Book Clubbing: Nelly, I am Heathcliff

Remember Merle Oberon speaking these lines? She was channeling Catherine Earnshaw, channeling Heathcliff. Catherine is the heroine of the 1939 film adaptation of Emily Brontë‘s novel Wuthering Heights. Laurence Olivier was Heathcliff (the fictional human - not the orange cartoon cat). The wild, dark, mysterious orphan Heathcliff (no last name) and Catherine are star crossed lovers, soul mates since childhood, tragically torn apart when Catherine marries a rich, conventional neighbor. From this, all kinds of mayhem and suffering ensue.


Have you read Wuthering Heights recently? When you were in high school? Never? Well, my neighborhood book club decided to read a classic this year. And what is more classic then Wuthering Heights. We were surprised to find that this 1847 novel, the only novel written by Emily Brontë, set on the wild Yorkshire moors, deals with an array of themes: teenage obsessive love, child abuse, physical violence against women, hysteria, ghosts, class conflict, patriarchal domination, master-servant conflicts, alcoholism, redemptive love, religion, the power of nature, nurture vs. nature, and more. Such an intense mix of Gothic, realistic, and romantic sparks, that the novel almost ignites itself! If you are thinking about adding Wuthering Heights to your groups must read list, then explore Heathcliff and the moors with Mercer County Library.

You can read the novel in several forms: print, downloadable book, downloadable audio book, book on compact disc. We also have the 2008 made- for- tv film starring Tom Hardy as a smoldering, menacing Heathcliff and Charlotte Riley as Catherine. Or the 1998 made for TV Masterpiece version with Robert Cavanahas as Heathcliff and Orla Brady at Catherine. And you might hear Catherine say Nelly je suis Heathcliff in the French version Hurlevent (2001). Hurlevent is better translated as Howling Wind or perhaps Windswept. But close enough. Fabienne Babe (great name!) plays Catherine and Lucas Belvaux as Heathcliff. Really!

You might fancy a stroll into academia. Check out our online electronic database (Academic Search Premier, for one) for articles. There are hundreds. Some plumy suggestions Emily Brontë and the Terrorist Imagination or It has Devoured My Existence: the Power of the Will and Illness in The Bride of Lammermoor and Wuthering Heights. Can you resist Out of my brother’s power: gender, class, and rebellion in Wuthering Heights.

As for biography. An interesting twist can be found in Shaggy muses: the dogs who inspired Virginia Woolf, Emily Dickinson, Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and Emily Brontë by Maureen B. Adams. Along more traditional lines, delve into The Brontë myth by Lucasta Miller, a look at how critics and fans mythologize iconic writers. If the web is your pleasure, there are lots of treasures. Start with the Wikipedia site on Wuthering Heights. Look at a very devoted fan’s online paean to the novel at The reader’s guide to Emily Jane Bronte’s Wuthering Heights. Read the Bronte Parsonage blog. See articles about Emily at the New York Times. Peruse the Bronte Society and Parsonage Museum.

And the Brontës have contemporary authors to make them fictional characters in their novels. An interesting fate for any novelist.
H.-- : the story of Heathcliff's journey back to Wuthering Heights by Lin Haire-Sargeant is a retelling from the point of view of Heathcliff. There are fictionalized biographical novel s of the family: Brontë by Glyn Hughes, Emily's ghost by Denise Giardina, Charlotte and Emily: a novel of the Brontës by Jude Morgan, and very recently, Becoming Jane Eyre by Sheila Kohler.

Had enough of Wuthering Heights yet? Don’t get lost on the moors or you may moan like Heathcliff “I believe — I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always — take any form — drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

- Karen S.