Wuthering Heights: A

Emily Bronte managed only to publish one book in her life before she died tragically on the moors of England. Her sole work, Wuthering Heights, is one of superlative writing and it brings the point home that had Ms. Bronte lived, she could have delivered even more perfection.

The story of Catherine and Heathcliffe is set in Victorian England on the moors. They were raised as brother and sister (even though Heathcliffe is adopted and completely dispised by their other sibling, Hindley) but as time went on their relationship bloomed from the platonic into the sort of soul-wrenching love that many a masterpiece has been written about. Wuthering Heights is no different. Catherine marries herself off to the Linton family (the Linton's having money and power, of course) and leaves Heathcliffe off to stew in a pool of his own poisoned love, self-pity, loathing, and vengence. When he finally does return to exact a price for his suffering, after nearly three years, his plan is almost delicious in its cunning and brilliance. Make no mistake however, Heathcliffe is as bad a man as his lover is a manipulative, scheming, vile woman.

What then empowers this book to such pained, grand proportions? What keeps it afloat in the story seas of melodrama and overripe dialogue? It is by sheer strength of talent that Emily Bronte holds every piece of her story together. Brought to life by her rich, witty pen Bronte creates a story that is (at it's roots) a tale of love gone so blindingly wrong that neither of it's victims are ever able to see again.

Full of violence, despair, imprisonment and death, Wuthering Heights is as near to an old-fashioned page turner as your likely to find in Victorian literature. Each character has a voice powerful enough to shake the very foundations of the modern novel at the time. After all, the intricate narration style by which the book was written wasn't exactly "cookie-cutter" at the time. Niether than was the bruise-black premise or the cutting emotional undercurrents. This "stuffy old novel" exhibits the striking power to exhilirate and horrify, thrill and delight on every page. Emily Bronte may not have set out to write a jubilant, magnificent celebration of love in all of its forms, (be they vile or pure..or in some cases both) but she succeeded at just that and she did it flawlessly.