Is this a terrible way to live a life? Or a could it be a relief?
A few days ago, a twenty-something FaceBook poet-acquaintance posted this status: "WUTHERING HEIGHTS why does it even exist ugh???"
I wonder which she thinks would be worse: writing Wuthering Heights or reading it?
I first read it as a middle schooler. I have since read it dozens of times, but I have no memory of how I felt when I first read this passage about the final meeting between Heathcliff and the dying Catherine:
She retained in her closed fingers a portion of [Heathcliff’s] locks she had been grasping. As to her companion, while raising himself with one hand, he had taken her arm with the other; and so inadequate was his stock of gentleness to the requirements of her condition, that on letting go I saw four distinct impressions left blue in the colourless skin.Is this love? Or a terrible way to die?
There is no answer to any of these questions.
2 comments:
I, too, read WH in 7th grade; I loved the drama of it then. I have reread it a few times, most recently with my last semester's Brit Lit class. We all came to agreement that there is not one character in the whole novel who is truly likeable, but yet one is drawn to the crackling passion that threads through the whole thing: characters, setting, plot, disappointment, despair, jealousy are all so vivid, so larger than they ought to be. This is another piece of literature in which the setting is a keynote, yes?
Yes! Keystone! Yes!
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