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I absolutely adore this book. I've read it upwards of twenty times. I love it so much that I made it the central wooing device in my Jensen/Jared college AU.
It's one of my favorite books to teach, too. Students respond to so many elements in this novel--the unreliable narrators, the gothic conventions, the soulmates, the tragic love story, the necrophilia! We get to talk about doing it *and* digging up your dead honey when I teach this novel; it's an educator's dream.
Since this is a book I have read consistently at least once a year since I was 15, I've been able to chart my reactions to the text as time as passed. I write in the books I cared about, and so much of the joy of re-reading this book to me is reading the progression of marginalia. Is there a word for commenting on your own commentary? LOL I love how the handwriting matures, how many times I wrote, "What an ass," next to something Heathcliff does. I love how every time I read this book, I find something different, some nuance that missed all the other times.
I think my favorite aspect of this book is it's discussion of identity and the impact love has on self-hood. For Cathy and Heathcliff, love is dangerous. It risks self-dissolution. It is soul-subsuming, and it leads to madness. It leads to death. "Nelly, I am Heathcliff!" Cathy cries, and she means it in that way that every sixteen year old who feels her soul thrum to the magnetic resonance of another's means it, when she believes that she is close enough to another person that they are but extensions of one another's bodies--a single soul inhabiting separate flesh.
Unfortunately, Cathy kinda forgets to tell Heathcliff that they're soulmates yo and marries another dude. Heathcliff is not impressed.
And, ooh oooh! The puns. Penistone Crag, anybody? Bridle hook?
I think this is one of the most accessible 19th-century novels, and if you haven't read it, I'd suggest giving it a go.
It's one of my favorite books to teach, too. Students respond to so many elements in this novel--the unreliable narrators, the gothic conventions, the soulmates, the tragic love story, the necrophilia! We get to talk about doing it *and* digging up your dead honey when I teach this novel; it's an educator's dream.
Since this is a book I have read consistently at least once a year since I was 15, I've been able to chart my reactions to the text as time as passed. I write in the books I cared about, and so much of the joy of re-reading this book to me is reading the progression of marginalia. Is there a word for commenting on your own commentary? LOL I love how the handwriting matures, how many times I wrote, "What an ass," next to something Heathcliff does. I love how every time I read this book, I find something different, some nuance that missed all the other times.
I think my favorite aspect of this book is it's discussion of identity and the impact love has on self-hood. For Cathy and Heathcliff, love is dangerous. It risks self-dissolution. It is soul-subsuming, and it leads to madness. It leads to death. "Nelly, I am Heathcliff!" Cathy cries, and she means it in that way that every sixteen year old who feels her soul thrum to the magnetic resonance of another's means it, when she believes that she is close enough to another person that they are but extensions of one another's bodies--a single soul inhabiting separate flesh.
Unfortunately, Cathy kinda forgets to tell Heathcliff that they're soulmates yo and marries another dude. Heathcliff is not impressed.
And, ooh oooh! The puns. Penistone Crag, anybody? Bridle hook?
I think this is one of the most accessible 19th-century novels, and if you haven't read it, I'd suggest giving it a go.
