Better late than never, I guess, but I finally finished Wuthering Heights. I had read it in eighth grade, but I don't recall much about it. Now I know why.
I don't understand how this is a great love story. Diana's take is that it is a story of self-loathing. That may be, but I would classify it as a story of an abusive personality. For many, the passionate love he had for Catherine apparently excuses his brutality - but not with me. I don't define love in terms of power, control, and abuse. It was nearly all I could do to read about Heathcliff and the damage he did to the people around him.
Perhaps I cannot call Wuthering Heights a love story because even now we continue to see violence in the form of stalking, kidnapping, and murder, all committed due to "love gone bad." Today the people who do these things end up in jail . . . but Heathcliff was allowed to terrorize his family until he died. That's not love.
Certainly the writing is beautiful - oh that I could write that well. The plot is intriguing - I did enjoy the way Emily Bronte intertwined the story between Thrushcross Grange and Wuthering Heights, using dual narrators, and naming her characters similarly. There is a lot to love about the book - just not "the love".
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