Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Wuthering Heights sucks big time

Posted by lea at 1:57 PM
I will never understand how Wuthering Heights achieved such cult status. The characters are awful, the situation ridiculous and the writing absolutely bog-sewer atrocious.

Let's start with the main characters. Heathcliff and Cathy are the most vile, melodramatic, selfish and unnecessary creations in literary history. There isn't a single appealing aspect of their characters, and their so-called 'love' is shallow and self-torturing. Heathcliff, cried up by the author as such a dark and tortured character, is simply one-dimensional and boring as hell (except when he's being domestically violent). He's an immature stamp-footy cry-baby who never gets over his forced separation with Cathy, won't stay away and let her be happy with her choice of husband, and then interferes with their offspring for his own dastardly delight. Bastardly, more like. He is simply pathetic, and not in the good literary 'pathos' kind of way.

Their offspring are almost as bad. The second Cathy is more forgivable, but by God how many times did you want to slap Linton across his weak-willed, self-pitying face? The trashy schoolgirl ending with the ghosts of Heathcliff and Cathy undo the goodwill of Heathcliff's redemption in allowing Hareton and Cathy II to get together.

It's my understanding that Emily Bronte gained publication of her manuscript off the back of her sisters' successes, and in the early days, there was a widespread belief that Wuthering Heights was in fact an earlier, more immature work of her sister Charlotte. This is no wonder, because her attempt at writing in Wuthering Heights is abysmal. Case in point: the original narrator is the self-proclaimed hermit Mr Lockwood, whose heightened curiosity about Wuthering Heights and its inhabitants is unlikely from the first. He re-tells the story as told to him by the servant Nelly Dean, and at points of the narration, Nelly Dean re-tells someone else's  version of the story, so you have a narration-within-a-narration-within-a-narration situation, yet the style of writing never changes. When Joseph speaks in this thick almost-unintelligible brogue, every storyteller reproduces it faithfully. This stretches the imagination of even the most gullible.

The entire story is suffocatingly small both in scope and nature, and the fact that it was even published is astonishing, let alone its success in the past 150 years and the number of people who defend its 'complexity and depth'. For me, it was a waste of time and even the $3.50 I bought it for.

29 comments:

Anonymous said...

I COMPLETELY AGREE WITH YOU! Holy crap... I am a senior in high school and I am being forced to chew up this literary garbage slowly and painfully.

At first I thought there was something wrong with ME. I wondered to myself.. "This is a literary classic.. why aren't I getting it? I hate every character and there is no passionate love that everyone blabs on about."

If I had a time machine, I would go back just to burn the manuscript before it ever got into the hands of literary snobs that declared this whiny trash "genius".

. on December 4, 2010 at 2:05 AM said...

I completely agree. I have to read this piece of shit sad excuse for a book for school, and then I have to review it, thing is, you can't really say you wanted to build a time machine and go back in time to kill Brontë, you have to say something cloudy.

GAAAH... I love reading, but this book has really been a struggle. Only 50 pages left, that's about 300 pages too much :/

Anonymous said...

I have been an avid reader since childhood, but I remember being forced to read this steaming pile of shit in highschool... I admit, I couldn't even finish it and instead bought the Coles' Notes summary so that I could play Nintendo and still ace the test. Worked like a charm!

If you want kids to read, give them something relevant.

lea on December 22, 2010 at 2:48 PM said...

It's nice to have company in this little Wuthering Heights-hating club! Thanks for your comments Blair and anonymous readers :)

Anonymous said...

I think I LOVE you for this!
WH is a terrible book. The characters all acted sporadic, and were manipulated by Bronte in awkward OCC ways to move the plot forward.
They didn't seem realistic AT ALL.

Anonymous said...

I so agree with you it's the most depressing and unrealistic novel ever. I even hate myself for reading it! What a piece of shit. Gah.

Anonymous said...

WH can only appeal to those suffering from Borderline Personality Disorder. This book is shit i agree i have to do a project for school on it and it makes me want to break my computer and seriously the characters lead themselves into doom and are stupid pricks. And Heathcliff needs to get over himself and a straightjacket.

Anonymous said...

I totally agree with above comments. If you're going to go for a Bronte novel, Jane Eyre is much better. More linear and easier to understand. WH does suck - all these flashbacks and changes in narration - and everyone seems to have the same name - why the hell would Bronte choose to name the character Linton Heathcliff? Really? Was this some kind of tradition back then or was she just running out of names?

Unknown on March 20, 2015 at 7:54 AM said...
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Unknown on March 20, 2015 at 7:55 AM said...

The first half of the book is a wandering pile of words with no point. It's as if Emily Bronte didn't understand how to map out a plot. Finally, after reading the muck of the first half, you get into a semblance of plot... which still has deplorable characters. Great Review!

Traci on July 15, 2015 at 12:23 AM said...
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Traci on July 15, 2015 at 12:24 AM said...

"Withering" Heights, one of the greatest disappointments in all my reading. It was 100% drivel. Depressing, pointless and a huge waste of time.

Ix on February 16, 2016 at 8:20 AM said...

The problem I have with WH is its cold isolated detachedness to life. It is a story that befits more a medieval time. For Emily Bronte to write something like Wuthering Heights, either portrays a person living internally in a cold sad place, or is living in a wretchedly dismal environment so as to conjure up such a story. What is worse, is those who find favour with WH. To appreciate such a work means only you must be able to identify with it, and that is very sad indeed if people can identify with that work of wretchedness.
Frankly, Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf is a shear literal work of genius compared to Bronte's Wuthering Heights.
I'm against the ideology of book burning, but if you ever were going to burn a book, Wuthering Heights is it.

Wtfmate on May 20, 2016 at 3:38 PM said...

I've just read WH, for the first time, as a 33 year old. Literally when I finished, I googled "why is wuthering heights a literary classic, when its so terrible?" And I found this page! :)
I'm not one to start a book and not finish it, but I had to literally force myself to finish this. There were some compelling parts of drama sandwiched in between the pointless verbal diarrhea, but those were few and far between. And my god, what the fucking FUCK was Joseph saying. Couldn't understand a word... I can only conclude that I had a completely different notion of what this novel was supposed to be, owing to PBS thier propensity to display this as some sort of deep, young love romance. The reality was another matter entirely and now I wish I'd read something g else instead.

Wtfmate on May 20, 2016 at 3:39 PM said...

I've just read WH, for the first time, as a 33 year old. Literally when I finished, I googled "why is wuthering heights a literary classic, when its so terrible?" And I found this page! :)
I'm not one to start a book and not finish it, but I had to literally force myself to finish this. There were some compelling parts of drama sandwiched in between the pointless verbal diarrhea, but those were few and far between. And my god, what the fucking FUCK was Joseph saying. Couldn't understand a word... I can only conclude that I had a completely different notion of what this novel was supposed to be, owing to PBS thier propensity to display this as some sort of deep, young love romance. The reality was another matter entirely and now I wish I'd read something g else instead.

Atlanta Wedding Photographers Sky Simone on February 9, 2018 at 7:45 AM said...

I find this incredibly offensive. Heathecliffe should have been killed in the first part of the book. How is this considered a love story? Heathcliffe made me want to smash something.. GROSS

Cathy was hideous too...

James on May 22, 2018 at 9:01 PM said...

I thought I was alone in thinking that WH is utter rubbish. Heathcliff is a ten-star jerk, and all the other characters are cardboard cut-outs, complete idiots, or (usually) both. This book has no redeeming features. I knew before reading this trash that it was supposed to be a love story, so I can only say that its authoress must have had some very strange ideas about what constitutes love.

Unknown on August 30, 2018 at 7:33 PM said...

You guys are adorable! I had a good laugh reading these comments and the article. I agree with all of you: I wanna burn it, I skip the paragraphs of goddamn Joseph's speeches, I never wanted to punch a book so much. Emily Bronte must have been surrounded by people like the characters and herself probably so unbearable. So much fixedness in these characters, I wish I could unread.

Anonymous said...

All the people there are just bad readers. You don't like it because you can't understand it.

JohnJeremy on February 26, 2019 at 3:38 PM said...
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JohnJeremy on February 26, 2019 at 3:41 PM said...

The cringed every time I read the word heath or heather, her word choice was horrible and redundant. But my biggest complaint, though the fact that she reused names like an unimaginative c--t irks me a lot, is that Hareton and Cathy ARE FUCKING COUSINS. Really what kind of twisted shit is this, like if they were 2nd cousins, I 'might' be able to brush it off, but no. I read an letter from Charlotte in which she defended her sister and tried to explain to readers and critics how Emily was 'young and secluded' she wasn't very social. Which makes me think, this wasn't some deep book, this was a book by someone who didn't know how to socialize, and then in makes sense. Sure it might sound like a lovely story to a prisoner of the inquisition. Charlotte knew how to write.

AmyB on April 22, 2019 at 6:18 PM said...

Agree 1000%!
I had head so many great things about this book and I thought I was the only one who just didn’t get it. Can’t believe one friend says this is her ‘desert island’ book choice. Ugh.

Unknown on September 21, 2019 at 2:55 PM said...

Lol, in college i said this was the most sesquipedalian turd ive ever read and literally burned it 1/4 way through. Got an applause and B+. No way this is a classic, nor written by a talented writer. Trash.

dani said...

i read it once years ago and for some reason i started thinking about it again but i didn't want to reread it i just wanted to know if anyone else but me thought it was as awful as i thought it was. not only is it not pleasant to read but i personally find it uninteresting. now i don't think it was published because of emily's sisters' successes. i think the publishers knew it would stir up controversy and that's the only reason it was published.

Anonymous said...

I think the appeal of this story was that the author never hides the fact that the characters are terrible and doesn't romanticize their story (unlike how authors may do in certain other popular books I could name...)

Anonymous said...

The book is awful trash. And I would say more but because of the :cult-" support for female written novel I'd rather save myself the annoyance.

Anonymous said...

Everyone has a right to publish a book. Furthermore I do not believe this book should be in school curriculums the pages are utterly long for a typical book and it's very annoying listening to Nelly narrative. She exactly as dumb as I would think slave minded individuals would have been unfortunately so I kind of pity her

Anonymous said...

The book is awful trash. And I would say more but because of the :cult-" support for female written novel I'd rather save myself the annoyance.

Anonymous said...

If you're approaching this as a love story, or a romance novel- you're doing it wrong. This story is not those things. This is a gothic horror where the evil is Catherine and Heathcliff's awful and unhealthy passion towards each other, and the fallout that comes with it generationally, and the younger characters trying to work there way out from under its disastrous effects. It's about how that kind of thing is bad, and all the other characters have to work around it.

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