Wuthering Heights

[Jameson]

I want to die of comsumption! So glamourous

[eloquent]

You get to have undignified hysterical rages and generally indulge in all sorts of gruel refusing argument starting melodrama.

Plus you get to stay in bed for 3 months... I think that's the clincher...

[Kevin]

kate bush's song is odd... like the book. not that i read it, merely the summary notes on gradesaver did i finish reading just now - about 30 pages of word document, not a doddle. great story. i wish i had 3 months to stay in bed right now. exam is in less than 8 hours. heinous.

[David F]

Brilliant book. I'm lucky enough to have an edition with some of her poetry in, too.

"'Twas grief enough to think mankind
All hollow servile insincere
But worse to trust to my own mind
And find the same corruption there"

Has long stuck in my mind.


I love the way it's all so dank and earthy. Except for the above example.

I know it's a book forum, but does anyone know of a good film version of WH? I'm determined to do one. And to do a good modern take on Crime And Punishment.

[All_That_Jazz]

I love Emily Bronte's poetry (I just did a project on it...kind of.) Coming from her, you'd expect it to be more...disturbed...but I can really relate to it; her descriptions of the Earth and the kind of (almost) pagan feeling....wow, I just about quoted my paper.

[eniamrahc]

Yeah and Rochester really got beaten up didn't he? He can't have lasted too long into the happily ever after....

In those classical books, if anyone ever gets a slight physical disadvantage, like a night of running around outside, or like being stabbed in the eye by a fire, you know they'll be in bed with a fever all summer, and dead with that cop out illness 'consumption' in two or three chapters. You can always tell.

You sound happy about it, but I suppose it is predictable. Anyway...

*looks very curious*

Why'd you read the book? Was it by choice? Or under duress?

[eloquent]

By choice, of course.

[Kevin]

I know it's a book forum, but does anyone know of a good film version of WH?

this good film version you speak of is a red herring. non existant. apparently some versions finish half-way through after catherine dies. also i'm told it doesn't work as a film, not nearly as credible as the book, & all the lunacy etc look silly on film.

[Enitharmon]

I know it's a book forum, but does anyone know of a good film version of WH?

The one I mentioned earlier in the thread - the 1939 William Wyler film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon. It doesn't cover everything in the book and I think it would be unreasonable to expect it to - it's a film after all, it's not the book and it can't be, and that's true of all adaptations. WH isn't exactly the easiest book to adapt, which is probably why it hasn't been filmed more often.

It's a real classic film though.

[David F]

I've tried the Olivier one. I managed about ten minutes before I gave up. Maybe I ought to try it again, but I just couldn't take him seriously as Heathcliffe. It's ages since I've read it, but thinking back to it properly it does seem very hard to film well.

[Enitharmon]

I've tried the Olivier one. I managed about ten minutes before I gave up. Maybe I ought to try it again, but I just couldn't take him seriously as Heathcliffe. It's ages since I've read it, but thinking back to it properly it does seem very hard to film well.

There's something about Olivier in films. He may have been terrific on stage, which was his natural home after all, but I never saw him there. He just didn't work on screen. Olivier is the "yes, but" in two of my all-time favourite films, WH and Rebecca

Conversely, I once saw on stage that most exquisite of screen actresses, Ingrid Bergman. It was the early 1970s (a sixth-form theatre trip) and she was getting on a bit. It was Shaw's Captain Brassbound's Conversion (those were the days when you could see a proper play in the West End) and she had Joss Ackland and Kenneth Williams to support her. All the same, she was quite wooden.

I wonder what it is?

[Jameson]

kate bush's song is odd... like the book. not that i read it, merely the summary notes on gradesaver did i finish reading just now - about 30 pages of word document, not a doddle. great story. i wish i had 3 months to stay in bed right now. exam is in less than 8 hours. heinous.

Finished my exams now, yippee!!

[David F]

I wonder what it is?

It's a strange one. I Some time ago I borrowed an audio recording of Olivier in Hamlet. Brilliant stuff. But I don't think I've seen anything good with him on screen.

On a similar-ish note, Brad Pitt - who I rate pretty highly as an actor - can't do an audiobook to save his life.

On another similar note, Ethan Hawke is a surprisingly/annoyingly fine writer.

[smudgenet]

This is one of my favourite ever books.

Wuthering Heights is a novel written for adults but is best read when you are young as it can be read as a guide as to the true nature of love. The brutality and passion in the novel show how cruel people can be and how love can actually go beyond death.

Amazing book!

[Kevin]

Thar be some fierce graverobbing afoot on this here thread, yon Smudgenet. Arr, especially on this, a most shiver-me-timbersome Talk Like A Pirate Day. Ye shall find no buried treasure here matey!

Really guys, it is "talk like a pirate" day... or was that yesterday... oh well.
For all you cool Americans, there's still time!

Checkitout!

[Mockingbird]

*Passing revival*

I remember thinking how beautiful this statement of Cathy's is:

I've dreamt in my life dreams that have stayed with me ever after, and changed my ideas; they've gone through and through me, like wine through water, and altered color of my mind.

Strangely, I think this quote mirrors exactly how Wuthering Heights affected me.

What I find most poignant about the book is how it seems to have come through Emily Bronte instead of from her, all that half-formed, menacing power. I wonder what she would have done if she had lived longer, or if she had seen more of the world. Or maybe if you write a book like Wuthering Heights, you can't write another?

[Cooroo]

It is an extraordinary book. So much viciousness and cruelty, not what we expect from a Victorian lady! Anne also portrayed drunkenness and domestic violence in The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. And even Jane Eyre has insanity, bigamy (nearly), child abuse.

I love them all!

[blueangel]

I did tis book for my AS level coursework for English

the question was something about typically passive sexual male and the typical passive spiritual female - is this true for the relationship between Heathcliff and Catherine disucss yada yada yada....

but i ended up just reading the book for leasure aswell, and it got me reading frankenstien (which i managed to get extra points for comparing the teo ), so now i've really got into the whole Gothic Fiction genre its very interesting

[Max]

but i ended up just reading the book for leasure aswell, and it got me reading frankenstien (which i managed to get extra points for comparing the teo ), so now i've really got into the whole Gothic Fiction genre its very interesting

Get yourself the Gormenghast Trilogy by Mervyn Peake (first book is called Titus Groan). It's a gothic fantasy, like a generic hybrid of HDM and Frankenstein.

[aklebury]

Incidentally there's a new movie in the works. Natalie Portman was involved for a while but now she's dropped out.
I think they're going to have a fairly tough time getting the casting right for this one.