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    Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey
    Northanger Abbey
    Audiobook (abridged)2 hours

    Northanger Abbey

    Written by Jane Austen

    Narrated by Anna Massey

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Jane Austen wrote about situations with which she was familiar and the social life of Bath was no exception. Northanger Abbey concentrates on the interaction between three families which are all very different. The Morlands are respectable but have little education, while the Tilneys are wealthier and more sophisticated. The Thorpes, however, are vulgar social climbers of whom both the Morland and the Tilneys fall foul. The clarity with which the families’ differing values are depicted adds to the realism of the novel.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherThe Copyright Group
    Release dateJan 1, 2014
    ISBN9781780003320
    Author

    Jane Austen

    Born in 1775, Jane Austen published four of her six novels anonymously. Her work was not widely read until the late nineteenth century, and her fame grew from then on. Known for her wit and sharp insight into social conventions, her novels about love, relationships, and society are more popular year after year. She has earned a place in history as one of the most cherished writers of English literature.

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    Reviews for Northanger Abbey

    4/5

    9,939 ratings348 reviews

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    • 3/5
      Krachtig verhaal, 2de helft iets minderGedragen door passies: liefde en wraakThema?s van de civilisatie versus natuur en instinct, romantiek-elementen (storm, park, moors, spoken en dromen)Donkere stijl door suggestieve bijvoegelijke naamwoorden; alleen op het einde: zon barst door de wolken.)
    • 5/5
      Mr. Lockwood is the new tenet of Thrushcross Grange a beautiful house opposite of the foreboding Wuthering Heights occupied by his irritable landlord. Cooped up in his new residence recuperating Mr. Lockwood persuades his housekeeper to tell him the tale of his landlord and how things came to be as they are. She reiterates the dark history of the two houses filled with love, loss, jealousy and the desperate pursuit of vengeance. Wuthering Heights is a classic Gothic novel. I put off reading this book for a long time so I was pleasantly surprised by how much I actually enjoyed reading it. I adored how dark and dramatic it was. The setting and time period were wonderfully conveyed. The supernatural elements further heightened the atmosphere of the setting.The narrative approach was interesting. Its conversational gossipy tone and perceptive look at the characters' lives made it an engaging read. The fact that the main narrator seemed the most level headed heightened the drama. I found the overly melodramatic moments amusing and continually wanted to know more about the characters. There were so many layers to the story that I'll definitely have to reread it at some point.It was a rewarding experience to finally read the book that influenced some of the authors I follow and identify which elements inspired books I've previously read. So even though it was my first time reading Wuthering Heights it still felt oddly familiar.
    • 2/5
      While most of the population is lead to believe that this is some sort of fantastical romance novel, I have to crush those thoughts by speaking the truth: this book is not romantic at all and centers around an emotionally detached stalkeresque man whose only desire in life is to prove that he is worth something and has control. I have found that generally, people who enjoyed this book also extremely enjoyed the Twight Saga (which makes a reference to this book) because, well, Edward and Heathcliff are both (excuse my language) asses who are completely controlling and care only for themselves. While the writing style of this book was indeed enjoyable, I detested the story itself.
    • 5/5
      A review.....still intriguing....still crazy after all these years.Don't forget the 1992 film adaptation (Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche)A perfect adjunct to this classical read.It gives an extraordinary vitality to Heathcliff and Cathy
    • 5/5
      Yes, it's melodramatic. Yes, the narration can be confusing if you don't pay much attention (which is why I couldn't understand it the first time I read it). And yes, Catherine and Heathcliff are two quite unlikable characters, it astonishes me that two selfish people can find "true love", and what's more, they get a twisted but happy ending.

      But, man, I can proudly say that Wuthering Heights is a great novel. The greatest? No. But definitely high up there. Maybe along with Romeo and Juliet, because it reminded me of my reading experience with this book. Both books are misunderstood/have plenty of misconceptions, and even I was victim to their misconceptions. Both have unlikable characters who get their "happy ending" in the afterlife, and people either hate em or love em. Both I really liked despite my previous prejudice towards these books. And both I really respect for the way they were written. I just frickin love books with a way with words. (see added quotes). I may be a weirdo who likes reading the classics, but for sure, I do not praise all of them. Or maybe it's because I'm so weird that I like this book. It does have some weird development between the cousins Hareton and Catherine Jr. And it's different because the characters are anti-heroes.

      Weirdness Well-written = Must be my cup of tea. lol


      What I really loved most was these characters' passion. Being a phlegmatic person, I was very much entertained by these people whose natures are nothing like mine. They love and hate violently. They can like a person instantly, and in just a few hours, after a slight insult, hate them (in Catherine Jr's instance). And all this passion, from a practically sheltered Emily Bronte. Charlotte Bronte said something about her sister's writing: that it was raw, with a child's innocence (not her exact words). Truly, Wuthering Heights is an unforgettable novel. I'm glad I read it again as an adult, when I can appreciate it.

      *4.5 stars
    • 2/5
      I thought this book would be way better because of all the hype surrounding it. I thought it was rather impersonal, and the characters were never really explained. The story seemed to have no point. I did read this 5 years ago, so maybe I'd understand it better if I read it again.
    • 2/5
      I have read this book several times now and have always been disappointed with it. (I've read Jane Eyre several times as well, and have gone through hating it to quite liking it, so am always prepared to change my mind about a book).I simply dont understand why people love this book, and Heathcliff/Cathy relationship in particular. I think it's overrated and gets far to much attention, especially when considering there are other Bronte books out there that should be given more attention than they do currently.
    • 5/5
      "Wuthering Heights" is a writer's novel. The twists and turns of its frame narrative style, along with the reincarnation of Heathcliff's love and vengeance on so many different (but similarly named) instantiations of their initial targets, leave the reader constantly wondering who is talking, who is being talked about, and why more of the characters don't just speak for themselves. In a masterful way, this confusion calls out the subjugation inherent in Brontë's own society. The author shrieks back at a world that relegated women to subservience, and that on occasion dismissed her own and her sister Anne's writing as likely the product of their sister Charlotte's imagination, by voicing the eternity of her characters' hearts through the words of others. This, metaphorically, is what her writing did for her, and what all great writing does for its author. On first reading, the narrative structure consumed all of my attention, but left me entranced by its power. On second reading, ten years later, I vowed to focus on the characterisation of the novel and discovered some of the most unlikeable and least relatable personalities that literature has ever produced. This is not a book club read for gabbing with your girlfriends, but a manifesto on the power of words to haunt the minds of generations. I linger on Brontë's writing, and wonder how any one could ever imagine quiet slumbers for an author who continues to speak so powerfully today.The Barnes and Noble edition of this book contains a selection of famous quotations, a timeline of Brontë's life, an introduction by Daphne Merkin, a note on the text and dialect, a genealogical chart of the characters, the original biography of Ellis and Acton Bell and the editor's preface to the 1850 edition of the book written by Currer Bell (Charlotte Brontë), footnotes (of dialect and translation) and endnotes, an exploration of works inspired by the novel, a set of critical opinions and questions for the reader, and a suggested bibliography for further reading.
    • 4/5
      I read this in conjunction with Frankenstein, which provided a nice contrast in a study of the effects of rejection and cruelty.Even though I admire Bronte’s writing, and acknowledge that this is a powerfully emotional book, I don’t like it. This isn’t the passionate love story that it appears to be. Instead it’s a tale of sick obsession, revenge, and hatred. The ending, while fitting, is weak. And yet...would I read it again? Most likely. It’s a shame that Emily wrote only this one book. She had a very great talent.
    • 4/5
      Unforgettable love story. Haunting, sad, beautiful. A timeless classic.
    • 5/5
      This book is beautiful, ugly, and upsetting. It's probably best to read over a rainy weekend with lots of comfort food... I'm not usually a fan of historical romances, especially in this time period, but Wuthering Heights is the exception. This is no prim and proper story about high society goings-on; these characters are broken, mistakes are made, and pride and anger really do have consequences. She chooses society over love (or perhaps over her own nature); he chooses revenge and pride. Both suffer for it.
    • 4/5
      An excellent novel, and I really enjoyed it! I highly recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      Ferocious, otherworldly, and quite poisonous, WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a story of bitter, even caustic love unfulfilled and tragically revenged many times over. Full of intensity and brooding venom, the novel begins with a familiar love story in the ‘star-crossed’ vein: Catherine Earnshaw and ‘Heathcliff,’ a foundling raised as a foster child by Catherine's father, develop an obsessive, if unexplored, love over a complicated and eventually painful childhood. But the familiar love story diverges there, and carries itself into realms that are at best uncomfortable, and at worst incredibly disturbing. When Catherine marries another, Heathcliff flees Yorkshire and goes on, for a number of years, to live a life that always remains shrouded in mystery to the people around him. Whatever his journey, he returns to Yorkshire fabulously rich and ready to reclaim what he feels is his: but motivations and actions are dark and stormy on the moors, and whether—after death, madness, and cruelties that still ring overwhelming to modern ears—he succeeds is open to interpretation. There are few people to like here, but Heathcliff rises above them as a thing—an idea—so complex and unerringly human in his pain, if undoubtedly inhuman in his aims and actions, that to not feel a sickly sympathy for the overwhelming darkness of his existence is impossible. This, perhaps, is the greatest accomplishment of Emily Bronte’s opus.A freak in its own time, WUTHERING HEIGHTS is a passionate and tempestuous novel, and stands head and shoulders above its contemporaries for sheer power and emotion: at once Gothic and austere, bitter and sweet, endearing and repulsing, it defies categorization and has become a classic of English literature.
    • 5/5
      Wuthering Heights is one of those classics that are constantly abused for being "depressing" or "gloomy" — as if a work's quality consists solely in its ability to cheer its audience. The expressions of hatred directed at this book really shock me, because I found it a very gripping tale. I read it long ago and enjoyed it then, and this reread has only solidified my esteem for Emily Bronte's only novel.I have heard charges levelled at the novel that say there are no likeable characters, and that it is impossible to like a book if you don't like any of its inhabitants. It is true that many of the principal characters are hard to like. Cathy is sometimes shallow, selfish, and thoughtless. Heathcliff is something of a monster. Edgar Linton is listless and weak compared to the other two. Isabella Linton is a foolish girl. But I disagree with the contention that their faults make us care little for their fates. Part of what spurs me to read on in cases like this is to see if the characters will undergo any kind of change for the better. And even if they don't, it's fascinating to get a glimpse into their minds, so different from our own.And there are other characters to like if we are completely put off by the characters above. Our frame narrator, Mr. Lockwood, is actually rather humorous. He is Heathcliff's tenant down at the Grange, and had removed there because of a love affair. The love affair is laughable: Lockwood was attracted to a girl, she returned his feelings, and it so disconcerted him that he immediately fled to the moor, to escape her company! His honesty about himself is very disarming. Nelly Dean, the servant who has witnessed the entire story of the Earnshaws, Lintons, and Heathcliff, tells Mr. Lockwood (and us) the tale. And I think she is very likeable indeed! To keep her head amidst all the raging passions and dangerous undercurrents of the other characters, and be that steady rock that really all of them trust, is no small feat. I think the point of Lockwood and Nelly is to be our guides on the harsh crags of the Heights of love, obsession, and passion. Not for nothing is this story called Wuthering Heights. Heathcliff and Catherine live on a different emotional level, stark and bare and unforgiving. Wuthering Heights and the Grange are set up as polar opposites throughout the novel. The Grange is sheltered, comfortable, safe — Wuthering Heights is dangerous, exposed, and harsh. As readers, we need to see the world of the Heights through the eyes of someone with whom we can identify, someone who will express some of the same feelings we have. By using both a male and female narrator, Bronte fulfills that need and renders her dark tale accessible to the rest of us. And this, I think, is partly why this novel has attained classic status in spite of its many detractors.Despite attempts to humanize and romanticize Heathcliff, he remains harsh, forbidding, and cruel. He is not the Darcy of Austen's lighter imagination, or a dark, brooding, misunderstood hero. He is a villain through and through, and everyone in the story knows it. It seems Bronte anticipated the attraction his darkness would have, for she wrote a female character into the story, Isabella Linton, who convinces herself that Heathcliff's gruff exterior is really hiding a noble character. She was horribly wrong, and suffered from her mistake all her life... an oblique warning to the fangurls of the future. And yet one cannot help wondering what would have happened if Heathcliff had married Cathy. Would his rapacious desire for her (and desire in every sense of the word, not just the physical) be satiated by constant proximity? I rather think she was strong enough to hold her own against his need for her. Perhaps Heathcliff is overly romanticized by certain female readers because of his unflagging devotion to Cathy. But I think it is better viewed as the unflagging devotion of a stalker who is dangerously obsessed with his object. There is a wonderful symmetry to this story. We start with a Catherine Earnshaw, who becomes Catherine Linton. And we end with another Catherine Earnshaw (who has also borne the name Linton, as well as Heathcliff, as a sort of bridge). The Earnshaw estate of Wuthering Heights, unnaturally owned by the interloper Heathcliff during his life, passes once more into the hands of the Earnshaws at the end of the story. The original Catherine Earnshaw lives again in her nephew Hareton, and the lady of the house again falls in love with an uneducated laborer. But Hareton's and Cathy's story ends much more happily than that of their predecessors. Many readers note the importance of the moor in the story, as almost a character in its own right, that colors the tale with its dark bleakness and lays bare the pretensions of civilization. I was actually surprised how little description the moor gets — it is described far less often than the landscape in, say, The Mysteries of Udolpho, and yet it is central to the story, because it provides a believable context for the characters' motivations. It isn't to everyone's taste, but I love the Gothic atmosphere and the thought of the wind "wuthering" on the moors.If this is a book you have avoided because of its reputed gloominess, I hope you will not leave it unread forever. A happy ending is wrested from the characters' choices, and I found it very satisfying. Emily Bronte's writing is very graceful, and I applaud her skillful characterizations. Her insight into the dark heart of Heathcliff is especially unexpected from a sheltered clergyman's daughter. But Emily loved the moors, and it is perhaps that harsh landscape that informed her imagination of the dark obsession and hatred possible in the human heart. I highly recommend this book.
    • 5/5
      Oh, Catherine and Heathcliff. What a pair. I love them just as much as I love Elizabeth and Darcy. This is what you call romance. It's always pretty with a bow on top. Sometimes it's heartbreaking. It's life and very well portrayed in this book. One of my favourites.
    • 5/5
      I do not think that we can begin to fathom the strictures by which people lived then. Duty was more important than love. Religion was as important as money. Appearance meant not only hiding reality from neighbors, but also it from other family members. Flouting society's mores was dangerous. In such an atmosphere jealousy grew like mold on stale bread. If ever you knew someone raised in the tail end of the Victorian era - (as the grandparents of someone my age were) you could begin to understand how readily they placed their own wishes second to whatever they thought was expected of them.And they expected that of everybody.Heathcliff and Catherine were no doubt different - unable to tame their own spirits-- and willing to defy convention. But then that changed. Yes their actions defy human nature as we know it. But I do not think that human nature exists unrelated to the times in which we live.
    • 3/5
      Piecing my way through the narrative fog of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights with its many layers of narrators, I was reminded of the found footage genre of films, in which the viewer’s entire understanding of the story is whatever is visually made apparent to them through the first person gaze of the whoever’s holding the camera in the fictional world and then the film’s editor, a figure who sits between that world and our reality. Everything we know about the love story is filtered through the recollections of Lockwood and Nelly and others, characters who Bronte employs to imply that Heathcliffe and Cathy and their decedents exist in a subjectively cruel, sadistic place cut off from a more benign reality. All are apparently reliable narrators, but throughout I couldn’t help a nagging suspicion, and that like The Blair Witch Project et al, there are multiple layers of fiction at play.
    • 4/5
      Apparently Wuthering Heights was initially thought to be such a publishing risk that Emily Brontë was asked to pay some of the publication costs. I can understand why I think. With the exception of Nelly, these characters are not very likable. I was surprised at how I could despise Cathy or Catherine at times and then feel sympathy a minute later. I did not like how spoiled the women were in this book but that is more a topic on how they are raised. I did not like Heathcliff’s demeanor. He is not the ‘bad boy’ that is misunderstood and can change if only loved. I did not like the manipulation that all the characters played against one another. And yet I did end up liking the book. I believe this is because of its audacity at what story it tells. This is not a romance story, this is a story full of pride and hate and resentment and vengefulness. It portrays the darker side of humanity, and also our fragility. I’m still taking this book in, as it is a sort of shock to the system. I certainly did not expect it.
    • 3/5
      The style of writing Bronteë has employed certainly made for an entertaining read, and i found myself completely immersed in the first four-fifths of the book. Unfortunately, I found the denouement to be trite and too hastily concluded. I found the psychological torment aspect of the book fascinating, so it was incredibly disappointed that the ending was a complete turnaround despite the years of turmoil in the preceding narrative. Overall a great read, and i'm definitely kicking myself for waiting this long to meet Cathering and Heathcliff!
    • 3/5
      This year I re-read "Jane Eyre," and endeavored to read the books her sisters wrote. Recently, planning to read the first novel by Daphne Du Maurier, I read that it was a kind of homage to "Wuthering Heights," and so I set out to read it before the Du Maurier novel.

      What an intensely gloomy and miserable book! I don't think that the malformation of Heathcliff's character is ever really explained, nor is his love/hate relationship with Catherine after her marriage. How can he think that torturing the offspring of his enemies is anything other than sadism? How come I've heard him referred to as a romantic character?

      This book probably paints a truer picture of the period than do others, but it's hard for me to understand how it's come to be regarded as Great Literature.
    • 3/5
      Such a dark love story that started from two people but affected everyone around them. Filled with anger, obsession, revenge, and pride.
    • 5/5
      This book is like nothing I've ever read. Beautifully written yet filled with hateful characters and depressing scenes. Yet...yet, I loved it! Emily Bronte does what few authors are capable of doing successfully; compelling you to care for people and situations you otherwise would not. So unlike her sister, Charlotte, who created a likable, strong character in Jane Eyre, Emily creates Cathy, Heathcliff, and the rest of this brooding, spoiled, and somewhat selfish cast of characters driven to depression and madness by the pitfalls of love--both familial and romantic--and and makes you want to never stop reading about them. A true classic and one that everyone should read and keep in their library.
    • 4/5
      Catherine and Heathcliff are vindictive, manipulative, selfish and cruel characters. Despite, or perhaps because of, this their story makes for an incredibly engrossing tale of drama and revenge. It's also a little bit of a ghost story as well. Before the end of the third chapter, the reader has a sense of the melodramatic, gothic flavour of the writing. After a visitor to Wuthering Heights remarks on a nightmare he's had about a ghost clawing at his window:"[Heathcliff] got onto the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears."Come in! come in!" he sobbed. "Cathy, do come. Oh do - once more! Oh! my heart's darling! hear me this time, Catherine, at last!" (p.33)The rest of the novel is told in the form of a maid relating the history of these characters to the understandably perplexed visitor.It is basically the story of two families: the Earnshaws who live at Wuthering Heights and the Lintons who live at Thrushcross Grange, and how Heathcliff manages to almost destroy both of them. Heathcliff was an orphaned child taken in by the head of the Earnshaw family. As a little child he was friends with Catherine Earnshaw, because the two shared a wild and reckless spirit. However, before they grew up, Heathcliff was reduced to a servant and Catherine married the wealthy pretty-boy Edgar Linton. Cue Heathcliffe leaving, only to return to Wuthering Heights as a strong and wealthy man with plans for an awesome revenge. One thing about Heathcliff is that he is totally honest about what a monster he is. When he sets out to marry Isabella Linton (Catherine's sister-in-law after she marries Edgar) he does it only to hurt and torture Edgar and Isabella Linton, whom he sees as namby-pamby snobs. But before she agrees to marry him, Heathcliff strangles her little dog in front of her! The fact that she is still stupid enough to run away with him does not make his abuse of her any better, but it does make Isabella a rather stupid and unsympathetic character in her own right. Catherine Linton nee Earnshaw is a selfish and manipulative woman who plays Edgar and Heathcliff off each other - teasing and tormenting each and mocking the other behind his back. She works herself into fits to manipulate them and eventually seems to kill herself from the strain of it. But one of the most dramatic parts of the narrative is her last meeting with Heathcliff:"Let me alone. Let me alone," sobbed Catherine. "If I've done wrong, I'm dying for it. It is enough! You left me too - but I won't upbraid you! I forgive you. Forgive me!""It is hard to forgive, and to look at those eyes, and feel those wasted hands," he answered. "Kiss me again; and don't let me see your eyes! I forgive what you have done to me. I love my murderers - but yours! How can I?"They were silent - their faces hid against each other's tears. At least, I suppose the weeping was on both sides; as it seemed Heathcliff could weep on a great occasion like this. (p.192)If you want gothic melodrama - look no further. It's all richly entertaining - especially when Heathcliff actually digs up her grave and has a wall knocked out of her coffin. I have to admit that my interest waned a little in the second half of the novel, which deals with the next generation. Catherine's daughter, Cathy Linton is manipulated by a still vengeful Heathcliff into marrying his sickly son. Heathcliff even tortures and torments his deathly ill boy into the charade - but even the sick child is not a character one wants to sympathize with - being self-centred, malicious and sadistic. Heathcliff takes out his hatred on the Earnshaw and Linton families by trying to destroy both as thoroughly as possible - abusing, torturing and harassing even the children of those he perceived wronged him, and is only thwarted by his own insane obsession with the ghost of the dead Catherine. That there actually manages to be a somewhat happy ending for the two families is pretty remarkable. Catherine the younger, freed from her marriage to the sickly Heathcliff junior by his death, finds a surprisingly complex soul to love in that of Earnshaw's grandson, Hareton, raised as a brute by Heathcliff but willing to change for her sake. And the original Catherine and Heathcliff get to be ghosts together, haunting the moors and tormenting the poor villagers that they liked to terrify when they were living! Hey, it's a surprisingly entertaining classic - a dramatic gothic read that everybody should pick up at least once in their lifetime.
    • 5/5
      The most beautiful story I've ever read. Hard to explain where the fascination lies. Maybe it,s the solitariness and mysteriousness of the moors, the simplicity of rural life in the 19th century Yorkshire combined with a romantic but peculiar love story. How can such a young person have written such a novel?
    • 2/5
      I listened to this book because I had read it when I was in school and thought I might get something new out of it by listening to it. This author writes a story that shakes my brain as much as driving a bike down a rough gravel road shakes the body. I found that I had to really force myself to pay attention because my mind really wanted to daydream. I did fall asleep twice and had to backtrack the next time I listened so I could figure out the plot of the story. I don't think I will be reading this book again.
    • 3/5
      It's an ok book. I do love a good vengeance story, but I never got the feeling like I should care about Heathcliff or his victims. The vengeance seemed overdone, without reason, and to people who didn't seem to deserve it. Maybe that was the point, but meh.
    • 4/5
      Definitely the more interesting book out of Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, and in my opinion, better in almost every way. The characters are much deeper and more interesting, the setting is better written, with a lot of mystique, the themes are more gray and I liked the prose more.

      Heathcliff is a fascinating villain. Utterly depraved and unpredictable, which made for good reading, but also empathetic. You get such a deep glimpse into his character by following him from a child, and the moments he opens up to Nelly are heartbreaking.

      This book is twisted. I wish Emily Bronte had more content to dig into because this one was fascinating. I haven't really read another book quite like it.
    • 3/5
      Librivox recording (Version 2) narrated by Ruth Golding.Ruth Golding did a good job narrating, although I found Joseph's northern accent almost undecipherable (which was a problem for me in the printed edition as well). Too bad that I find almost all the characters repellant..
    • 5/5
      I first read Emily Brontë’s masterpiece, Wuthering Heights, as a preteen and fell in love with it then. There is something about Heathcliff and Catherine’s relationship that always made me swoon. They have so much individual trauma and are truly awful people, but together they make so much sense. Also, you know how much I love a good, dark revenge story, and more than half of Wuthering Heights is all about revenge. Hell, Heathcliff devotes his entire life to seeking revenge against those who abused him. I never could blame him for that. I mean, they made his life miserable, and there was no such thing as therapy back then. Holly reminded me how much I love this story when she asked me about it for a term paper. Talking about Wuthering Heights made me anxious to do another re-read, as it had been a few years since the last time. This time around, I opted to listen to it versus read it. Unfortunately, no matter how great an actress Joanne Froggett is, I did not enjoy the audio version. Ms. Froggett’s performance is fine. I think my lack of enjoyment is because I have read it so many times that I have my own way of interpreting the dialogue. On top of that, some books are simply better in print, and, for me, Wuthering Heights is one of those. I know some people detest this book or question why people consider it a romantic story. Me? I will go to my grave thinking Catherine and Heathcliff are one of the most romantic couples in all of literature. Now, I do recognize their relationship is not healthy and would never set them up as examples of true love. But they are perfect for each other, and that is what makes them such a powerful couple. Man, I love Wuthering Heights!
    • 5/5
      I'm honestly still trying to wrap my head around this thing.

      How can something –so teeming with detestable characters, nauseating abuses, and chilling justifications– win me over so definitely?

      It was the question to crowd my mind for the 24 hours after I finished this novel.

      Now, I don't usually grab for anything horror, or supernatural– or even fantasy. I'm a humanist. I always find those kinds of books focus too much on the "Monster of the Week", and it bores me immensely. But looking at my two tied-for-#1 books of all time, Frankenstein and The Picture of Dorian Gray, I'm beginning to come to a startling realization.

      I actually really like this shit.

      Looking at what these three have in common, I think it's what horror, supernatural, and fantasy are all supposed to have, but often lack: noting the extent of humanity when confronted with terrifying and otherwordly obstacles.

      Which brings me to back to this book. Wowee. The extent of the vindictiveness that is Heathcliff is chilling and hard to read at times. It made me physically sick at times, and I more than once had to shut the book and move on for a few hours. It was brilliant, it was sadistic, it was sad.

      Let's get this out of the way. Wuthering Heights is not a love story. Period. There's little to none mutual satisfaction, goodwill, or hope in the romances in the book. Instead, we're confronted with an obsessive, parasitic love as healthy as a terminal illness. It's been argued Heathcliff's redeeming aspect is his love, but I don't buy into it. If you want to read it as thus, be my guest, but I definitely took it as a byproduct of abuse.

      What is the central message of Wuthering Heights? Is it the dangers of cycles of abuse present even before Heathcliff falls in love with Catherine? Is it the dangerously passionate and immovable love that tears everyone apart with them? Is it the fate of the universe for his abuse, the jealousy of Hindley that begun it, or even the stagnancy and danger of seeing another as your own? I don't know yet. I don't know if I ever will. Perhaps it's all of those things, maybe it's none of them.

      Beyond the fact that Heathcliff has the "O.G. Severus Snape complex", the interactions of the other characters left me equally terrified. I wanted to shake the book until they realized they didn't have to fall to the level of their oppressors, but I was as powerless as the will for revenge woven into these characters minds. Living at Wuthering Heights was like an inescapable curse I couldn't pull them away from, and I have no idea how Nelly did it all those years.

      So thank God for the ending, honestly. I think I would have chucked this in the bin with tears down my face if Catherine and Hareton became the same miserable leeches their kin were, and I wish I were joking. The fact they're able to rebuild (The flower scene! That made me so warm inside!)
      and begin to love each other genuinely was a Godsend. I loved that Hareton was rebuilding himself as well, but that he was still slightly deficient from Heathcliff's neglect with his off mannerism and "roughness". It was real and poignant, as was the change with Catherine. They're both different people from this ordeal –but they're not broken– just a little scarred. There's a love story I can get into.

      I could go on about this book for days, but I have to stop somewhere. Read this. It will seriously question cycles of abuse and humanity, and probably your will to read about it. It's some scary, human stuff, and I'm damn sure it will sit with me for a long time.