I just felt like sharing that I'm currently reading Wuthering Heights and OMG can I just say how "fun" it is to be reading about domestic violence, child neglect, possible sexual violence, mental illness, animal abuse, and generational familial trauma that just cycles and cycles and never ends? 🤣 I mean wow.
That's all thanks for reading my take on it so far. 😬
by dandelionmoon12345
13 Comments
Young people are exhausting.
Were… were you expecting WUTHERING HEIGHTS of all things to be fun?
It was one of my favorite books in high school. It really resonated with my teen flair for melodrama. Not sure how it would sit with a calmer, more level-headed version of me over four decades later, but now I have to re-read it and see.
Pro tip: Stay away from the recent movie.
I think its a masterpiece in mood and character development in the absence of almost any plot whatsoever
Genuine questions: do you feel that the only purpose of art is to be “fun” and present things the creator believes to be good? Have you never before encountered art that was created to critique things, or make people reconsider their perspectives, or challenge societal norms? Do you think that Wuthering Heights is presenting these topics and situations in a positive light and trying to make it fun to hear about them?
thatsthepoint.jpg
The true wonder of great art is that it depicts the furthest excesses of humanity and rather than providing a neatly packaged moral lets the reader form their own conclusions.
it’s a beautifully written story about how racism makes monsters out of people & how trauma and abuse creates cycles that are impossible to break.
it’s not meant to be cheery 🙄 i hope your interest hasn’t stemmed from the movie because they are two very very different pieces of media
You could listen to the Kate Bush song for a palate cleanser, it’s pretty fun
Good literature isn’t always “fun.” Also WH is widely known to be absolutely bleak.
I hated reading that book. I was so mad at everybody in that story aside from the narrator. All this could be avoided with therapy. I started reading this book because the movie trailer made it look like a saucy Gothic romance, and instead it was a haunted house book.
Wuthering Heights is about the destructive nature of obsession. Heathcliff is obsessed with getting revenge on those that he thinks wronged him. It’s not healthy. And neither is Catherine and Heathcliff’s obsession with each other. It’s equally destructive to those around them, and to themselves. It’s not a “romance” in the modern mode. It’s a gothic romance, so it has darker elements.
The end does provide some hopeful spark in a the form of a new relationship based on mutual respect rather than unhealthy obsession, but I’ll avoid spoilers for you. 🙂
Nice, I hope you keep reading it! I need to give it another go myself. I was in such a depressing part of my life when I last tried it, I could not persevere.