James Zemboy
09-05-2007, 05:02 PM
I think I have at least an average appreciation for "fine" literature. In college I was a French major and so most of my experience with classical literature is with French literature, but naturally as an American I have read at least a few of the classic novels of England and America.
Wuthering Heights is one novel whose literary worth has always escaped me. I have read it perhaps three times in my life, most recently about five years ago. To me it is just a collection of mentally-ill people treating each other abominably. I have never understood why it has survived.
I never have this feeling about any of the other "classic" novels. A couple of years ago I read George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss for the first time, with enormous pleasure and begged my grown daughter to read it. The two main characters are exactly like my daughter and her brother and it's fascinating to know that this book was written a century and a half ago about people that I actually know.
A couple of years later I read Dostoyevsky's The Brother's Karamazov, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Dreiser's An American Tragedy. I was nearly as enthusiastic about those three novels as I was about the Eliot book.
I say all this to express my fondness and appreciation for the "classics." But to repeat, I cannot understand what merit Wuthering Heights can have and why it qualifies as a time-honored classic.
If someone asked me if I recommended Wuthering Heights, I would have to say, "Yes, if you enjoy wallowing in vicious, mentally-ill people treating each other abominably." I see no merit in this book at all, and it is the only "classic" that I feel that way about.
Wuthering Heights is one novel whose literary worth has always escaped me. I have read it perhaps three times in my life, most recently about five years ago. To me it is just a collection of mentally-ill people treating each other abominably. I have never understood why it has survived.
I never have this feeling about any of the other "classic" novels. A couple of years ago I read George Eliot's The Mill on the Floss for the first time, with enormous pleasure and begged my grown daughter to read it. The two main characters are exactly like my daughter and her brother and it's fascinating to know that this book was written a century and a half ago about people that I actually know.
A couple of years later I read Dostoyevsky's The Brother's Karamazov, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina and Dreiser's An American Tragedy. I was nearly as enthusiastic about those three novels as I was about the Eliot book.
I say all this to express my fondness and appreciation for the "classics." But to repeat, I cannot understand what merit Wuthering Heights can have and why it qualifies as a time-honored classic.
If someone asked me if I recommended Wuthering Heights, I would have to say, "Yes, if you enjoy wallowing in vicious, mentally-ill people treating each other abominably." I see no merit in this book at all, and it is the only "classic" that I feel that way about.