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Wuthering Heights

By Emily Bronte, Ian Jack (Editor)

(1052)

| Paperback | 9780192815439

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34 Reviews

3 people find this helpful

Powerful, obssesive, tormented, and passionate.
There are many different copies of Wuthering Heights available. I'd recommend the Penguin collection, not only because it's printed in reasonable fonts and paper quality, but also the introduction by Pauline Nestor is very well written. It points ... (continue)

Powerful, obssesive, tormented, and passionate.
There are many different copies of Wuthering Heights available. I'd recommend the Penguin collection, not only because it's printed in reasonable fonts and paper quality, but also the introduction by Pauline Nestor is very well written. It points out lots of interesting aspects of the book.
It is a pity that not everyone appreciates the dark passion in the book. But this is definitely one of my favorites.

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material girl said on Jun 15, 2008 | Add your feedback

3 people find this helpful

The Brontes have always had a problem

The Brontes take too long in saying what they mean. All of them seem to write an extra page of needless description for each event that would normally take no less than a paragraph. And when something does happen, it gets interesting, but is over as quick as it arrived. All their books seem to revol ... (continue)

The Brontes take too long in saying what they mean. All of them seem to write an extra page of needless description for each event that would normally take no less than a paragraph. And when something does happen, it gets interesting, but is over as quick as it arrived. All their books seem to revolve around people just sitting and talking, or in this case, not talking.
Wuthering Heights in particular is rather dull, fails to engage one's interest, and makes itself needlessly complicated. For the most part, it's straight forward, but in one chapter, there are deaths, births, marriages and reunions. Which are followed by several chapters of sitting. It's not helped by the fact that these events seem to be of little interest to the author, as they're given a brief mention before we rush back to the fireside for a chat. And the short supply of families means everyone has the same surname, which they are all referred to by (except Catherine, and her daughter (imagination overload here:) Cathy). So several people with the same name are all marrying each other, falling in love with others, dying and giving birth to more identikit characters.
Fair enough, I may have been paying too little attention, but as I said earlier, the book is not engaging. I don't care for any of the characters or their feelings. The only person in the book with a modicum of personality is Heathcliff. We are urged to sympathise with him for a few chapters, and then hate him ever after, which is given no real depth either. Every other person in the book is depressingly uninteresting. As I may have mentioned, they seem to spend all their time sat down, talking (or worse, not talking) or crying.
As for Joseph's over the top phonetically spelled dialect, I can't help but think how someone who was relating the tale (or at one point, writing in a letter) wouldn't go to the trouble of writing it like that. Had he actually been speaking, fair enough, but you wouldn't impersonate someone when relating their speech later, would you? You'd say it in your manner of speaking. I can read dialects well, so it's not a lack of understanding that makes me say this. (Side note: I read Trainspotting without a problem, except it was rather dully written, which leads me to believe it is only lauded for its style of writing. I did give up with it halfway through in the end, as I realised it made just as much sense in an Australian accent.)
Overall, its a pretty poor book. But I'm a bloke, so maybe that's to be expected?

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Daniel Peachey said on May 14, 2008 | 1 feedback

2 people find this helpful

the best book I ever read & re-read.

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hphilly said on Dec 25, 2011 | Add your feedback

Potente. La base della mia idea di amore.
"Nelly, I am Heathcliff - he is always, always in my mind - not as a pleasure, anymore than I am always a pleasure to myself - but as my own being - so, don't talk of our separation again - it is impracticable"

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CristinaP said on Feb 3, 2012 | Add your feedback

My favourite book ever!

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Roberta said on Sep 26, 2011 about the Hardcover edition | Add your feedback

What a conflict of emotions. I wanted to love the characters and hate them at the same time.

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Lindsay Weigel said on Jun 18, 2011 about the Boxset edition | Add your feedback