“Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad!”
—Wuthering Heights
This week at Home Projectionist I blog about Emily Brontë’s 1847 novel Wuthering Heights and its 1939 movie adaptation with Merle Oberon and Laurence Olivier.
Brontë invented her own subgenre of romance, which I think of as “romance noir.” Her book is passionate and harsh. The movie underplays the harshness (and leaves out a good part of the book), but it gets to the heart of the matter. I believe Brontë would have been pleased by it.
Also, Cathy and Heathcliff are played by stars. This is absolutely essential.
Though I know this film version (well, I have once seen it), I know the other sisters’ work much better, from when I was in a late-development phase of reading The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Charlotte Grey and Villette a couple of years back, and have not read this novel: I shall take a peek with interest !
I re-read Wuthering Heights for this blog. Found myself flagging dozens of pages because of Bronte’s flashes of insight, but it is a difficult read.
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Lindsay, last spring we did Wuthering Heights for our book club reading. It was interesting to get back to that time and place. Some feel Emily’s work would not survive today’s readers but I think she and her sister are timeless
As long as readers are drawn to passionate stories, the Brontes’ books will survive.
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