RSS feedRSS comments

The Perils of Reading Bronte

The Perils of Reading Bronte:

1. Other books really cower in the shadow of it. I haven’t found a book as captivating as this since finishing it yesterday.

2. Unlike Pride & Prejudice, which fills women with an unrealistic hope of the existence of “gentlemen”, this just crushes you, the reader, with the heavy truth that sometimes even the most perfect of loves is doomed. DOOMED.

3. The book itself is frustrating as hell: The actual story of Catherine and Heathcliff is teasingly short and we are left with the remnants of their offspring, barely a notch on their parents’ belt (in dislikeability as well as strength of character).

4. While reading Wuthering Heights, you, the reader, will become so absorbed in the smokey, romantic scenery of the moors, that upon finishing, you will return to reality to find it bland and harsh in comparison.

5. It inspires one to write, while dangling in front of them the essence of perfect writing - unattainable in all its glory.

6. Once completed, the experience of reading it for the first time is lost forever.

7. It makes the most stoic of us cry (not that I’m stoic by any means but you get the idea). People I know to be non-criers have cried from this. And when reading in public, it’s a terrible cause for embarrassment.

8. It’s a terribly depressing book. I love a good downer as much as the next person of melancholy humour, but not even P.G. Wodehouse could get me out of this funk. I growled at anybody who came near me while I had this book in my hand, and for the rest of the day afterwards.

9. I HATE Catherine. So much so that I sometimes forget that she is a character, not a real person. This is hardly the type of emotion one should walk around carrying inside them.

Thus ends my list of perils.

Rather than round it up to an even ten, I’m going to leave it at that. This definitely goes up on my pedestal of life-changing books, for all its perfect phrases and infuriating characters, and is currently headbutting against Jane Eyre for my favourite Bronte book. I’ll let you know the result after this round.

A few more tidbits…

I cannot possibly begin to review Wuthering Heights purely because I would not do it justice. The book deserves one of those literary criticisms usually written by Honours or PhD students.

I was warned by the friend who lent it to me that its exquisite literary fineness causes many other books to shrink in comparison. I laughed, maintaining that my mind isn’t usually changed that easily.

I finished the book in about 7 hours, and managed to cook dinner with one hand while my nose was still buried in the pages.

Tags: , , ,

June 10th, 2009Literary musings ReviewsRead More >5 Comments


The Secret History - Donna Tartt

“Beauty is terror. Whatever we call beautiful, we quiver before it. And what could be more terrifying and beautiful, to souls like the Greeks or our own, than to lose control completely?” -p44

This is the first lesson of Julian Morrow, the enigmatic Greek classics teacher; Richard is immediately fond of him, in his pathetic little attempt to seek out a paternal figure in his new life at his east coast liberal arts college. The lesson is a foreshadow of what is to come, the utter loss of control, desire to remove one’s self from their physical consciousness. And it sounds so glamorous, doesn’t it? Archaic and proud, sprinkled with the wisdom passed down from ancient Greek literature.

thesecrethistory1

Richard’s story comes in two parts. In the beginning we learn of his friend Bunny’s death: windmilling arms, stumbling backwards off the ravine. We are slowly introduced to the closeknit group of friends: Henry, spectacled, leader, arrogant prick; Francis, somewhat less of an arrogant prick, red-haired, odd; Charles, likes to drink, friendly and attractive; Camilla, twin of Charles, beautiful to some, surprisingly tough nut; Bunny, bigot, loud, obnoxious and seemingly out of his element with the quietly dignified classics students. In book one, Richard is fairly in the dark, we only see what he sees, and experience his shock when he eventually learns what his friends initially thought of him. The second part of the book ventures into the aftermath of Bunny’s death, and the slow disintegration of each character as they deal with the hollow truth.

While we know these characters are flawed, we feel a certain affection for them, as Richard does. But as the story progresses, it becomes harder and harder to truly like them, and they are barely acceptable as members of the story.

Immediately after Bunny’s death, the group are discussing the weather, and the prediction for snow so close to Easter:

“I don’t see why you’re so excited,” Henry said crossly. He had a pragmatic, farmer-like knowledge of how weather conditions affected growth, germination, blooming times, et cetera. “It’s just going to kill all the flowers.”

Tartt needs to be reread: There is something new, more sinister to be found in the return to it. The idea of sins, and punishment, and true suffering. The writing is operatic, we have the recititative which tells the story, not quite plainly, but unembellished, and the aria, in which Richard ponders deeply the recent events.

The Greek references mostly go over my head as I haven’t read The Iliad etc., but it adds to the old feel of reading. I was disappointed in the teacher, Julian Morrow. But his halo is effectively removed by Richard, and rightly so.

The main problem I have is with Henry’s character - he teeters around the impossible character with his superior ways. Even when the others begin to question his “leadership”, we never really get to glimpse his weakness.

Read if you haven’t, re-read if you have. That’s all.

Tags: , , , ,

May 21st, 2009ReviewsRead More >No Comments