It should not be controversial to say that Wuthering Heights will not be that arduous a e-book to get by means of. However, it is a hill (or, maybe, a moor) I’m prepared to die on — as a result of the variety of folks brazenly struggling to get by means of it’s… regarding to say the least.
Lately, my FYP has stuffed to the brim with an analogous model of video – movies of grown girls who, after seeing Emerald Fennel’s sexed-up movie model after the discharge on Friday, thirteenth February, 2026, have dashed to Waterstones to select up their copies (Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi smouldering on the quilt, naturally), maybe anticipating a BookTok-worthy rom-com, solely to search out that it’s, the truth is, a novel about class, inequality, racism, abuse and generational trauma.
There may be additionally one other style of movies that sees folks sharing guides to studying the e-book. Ideas like spotlight it inside an inch of its life or, even worse, go to Sparknotes after every chapter for a abstract.
I’ll say it: I’m involved. And I am not the one one:
Let’s be actual. Wuthering Heights is, in comparison with many basic novels, not all that troublesome. Certain, a number of characters have the identical first names, however protecting monitor of the assorted Earnshaws and Lintons is a stroll within the park in comparison with among the Russian classics.
It’s also a comparatively easy narrative. It’s largely plot-driven and principally linear, when you familiarize yourself with the relatively easy story-within-a-story format. This isn’t a novel that experiments a lot with kind. It isn’t, as an example, a piece of poetic stream of consciousness. Strive studying The Waves and get again to me.
Actually, Wuthering Heights is taken into account to be one of many best classics to learn, a lot in order that it’s (or was) usually assigned to 16-year-old faculty youngsters.
Now, earlier than I’m accused of sounding snobbish, elitist, or privileged, I want to make clear: this is not about being college educated, or being introduced up in a home crammed with books, or being inspired to learn as a baby. I actually assume that is extra about our schooling system and the final downward spiral right into a largely anti-intellectual society.
Ours is, more and more, a society that merely doesn’t prize expertise like crucial pondering or long-form studying. I do not blame any of the people posting about not with the ability to learn Wuthering Heights; I primarily blame the world we live in. A world that, over the course of the final decade or so, has slowly however absolutely been instructing us that intelligence, pondering and studying do not actually matter anymore.
