Classics: Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

This book is a part of my "All books mentioned on 'Friends-tv show' challenge"
I could not remember if I read this one in high school, so I picked it up. Also I want to read and own more classics in 2017 (one of my resolutions). I haven't got a big collection, but I am working on it.

Wuthering Heights was Emily Bronte's only book, but if you can only write one book in your life - this is the way to do it. I thought it was absolutely brilliant! I own the Barnes and Noble Classics edition, which came with an introduction, a short biography and a preface by her sister, Charlotte Bronte. I decided to read all of them since I did not remember much about the Bronte's from school. I am quite confident that reading the biography and a preface made all the difference for me while I was reading this book. Reading Charlotte's description of her sister's only book, how it was rejected by the publishers, her sudden illness and her short-lived life - set the right tone for this novel.
This book is quite different from anything that I have ever read. If this book could talk for itself, it would be screaming its head off with anger. I am simply astonished at how a book about very dull lives of very regular people can be so frightening to the reader. It took me a while to read it, because I could only read so many pages a day, before I have had enough of the madness that were the two main characters. You know when in a book you usually pick your favorite character and then your least favorite one? Well, how about a book in which ALL of the characters are your least favorite ones? Characters so horribly selfish, arrogant, cross, indignant and spiteful that it makes you want to throw the book out of the window. Yet, you keep reading. If that isn't a sign of a great book then I don't know what is.

​I have also noticed that Wuthering Heights is often labeled as a romance, which is so wrong. This is not a romance novel, but all of the events do center around romantic notions.
Structure of the story line was quite odd, but somehow it flew very nicely. I felt like reading a memoir of a family (a very messed up family) starting with the grandparents and finishing up with the youngest of kids all grown up. Illnesses and death were woven into the story like they were as natural as a morning breakfast (which goes to show the state of living in the early 1800). I have to admit that it did get a little confusing at times, for most of the characters shared same names, but I took my time with the reading, so that was not a big issue at all. Also all of this "marrying your own cousins" ordeal shook me a little bit, but then again, different times. Come to think of it maybe that is why they all were so feeble and sickly, because they kept interbreeding with each other.
The only annoying thing in this book was the broken language at which one of the characters spoke, as it was incredibly hard to read and follow, and it became very irritating, very quickly. Luckily, he wasn't that important in the book anyway.

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