About a year ago I went to Haworth, Yorkshire, UK, where the Brontë sisters lived most of their lives. I was always into their literature and curious about their biographies, so going there and seeing the Parsonage (their home - their father was a clergyman) was really a dream come true. The tiny village is also quite charming, and in itself worth the trip. Getting there is a bit complicated, but I also enjoyed taking the old steam train.
It’s amazing to think of their stories, and the difficulties they went through to get their work recognized on the early Victorian days. Those include publishing their work under masculinised pen names and dying at a young age. In fact, with the exception of Charlotte, they died before their works were acclaimed by the public and critic. Under those circumstances, it’s even more amazing to think that later on they got millions of fans, that their work is still admired.
WutheringHeights is one of my favourite books ever. I could go on and on trying to explain why, but to which its own, so I just suggest you read it, if you never did. If I can comment on some aspects though (ATTENTION, the rest of this paragraph is only for those who already read it), as time went by and I thought (and read) over and over about it, there are a couple of things that I think now that I didn’t when I first read it: A) why the hell all the actors who play Heathcliff in the movies are proper white brits? I know that shouldn’t be an issue since Laurence Olivier (for instance, who played the character on the 1939 version) was one of the greatest actors ever, but in the book Heathcliff’s “darkness” is always mentioned, and I think it is very relevant to the plot actually. So the best actor to play him nowadays probably would actually be someone like Naveen Andrews. Oh well, maybe one day someone will get it right! B) I agree with some literary critics who say that one of the reasons why Cathy and Heathcliff could never be together was because perhaps they were half-siblings. Some go as far as saying that that was a parallel to Emily’s relationship to her bother Branwell, but perhaps that is reading way too much into it.
That all said, shame on me for still having to read the Brontë sisters’ books in English – so far I only read translated versions. One more thing for my to do list.
This is what Heathcliff should look like - in different clothes, of course.
This is what Heathcliff should look like - in different clothes, of course.
