Random Jottings

Wuthering Heights - a re-read

You may recall I was trying to reread Wuthering Heights a few weeks ago when I was laid low with a bad reaction to my Covid jab and a brain fog descended. So the fog has now lifted but then I was stricken with severe back pain and have been staggering around like Quasimodo.  As I lay prone I decided I would return to WH and finish it.

Now I am making a solemn promise and it is one I will be able to keep with no problem. I am NEVER going to read this book again. NEVER.

Way back in my teens I discovered the Brontes, ok well it was Jane Eyre, but that fascinated me and set me off on an interest that has never waned. Over the years I have read practically every biog, crit or article I could find re this family. I have visited Haworth several times, I have walked on the moors and the love of all things Bronte has never left me.

But there is an exception and this exception is called Emily.   Charlotte seemed to hold her in awe and admiration and reverence and I could never understand why.  This sister seemed to dominate and hold a position in the family that was all encompassing. She and Anne seemed to be very close (but bear in mind that against all opposition Anne went out to work and stayed at work for years, more than any of the others managed to do. Getting away? Just a thought).  It always struck me that the sisters were afraid of her and after reading Wuthering I can understand why.

Pretty sure that other scholars with finer minds than mine (not hard) have come to the conclusion that Catherine Earnshaw is Emily.  She has all the characteristics: wanting her own way in everything, seemingly terrorising weaker characters than herself, selfish, yes selfish, and caring for nobody.   This sister has been portrayed as this wonderfully strong character, the heart of the family who stayed at home looking after her father and sistsers. My feeling is that this is precisely what she always wanted. Safe and powerful in her own domain. She ventured forth to Brussels with Charlotte where she disliked and was disliked and soon came home again.  In the school run by the Hegers she was relatively unimportant. 

People have queried where did Wuthering Heights come from? A spinster virgin living in a remote Yorkshire village.  If, as I do, you view Catherine as Emily as I have already mentioned above, then it seems she is consumed all the time by anger and fury and wishes to hurt as many people as she can. And boy does she do it in spades in WH.  Heathcliff may arrive as a surly boy but the reason he grows into this brutal vicious man is down to the way he is treated, not just by Hindley but by Catherine who rejects him "it would degrade me to marry Heathcliff".  The heart of all the troubles and anger and brutality emanates from Catherine and trying to fathom out just how and why she does it remains an eternal mystery.

My first reading of this was when I was a teenager and probably did not understand it and so I re-read it some years later. I still found it repulsive. So I left it for a long long time and then tried again, feeling perhaps I could bring a more mature focus to a work that is regarded as a masterpiece.  No well I still loathe it.  Every single character is venal, brutal (sorry to keep using this word cannot think of another) weak, stupid and deeply unpleasant.

And yet there are those who view Wuthering Heights as a towering love story.  Why? The film with Olivier and Merle Oberon is of its time and Olivier speaking incredibly posh English is clearly totally wrong, but this vision of the running across moors calling "Cathy" "Heathcliff" seems to have given their love a charm that is singularly lacking.

I went online to find out what others thought of WH and was quite astonished at the various comments but the one that made me laugh and with which I totally agree came from the author Anne Tyler in an interview with the Guardian:

"I somehow made it to adulthood without reading Wuthering Heights but then I found out that several of my women friends considered Heathcliff their all time favourite romantic hero. So I read about three quarters of it as a grown-up and immediately developed some serious concerns about the mental health of my friends"

I could not have put it better.

And I didn't...

The Palace Papers - Tina Brown

Well I am back and thankyou to everyone who has left me kind comments and also emails. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

A brain fog descended as well and I found I could not concentrate on any serious reading so I was pleased when The Palace Papers arrived.  Totally engrossing, gossipy and unputdownable. I read it in bed with a cup of tea, cosy and comfortable and thoroughtly enjoyed every page.

It is odd how you remember things and all the time I was reading this quote kept coming into my mind. I tracked it down and it turned out to be Kipling “For the Colonel’s lady and Judy O’Grady are sisters under the skin”.

The reason for this is that I am always puzzled at the way in which we still expect the Royal Family to be better behaved and better all round human beings that us – because we do.   I am a grandmother, been married and divorced twice, had relationships with people I should not have done, and done stupid things in my youth. But I have never been held to account or my follies plastered all over the pages of the tabloids.

In the Palace Papers, Tina Brown has shown us quite clearly that the House of Windsor is not so different from us in behaviour and folly.   Feuds, adultery, inter sibling rivalry, jealousy – it is all there.  The Prince of Wales when asked how he thought the public viewed them answered “as a non-stop soap opera” and few could argue with this. 

The author is the former editor in chief of Tatler, Vanity Fair and the New Yorker and a Commander of the British Empire awarded for her services to journalism.  She has obviously done her research and with her media contacts has been the recipient of many confidences and information from those within the Palace.   The family dynamics are laid bare and while I have always been fond of Prince Charles and admired him, after reading this, I feel increasingly sympathetic towards him though he does tend to go on a bit and feel sorry for himself. A trait inherited in spades by his younger son.   

In his interview with Jonathan Dimbleby who wrote his biography, the Prince accused his mother of being distant and his father being a bit of a bully.   We are told that the Queen was deeply hurt by this and the author has no hesitation is saying because Her Majesty probably realised it was true. She also made the point that in a tv programme about the Duke of Edinburgh shortly after he died, Charles was reminiscing abut his father and the main thrust was that his father was always “showing him how to do things” and “exhorting him to get on with it”. It was said with a smile but it had obviously not been forgotten.

I have never been a member of the Cult of St Diana and the more I read about her the more I feel for Charles. If ever a disaster was in the making it was their marriage.   Diana was damaged by her childhood as was Charles and neither of them could help each other and the more Diana lashed out the more Charles retreated and the worse it got. 

(Funnily enough I came across her earlier book the Diana Chronicles in a charity shop the other day and picked it up and after reading that my reaction was to feel for Charles even more. He was not without blame of course, but he just could not cope with somebody like Diana)

The two children suffered as we all know by now but I find it hard to forgive Diana for her Bashir interview in which she traduced her father to millions of viewers with no thought as to the feelings of William and Harry.   We now know Bashir deceived her and we are also meant to believe she regretted the interview.  Tina Brown makes it clear that Diana felt nothing of the sort and was gleeful that she had done it.

The author is pretty dismissive of the behaviour of Harry and Megan or Ginge and Winge as they are known in some tabloid quarters, but at the same time tries to be fair to Megan aware that an American actress coming to join the Royal Family and live in the UK would find it a difficult.   She makes the point, however, that Megan did not even bother to try.

And so it continues. It is a never ending family saga which will  be eternally intriguing and fascinating to most of us.  I have to make the point that compared to previous Kings and Queens, the current members of the House of Windsor compare quite well to the lives of earlier occupants of  the throne. 

We should be grateful that at least George V did not have six wives………..

Random Jab

Just dropping by to say I will be absent for a few days.  I had my booster jab at the weekend. I have had mild reactions to earlier ones but this has laid me low. Feeling nauseous, shivering and shaking, headache. Yuk. A brain fog seems to have descended as well. I have written this post three times and each time it has vanished into the ether and I am sitting her saying Get a Grip.

I have abandoned my current book which is a reread of Wuthering Heights which I have not looked at for over thirty years. Why am I doing this? Answer comes there none and I just cannot cope with Heathcliff and Cathy at the moment. Kindest thing I can say about them is they are a pair of crashing bores.  Reading the papers and the trial of Johnny Depp and his ghastly ex, the similarities struck me straight away…

so back to D E Stevenson.

that’s better…

back soon