very clever
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Sorry to hear the year was so rough. I now understand your sentiment, not for anything would you reread this one! Amen to that
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I’m lobbying for a happy book for 4/1!
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I just finished it, too, for at least the third time, and maybe the 5th or 6th.
Do I like this book? Well, no … but am I totally caught up in it, every single time? Yes, yes I am. I can’t wait to discuss with you all.
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Another one done but only by lots of skimming. I’ve asked for cheerful upbeat books before but this time I really really mean it! I meant to try and rewatch the 1939 movie. But now I’m worried I’ll detest Lawrence Olivier so maybe not.
Yes, plenty to unpack in this book.
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I’m with you about the movie, ummmmmmm hard no
I am powering through it! About 70% done and will finish by discussion time I hope! I am getting more and more immersed in the book as I progress, and look forward to the discussion. The hardcopy edition I checked out from our library has footnotes translating Joseph’s dialogs in plain English! So thankful for these!
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The edition I borrowed from the library had a helpful appendix with word meanings etc but it was inconveniently located - would have preferred bottom of the page.
I have a 1940s hardcover edition from my mom. It’s going slow, so I’ll likely jump into the discussion a few days late.
It’s February 1st! Welcome to our discussion of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë.
For me, this novel has always been—as @jerseysouthmomchess put it—“weirdly compelling.” But I have never viewed it as a romance. Heathcliff and Cathy are both detestable. Genuine love is not a concept they understand.
I came across this quote while reading about the book:
My favorite novelist of all time is Emily Brontë, author of the greatest psychological novel ever written, with the most complex character ever conceived. Read “Wuthering Heights” when you’re 18 and you think Heathcliff is a romantic hero; when you’re 30, he’s a monster; at 50 you see he’s just human. - Alice Hoffman
With all due respect to Alice Hoffman…nope. To me, Heathcliff has always been a monster. Yet with each reading, I continue to search for a glimmer of humanity in him. Alas…still coming up empty. The only credit I’ll give him is that he’s honest. They say that the Devil is a Deceiver, but Heathcliff is not. He never tries to hide the fact that he is out to destroy all those who he believes have wronged him, Lintons and Earnshaws alike.
The internet contains an abundance of discussion questions for Wuthering Heights. I found two sets with almost no overlap, so I’m posting them both. Ponder or ignore as you see fit.
Let’s jump in! Who made it all the way through and what did you think?
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Discussion Questions #1
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To what extent do you think the setting of the novel contributes to, or informs, what takes place? Do you think the moors are a character in their own right? How do you interpret Bronte’s view of nature and the landscape?
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Discuss Emily Bronte’s careful attention to a rigid timeline and the role of the novel as a sober historical document. How is this significant, particularly in light of the turbulent action within? What other contrasts within the novel strike you, and why? How are these contrasts important, and how do they play out in the novel?
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Do you think the novel is a tale of redemption, despair, or both? Discuss the novel’s meaning to you. Do you think the novel’s moral content dictates one choice over the other?
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Do you think Bronte succeeds in creating three-dimensional figures in Heathcliff and Cathy, particularly given their larger-than-life metaphysical passion? Why or why not?
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Discuss Bronte’s use of twos: Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange; two families, each with two children; two couples (Catherine and Edgar, and Heathcliff and Isabella); two narrators; the doubling-up of names. What is Bronte’s intention here? Discuss.
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How do Mr. Lockwood and Nelly Dean influence the story as narrators? Do you think they are completely reliable observers? What does Bronte want us to believe?
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Discuss the role of women in Wuthering Heights. Is their depiction typical of Bronte’s time, or not? Do you think Bronte’s characterizations of women mark her as a pioneer ahead of her time or not?
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Who or what does Heathcliff represent in the novel? Is he a force of evil or a victim of it? How important is the role of class in the novel, particularly as it relates to Heathcliff and his life?
https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/18836/wuthering-heights-by-emily-bronte-introduction-by-silvia-moreno-garcia/9780593244036/readers-guide/
Discussion Questions #2
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Even the early critics who were revolted or dismayed by the violence of Wuthering Heights admitted the ‘power’ of the novel. What seems to you to be the best explanation of that power?
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How ‘moral’ a story is Wuthering Heights? More specifically, is moral justice a concern in the shaping of the story and its characters?
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Catherine Earnshaw comes across as many things: passionate, rebellious, full of laughter and of scorn for others, driven by social ambition but careless of social expectations, self-seeking but ultimately self-destructive (willing herself to die). Is it a problem for our reading of her that we never hear her voice unmediated? How far did you feel inclined to trust what you are told of her by others?
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One critic has speculated that the ‘second generation’ story was an afterthought, written to fill the gap created in a three volume set (Wuthering Heights, Charlotte’s The Professor, Anne’s Agnes Grey) after Charlotte withdrew. How cogently does the Catherine/Linton/Hareton narrative seem to you to fit with the first half of the novel?
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Does Heathcliff’s story hold the novel together? Does it make sense to read it as, in its own fashion, a Bildungsroman (telling the story of the building of a character over time, through education and experience)?
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Wuthering Heights is in many respects lawless, but it is also a novel in which the law (and what people do with it) is crucial to the plot. What do you make of its interest in, especially, property law? How does it compare with other Victorian novels you may have read (Dickens? Trollope?) which have an interest in how the law seeks to regulate ownership of land, houses, even people (wives and children)?
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This is a famously difficult book to place within any wider story about the development of the English novel. Does it seem to you a ‘bookish’ work or primarily an oral tale?
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How important is supernaturalism to the novel’s effects? And how closely tied to religion is the supernaturalism explored here?Discussion questions for Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights | OUPblog
First, I like Wuthering Heights and I’m grateful to have finally read it. As for why I like it … hard to explain. Definitely, as @jerseysouthmomchess puts it—“weirdly compelling” plays a part … but only a part of the whole. I can’t say I like Heathcliff or either Cathy etc but I doubt I’ll forget them. I looked back at the title of a book we discussed not so long ago and can’t remember names of the main characters. I can pigeonhole them and the plot but as for standing the test of time … no.
Bottom line: I can understand why Wuthering Heights makes its appearance on so many of the 100 books you should read lists. Now I have. 
Do you think the moors are a character in their own right?
Definitely. The moors play a part in the isolation of the characters. Note that the main characters still have a town nearby and the townsfolk make appearances now and then, but for all practical purposes, the Earnshaws and Lintons and Heathcliff exist in a world of their own.
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I did not like this book at all. It was painful to read it to the end, but considering I voted for it as my first choice, I felt like I needed to complete it. There was way too much drama, narcissism, whining, and madness. It was exhausting. I kept waiting for it to turn a corner and become something else that I would like, but it never happened for me.
I’m looking forward to reading the comments of others to see what I missed.
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I was so aware of this when reading. It’s almost like a stage play, in that the “real” world only exists in the imagination, with peripheral characters like Dr. Kenneth stepping on and off stage for a line or two. And if one leaves the grounds of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange, the author cannot follow (Heathcliff when he makes his fortune, Isabella when she goes to London).
I’d say it’s like Brigadoon, but in reverse (in that one embraces you and the other you’d like to escape from).
Now you’re just making me think of my child-rearing years. 
Seriously though, you’re right. The behavior of the characters is insufferable. But I do think high drama and an element of madness was an acceptable style at the time (think Bertha Mason in the attic, courtesy of Emily’s sister Charlotte).
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I had a hard time making myself read this book as I thoroughly disliked everyone including the narrators Nelly and Lockwood. (And while Nelly was honest about her preferences for one character or another, she seems to be as caught up in their disfunctionality as all of them - why else does she stay with Heathcliff?) I am quite sure I read it in high school, but all I remembered was that Catherine and Heathcliff had a unrequited romance. Any way, it was a bit of a struggle to read, but as I kept at it, I saw it as a story of generational trauma. Everyone ends up caught in it though ultimately it looks like the last two left standing may finally escape it. All that said, while I felt mostly relief when I got to the last page, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Those characters will be haunting me for a while.
By the way the reviews at Goodreads are lots of fun. Love it or hate it, there is plenty to say!
Here’s a snippet from one of my favorites:
So, first a short plot guide for dinner conversations when one needs to fake acculturation, and then on to the critics’ view.
A woman [1:] is in love with her non-blood brother [2:] but marries her neighbor [3:] whose sister [4:] marries the non-blood brother [2:]; their [1,3:] daughter [5:] marries their [2,4:] son [6:]; meanwhile, their [1,2:] elder brother marries and has a son [7:]. Then everybody dies, 1 of bad temper, 4 of stupidity, 3 of a cold, 6 because he’s irritating, 2 because he’s mean and tried to rise above his station. 5 and 7 are the only ones left, so they marry. The women are all called Catherine, the men are mostly called Earnshaw, and through intermarriage everybody is a bit of a Heathcliff.
Eliszard on Goodreads
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It’s breakfast time so just a few first thoughts; back later to discuss more.
But - I didn’t want to read this book, I didn’t like reading this book (stopped twice and only finished by a lot of skimming), didn’t like any of the characters, didn’t think there was a plot…
But wow! There is a lot to think about and discuss! There were some beautiful crafted language elsewhere from the apostrophes. Hopefully I can track some of them down again.
While reading, I stopped to Google a couple of discussion thoughts. (1) Nellie’s character (good, bad, central) and (2) how would every character get physiologically diagnosed today. Bipolar Catherine? Narcissistic personality disorder or monomania Heathcliff? Lots of id and ego!
Anyway, off to make French toast.
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Shouldn’t you be making English toast? 
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I should be making tea and scones!
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I like Nelly — a lot, actually. At the same time, I recognize that as narrator, she is going to show herself in the best possible light. She presents herself as the only person with a lick of sense in this story, and although that may be a bit self-congratulatory … she’s not wrong.
I agree that Nelly is caught up in the family’s dysfunctionality: The Linton-Earnshaw mess is the best show in town and she’s got a front row seat. So sure, that’s part of it. But I think the greater part of why she stays is due to her fierce love for the children that she essentially raised. She was like a mother to Hareton for his first five years, and is the only mother that Catherine has ever known.
I suspect the “Mrs.” part of Nelly’s name is just a polite formality. The Lintons and the Earnshaws are her family, so she stays. It’s not really Heathcliff that Nelly is staying with. He’s at Wuthering Heights and she spends the bulk of her years with the Lintons at Thrushcross Grange. However, they are bound together by childhood if not by blood. I think that despite all evidence to the contrary, Nelly believes that wide-eyed little boy is still in there, the one who was “as uncomplaining as a lamb,” who when sick, “would have me constantly by his pillow" (p. 21).
In addition, Nelly is Heathcliff’s only confidant. She probably takes some pride in that, even if she is mostly appalled by the things he tells her.
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