Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
My Rating: 3 of 5 [I liked it]
This review is of the Amazon Classics ebook edition and the companion audiobook. For the folks who might read this review and have not read Wuthering Heights but plan to, I'll try to save you some likely frustration.
The first three chapters are from Mr. Lockwood's point of view, which is read by Michael Page in the audiobook. Mr. Lockwood rents Thrushcross Grange and visits the landlord at Wuthering Heights to be sociable. He becomes bewildered by how he is mistreated. Despite being informed his visit was not appreciated, Mr. Lockwood vows to return the next day. Upon returning the next day he is stranded there by weather and discovers his earlier horrible treatment is not unusual. I suspect he felt it similar to an undesired visit to Newgate Prison or The Tower of London Prison.
During his overnight stay at Wuthering Heights he has nightmares of a "Catherine". Despite his maltreatment by everyone at Wuthering Heights, I came to believe he may have found the self-confessed witch rather attractive -- peaking his curiosity. He managed to escape the next morning and returns to Thrushcross Grange.
The landlord provided a house servant at Thrushcross Grange named Nelly. In a discussion with Nell about supper, Mr. Lockwood asks if she has any knowledge of Wuthering Heights. She confesses she knows quite a bit. Mr. Lockwood convinces her to tell him what she knows.
This "telling" by Nell is read by Laural Merlington and is perhaps 90% of the novel with Mr. Lockwood's viewpoint returning during breaks in Nell's re-telling of the story.
The story tool used in telling this story can easily confuse readers if not done carefully. Unfortunately, Ms. Brontë didn't do an excellent job of it. She in fact did make it clear Mr. Lockwood is the beginning character, but if you just start listening to an audiobook read entirely by a woman, and aren't paying close attention, the fact it is MR LOCKWOOD visiting Wuthering Heights at the beginning of the novel may not catch. Or later, when Nell starts telling the story in earnest (inside the frame) a reader can easily become confused. Not a happy place for readers.
Nell, the housekeeper, settles in to tell Mr. Lockwood the history of Wuthering Heights. Her re-telling the story covers slightly more than two generations. It begins with Mr. Earnshaw who owns Wuthering Heights. Mr. Earnshaw has two children and unofficially adopts another child, Heathcliff. The adopted Heathcliff becomes one of the primary characters along with his other natural siblings Hindly and Catherine. In the second generation of the story's telling the residents of Thrushcross Grange, the Lintons, become primary characters as well.
This is a dark story. While there is very little physical violence, it may be the darkest mentally and emotionally cruel book I've read. And for the record — before reading this book I read Prince of Thorns by Mark Lawrence. Jorg, the infamous Grimdark protagonist of Prince of Thorns, despised in most reviews, is more humane than some Wuthering Heights characters. Just an opinion.
Despite any ill I may say about Wuthering Heights, I still think it was a valuable read.
If you enjoy reading Wuthering Heights you may also enjoy The Reader’s Guide to Emily Brontë’s “Wuthering Heights”
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