Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
One of my knee jerk reactions to this one is, Oh my goodness, everyone in this book has serious mental problems...lol. I think on the whole I liked Jane Eyre better, but that's not to say I didn't like this at all. It's a revenge tale after all, and I love revenge.
I think it would have been a more satisfying revenge if Heathcliff's beloved Catherine was around to see the damage he inflicted on all her remaining family. I think I just didn't see the driving obsession after she was gone. I would've liked to have seen his descent into madness more closely documented but it wasn't possible with the pov used. I did enjoy the pov though. What a creative way to tell the story. Not just second, but third hand. All juicy gossip. Very clever. Ellen Dean was the observer character and the only one with any common sense. If I was her I'd have washed my hands of the whole family after the patriarch died. But if she had we wouldn't have the story. She and all the other characters seemed to suffer from a obstinate kind of tunnel vision that kept them set on their paths for years. It left little room for growth with the exception of Hareton and Catherine the younger. Consequently, Heathcliff's sudden disinterest in torturing everyone around him came as a surprise. It all had to do with his mind deteriorating from his madness and hallucinations of his Catherine and I was very interested in seeing this fleshed out. But from a second hand account all that can be conveyed is a mysterious tease.
Still I don't have many complaints. The classics are still the best and this should be on everyone's classic reading list. If I had to rate it, I'd do 4 of 5 stars.
