The Book Club of Two Presents:
Welcome! We’ve got an extra-special Book Club of Two this month. We’ve decided to be all literary and take on a re-read of Wuthering Heights. A book that I disliked the first 2 times around and RachelKiwi enjoyed but found it wasn’t her favorite.
Now we’re breaking it down 8 chapters at a time and asking all the tough questions like “Why is Lockwood such an idiot?!” Yep. The good stuff.
What makes this re-read even more special (besides the classic content) is that we’re joined by another childhood friend, LindszerWest. LindszerWest doesn’t have a blog so I’ll be posting her responses. But you may be asking yourself why we allowed her into this exclusive club for the re-read…Well, I’ll explain…
LindszerWest is not only a lifelong reader, she is a nook owning, bad-boy lover who saw the post announcing Wuthering Wednesdays and just had to jump in! Seriously, she was blasting my Facebook page with Heathcliff quotes *very fangirl*.
And while I’m making all these exceptions…I’ve decided to be nice to everyone for this re-read and instead of posting embarrassing pictures of awkward high school years I’m including pictures of us on our most beautiful day…Our wedding days 😉
RachelKiwi and Mr. Kiwi
LindszerWest and Mr. West
TheLibrarian and Mr. Librarian
This way you also have a visual of all the men who bought us our Nooks; and who love us enough to sit through hours of reading time while we completely ignore them in favor of the bad-boys of literature…Like Heathcliff…
So, Without Further Ado…The Responses
TheLibrarian’s Responses
RachelKiwi’s Questions
1. Why do you think Bronte uses Lockwood as the narrator of the story and then (narrator-within-narrator) Nelly Dean instead of Heathcliff or Catherine?
I think there needed to be a reason to use Nelly as a narrator. We needed to introduce the Grange as a location, and given all of the surviving members of the cast are living at Wuthering Heights we needed a current view of the Grange as well. Bringing a curious and complete outsider into the tale gave excuses to question and experience all sides of the history. I don’t know that Nelly herself has a reason to recount the story without being asked.
2. At this point–through Chapter 8–what are your feelings toward Heathcliff? We already see him as the haughty and gruff man he has become, but we also see him as the bedraggled and abandoned boy he once was.
I hate Heathcliff. Baring that one moment of pure emotion when he chases Cathy’s ghost, I dislike the man. I know people love him as a bad boy…but right now I just see bad and miserable. I think later I might see a more passionate side…but right now I just want to slam the door in his face.
However, when I think of that poor child. The one brought into a foreign home, raised above his station, and then thrown back into servitude and hatred…I do feel for him. Not that he makes an overly sympathetic character. Heathcliff’s reactions have always been so defensive! He never gave anyone an opening to care for him. But still, you have to weep for that child.
3. Lockwood is a bumbling idiot! I never realized that until this read. Heathcliff clearly doesn’t want him to come back after his first visit, but he does! As Heathcliff’s tenant, would you have ventured back to Wuthering Heights after his initial chilly reception? Out of curiosity? Fascination with your dark and stormy landlord? Social ineptitude?
Oh my gosh, Lockwood doesn’t have a clue!!! But I think that’s the point. Anyone with half a brain would have kept their distance from Wuthering Heights and it’s band of grumps. Lol, Lockwood is such an idiot he keeps returning! And not just returning, he projects rational upon each character forgiving and explaining their faults. Needless to say of our two narrators Lockwood is the least reliable. His existence is only a way to flesh out the story…not to add to it.
TheLibrarian’s Questions:
1. In this section we see explanation for Heathcliff’s personality…But what about Cathy? How was her mean girl attitude formed? Does the lack of explanation point toward Joseph’s religious belief of women’s innate wickedness? Or do you see circumstances that caused Cathy to be such a b*tch?
I’m inclined to see a bit of the time’s religious view. Cathy was just a bad apple. Sinful and wicked from the start. True, losing her parents at a young age probably didn’t help. The way her brother finished raising her, in such a strict and irrational manner made insolence an easy way out. Maybe we can even say that her natural beauty and wit caused her to be spoiled…
But it’s obviously more than that. Cathy has meanness inside her and it’s been there from the start. I think an argument could be made for the religion factor…but without delving too deep I’d say that it’s important to note that Cathy’s wickedness is a natural trait.
2. The names, woe is me…the names! Lockwood being stuck in that medieval torture chamber of a bed surrounded by all those names *shiver* You’d think out alone on the moors they’d want some variety in their names! Are we supposed to be confused? To see them all as one person? Too early to tell?
Ok, one of the reasons why I dislike this book…beyond all the miserable people…is the names. EVERYONE is named the same thing! So hard to keep track. I’m never sure if it’s supposed to be all about seeing them as one person, as a genetic family…am I supposed to follow personality traits through the generations? Or is it just a mode of gothic writing…making everything a little creepier and a little more complex.
*blah*
I just know it’s my least favorite part. Seriously, my mind get so mixed up even poor Hareton Earnshaw becomes confusing…everyone is someone’s father/mother/sister/in-law/cousin/child. Any book that needs a family tree to keep everyone straight needs to be revised!
3. How do you feel about the narrator within the narrator Nelly? Like her? Trust her? Wonder how long this woman has been talking? Thoughts…
Ok, I like Nelly the best of everyone I’ve met. But it always bothers me that she is so whishy-washy. She likes Catherine, she hates Catherine. She hates Heathcliff, she feels for him, she hates him again. While I trust that what she’s telling me is close to the truth…I don’t know that I’m lining up to use her as a character witness. I just wish she seemed a little more steadfast…not like a servant who poked her head where it didn’t belong…
LindszerWest’s Responses
RachelKiwi’s Questions:
1. Why do you think Bronte uses Lockwood as the narrator of the story and then (narrator-within-narrator) Nelly Dean instead of Heathcliff or Catherine?
While the use of Lockwood and Nelly as narrators is one of my biggest frustrations about the beginning of Wuthering Heights (when I just want to jump into the action and become immersed in the story,) I can appreciate the usefulness of employing a narrator who keeps us at arm’s distance — particularly because the characters of Catherine and Healthcliff are so very passionate, and we also change our sympathies toward each several times. In the first eight chapters, I went from detesting Heathcliff, to feeling sorry for him, to understanding him a bit more… whereas my feelings for Cathy were exactly opposite.
2. At this point–through Chapter 8–what are your feelings toward Heathcliff? We already see him as the haughty and gruff man he has become, but we also see him as the bedraggled and abandoned boy he once was.
Heathcliff is so amazingly larger-than-life in the first chapter (“…his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously under their brow, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves, with a jealous resolution, still further in his waistcoat…”) that I couldn’t help but feel that a description of such Dickensian proportions would have to hide something a bit more nuanced underneath. I’m pleasantly undecided about how I feel about him right now though – I WANT to like him and understand better why he’s so sulky (particularly now I know about his childhood), but still can’t completely justify his behavior toward his household
3. Lockwood is a bumbling idiot! I never realized that until this read. Heathcliff clearly doesn’t want him to come back after his first visit, but he does! As Heathcliff’s tenant, would you have ventured back to Wuthering Heights after his initial chilly reception? Out of curiosity? Fascination with your dark and stormy landlord? Social ineptitude?
Perhaps because he IS a bumbling idiot?! He also likes to flatter himself by thinking he and his bad-boy landlord have something in common, in that he’s fascinated with the magnified parts of his own personality – he admires the part of Heathcliff who is “more exaggeratedly reserved than myself” and later says “…I bestow my own attributes over-liberally on him.” I think he has a slight crush on the amplified character traits he see in Heathcliff (which are just so much more bad-boy on the dark and stormy landlord than on Lockwood, who I see as a fat and pasty meddling Englishman).
TheLibrarian’s Questions:
1. In this section we see explanation for Heathcliff’s personality…But what about Cathy? How was her mean girl attitude formed? Does the lack of explanation point toward Joseph’s religious belief of women’s innate wickedness? Or do you see circumstances that caused Cathy to be such a b*tch?
Cathy has those inclinations in her from the beginning, as she is described as an impish and mischievous child — it’s just more endearing when she’s running around like a wild child on the moors with her equally wild Heathcliff, thwarting the dour Joseph or her imperious brother. When she gets older, her “high spirits” turn into teenaged petulance and conceit – not nearly so forgivable, particularly when she has less of an inclination to help and include the now-banished Heathcliff.
2. The names, woe is me…the names! Lockwood being stuck in that medieval torture chamber of a bed surrounded by all those names *shiver* You’d think out alone on the moors they’d want some variety in their names! Are we supposed to be confused? To see them all as one person? Too early to tell?
Ugh – this is one of the reasons I didn’t like the book my first time through – and probably one of the reasons I don’t remember it well either — I got so sick of the names that I skipped through them! (Thank goodness for my Kindle – I literally bookmarked that page to go back and reread). Bronte is obviously playing on the romantic notion that Catherine is scrawling all of the possible iterations of her name in the book in some kind of romantic reverie – and it works in that it makes us realize that she’s torn between them, even in the early days, but not entirely necessary. I’m actually not sure how I feel about it yet – beyond the fact that it irritates me.. *** (PS – that bed is WEIRD! I read that description several times and still didn’t quite get it)…
3. How do you feel about the narrator within the narrator Nelly? Like her? Trust her? Wonder how long this woman has been talking? Thoughts…
I suppose she is the most unbiased narrator possible in the household at this time (except for maybe Hindley’s wife, had she lived longer), but I find her pretty dull and unoriginal. She tells the story, yes, but puts a filter on it that I’d rather have been removed in a first-person telling.
Remember to Check Out RachelKiwi’s blog for her thoughts…she’s always much funnier 😉
Sara O
thelibrarianreads 