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
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