Emily, a terrific movie about the author of a classic novel I'd never read, finally brought me to Wuthering Heights. The middle Brontë sister was first out of the publisher's gate in 1847 with this morbidly fascinating if occasionally tedious account of unrequited passion, family dysfunction and reversals of fortune among the landed gentry in rural England.
It's hard to have been an English major and to have lived seven decades without having second-hand notions of Laurence Olivier, oops, I mean Heathcliff stalking the moors but I had no idea he was such a vengeful ghoul. I mean who uncovers his beloved's grave before bribing a parson to make room there for him, in between Cathy and her husband, when he kicks the bucket? Now that's one crazy muthafucka but one who earned my respect by sticking to his guns when issuing his funeral instructions to the gossipy housekeeper who narrates much of the book:
No minister need come; nor need anything be said over me. - I tell you I have nearly attained MY heaven; and that of others is altogether unvalued and uncoveted by me.
Brontë's depictions of transracial adoption, domestic abuse, alcoholism, legal shenanigans and class warfare will barely raise an eyebrow among modern readers. The shy, quiet sister--just 29--felt she had to use a pen name to spare the embarrassment she might cause her family by exploring the kind of adult themes that have sustained romance novels and soap operas ever since.
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