Name : Wuthering Heights
Writer : Emily Brontë
Publishing year : 1845
Language : English
Type : Recommended, Novel
Recommended by : Soukaina Mkhairi
Estimated time : Around 15 hours.
Main themes : Love, basically. Social Justice, Revenge, Karma, Family, Social classes, Human bonds, Human condition ..
Recommended for : Anyone who'd appreciate a love story with many subplots and many characters and great development.
The book in a few words : The story of two houses bound by space and time, and two families bound by love and hatred.
The synopsis : Mr. Lockwood occupies a new house, lone and isolated from human interaction. The little contact he had with the household of Wuthering Heights made him only curious of the story and history of the family and the place. Through the eyes and words of Nelly, the story unfolds ..
The Rating : Excellent 9/10
The Review :
I'd start with a general complaint, maybe the only one I have in regard of this book : It is long, for a novel (said the guy who wanted to read The Brothers Karamazov). This fact coupled with my short attention span (that I'm not to be blamed for) and my relatively slow reading speed made me read the book in intervals, sometimes too long to keep the momentum of the action (if there were one) going. I had to regret that while seating 8 hours reading the second half of it at one take, in the unholy tiredness of this summer. As a result to that I made a resolution that I won't read any longs novels, at least for the rest of this month.
That being my reproach, now comes the praise.
The name of the book gave me many false expectations concerning the content of the book, because I, knowing that the book is set in a 19 century context, somehow pictured the heights mentioned in the title as some moral heights, something to do with honor and social hierarchy. It wasn't too long til I discovered that it's the name of a place. A place where many curious things happened and promise to happen.
The first thing that I admired in the classical piece was the choice of narrators : One, Mr. Lockwood, is a complete stranger through whom you, the stranger reader, are presented to every and each character with every detail a curious stranger needs, the other, Nelly, is kind of the opposite in role and knowledge, serves as the timeless witness of no less than three generations of love and loss in the neighbor lands of Yorkshire. She is, in addition to be the actual narrator of the story (on and off quotation marks), is an active, sentient character of the story. She was even granted enough intelligence and clairvoyance by Mrs. Brontë that she almost served as a omniscient narrator, for she was able in many recurrences to read into other characters' thoughts without even being objective. I thought it was a clever change in the narration department that is really hard to achieve without veering into either a loss of credibility as a narrator or being a narration tool (smartly being made interactive throughout the whole story), and the writer made it possible with great mastery.
The text somehow lacked description as it was theoretically all narrated by Nelly orally, and such lavish descriptions would be absurd and out of place if they were frequently presented.
The expressions and countenances of the characters, their accents and their sentiments, however, were perfectly transcribed by the author through the keen eyes of Nelly, leaving too little room to desire.
The language that I expected to be very 19-century-ish (thanks to Persuasion), was thankfully very nimble. The vocabulary was very rich and at times made me stop to retake sentences, but it was by no mean intrusive. The emphasis on verbs and feelings instead of circumstances made the story feel more liquid and more smooth.
In the characters' department, many were presented at the same time because of their studied resemblance, made the novel feel crowded at first. And I felt that this effect was deliberate because once the plot kicks off, you start to reminisce at the early presentations and hints given about every character.
By the second quarter of it, things started to clear out and every branch of every family was proven to be necessary to the growth of the story. It should be credited, however, that throughout the 400 pages of the novel, every character grew (or spoiler alert : died), at least through the eyes of Nelly. The change of states of characters was a beautiful work of improvised psychology, giving a real, odd and sinister depth to every character. There was a unique aspect to most of the character, like Joseph being instantly detestable, Nelly all the way trustworthy and poised to make up for the recklessness of the youngsters, and Heathcliff unearthly evil, and tortured beyond recovery. The part of the story were he was at full frenzy was almost scary!
I enjoyed it thoroughly.
The structure of the tale, however, is what won me over to add this to my 5/5 list.
Instead of a traditional, blooming story line that start with a simple integral description of the status quo that is soon to be disturbed and through successive events lead to a denouement, the story kicks off of an awkward position. The unwelcome narrator was pushed into the midst of a rising chaos, and only through the guidance of Nelly that he could put the pieces together. The non-linear telling of events was brilliant and done brilliantly, and the foreshadowing in the first chapters (Lockwood seeing Catherine's ghost, that was something.), much adding to the puzzlement, was spot-on.
The other element of the narration style was the creation of a vicious timely/karmic circle : History repeated itself in spite of all efforts to steer it or avoid it, and characters reappeared in new skins and new spirits. Catherine was reincarnated in Cathy, Edgar in Linton, Hindley in Heathcliff, Heathcliff in Hareton... The design laid by Brontë was of perfect proportions, and every character has its path to follow, and his aspiration to rise to, under all different motivations that fell into a one dichotomy : Love and Hatred.
Wuthering Heights is a love story tortured by the tempest of Hatred, or a hatred story blessed by the wind of Love. Either ways, it's a story of human endeavor: Rising and falling from grace, lacking power and being corrupt by it, withering by the sheer emotion of love or shaking under the great weight of guilt, loving and seeking love.
Favorite Character :
Miss Ellen Dean, or simply Nelly.
At first, it was introduced as a mere storyteller : watchful, prudent and just. She was given a motivation to do so by the presence of Mr. Lockwood, the new owner of the house who needs company and some lines of gossip. Once the story advanced sufficiently, she took on a new role: that of being a character of her own presence. But then, she evolved into this ageless companion that not only lived through three generations but also became a mentor, a person of trust and an authentic event-maker. She was, for pure plot reasons, an easily trusted woman, and by this gift she later on gained an ability to judge both people and their intentions, but did so in a matter that you'll believe.
She was this character that always knew better, she had the necessary wisdom to block all greater evils and soothe out everything else. She was present at every crucial moment in both houses, and yet she kept her loyalty to her job first and the people who she loved second her only priority. She didn't only watch the rumble grow, she was the one, secretly, that pushed them to grow, either by direct effect as it is the case with all the children she reared or indirectly by influencing those one upon entering the life of the rest. She later on became so invested in those characters that her ultimate happiness was to see them tranquil and untroubled.
She was, as I said, doted with a lot of intelligence and wit, allowing her to draw conclusions and make decisions, decisions that her inexperienced, short-tempered masters couldn't take.
She kinda flipped her role as a servant inside-out, and for that she earned the title of the best character in the novel.
Favorite passages :
"He would stand Hindley’s blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. "
".. but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together."
"He possessed the power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten"
".. so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning."
"It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! "
"his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an expression of unspeakable sadness. Had it been another, I would have covered my face in the presence of such grief. In HIS case, I was gratified; and, ignoble as it seems to insult a fallen enemy, I couldn't miss this chance of sticking in a dart: his weakness was the only time when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong.'"
"'Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!''"
"..And help your own naughty pet and mine. It is not poisoned, though I prepared it. "
"Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for satisfaction. You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your residence under my roof for the next twenty-four hours than informing me that such an event would follow." -Awesome.
"It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteen years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn landscape lay outside."
"I know he has a bad nature,’ said Catherine: ‘he’s your son. But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff YOU have NOBODY to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You ARE miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? NOBODY loves you NOBODY will cry for you when you die! I wouldn’t be you!’"
"He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise himself had produced just the contrary result."
"‘It is a poor conclusion, is it not?’ he observed, having brooded awhile on the scene he had just witnessed: ‘an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! [..] I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing."
That being my reproach, now comes the praise.
The name of the book gave me many false expectations concerning the content of the book, because I, knowing that the book is set in a 19 century context, somehow pictured the heights mentioned in the title as some moral heights, something to do with honor and social hierarchy. It wasn't too long til I discovered that it's the name of a place. A place where many curious things happened and promise to happen.
The first thing that I admired in the classical piece was the choice of narrators : One, Mr. Lockwood, is a complete stranger through whom you, the stranger reader, are presented to every and each character with every detail a curious stranger needs, the other, Nelly, is kind of the opposite in role and knowledge, serves as the timeless witness of no less than three generations of love and loss in the neighbor lands of Yorkshire. She is, in addition to be the actual narrator of the story (on and off quotation marks), is an active, sentient character of the story. She was even granted enough intelligence and clairvoyance by Mrs. Brontë that she almost served as a omniscient narrator, for she was able in many recurrences to read into other characters' thoughts without even being objective. I thought it was a clever change in the narration department that is really hard to achieve without veering into either a loss of credibility as a narrator or being a narration tool (smartly being made interactive throughout the whole story), and the writer made it possible with great mastery.
The text somehow lacked description as it was theoretically all narrated by Nelly orally, and such lavish descriptions would be absurd and out of place if they were frequently presented.
The expressions and countenances of the characters, their accents and their sentiments, however, were perfectly transcribed by the author through the keen eyes of Nelly, leaving too little room to desire.
The language that I expected to be very 19-century-ish (thanks to Persuasion), was thankfully very nimble. The vocabulary was very rich and at times made me stop to retake sentences, but it was by no mean intrusive. The emphasis on verbs and feelings instead of circumstances made the story feel more liquid and more smooth.
In the characters' department, many were presented at the same time because of their studied resemblance, made the novel feel crowded at first. And I felt that this effect was deliberate because once the plot kicks off, you start to reminisce at the early presentations and hints given about every character.
By the second quarter of it, things started to clear out and every branch of every family was proven to be necessary to the growth of the story. It should be credited, however, that throughout the 400 pages of the novel, every character grew (or spoiler alert : died), at least through the eyes of Nelly. The change of states of characters was a beautiful work of improvised psychology, giving a real, odd and sinister depth to every character. There was a unique aspect to most of the character, like Joseph being instantly detestable, Nelly all the way trustworthy and poised to make up for the recklessness of the youngsters, and Heathcliff unearthly evil, and tortured beyond recovery. The part of the story were he was at full frenzy was almost scary!
I enjoyed it thoroughly.
The structure of the tale, however, is what won me over to add this to my 5/5 list.
Instead of a traditional, blooming story line that start with a simple integral description of the status quo that is soon to be disturbed and through successive events lead to a denouement, the story kicks off of an awkward position. The unwelcome narrator was pushed into the midst of a rising chaos, and only through the guidance of Nelly that he could put the pieces together. The non-linear telling of events was brilliant and done brilliantly, and the foreshadowing in the first chapters (Lockwood seeing Catherine's ghost, that was something.), much adding to the puzzlement, was spot-on.
The other element of the narration style was the creation of a vicious timely/karmic circle : History repeated itself in spite of all efforts to steer it or avoid it, and characters reappeared in new skins and new spirits. Catherine was reincarnated in Cathy, Edgar in Linton, Hindley in Heathcliff, Heathcliff in Hareton... The design laid by Brontë was of perfect proportions, and every character has its path to follow, and his aspiration to rise to, under all different motivations that fell into a one dichotomy : Love and Hatred.
Wuthering Heights is a love story tortured by the tempest of Hatred, or a hatred story blessed by the wind of Love. Either ways, it's a story of human endeavor: Rising and falling from grace, lacking power and being corrupt by it, withering by the sheer emotion of love or shaking under the great weight of guilt, loving and seeking love.
Favorite Character :
Miss Ellen Dean, or simply Nelly.
At first, it was introduced as a mere storyteller : watchful, prudent and just. She was given a motivation to do so by the presence of Mr. Lockwood, the new owner of the house who needs company and some lines of gossip. Once the story advanced sufficiently, she took on a new role: that of being a character of her own presence. But then, she evolved into this ageless companion that not only lived through three generations but also became a mentor, a person of trust and an authentic event-maker. She was, for pure plot reasons, an easily trusted woman, and by this gift she later on gained an ability to judge both people and their intentions, but did so in a matter that you'll believe.
She was this character that always knew better, she had the necessary wisdom to block all greater evils and soothe out everything else. She was present at every crucial moment in both houses, and yet she kept her loyalty to her job first and the people who she loved second her only priority. She didn't only watch the rumble grow, she was the one, secretly, that pushed them to grow, either by direct effect as it is the case with all the children she reared or indirectly by influencing those one upon entering the life of the rest. She later on became so invested in those characters that her ultimate happiness was to see them tranquil and untroubled.
She was, as I said, doted with a lot of intelligence and wit, allowing her to draw conclusions and make decisions, decisions that her inexperienced, short-tempered masters couldn't take.
She kinda flipped her role as a servant inside-out, and for that she earned the title of the best character in the novel.
Favorite passages :
"He would stand Hindley’s blows without winking or shedding a tear, and my pinches moved him only to draw in a breath and open his eyes, as if he had hurt himself by accident, and nobody was to blame. "
".. but they were calmer, and did not need me to console them. The little souls were comforting each other with better thoughts than I could have hit on: no parson in the world ever pictured heaven so beautifully as they did, in their innocent talk; and, while I sobbed and listened, I could not help wishing we were all there safe together."
"He possessed the power to depart as much as a cat possesses the power to leave a mouse half killed, or a bird half eaten"
".. so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning."
"It was a marvellous effort of perspicacity to discover that I did not love her. I believed, at one time, no lessons could teach her that! And yet it is poorly learnt; for this morning she announced, as a piece of appalling intelligence, that I had actually succeeded in making her hate me! A positive labour of Hercules, I assure you! "
"his lips devoid of their ferocious sneer, and sealed in an expression of unspeakable sadness. Had it been another, I would have covered my face in the presence of such grief. In HIS case, I was gratified; and, ignoble as it seems to insult a fallen enemy, I couldn't miss this chance of sticking in a dart: his weakness was the only time when I could taste the delight of paying wrong for wrong.'"
"'Now, my bonny lad, you are mine! And we'll see if one tree won't grow as crooked as another, with the same wind to twist it!''"
"..And help your own naughty pet and mine. It is not poisoned, though I prepared it. "
"Miss Linton, I shall enjoy myself remarkably in thinking your father will be miserable: I shall not sleep for satisfaction. You could have hit on no surer way of fixing your residence under my roof for the next twenty-four hours than informing me that such an event would follow." -Awesome.
"It was the same room into which he had been ushered, as a guest, eighteen years before: the same moon shone through the window; and the same autumn landscape lay outside."
"I know he has a bad nature,’ said Catherine: ‘he’s your son. But I’m glad I’ve a better, to forgive it; and I know he loves me, and for that reason I love him. Mr. Heathcliff YOU have NOBODY to love you; and, however miserable you make us, we shall still have the revenge of thinking that your cruelty arises from your greater misery. You ARE miserable, are you not? Lonely, like the devil, and envious like him? NOBODY loves you NOBODY will cry for you when you die! I wouldn’t be you!’"
"He had been content with daily labour and rough animal enjoyments, till Catherine crossed his path. Shame at her scorn, and hope of her approval, were his first prompters to higher pursuits; and instead of guarding him from one and winning him to the other, his endeavours to raise himself had produced just the contrary result."
"‘It is a poor conclusion, is it not?’ he observed, having brooded awhile on the scene he had just witnessed: ‘an absurd termination to my violent exertions? I get levers and mattocks to demolish the two houses, and train myself to be capable of working like Hercules, and when everything is ready and in my power, I find the will to lift a slate off either roof has vanished! [..] I have lost the faculty of enjoying their destruction, and I am too idle to destroy for nothing."
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