Monday, November 7, 2022

The Re-Read: Wuthering Heights

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a reader will fall into one of two camps. You either love Jane Eyre, or Wuthering Heights. You cannot love both. 

Ah, the Brontes. If you're a reader, you're going to have an opinion about the Brontes. 

You're either going to be on the softer, more rational side of things and love Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, with its more rigorous, half-gothic, pseudo-trauma porn angst, which turns out alright. 

Or you're in the brooding, dark, otherworldly camp with Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights, with that desperate love found between Cathy and Heathcliff and the tragedy that follows. 

(And nobody is in Anne Bronte's camp because The Tenant of Wildfell Hall is a bloody awful book that I had a visceral reaction to - religious clap trap if you ask me.)

It's just like the novels of Jane Austen - you're going to have a favourite, whether that be Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility or Persuasion. (As again, though not as odious as the offerings of Anne Bronte, Emma, Northanger Abbey and Mansfield Park don't quite make the cut when it comes to favourites.)

Me, I've always been firmly in the Jane Eyre camp. I like that it has the happier ending - you get the "Reader, I married him..." line, which sort of makes things a bit better. 

And if I'm honest, I've not read Wuthering Heights since high school - although I know I've started it a few times, then put it back on the shelf after having it sit around, unread, for a few months. 

But I'm taking another tack with this now. Instead of reading this book I'm going to listen to it instead. 

Audiobooks are a great way to consume those books that you never thought you would read - or want to re-read but can't be bothered - or just want to read something different for a change. I've just finished Melissa Lukashenko's Mullumbimby on audiobook. Something I'd probably not read on paper, but I loved being told the story. 

So, I've just started listening to Wuthering Heights. On Audible. 

I'm curious to see how it goes as it's being read by Patricia Routledge - or Hyacinth Bucket for those in the know. 


I'll let you know what happens - because as all purveyors of audiobooks will tell you, the reader is almost as important as the text - and I don't know if I can listen to Hyacinth Bucket yelling 'Heathcliff!' over the moors. 

Watch this space. 


Today's song: 



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