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Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights

Auteur Emily Bronté
Eerste Uitgave2000
Uitgave2000
UitgeverijWordsworth Classics
Vormroman
TaalEngels
Bladzijden272 bladzijden
Gelezen2004-01-31
Score8/10

Inhoud

Wuthering Heights is the wild, passionate story of intense and almost demonic love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. After Mr Earnshaw's death, Heathcliff is bullied and humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley and, wrongly believing that his love for Catherine is not reciprocated, leaves Wuthering Heights, only to return years later as a wealthy and polished man. He proceeds to exact a terrible revenge for his former miseries. The action of the story is chaotic and unremittingly violent, but the accomplished handling of a complex structure, the evocative descriptions of the lonely moorland setting and the poetic grandeur of vision combine to make this unique novel a masterpiece of English literature.

Bespreking

The grimmest love story ever told

Wuthering Heights tells the story of the impossible love between Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, a foundling adopted by Catherine's father. Wuthering Heights is the name of the spacious dwelling of the family, located on the desolate moorlands of England. After the death of Mr. Earnshaw, Heathcliff finds himself constantly humiliated by Catherine's brother Hindley. When Heathcliff assumes wrongfully that his ever growing love for Catherine is unanswered he sees no reason to stay and leaves the moorlands in search of better luck. Returning years later as a wealthy man he sees an opportunity to get revenge on his stepbrother, but neglects the intolerable pain he causes to his one an only love. Caught in a spiral of vengeance Heathcliff ruins everything once dear to him.


The sole novel Emily Brontë (1818-1848) has written in her short life will undoubtedly continue to stand the test of time. Although I myself am not a big fan of novels that write Romance with a capital, this story has touched me in a way that very few have succeeded in before. The powerful description of the unrecognized energy between the two main characters is simply overwhelming. Although Emily was -in the true spirit of Victorian novelists- clearly not afraid of adding an enormous list of extremities to the character of Heathcliff, this embodiment of boundless revenge and pure fatherly despotism is one of the strongest characters ever created in English literature. The fact that not a lot of people will classify this novel as "the greatest love story ever told" is most likely due to the never ending grimness of the story. This darkness is nicely illustrated by the high number of deaths weave into this family epos. But then again, love is not always as nice as in the movies. or is it?


For a real romantic this is truly a book to be treasured forever.