Book 5 of 2012: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

When I first found out the list of books to be covered during my OU A230 literature course, I set out to find and read a couple of them in advance of the course starting; Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte was one of those books. At the time I read it, I hadn't read too many books from that era and I have to admit that I didn't think very much of it. I think on this second attempt I did enjoy it a little more.

Fritz Eichenberg Woodcut from Wuthering Heights

Despite taking a little longer get through on this go around, I found it an easier read. Reading it alongside the course book helped because I know one of the problems I had the first time was keeping track of who was who as well as who was actually telling the story. The course book helped me to keep things straight so I didn't get quite as bogged down and was actually able to just read it. That was something that had been worrying me about rereading this, purely because I knew I'd have to look at it in greater depth than the first time.

I'm putting my ability to remember who was who during this read-through down to the fact that the course book basically took the novel stage by stage. Although it was largely dealing with critics reviews and the context in which it was written, that still helped a huge amount. I think at one point it actually says that it's easy to get confused when you're reading it because of all the names or events that keep on getting repeated.

This time around I felt more sympathy for Edgar and his daughter Catherine; when I first read it the only one I really sympathised with was Hareton who really didn't have any chance to avoid the situation he ended up in. I still can't feel entirely sympathetic for Catherine Jr because seriously, why couldn't she just do as she was told? But I did pity her more this time for how Heathcliff used her. I'm glad that Cathy and Hareton got a happy ending together.

I think I found Heathcliff scarier this go around. I'm not sure if it's something I really picked up on a huge amount the first time, and maybe the course book helped with this because it did spend a fair bit of time talking about the supernatural and 'uncanny'. Heathcliff's death really creeped me out, partly because I was reading it at night. The thought of him and Catherine's spirits lingering around *shudder*. I suppose that makes it an effective story though.

I'm fairly certain that this one will crop up in the exam so I'll probably revisit bits of it closer to the time of that. From a point of view of the course, I'm enjoying learning about the period this was written in; I've always been interested in the Victorians and it's been interesting hearing about their opinions at the time it was first published.