the most reliable which I usually love an unreliable voice! But somehow, these story devices actually put a distance between me and the characters which only led to me not caring for anyone!
Not only did I not care for any character in this book, but the entirety of the novel I was annoyed because I did not have a reason for reading the book (other than the book club meeting). From the first chapter you know who is alive and who married who, so from the start that part of the tension and narrative plot is cut off from the reader. So naturally I was reading it for the gothic elements, the mystery, the atmosphere... only to find it lacking in that area too.
There is a shift of tone between the two volumes, or more so after Catherine dies in the middle of the book (start of the second volume, after a pregnancy that came out of nowhere). And I did not like that. It felt a bit like the author's emotions shifted and tried to give the plot some meaning? Let's face it, Emily kinda lost the plot a few times.
"Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living. You said I killed you--haunt me then. The murdered do haunt their murderers. I believe--I know that ghosts have wandered the earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad. Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! It is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!"
Where Is the Drama, Emily?
I wanted more storm and drama and spirit and ghosts and eerie feelings. I loved the dark paragraphs. I loved the nature and its personification. I loved the few glimpses of the dramatic (and toxic) love between Heathcliff and Catherine that I got, but those were just a handful of drops in a bucket of nothing. We don't actually witness our characters falling in love so their love doesn't feel real? Do they even have any chemistry? Because we never actually hear from our characters, we never actually get their feelings or thoughts, we only have Nelly witnessing some scenes and narrating them years later to Mr. Lockwood.
There was no mystery or tension.
I understood Heathcliff's trauma, but at the same time I wanted to see it more? To feel his rage and sadness oozing from the pages, you know? But Nelly did not like Heathcliff, so of course we are not getting much of that.
I get the themes and the motives and I liked the parallels between our main players in the first part of the book and then their kids in the second part, but that was not enough for me to care about this book. Not when I've read a lot of other books from that time period that I enjoyed more. I was bored most of the time reading it.
"If he loved with all the powers of his puny being, he couldn't love as much in eighty years as I could in a day."
Would 16 y/o Me Romanticise This?
Quite probably. Look, I would put nothing past the teenager me. She was a bit unhinged, with a desire to play with the dark, so I am sure she would've ignored the whole second half of Wuthering Heights and just romanticise their relationship while listening to Kate Bush's Wuthering Heights song (which she wrote at 18 without even reading the book).
Plus there are some bloody good lines in this book that are going to live rent-free in my head until the end of my life. Even though I complain about her novel, Emily had a magical way with words and from what I read from her poetry, it's superb!
This is one of the most mixed feelings books I've ever read. And it's also one of the classics I struggled the most with to finish. I avoided opening it at all costs and then I had to read it in one weekend before the book club meeting (oh how I like to make myself suffer).
"He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same."
Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë was published in 1847