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Assigned this as part of a literature unit; more readable than I expected.
- I was somehow under the impression that this was more of a ‘romance novel’ than a ‘nineteenth century people are horrible to each other novel’.
- Are we meant to be sympathetic towards… well, anyone? Is it just the passage of time and change of culture which leads me to dismiss virtually everyone as smug, self-absorbed, classist, racist, upper class twits who deserve to lose all their property and assets to the first person who comes along who’s willing to put a bit of effort into it?
- I think it is a great loss to literature that improved medical technology and life expectancy have meant that modern novel writers can no longer realistically dispose of characters no longer necessary to the plot by having them abruptly drop dead.
- Heathcliff’s a great character; I rather feel he deserves a better setting and storyline. Granted, a great deal of what makes him interesting is how petty he is in his obsessive pursuit of inflicting suffering on others… putting him in a setting where he could be a villain with grandeur would rather defeat the point. Still, he seems rather wasted in such a miserable location as Wuthering Heights.
- There’s some unusual plot structuring here; we have the narrator, who tells the story he’s been told by another narrator, who is in turn often telling the stories she’s been given by other characters via letters. I don’t read much from the early nineteenth century; is this sort of structure common there? It makes Tarantino films look like models of linear storytelling.
- I am very glad the edition I purchased provides translations for the characters who speak in strong accents.
- The second half of the novel seems to me to be greatly inferior to the first. The subtle supernatural elements of the first half are gone entirely, and the resolution of the main story seems to come out of nowhere. A happy ending feels very out of place after the story so far.
- I was somehow under the impression that this was more of a ‘romance novel’ than a ‘nineteenth century people are horrible to each other novel’.
- Are we meant to be sympathetic towards… well, anyone? Is it just the passage of time and change of culture which leads me to dismiss virtually everyone as smug, self-absorbed, classist, racist, upper class twits who deserve to lose all their property and assets to the first person who comes along who’s willing to put a bit of effort into it?
- I think it is a great loss to literature that improved medical technology and life expectancy have meant that modern novel writers can no longer realistically dispose of characters no longer necessary to the plot by having them abruptly drop dead.
- Heathcliff’s a great character; I rather feel he deserves a better setting and storyline. Granted, a great deal of what makes him interesting is how petty he is in his obsessive pursuit of inflicting suffering on others… putting him in a setting where he could be a villain with grandeur would rather defeat the point. Still, he seems rather wasted in such a miserable location as Wuthering Heights.
- There’s some unusual plot structuring here; we have the narrator, who tells the story he’s been told by another narrator, who is in turn often telling the stories she’s been given by other characters via letters. I don’t read much from the early nineteenth century; is this sort of structure common there? It makes Tarantino films look like models of linear storytelling.
- I am very glad the edition I purchased provides translations for the characters who speak in strong accents.
- The second half of the novel seems to me to be greatly inferior to the first. The subtle supernatural elements of the first half are gone entirely, and the resolution of the main story seems to come out of nowhere. A happy ending feels very out of place after the story so far.