Book #87: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

I swear that I thought I'd read this book--sometime in college or shortly thereafter? But I honestly had no recollection of this story reading it this time around, so I'm doubting that I actually did. I'm glad to have finally crossed this one of the proverbial "to-read" list, but OH MAN it was painful. This was definitely not my favorite book in the world. I think it would have been easier to swallow if I'd had the appropriate expectations for it--if I'd known it's like a darker Count of Monte Cristo with twisted revenge fantasies as the main impetus of the plot. But I feel like everyone talks about this as a love story, and that is NOT what it reads like for me. I understand that Catherine and Heathcliff have this dark, all-consuming love, which governs their whole lives and makes him obsessed with her and with torturing and avenging himself on everyone who kept him from her, and he spends his whole life trying to find her and catch her and get close to being with her. But I'm sorry, that is not at all appealing to me. I really hated the abused child turning child abuser plotline, where Heathcliff's bad childhood twists him into being a basically evil person to everyone around him, and how all the children around him get warped because of his terrible treatment of them. (Why was I not prepared for this? Why doesn't anyone talk about THAT part of it when they talk about Wuthering Heights?) I also really didn't like the double framing of the story (two different narrators talking to each other about the story?), and felt like it was super awkward and totally detracted from the plot. But I can excuse Bronte for that, maybe she didn't know about having a third-person omniscient narrator or something back in the day.

I was somewhat relieved that there was a redeeming ending with at least one semi-happy relationship coming to pass after he died, and I guess the hints that Heathcliff and Catherine are together again after death make it a somewhat happy ending as well. And, I can see why people like how she writes about the setting and the moors (although really, I don't see a ton of imagery or setting descriptions--it's not like it's Prince Edward Island in Anne of Green Gables or anything). But I just don't understand why this is so many people's favorite book and how they love it so much. I liked the last fifty pages the most because I was moving quickly and coming to the end--the first half of the book especially was painful.

My favorite lines were when Catherine was talking about her love for Heathcliff (before everything became depressing): "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire" (80).
"If al else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it... My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff--he's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself--but as my own being" (81-82).