#20: Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte

One quote sums up this novel:

"'She's fainted or dead,' I thought: 'so much the better. Far better she should be dead, than lingering a burden and misery-maker to all about her.'"

While I liked Wuthering Heights, in that trashy "my father's in love with my cousin/wife's dead mother" way, I understand why schoolchildren across America want to tear out their hair when this book is assigned. Why is this book a classic? I think it failed in two of the major tenets of good literature: None of the characters are particularly likeable, and Bronte resorts to "Deus ex Machina" tactics to both create and finish out the story.

On likeability: The above quote says it all. Catherine Earnshaw is a pain in the ass. Heathcliff is demonic. So why should we care that their love has been thwarted? Both of them were so cruel to the people around them that frankly, in the world of literary justice, you are rooting for them to fail. Which means that the real appeal of the book becomes the trash angle, once you cease to care about the protagonists.

On Deus ex Machina:The format of the book was strange, and quite contrived. Bronte resorts to telling a story within a story -- the lodger wants to know why Heathcliff is so crabby and Catherine Linton so aloof but distressed, and Nelly, the faithful houseservant, spills all. Once the story-within-the-story catches up to the present, the lodger, Mr. Lockwood, leaves Thrushcross Grange. When he returns some time later, the story suddenly resolves itself -- lo and behold, Heathcliff, formerly the picture of health, has suddenly died and now those who are left -- Catherine Linton and Hareton Earnshaw (cousins, it should be noted) can live happily ever after in their bucolic wonderland. I suppose it helped that Heathcliff was tormented by ghosts, starving himself and wandering the moors at all hours, but his death was pretty darn convenient. Without it, god knows how long that book would have gone on!

Having said all this, I think the book could be better on a second read. If you knew what was going to happen -- especially that Heathcliff believed Catherine's ghost is tormenting him, it might explain his behavior better, and his decline. But that's just a hypothesis -- not sure I can handle another read at this point...

Anyway, next up, and sure to be quicker to get through: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation by Lauren Willig

#19: Daughter of Fortune, Isabel Allende

I liked Daughter of Fortune, but didn't love it, which was a disappointment. I had read Allende's wonderful, amazing House of the Spirits some years ago, and I keep reading her other books in the hope of recapturing the magic of that one novel. But this one was not to be it (and I think I'm giving up now). The story is about an orphaned girl named Eliza, who gets taken into a wealthy home in Chile in the 1870's (or so). One day, she falls in love with a poor but intelligent boy, who soon leaves her to search for gold in California; when she discovers she's pregnant (gasp!), she decides to follow him, and the rest of the book is about her adventures in America, where she spends most of the time pretending to be a boy while searching for her love. I did like the novel while in the middle of it, but I ended up putting it down for about a week when I went away, and found I had forgotten most of the story, and why I cared. Also, my biggest pet peeve in books and films, Allende just ends the book without giving a definite conclusion. Didn't she get paid an absurd amount of money to both write and finish this book? I hate when it's up to the reader to decide what really happened - that's the author's job!

Next up...Wuthering Heights.

30 Great Books

Yes, it's the title of my blog. Why? About ten years ago (god, can it have been that long?!?), I realized that I had stopped reading for pleasure - life had gotten in the way. As a lifelong bookworm, it was a problem that immediately needed to be rectified, so I set a goal to read, yes, 30 books a year. I was (and still am) dorky enough to keep a list, in order to keep myself on track. Some years I exceeded the quota, in others I failed miserably.

Will I be able to keep myself on track this year? When I finish a book, I will post a, er, post. I decided to go anonymous on this one, so I can love and hate with impunity, and will suffer no criticism for my literary choices.

Numbers one through 18, so far...
(1) Jane Eyre, Bronte (2)Something Borrowed, Giffin (3)Something Blue, Giffin (4)How to Sleep with a Movie Star, Harmel (5)Summer in the City, Sisman (6)Busting Vegas, Mezrich (7)London, Rutherfurd (8)The Second Assistant, Naylor and Hare (9)The Geographer's Library, Faisman (10) The Know-it-All, Jacobs (11) The Historian, Kostova (12) Baby Proof, Giffin (13)School Days, Parker (14)Mayflower, Philbrick (15) Zorro, Allende (16) The Professor and the Madman, Winchester (17) Marley and Me, Grogan (18) The Beach, Garland