I'm so glad I did.
Last week, I picked up my copy of Wuthering Heights which I had had for a few months, gathering dust in my bookshelf, and made the decision to plow through it as if I were in an English Literature class and had to finish it for homework by a certain deadline. I gave myself a week. I finished the book in two days.
Now don't get me wrong, it certainly wasn't love at first sight. I had tried to read this book in the past, but the first two chapters always repelled me, and I couldn't go on. The old English was difficult to get through, and the scenes were quite boring and, quite frankly, a bit weird. This time, I forced myself to persevere, and after the first three chapters, the story picked up at a rapid pace. Looking back, I now appreciate those initial chapters because they truly set the scene for the rest of the story. It shows a grown up Heathcliff who has already lost his Cathy. He is the landlord of Wuthering Heights and resides with a rough, uncivilized boy, and his daughter in law, a beautiful but haughty girl. The house is depicted as being a dark, desolate and completely loveless residence. The tenants all seem a bit crazed and banned from normal society. Because of this, the reader becomes curious and desirous to know what had happened in the past for things to have turned out that way. I certainly did. Once Nelly Dean, the old housekeeper of Wuthering Heights starts telling the story from the very beginning, I was entranced, and I devoured the book.
I was inspired by the relationship between Heathcliff and Cathy. Granted, I wouldn't want it for myself (I like my share of stable, healthy relationships thank you very much.), but there was something other worldly about what they had, something beyond all the normal, everyday relationships or interactions we see. They simply understood each other like nobody else; they were true soulmates.
Cathy articulated it best in the little speech she gave when she was tormented about accepting Edgar Linton's marriage proposal. She said about her beloved, "He's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same... My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure to myself, but as my own being."
I could've wept with joy from reading those exquisite words. And I did.
5 stars *****
