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Emily Brontë: Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

I think that this novel is such a beautiful work of genius. I have read it three times, and it still takes my breath away. I rate it as the second best novel I have ever read (the first being The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens).
 
I tried to read it -- I really did -- but the punctuation defeated me. Commas and colons and semicolons were placed willy-nilly. It drove me nuts!

I've read a lot of 19th century writers, and none of them punctuate like that. It was unreadable. Mine was the Everyman edition. I don't know if other editions tweaked the punctuation. If so, I might give the book another try.

I'd quote some of the text as an example, but I gave the book away.
 
I'm about to start reading Wuthering Heights for school. I'm actually quite looking forward to it, as I've not read any of the Brontë sister's novels. Although I must say, I'm not a big romance guy.
 
I tried to read it -- I really did -- but the punctuation defeated me. Commas and colons and semicolons were placed willy-nilly. It drove me nuts!

I've read a lot of 19th century writers, and none of them punctuate like that. It was unreadable. Mine was the Everyman edition. I don't know if other editions tweaked the punctuation. If so, I might give the book another try.

I'd quote some of the text as an example, but I gave the book away.

That's odd...I never even noticed that! Time to bring out the book to see for myself...
 
I just read some of the text on-line to refresh my memory about my complaints. :) In the text at literature.org, what I notice is that Bronte uses a colon where a period might be expected. There are two or three colons in some sentences.

Actually, the on-line text is easier to read. I think it's because there are more words to the line on the screen than in the book, so it flows a bit better.
 
I tried reading it a couple years ago, but I couldn't really get into it at the time. Although I'd like to give it another chance. Perhaps I should make use of Literature.org since that was how I got into Tarzan of the Apes and Dracula.

Although I did see most of the old black and white movie adaptation. When I started to get bored I moved to the next room, and I could still hear a lot of the dialogue. And I came back in the living room towards the end of the movie while working on a crossword puzzle.
 
I just finished it and I enjoyed it very much. I read Jane Eyre right before it and I agree that you really can't compare the two, they are very different but I did like Wuthering Heights a bit more. I also agree that it was not really a romance, there was more obsession and revenge than love or romance involved. I liked how all of the characters had kinda despicable traits, there was no clear cut "good guy/gal" even Ellen as faithful and caring as she is to all the other characters seems to be flawed in the sense she holds all that information to herself and often lets the others just dort of stumble into whatever trouble they may, but then her role seems mostly to be thobserver and relayer of the tale so that was fine too. I watched two movies based on the book this weekend, the black & white movie with Laurence Olivier did not follow the book very much at all, it down played a lot of the darker parts of the story and the newer film with Juliette Binoche and Ralph Fiennes does a better job of sticking to the story but still was just a so, so portrayal.
 
I tried reading Wuthering Heights in highschool and college...couldn't finish it. The book felt very..."wordy."

Then I listened to it on a CD a couple of years ago and fell in love with it. I finally grasped the tragedy of the novel and i loved Heathcliff's character. If you find that you can't get through the book...try the book on CD.
 
I was forced to read it for school in 11th grade. I didn't think it was dreadful, but I was so deflated at the end because it is so depressing and dark. I definitely plan on re-reading it sometime so I can fully appreciate it!
 
My English class officially began reading this book a few days ago. So far, I'm really quite enjoying it- although it seems I'm the only one. Most of the class (and we've only just gotten into it) spend the whole time saying things like "What's going awnnn??" and "Can you (the teacher) explain what's happenninggg???!" and I don't really understand that because so far it's rather straight forward. From what little I've read, I'm already quite impressed with Emily Brontë's writing, and the characters are already becoming fiercly interesting.
 
Color me unimpressed. The first three chapters were painful to get through and although the novel's pace picks up greatly once Mrs. Dean starts telling the story of Wuthering Heights, I felt indifferent about everyone involved. I dunno, I didn't hate it but for now Charlotte is my preferred Bronte sister (haven't read any of Anne's stuff yet).
 
i think the book is too dark and has somewhat lost its context in present times...can you think of such a romance happening in today's world?
 
As A Teacher ofWuthering Heights, I.....

As A Teacher of Wuthering Heights, I.....can understand the negative reactions of some readers at this Book & Reader Forum. I wrote the following prose-poem about Emily Bronte and her work. I post it here for the possible pleasure of readers.-Ron in Australia:cool:
----------------------------
A VISION OF ONENESS

Emily Bronte seemed to be obsessed with what she called her Gondal Poems which she began collecting together in February 1844. This obsession continued right through the publication of Wuthering Heights in 1847 until May 1848. Her poems were about imaginary heroes and heroines and contained a vision of oneness. It was this vision that she sought to communicate in her poetry. These poems and their themes provided a retreat for Emily’s imagination, for her fantasy. They became a necessity for her life. They were a “benignant power” a “solacer of human cares” and a “brighter hope when hope despairs.” -Ron Price with thanks to Juliet Barker, The Brontes, Weidenfeld and Nicholson, 1994, pp.435-6.

You started collecting your poems
the same month Samandar was born,
the great Apostle of Baha’u’llah,
one of the many heros and heroines
of the Cause. You finished just before
the Conference of Badasht with the Bab
in the fortress of Chihriq. And now my
imagination has a home among these
saints and martyrs that is a “benignant
poer”, a “sure solacer of human cares”
and a “brighter hope when hope despairs.”1

You died when the siege of the Shrine of
Shaykh Tabarsi began: aged thirty, as tough
as boot leather, an unbending spirit, proud
endurance, gifted soul, genius of liberated
mind and tranquil spirit: perhaps your spirit
was at Tabarsi!2

1 ibid., p. 436.
2 Emily Bronte had “a vision of the essential oneness of life which she gradually and haltingly communicated in her poetry.”(Winifred Gerin, Emily Bronte, Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1997, p.149. She died on 19 December 1848 the same day as the siege on Tabarsi began.

Ron Price
26 October 1999
 
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