Wuthering heights - new versions

I started to watch the Lawrence Olivier version last night, (preferable to the angst of Strictly and actually quite similar in being over the top emotionally) and was rather impressed by his interpretation. Only ever seen clips before.

M0nica

The Bronte style literature hearkens back to the Gothik novel so popular in the late 18th -19th century. I do not consider Wuthering Heights a 'tour de force' I find it overcooked nonsense.

Jane Eyre is a tour de force, but If I am in the mood for a Bronte, I turn to Anne Bronte, a hugely undervalued writer, who drew on what she saw happening in the families she was governess in to write two superb novels -Agnes Grey - about being a governess in a wealthy family and later -The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - which features the appalling plight of a woman trapped in a violent and abusive marriage at a tie when there really was little or no way out. A situation too common in the period. Anne Bronte's novels are about reality and life in a certain social group of the period.

My opinion of Wuthering Heights is, and will remain, that it is a grossly over-rated book.

I completely agree about Anne Bronte's novels. She is often dismissed as the 'quiet' one but yet her writing is very preceptive and has a lot to say about the situation of women we can still apply to today's perspectives.

I don't agree though, that the Bronte's novels hearkened back to earlier forms- they were quite ground-breaking and WH must be considered entirely original and has never been matched since- in its composition, characters and sheer creative energy.

‘Jane Eyre’ always has been and always will be ,my go to Brontë book. But I did read ‘Wuthering Heights’ for my degree. I was slightly surprised that there was a much darker second ‘half’. Very rarely shown in films. I dislike the book and do not find anything romantic about Heathcliff.
I think I agree with MOnica .

Don’t hold back Monica 😁

The Bronte style literature hearkens back to the Gothik novel so popular in the late 18th -19th century. I do not consider Wuthering Heights a 'tour de force' I find it overcooked nonsense.

Jane Eyre is a tour de force, but If I am in the mood for a Bronte, I turn to Anne Bronte, a hugely undervalued writer, who drew on what she saw happening in the families she was governess in to write two superb novels -Agnes Grey - about being a governess in a wealthy family and later -The Tenant of Wildfell Hall - which features the appalling plight of a woman trapped in a violent and abusive marriage at a tie when there really was little or no way out. A situation too common in the period. Anne Bronte's novels are about reality and life in a certain social group of the period.

My opinion of Wuthering Heights is, and will remain, that it is a grossly over-rated book.

Oh my! Have people ever read the Bible??

I re-read this book as an adult and found Heathcliff repulsive, but yet the novel is a tour de force that cannot be discounted and has to be read in the context of how it came to be written.

The Bronte sisters survived such heartbreak as children and therefore these experiences culminated the some of the greatest works in the English Language.

As for film- it can never truly reproduce the complexity of this novel and was written to be read, not watched.

Arto1s

It is my favourite novel of all time. I first read it when I found a copy at my Grandma’s house when I was 9 years old. I have lost count of the number of times I have read it since, certainly up in the teens. It has never been brought successfully to the screen in my opinion. The book has depth which cannot be translated other than on the page.

I totally agree.

I think the original post was about this new version coming out on Valentine’s Day and selling it as a romantic film. It is a dark novel and yes we should read it and share with any young daughters and granddaughters but not as a romantic ideal.

Also I still hear people tell little girls, boy pull their hair and so on because they like them. We must teach our girls this is never acceptable.

The past is another country. they do it differently there.

It is my favourite novel of all time. I first read it when I found a copy at my Grandma’s house when I was 9 years old. I have lost count of the number of times I have read it since, certainly up in the teens. It has never been brought successfully to the screen in my opinion. The book has depth which cannot be translated other than on the page.

So do we ban everything that doesn't fit today's standards? That would mean there'd very little left.

Rather than hiding history which then nobody learns from, we should be learning and teaching all of it the ugly, the grotesque, the beautiful... All of it.

Violence and sex ...

I love some other Brontë novels, but could never get on with Wuthering Heights.

I've never managed to get to the end of Wuthering Heights - I've abandoned it three times. I disliked the book, the hero and the heroine - I always ended up thinking I'd like to give her a good slap and tell her to get a grip (no, I don't go round slapping people, before anyone asks).

Banning books because they don't fit in with today's ideas is pointless. I read a lot about Henry VIII but banning books about a dreadful tyrant won't change things. Surely the idea of a book is to inform, entertain and learn, do we really think that today's youngsters cannot understand, compare and come to their own conclusions as to whether the behaviour written about is accepatable today.

I can't pass this thread by without commenting. I feel so cross that anyone should suggest that some of our most classic literature should be abandoned because our girls may not be able to appreciate it for what the author intended. Emily Bronte was a strong and powerful woman of her time who wrote about the danger of jealousy and misused power. In my view a masterpiece of gothic literature.

Pleasebenice

I still hear mums say that in the playground at pick up time!

Good grief! No wonder there is so much domestic abuse around. Women passing messages like that among themselves are colluding in their own abuse.

I still hear mums say that in the playground at pick up time!

Cambsnan

But we still tell girls that when a boy is mean to you, he like you!

When were girls ever told that? No one ever said it to me nor was it ever said in conversation among friends when I was a teenager and early 20s.

In fact I had never heard the phrase until I read it on GN today.

I have not led a very sheltered life, so I am not particularly protected from these things.

We’ll just read nicey nicey pap shall we?

Good post Lathyrus.

I admit it’s some years since I last read the book. I have read it three times I think, the first when I was about 12 and had no idea what was going on and got very muddled with the plot.

My recollection is that it is a book that deals with anger, betrayal, spite, misogyny, violence, obsession, desire and the destruction of lives through people deeply damaged by their experiences.

A dark book like, as I said, much drama today. I don’t think it at any point romanticises any of their actions and their consequences. It’s Hollywood that’s done that and what most people think Wuthering Heights to be now - without having read the book.

It is as much a book for today as any written today, because essentially the dark side of human nature does not change.

What we need to do is to get in place a 'it is of its time and these views are reflected which are no longer tolerated today'. This should be done in schools, colleges, places of learning and publishing houses. If we dumb everything down to make it palatable to the work brigade nothing will be learnt from the past and possibly history repeated. History needs to be examined in its context: The past is another country in which they did things differently.

also… it is the baddies we remember! (rather than any soft, wishy washy, good ‘hero/ine’ ) - now need examples -
Alan Rickman’s Sheriff of Nottingham ha ha

unless they are a piteous creature, as poor Ginger

But television and film is full of stories about violence, misogyny etc portrayed much more graphically than anything in Wuthering Heights.

So much so that I find it difficult to find anything I want to watch.

Is this new version full of graphic violence?