My Wuthering Heights Journey #2

Arielle's Wuthering Heights Journey Part 2 of ?

More rambling ensues! 

Read on for more nonsensical, scattered thoughts about my journey reading Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Here's the first leg. And once again, beware: there are a lot of spoilers in this post.

If I was confused in my last post, I am a thousand times more confused now. I'm currently reading Chapter 17 (there are 34 chapters in total, by the way), and a lot has happened since the last time we spoke. But before I tell you some of the weird things that have happened, you should know something about the characters of this book.

Everyone is crazy.

Literally everyone! Hindley's become this crabby old hermit abiding in Wuthering Heights. Nelly doesn't seem to have any redeemable traits in her character and lacks compassion altogether. It's a shame she's the one telling most of the story. In the last post we've already discovered how crazy Cathy and Heathcliff were. But now I definitely know that Edgar and Isabella Linton are crazy too. And don't even get me started on the servant, Joseph. I can't understand what he says. Let me demonstrate a snippet of his dialogue. 

"Aw sud more likker look for th' horse... Bud, aw can look for norther horse, nur man uf a neeght loike this - as black as t'chimbley! und Hathecliff's noan t' chap tuh coom ut maw whistle..."

Unfortunately he's not as minor a character as I hoped. So there's quite a bit of this gibberish to sift through. To be honest, I can't even muster up the effort to understand what Joseph (or Hareton, who talks similarly) says. I just skim through to the next bit that's written in actual English.

Despite the unattractiveness of almost every character in Wuthering Heights and the fact that their ghastly dispositions don't exactly make for a joyous read, I don't care little enough about them to be compeltely uninterested in their story. Or maybe I'm only interested because they're all mad, and the chaos of their insanity breeds incessant entertainment. Yep, that's probably why.

I have to mention this whole thing with Isabella Linton. She was quite a dull person in the beginning, but she's getting a bit more lively now! She is a complete idiot though. One of the stupidest characters I've come across in all of literature. 

So after Cathy and Edgar are married, they live together at the Linton's which is the Grange. Isabella lives there with them too because it's her home. Then after three years, Heathcliff has come back (he lives at Wuthering Heights again) and visits Cathy regularly. Suddenly Isabella is in love with Heathcliff! They don't even speak to each other. Heathcliff tells Cathy he thinks Isabella's a twit, and will never marry her. 

Well, guess what. Isabella Linton and Heathcliff run away and get married.

Cah-razy.

But the main point of relaying all of this is to outline the infuriating foolishness of Isabella. On the night they run away together, Heathcliff takes Isabella's dog and hangs him on a tree. Isabella obviously wasn't the most impressed at that point, but no alarm bells seemed to go off in her head that she might be marrying a MAD person. It's quite laughable because Cathy warned her exactly of Heathcliff's poisonous character. 

This is getting long so I'm going to end this. There are some suss things happening between Hindley and Heathcliff, and then there's the whole secret of how Heathcliff spent those three years away and how he became wealthy. Cathy's dead now; the drama has somewhat calmed down a little, so those two things are what I'm looking forward to finding out, while I wait for more characters to die off.

Here's a nice photo to ease your eyes after reading all of my nonsense! 

See you again in a day or two. 

Cathy and Heathcliff, you crazy kids! (My Wuthering Heights Journey #1)

Arielle's Wuthering Heights Journey, Part 1 of ?

THE INTRO

This week is my study week, and I'm taking this time to read Wuthering Heights and to re-read Frankenstein for class. I'm approximately one third of the way through Wuthering Heights at this very moment. I decided to write this post in order to document my thought process through my reading journey of Wuthering Heights. So at the outset I must warn you that things might get strange. Also, because I haven't finished reading the book, I definitely do not pretend to have full understanding of the characters, events, or generally anything that's happening so far. But hopefully this might be interesting enough to either a) entice those who haven't thought of reading Wuthering Heights to give it a go; or b) entertain those who've read it already if only in the slightest degree (maybe they had thought these same things too!). Note: there will be spoilers.

THE HISTORY

Here's my copy of Wuthering Heights.

I bought it about 3 years ago but never mustered up enough determination to read it. Other than that one time back then when I failed dismally (i.e., in the first few pages). I started reading it again yesterday; this time finding it much easier to digest. I actually woke up this morning eager to read more of it. 

My edition by Cameron House publishing has got this really helpful list of characters at the front of the book. And it's illustrated!! Reading the little bios of each character helped me get into the story A LOT. 

THE RANT

OK, so currently I'm in Chapter 10 or thereabouts, and I need to comment on some really weird things that have happened so far in the story. From the word go, I found Heathcliff, as a fictional character who is also a human being, to be rather dubious. Dodgy, to say the least. He sort of just enters the story from nowhere. For someone who passionately loves (Catherine, that is), his heart seems quite demonstratively hard. Or broken. Sometimes even non-existent. I'm yet to form a solid opinion about him. But for now all I can say is he is super dubious. On the other hand, if I was in love with as mental a person as Catherine Earnshaw, I would be quite messed up in the head too.

One thing I don't understand yet is why Heathcliff ran away (literally) for three whole years after he heard Cathy say that she can't marry him? Grow a pair of balls, gypsy boy. And on top of that, he only heard that because he was eavesdropping on a private conversation and what he heard was out of context. The main thing I don't understand about it is why he didn't bother to win Catherine back and stop her from marrying LOSER LINTON. But no. He left, and his absence only made it easier for Cathy to marry the wrong person. 

Next thing I want to address is the Crazy Cathy ordeal in Chapter 8. This is what happens, more or less.

Cathy invites Edgar Linton over to her house to hang out or something.

Nelly, the housekeeper, is not allowed to leave Cathy alone when meeting with visitors (as per Hindley's instruction). 

So Nelly is cleaning and shizz, being nice and subtle about staying in the room with Cathy when Edgar Linton enters. 

Cathy tries to get Nelly to leave, but she makes up excuses not to. 

Cathy gets really angry, and PINCHES Nelly on the arm, really painfully.

Nelly cries out, saying Cathy has no right to treat her that way.

Cathy immediately denies pinching Nelly.

A row between them is going on now, and Cathy ends up slapping Nelly across the face.

Edgar stands there, watching the whole thing play out.

The baby who was sitting in the corner of the room starts crying because Nelly is crying. 

Cathy goes over to the baby, grabs his shoulders and shakes him.

Edgar decides it's time to do something and goes over to Cathy...

Cathy slaps him across the face too. 

He tries to leave but Cathy starts weeping and begs him to stay. 

Linton stays.

Then he proposes.

(WHAT?)

Yes. You  read correctly. Let's just mull that one over for a little while. 

My next post in the JOURNEY will probably be up in a day or two.

new on my bookshelf

image source: making magique

New books! 

Some of them I ordered online, some of them were sent to me, and some of them are new library books!
Apologies though, because this little book haul is coming to you a few weeks late. :( On the plus side, I can give a bit more feedback!

My cello is in the background, hahaha!

1. Best Russian Short Stories (compiled by Thomas Seltzer)
I borrowed this book from the library and returned it a few days ago, but good thing I took photos of the inside otherwise I'd have forgotten what to say about it! These are short stories from popular Russian writers including Tolstoy, Chekhov, Gorky and quite a few others. I didn't read all of them, because some of them were quite long and I like short stories to be short - really short. My favourites were One Autumn Night by Maxim Gorky and The Christmas Tree and the Wedding by Fyodor Dostoyevsky.

my thoughts on: the perks of being a wallflower by stephen chbosky

The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

published 1999, goodreads page.

I don't know how to begin talking about this book. 

I think I'll start off this post in dot points. 

• I loved it from beginning to end.
• The writing is incredible. I was blown away by how compelling it is. 
• The book is written in epistolary form - the main character, Charlie, writing letter after letter to this person he doesn't know and has never met, yet addresses as "Friend". 
• Charlie is like no other character I have ever had the pleasure of being introduced to. 
• The story is beautiful in a way one rarely can find in contemporary literature. So beautiful.
• The Perks of Being a Wallflower makes me exceedingly proud to say that I'm a fan of YA. 

For me, it was kinda like the book took a hold of me, like it reached out and grabbed onto my heart with a steel grip. Then you get to all those moments with Charlie, I don't know how to describe them other than by saying "those moments", and then I felt like my heart was just been SQUEEZED, or like it was digging its fingers in. Coz it kinda hurt really bad sometimes. Or a lot of times. But it was a gentle, beautiful sort of pain. I really felt for Charlie is what I think I'm trying to say. 

This was a really sad story. But funny. And hopeful. And when joy came, it came with full, unyielding force. 

It was really something to behold.

I can't remember if I mentioned this to you before, but when I read a book that I own and come across something that strikes me as poignant, something I want to remember, something I want to return to - I'll dog-ear the page, no questions asked.

For The Perks of Being a Wallflower, I couldn't do that. 

Can you guess why?

I couldn't do that because then every single page in the novel would be dog-eared.

my thoughts on: The Beauties by Anton Chekhov

The Beauties by Anton Chekhov

published 1888

listen to it here

I first heard of Chekhov's The Beauties last semester in one of my English lectures. The lecture was on the literary form of the short story. 

The Beauties is said to be one of the most important short stories of all time.

It is a wonderful example of how a short story does not at all depend on plot. In The Beauties, nothing happens - twice.

It's beautiful, it's emphatic, it just is what it is. And it needs nothing more. 

It left nothing to be desired. 

The story is one boy's experiences beholding exquisite human beauty.

It is his contrast in reactions and feelings to these beauties, his starkly different responses to them, his analysis of what beauty is, and how others might perceive them. 

The Beauties, I think, has helped me realise how unimportant plot can be in fiction. Watching my lecture online yesterday (for my creative writing unit), Brenda (Walker - author and unit coordinator) focused on the importance of character (as opposed to plot) in fiction. The Beauties is a brilliant example of that - of how little I need worry about plot when I go to write my story. It's one thing to hear advice, and another to see it in action. That's what I'm hoping The Beauties is for me. 

The fuel for my creative fire.

musings on the concept of "story"

I don't normally do these kind of posts on this blog - the sort of posts where I just ramble and rant on about something. I don't even really do these on my personal blog anymore either. But today I feel like this has been a recurring thought on my mind, one that might interest you, so I'm sharing it. 

It's just about 10pm on the dot right now, so if I can get this out of my system and onto the screen by 10.15pm so I have time to hop on the treadmill (I call it the dreadmill) and do a spot of creative writing before bedtime that would be awesome. 

The thing I wanted to talk about is stories. The concept or idea of the story. What a story is. The shapes and forms we find stories in on a daily basis.

Yesterday in my tutorial class for the creative writing English unit I'm doing, the topic of "story vs narrative" was discussed. Our tutor was trying to explain the definitions of 'story' and 'narrative' and their relationship with one another. It's still a little hazy in my head, even though I wrote notes down. But anyway, what I got from that discussion was that a story can have narrative but not every narrative is a story. It's one of those confusing things. 

And this afternoon as I was watching the latest episode of So You Think You Can Dance, Nigel (producer/judge) was saying how amazing it was that Mia Michaels (choreographer) could create a story in only a minute and a half. Which is so true, and made me realise you don't need a plot to tell a story, and there's no need for any arc or methodical structure when it comes to story and storytelling. I believe it's the 'telling' part that makes it a story. You can put a couple people up on a stage and turn on some music and suddenly you're watching a story unfold before your eyes. Or you can sit down on your living room sofa, open up a book and there's a story sitting there patiently on your lap. It could be a montage, a sequence of images, a movie. Or a TV ad, or one sentence.

I've been finding it really, really difficult to start on my creative writing process. For this unit I'm doing we have to submit a folio later in the semester, featuring a few poems or a short story within a word limit. I want to tell a story. And I'm starting to figure out just how ambiguous my task really is, and how percolated the concept of stories is. There's a struggle within me - one voice is yelling at me saying that is exactly what makes telling a story easy, and another voice telling me that it's for this reason that I'm finding it so hard.

I don't know. I'm going to try my best to get this concept of story rooted in my mind and rooting for me to just go for it, jump in, and tell a story. 

my thoughts on: never let me go by kazuo ishiguro

Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

published 2005. read synopsis.

First I watched the film and ever since, this story had been deeply embedded inside my mind. 

And then I read the novel. 

Before I begin talking about the book, I just want to quickly say that I think the movie was excellent and did a fantastic job capturing the world inside Never Let Me Go. Yes, some things weren't exactly represented accurately from book to film, and I might think differently about this when I watch the movie over again. But for right now, I love the film. I truly, truly believe that Carey Mulligan, Keira Knightley and Andrew Garfield were brilliantly cast in their roles. 

Ok, now the book. 

THE WRITING

I am dumbfounded by Kazuo Ishiguro's writing. Never Let Me Go is one of the best written pieces of literature I have ever read in my lifetime. The way the story was written, the way the author wielded his words, and the way the language spoke in a voice so distinct that I couldn't hear the author at all, but only and solely Kathy's voice - these are all reasons why this book is one of the best written books I've read. The story is told in way that greatly warrants the book to be read aloud. I was trying to hear the words as spoken by Carey Mulligan (her voiceovers in the movie were so excellent and I love her voice in general) and I was tempted to buy an audio book version of the novel online. Kathy H, the narrator, told the story as if she and I were having tea together one afternoon. I can't even articulate properly how much I love the way this story is written. I would buy the book for this factor alone. 

Uni's back - these are the books I need!

So I'm back at uni again for the second semester of the year starting this week, so I thought I'd use this post to show you some of the books I'll be needing for my studies this sem!

First off, these are the four units I'm doing: 

1. Reading Creatively/Writing Creatively 

2. Greek 2 (I did 'Greek 1' last semester)

3. Meaning and the Moving Image

4. Romanticism and Change in the Long Nineteenth Century

And these are the books I'll be needing!