



Wuthering Heights
-
-
4.1 • 192 Ratings
-
Publisher Description
Outside the strange and bleak manor Wuthering Heights, overlooking the Yorkshire moors, the ghost of a young woman stands at the window, wanting to be let in....
Considered scandalous, shocking, and inappropriate by its Victorian readers; this novel is now considered an undeniable classic. It is the story of Heathcliff, a fascinating, romantic, monstrous, impossible-to-define character – too sadistic to be a hero, yet too engaging to be a villain. It is a story of a love affair, social class structure, and strife between nature and culture. It is a sophisticated, grotesque, and brilliant Gothic masterpiece.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The main drama in Bronte's novel happens in a long narrative told by an elderly housekeeper to a convalescing new tenant. This story-within-a-story setup makes it well suited for audio adaptation, as Scales takes the housekeeper's part and relates the past, while West performs as the tenant and describes the present. Scales primarily uses a folksy lower-class accent, but she also makes her voice harsh and threatening when speaking as Heathcliff, the surly man at the novel's heart. West, as the bewildered tenant, manages to sound both nervous and pretentious, but his part is fairly small, especially with this abridgment, so he mostly serves to provide transitions for the housekeeper's story. The extensive abridgment generally deletes sentences and phrases rather than entire paragraphs or sections. One drawback for the audio format is the difficulty of clarifying the novel's convoluted plot and family tree, since it's harder to search back through long CD tracks than through earlier chapters of the paperback. While a little of the depth of Bronte's writing is lost in abridgment, the novel's emotional core remains intact and wrenching, and the actors' heartfelt interpretations make it easy to imagine being curled up by a warm fire listening to an absorbing tale. In June, Penguin Audio remastered and released on CD for the first time nine other Penguin Classics: Crime and Punishment, Dracula, Frankenstein, Great Expectations, Jane Eyre, Moby Dick, Pride and Prejudice, Sense and Sensibility and Tale of Two Cities.
Customer Reviews
Wuthering Heights
This is wonderful. Fantastic story, over which I have wept copiously. I even named my first child Catherine! The writing reflects the harsh, solitary, surroundings and wildness of Emily Bronte's life at that time and her longing for romance. The Duke of Wellington was the hero of the time and the Brontes fashioned many a romantic notion around his heroism.
A good read
I thought I knew this story but turns out I didn't know it at all. Quite a sad tale really 😢
Wuthering heights
Worst book ever. Even though I am an English literature teacher this is absolutely revoltingly stupid and damp and daft. This is disgraceful and stupid I can't believe I am saying this because I love English but this book is the worst book I have ever read because there isn't much passion to it.