Customer Reviews: Read 65 more reviews...
 Don't begin with expectations of a romantic novel... December 22, 2008
I had seen the 1939 film with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon (numerous times) and loved it, never failing to be moved by the love story of Heathcliff and Cathy which was portrayed so well and with such depth by Laurence Olivier in the penultimate scene (I think). The film is based on the romance of Heathcliff and Cathy but not the depth of the torment, not the bleakness of the characters, and not the destruction that their love and their circumstances results in. If you want a romantic novel, with romantic heroes, this book may not be your cup of tea. But I strongly recommend this book. It's shocking at times, as the characters can be so appalling and are so wronged, but it is gripping and well worth persevering with. I've read reviews that advise reading Jane Eyre instead (which is a wonderful book in it's own right and much more about the "romance") but I wouldn't even compare the two; they're written by sisters but are completely different novels. I'd recommend both! But open your mind to Wuthering Heights. Prepare yourself for a bit of a ride. And don't compare begin the book with expectations of classic Hollywood story-telling or romantic novels. It's neither. And it's fantastic.
Read don't watch December 19, 2008
No film has managed, so far, to do this book justice. It's a great read and one I come back to again and again. Gritty, brutal, beautiful and romantic (without being slushy) all at once. As with most of her books, the characters are extremely well depicted, and it's irrelevant whether you like them or not - you what know what happens next.
Stunning November 14, 2008
I've just read this book for the third time, and it's certainly one of those rare finds that gets better and better with every read. Dark, brooding and passionate, Emily Bronte shows great talent as writer and demonstrates a great understanding and a great flair for the Gothic genre. Despite the unlikeable characters, the reader is sucked into their all-encompassing world of gloom, love, madness, despair and revenge. Heathcliff is certainly the greatest anti-hero created. I only wish EB's last manuscript had not been destroyed, unpublished, after her death - know knows what master-piece she would have created?
 Misleading Advertising by Penguin! August 22, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
I thought it was time to expand my reading horizons with some classic literature without blowing my budget, so this Penguin Popular Classic at 2 seemed the ideal choice, particularly as, when I used the 'Search Inside' facility, it showed in the list of contents a preface, chronology, introduction and further reading.
When I received the book, these 42 pages were missing, and on closer inspection I see the 'Search Inside' facility shows a completely different, more expensive Penguin edition.
This seems highly misleading to me - it's disappointing that a publisher with the status of Penguin would mislead customers like this.
5 stars for the story, reduced to 3 for cheating!!
The height of great literature June 22, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've lost count of the number of times I've read this; but every time something else jumps out at me. There is something so different and hard to pin down - indefinable - about what exactly it is that makes this book so unique.
Heathcliffe and the first Catherine are almost demented in their wild passions - almost as if Emily Bronte were taking the idea of romance and passion to in insane extreme - and one of the strongest themes in the book is whether the lovers meet again after death. It seems incredible that at the two houses no one seems to shop, either for clothes or food - there is little interest in normal human bodily life or functions. A Bronte scholar, Thomas Moser, believed that Emile Bronte wrote the final famous sentence to the book without irony. "...wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth". But to me, the whole book hinges around the concept of the possibility of fanatic love overcoming death, though perhaps not to the benefit of the lovers. Far better to attain the rational, human life experience - that of Hareton and the second Catherine.
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