WH Discussion Day 5

[writingwithheld]

Only two more weeks to go (I think).

This is even more of a post and run than usual, but what do you think? Relationships are starting to change around this point if I remember correctly.

Does anyone really love this book? Anyone still forcing your way through?

[charlatti]

I don't love it, which is weird because I remember loving it when I read it in high school. I think I was young enough then to miss the distinction between love and obsession. Heathcliff seemed so dark and romantic, where now he seems creepy and dysfunctional.

[dorothyinAus]

I am still slogging through it, catching up from my not touching it all last week. It's moving faster now that I downloaded the Kindle version. The footnotes and endnotes in my Barnes & Noble Classics version were distracting, it's much easier to read as clean text.

I am more interested in the characters now that I do not have to deal with Catherine. She was annoying. The one good thing about the B&N version is the family tree in the front, so I could keep everyone straight, but it also meant that part of the tale was told before I read the book. I am interested to see how the marriages mentioned in the family tree are arranged. Though it does seem to me that the average lifespan of the Earnshaws and Lintons is far below that of the other residents of the moors, and indeed that of the English in general at the time. So I would guess they would have to marry early, if only to carry on the lines. But it does all seem very incestuous to me -- marrying first cousins and all. And obviously there are other people in Gimmerton, there would have to be, so it's not like there was no other option, even if the other options were difficult.

The action is definitely picking up and I can see there is a light at the end of the tunnel. I am glad we did a few chapters at a time. If I had had to wait until the end of the month to discuss this book, I would have given up a long time ago. As it is, I think this will be my last venture to the world of Bronte novels. I could not stand Jane Eyre and found The Tenant of Wildfell Hall only tolerable, and this one has been a struggle.

[kicius56]

I'm starting to like the book, but then again I like a challenge when I'm in the mood.

Cathy is just as annoying as Catherine and I would have expected them to be half-wits with such personalities, but they're less annoying as such.

Again, I find most everything sad. Sad that Linton and Cathy are affected by their parent's history and at such a young age. Sad for Hareton whom Heathcliff has treated as he once to take revenge on Earnshaw. Sad for another doomed ill-placed love. Sad for all of them.

I'm just waiting for Edgar or Linton to die and how that will affect the plot. (See, now I don't remember the beginning of the book and who was in the Earnshaw house before Nelly recounts the story.)