Wuthering Heights

Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights is made into a movie.
The film did create the atmosphere and heaviness, but it is much less heavy or dark compared to the original work. The plot is still there but a lot of important details are missing but of course, it is understandable. Some of things happened in the movie did not happen in the book.
Turning a novel into a movie is a daunting task. And usually doesn't work.
For me, because visual images, no matter how stunning they can be, can hardly compensate for the beauty of words that is lost.
Wouldn't call the movie a disappointment, nor a surprise--mostly because I don't have much expectations and I know I would always prefer the book.

Read it when I was 15 in my English Literature class.
It became one of my all-times favourite novels. Re-read it a few times and still enjoy it.
It used to be my obsession--not for its romanticism, but for its almost unbearably immense anguish.
Sometimes it's so painfully heavy that it suffocates me, but I am obsessed with how excruciatingly intense it is.
The combination of pleasure and pain in exquisite extremes--it makes me feel both alive and surreal at the same time.

Some of my favourite quotes that I thought would appear in the film:
'He (Heathcliff) shall never know how I love him; and that, not because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same, and Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.' -- Catherine, Volume I, Ch IX of Wuthering Heights

'If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and, if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the Universe would turn to a mighty stranger. I should not seem a part of it. My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will change it, I'm well aware, as winter changes the trees--my love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath--a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff--he's always, always in my mind--not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself--but, as my own being.' -- Catherine, Volume I, Ch IX of Wuthering Heights

'I love my murderer--but yours! How can I?' -- Heathcliff, Vol II, Ch. I of Wuthering Heights

'May she awake in torment! And I pray one prayer-I repeat it till my tongue stiffens-Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest, as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then! Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh God! It is unutterable! I cannot live with my life! I cannot live with my soul!' -- Heathcliff, Vol II, Ch. II of Wuthering Heights

Now as I look back, teenagers shouldn't be allowed to read this book, let alone making it a learning material--as we all know how easy romantic novels intoxicate defenseless young girls who simply have too much imagination about love.
Well, I enjoyed it.
It is particularly interesting as I read through the notes I scribbled; my thoughts and interpretations of the story.
I don't usually write on books but it used to be my textbook, so I did.
Funny feeling of a dejavu, '7 years ago, I held the same book, read the same story, felt something strong and wrote this. And now, I'm back again.'

'The love between Heathcliff and Catherine, the star-crossed lovers, is expressed through giving and receiving pain, not tenderness nor sweetness,' I wrote.

On a slip of paper clipped into the book was written some questions,
'what would it be like if Catherine married Heathcliff? Would they be happy? Maybe they are not meant to be together, they are meant to be apart.'

Do I have a different interpretation? Do I feel more, deeper or less?
Do I understand it better than I used to, with a few more years of experience?
I used to think the love depicted in the book was beautiful because it is deep and unforgettable.
But now, I don't know what kind of love it is.


Everyone dreams of a love that consumes them--the kind of love that you completely lose yourself into, like when Cathy says she is Heathcliff.
But when Cathy says 'I am Heathcliff', who is Cathy?
Once that fire fades, what are we left with?
Just excruciating grief, uncontrollably haunting memories, regrets, self destruction and a wound that never seem to heal.
The saddest thing of losing a love like this, is that we lost ourselves.

As we are consumed and lost ourselves completely in a love like that, we blur the line between who we are and the person we love.
When that relationship is gone, we are gone. We are not even left with ashes of who we once were.
Then the world becomes a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that he has lost her.
Every single day becomes so long that he has to remind himself to breathe and almost has to remind his heart to beat.
Life becomes a long fight that never seem to end. Yes, he wish the long fight will be over, but at the same time, he doesn't want to get over it.
Why? Because saying goodbye means going away, and going away means forgetting, as Peter Pan says it.
And he couldn't forget. It was too deep, too memorable, too dear.


Why would we still want to losing ourselves to have a love strong enough to move mountains?
What kind of logic is that?

Heathcliff thought he loved Cathy all through their lives.
But no, he only loves Cathy for who she was, not who she eventually became.
And that young, mischievous Cathy who spends time with him in the woods is gone, even though she stands in front of him as a well-behaved, grown up lady.
Who Heathcliff loves is his old (or young) self, who he used to be when Cathy was with him, before Edgar appears.

What good does this love do for anybody?
One can hold on to beautiful memories, but not drowned eternally by it.
Love shouldn't trap a person in the past or in anguish. 

Love is scary, life is scary, aren't they?
I wish recovering from pain is as easy as giving cliche advices like 'set it free, let it go'.

Dear readers,
I still believe in love.
So I take risks, have a 'love like I've never been hurt' attitude and stay hopeful.
I hope you do as well.
Love life as hard as you possibly could. :)

Love,
N