Earlier this year, I read Brian Groom’s all-encompassing non-fiction epic, ‘Northerners: A History, from the Ice Age to the Present Day. Obviously, a somewhat niche title, especially around these parts, but for me, it was a captivating deep dive into the history of my homeland. Among the NUMEROUS contested kings and great pretenders, Bronze Age advances, Victorian politics, and industrial shifts, there is a great segment on the musicians, artists, and writers that hail from the north. One of our most iconic exports of course being the Brontë Sisters. Upon reaching this particular section, it dawned on me that I had never read any of the Brontë’s work. Something I made a point to remedy by digging into Emily Brontë’s revered novel ‘Wuthering Heights.’
Upon venturing onto the wild and windy moors of eighteenth and nineteenth century Yorkshire, traversing between the titular farmhouse and the manor of Thrushcross Grange, I found a cast of wholly unlikeable characters. Ranging from entitled and affected to downright poisonous. Yet despite this, I found myself drawn to them and their strange entanglements. This is due to the way in which Brontë has created characters rife with multitudes. Disagreeable and despicable humans, but humans nonetheless. People damaged by societal expectations, class structure, prejudice and harsh conditions aplenty. Yet within even the most corrupted, there is a capacity for love; in the case of Heathcliff, his capacity for love, is, oddly enough, the catalyst for his most cruel and callous form.
I’m being intentionally vague about the narrative here because if you are not familiar with the plot, and you plan on reading the book, then the less you know, the better. Just don’t be swayed into thinking this is an epic, wholesome romance with a fairytale ending. Because It isn’t. There are certainly intense, beautifully crafted declarations that act like an arrow to the heart, but Wuthering Heights is dark and messy. It’s a melting pot of passion, obsession, trauma and undiagnosed mental illness. Something that was unique for its time of publication in 1847, and something that feels incredibly relevant in the modern day.
What gives the book a timeless quality is the way in which Brontë has created a vivid and immersive world, where nature in its most rapturous and ravaging states is a mirror to both the turbulence and beauty of desire. A wild and rugged landscape populated by both living souls decayed by vengeance and the ethereal spectre of ’what if?’
If you’ve shied away from Wuthering Heights because of its standing in the history of literature, then I implore you to find a way past that and to dive in, headfirst. It’s a truly rewarding book that will linger in both your head and heart long after the final page.
