Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

I first read Wuthering Heights about five years ago, and while I loved it at the time, I hadn't picked it up since. But because it was part of my AP English Language reading list, I read it again, and I must say that I don't like it half as well as I remember liking it the first time around.

According to the back of my tattered, school-issued copy, "There are few more convincing, less sentimental accounts of passionate love than Wuthering Heights," and it is "the story of a savage, tormented foundling, Heathcliff, who falls wildly in love with Catherine Earnshaw, the daughter of his benefactor, and of the violence and misery that results from their thwarted longing for each other." Well, then. First of all, I'm not sure what exactly makes Wuthering Heights "convincing"...what exactly am I intended to be convinced of? Anyway, the blurb is a pretty good summary as far as I'm concerned. Heathcliff is definitely savage and tormented, and there is plenty of violence and misery.

However, I would like to point out that from my point of view, their longing for each other was thwarted by no person or persons more than Heathcliff and Catherine themselves. If Wuthering Heights was real and set in present day, I would sent Catherine straight over to a little blog called How Not to Fall in Love - I have a feeling she might find it very useful. Throughout almost the entire book, the main characters seem to have the aim of being as utterly senseless as possible. In fact, the housekeeper, Nelly was the only significant character who seemed to have a lick of sense (pardon my colloquialism). While there was some reconciliation at the end, I was disappointed that the book didn't really follow the development of the two characters who did become friends. Rather, the reader jumps ahead a bit and finds that it has all already happened, and that he/she can only learn of what's been going on through a retelling. When a book doesn't have an action-packed, gripping plot, I find that I need some character development to keep me going, and I didn't find sufficient development in Wuthering Heights.

Perhaps I will like the book after studying it in English, but I doubt it. Maybe this will be one of those books that I read every five years and react differently each time. Have you read Wuthering Heights? What did you think?

The Angel's Game - Carlos Ruiz Zafon

Though it did take me nearly a week to read The Angel's Game, that had nothing to do with the quality of the book. Rather, it had to do with the fact that I've been up to my ears in working on my spreadsheet of colleges I might apply to, applying to scholarships, and that sort of thing. Every time I had a moment in which I allowed myself to pick up The Angel's Game, I was hooked within a couple of pages and continued reading furiously until responsibility (or lunch) called.

The Angel's Game is a prequel to the bestselling novel The Shadow of the Wind, a fact that I did not know until I was already into the book. Oops. I didn't realize this because I picked the book up off of the "new books" shelf in the YA section of my local library, and was only enlightened when I read Jess's review of The Shadow of the Wind on Park Benches and Bookends. Anyway, The Angel's Game takes place in 1920s Barcelona and follows young novelist David Martin, who writes popular novels under a pseudonym. Martin has finally attained residence in the old house where he wanted to live as a child when he receives a letter from mysterious French editor Andreas Corelli, who offers to pay him an enormous sum of money to write a book that will create a new religion. The further into his writing Martin gets, however, the more reluctant he becomes, and he and the people he cares about start to suffer for it.

The atmosphere, subject matter, and themes of The Angel's Game remind me of Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, which I reviewed in June, and after taking a look at Zafon's website, I see that he and/or his publisher have made the same comparison. I'm not sure if that indicates my lack of originality, the validity of the claim, or both. Regardless, I really enjoyed The Angel's Game. I found its plot intriguing and its characters even more so, and even after finishing the book I still have questions. For me, this is a good thing - I don't always like everything to be tied up neatly. Fortunately, my library also has The Shadow of the Wind and The Prince of Mist, another book by Zafon, and I will be checking those out shortly...though perhaps I should wait until I finish my AP English required reading.

Until next time, happy reading!