Wuthering Heights

I just finished reading Wuthering Heights last night and I'm going to give you my two cents worth. It was one of those reads where you can't put it down. It's very engrossing, however, I found it quite miserable. I mean to tell you I've never, yet, read a love story so twisted and heart breaking. I know the times were simpler then and very different from now, but come on! The perspective in which the story is told took me by surprise as well.

That Heathcliff character leaves something to be desired for sure. Yes, he is so maddeningly in love with Cathy...to the point of literal insanity, and that is somewhat heart warming...in the beginning. Towards the end, however, his love for her does not excuse his behavior. Only at the very end did I feel any compassion for his suffering at all...well that's not entirely true either...it's hard not to feel compassion for his situation in the love department. I just cannot believe how murderously vindictive he was after Cathy's death. He proves very unwilling to let time heal his wounds.

Cathy, I thought, was very odd as well. She married Edgar simply to better Heathcliff?!?! She said she loved him (Edgar), but I wonder if she really ever did. Not that I condone this type of behavior or would actually really ever even recommend it, but I wonder why she and Heathcliff never just ran off together! It would have been so much better a story for them. Or even if, in the beginning, Heathcliff would have stayed around to hear Cathy's entire reasoning for marrying Edgar in the first place how different their lives would have turned out. How miserable to be in love with someone, with your whole heart, but bound to give it to another.

Only at the very end did you get to feel any true happiness for anyone in the whole miserable story! And then, it was hard for me to wrap my mind around the fact that the ones to find happiness in each other were cousins! Like I said, I know times were different then they are now, but that's just weird.

I guess, even though it was miserable and awful, it was a little good. If anything, it gives us a guide on what is definitely not a healthy relationship! LOL There were some lines in the story that were very haunting and undeniably romantic that it very nearly gave me goose bumps, but even those don't excuse the rest of it.

All in all, I'm glad I read it. I'll be starting my complete works of Jane Austen now. I love to read and at least when I do it takes my mind off other matters. But first, I really need to fold some laundry...it's really too bad it can't fold itself.