Personal+Review

I would recommend this book to one who enjoys dark and macabre literature. The introduction to this book calls it “//perhaps the most passionately original novel in the English language.”// Though I certainly think this book is quite unique, especially because of its unexpectedly twisted characters, I would have to disagree with this praise. Personally, I would call //Wuthering Heights// “//the most original cliché love story in the English language”//. My reason for this is that while //Wuthering Heights// //is// truly a very original story, it follows several clichés such as having a “happy ending” and by bearing resemblance, in my mind at least, to other famous literary tales. For example, I can liken the feuding between Heathcliff, Edgar and Hindley to the family/gang warfare in //Romeo in Juliet//. And though the cruelty against children in this book //is// quite harrowing, it seems only unique in terms of how jarring it is and how realistically it is described. I would also compare //Wuthering Heights// tone-wise to a Tim Burton film. The dark undertones and macabre story/setting all add to the black drama of //Wuthering Heights//, in which happy endings are not guaranteed and in which main characters die often and unexpectedly. The mood of //Wuthering Heights// is one of despair and misery. The bleak and stormy setting of the Yorkshire moors continue greatly to the Emily Brontë’s convincing atmosphere. Overall, the pace of //Wuthering Heights// is fairly fast and it is a relatively enjoyable read. The storyline kept me quite interested and I found that I had a great deal of concern for the characters’ fates at the end of the story. I would highly recommend this book. Bronte’s message to readers seems to be that love can drive people to do amoral things. It can cause them to thirst for revenge, and it can drive one to the edge of insanity. //Wuthering Heights// forces readers to consider the question ofwhether love is an excuse for cruelty and betrayal.
 * Personal Review ** –