This was not actually from the Book Club, but I read it because it came up in another book from a couple months back, Twilight. Michelle loaned it to me and I had to see what the big deal was.

I finished Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte today. I thought I knew the general story line of this book as I'd seen the end of an old black and white movie of the book once. But the movie was a different story all together, and ended where the book was still halfway through. So it was really all new to me. I know it's a classic and most people have to read it in high school. I either didn't have to read it or completely forgot about it. Probably the first option.

I'm very impressed with the author. I know she was one of 3 sisters that all wrote books to be published, using the pen names Currer, Ellis, and Action Bell. It's an interesting story, but one of the other sisters, Charlotte, wrote Jane Eyre. Some people confuse them and even originally thought these 2 sisters were the same person. Anyhow, this is the only novel Emily Bronte ever published. A year later, she died only 30 years old. Her other published works were poetry.

The story in general made me mad. I think it's supposed to make you mad. This Heathcliff comes into the family's lives and pretty much wrecks everything. And he is just a nightmare. I couldn't believe the depths he would go to to get what he wanted. Writing parts of love letters to Cathy (daughter) to get her to fall in love with his son. Then kidnapping her and the housekeeper, forcing her to marry his son before he died. And not letting her out to see her own father before he died.

Catherine was in the book less as she dies halfway through. She was not a great person but no devil like Heathcliff. The worst thing she did, for me, was not love her husband the most. He did everything for her - was completely devoted. But she held this devotion to Heathcliff. Poor Edgar had no one. And if Heathcliff and Catherine were ghosts together, who was Edgar with? He just gets the shaft. And he's perfectly wonderful. (Linton gets the shaft too, but he was horrible.) So I feel for the good guy.

I don't like the idea that someone becomes your soul mate and you are glued together eternally. I would never write a story like that. I think Catherine could have loved her husband better and left Heathcliff alone. As a couple, they make me mad. Heathcliff wrecks everyone around him. They both care for themselves and their relationship above anything else. Nothing and no one is more important. Even their children. Everyone is made to suffer by them.

So the ending was great for me. It was like another version of Heathcliff and Catherine all over again, only they'd been tortured by Heathcliff and became better people for it. Once Hareton was loved by Cathy, he became a decent man. And Cathy was better off being more humble. I hated seeing her actually love Linton at first. He was a nightmare. Nothing like his father, yet still a nightmare.

Overall, I enjoyed the book. But while I was reading it I kept telling Chad how mad I was at the characters and how stupid they were acting. I just wanted to get to the end of it all. The author makes sense of all the hard times for her characters in the end. If they hadn't gone through it all, Cathy and Hareton wouldn't have ended up together.