Well, I can now tick Wuthering Heights off the book list and blimming glad I am to have finished it. My reasons for neglecting to read it back in the Upper Fifth are now lost in the mists of time but I daresay it had something to do with the total unpleasantness of all the characters, who appear not to have a redeeming feature between them. What I do remember is getting very muddled by the relationships and wishing I had some sort of family tree to help sort them out, what with all the women being called Cathy and all the men's names beginning with H (OK, I am exaggerating slightly but only a bit).
I actually had high hopes for this book; there are some on the list I am really rather dreading but I quite looked forward to this one. It started promisingly enough and I was actually quite gripped for the first few chapters, but it soon wore off once I realised how unsympathetic they all were. Not only did the characters lead miserable existences, but there were also hanged? hung? puppies and tortured kittens and it was all unremittingly grim. I had vaguely thought of Wuthering Heights as a love story, probably because of the Kate Bush song, or a dim memory of an ancient film version. But it isn't a love story at all - it's about vengeance and cruelty, and from a modern perspective it feels too melodramatic and unbelievable . I don't mind a villain, in general, but I prefer a bit of swashbuckle or the merest hint of humour to offset violence and viciousness. There really wasn't much I liked about it - except perhaps the houses and the moorland setting and the small glimpses of domestic life.
Why is this book so well regarded? I can, I suppose, imagine readers being intrigued by the plot or being attracted by the romance of the whole Bronte/Haworth story, but I really can't see it as a novel to inspire affection in the way that Jane Eyre (for example) does. For me, it became a slog - constantly checking the Kindle statistics to see how many minutes of reading I had left; oh, the relief when I realised the end was nigh. And even that was a disappointment, what with Heathcliff simply stopping eating and dying (sorry if this is a spoiler) instead of meeting a suitably gruesome end.
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