Book Throwback: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

 

With the Wuthering Heights movie coming out over Valentine's Day weekend, it prompted me to write this book throwback blog post. For those who did not read the first post, book throwback is when I talk about the books and/or authors that made an impact on me.

Wuthering Heights is about Cathy and Heathcliff who love each other to the exclusion of anything else with dire consequences. The book was written by Emily Bronte and is a 19^th century novel. When I read the book, I was in my late teens, and the  book scared me. I thought Heathcliff who loses his mind when,(spoiler alert ) Cathy dies, and who is an anti-hero in the book was a man who truly only wanted one thing, and that was Cathy.

He tries to destroy( in some instances succeeds) everyone because he mourns and loses her. The thing about that kind of love is that it makes no room for others. If possible, we are supposed to love others and not just our beloved, and Heathcliff does not love his child nor his new wife. He only loves something that is dead and is not coming back.

This is not to say that great passion is something to fear, but it should be something that should be approached with great caution. When Cathy says that she dreamed that she was in heaven and she was crying so much because she missed Heathcliff that she was kicked out of it, it made me shake with fear.

Imagine loving someone so much that even heaven does not compare to them; nor does it soothe your soul. I did not see the movie and have no plans too. I hear that the movie is different from the book, but for all my fear of the book, Wuthering Heights had a big impact on me.

Before reading Wuthering Heights, I had been reading contemporary romance novels like Harlequin paperbacks. I never read anything like this classic novel.  I read contemporary romance where the hero is possessive and the heroine makes him a better person, but with Wuthering Heights, Cathy trying to save Heathcliff does not work out well for either of them.

The characters seem to be alive and real. It asked the question, what will happen when one loves someone more than anything or anyone, and the answer is one that leaves the reader breathless and anxious.

I don’t know if you are supposed to fight such love and passion or just give in to it. Cathy would have had a better fate if she had just gave into it, but Wuthering Heights made me cautious about such things.

I never read Wuthering Heights again. I stayed with contemporary romances where everything seemed more tame and not so scary with all that said, read the book. It is after all a very good story and Emily Bronte is an exceptional writer.