Ich bin schwer reingekommen. Musste öfter zurück blättern. Einige Übersetzungsfehler- Miß, Prinzeßin oder statt- der weg war ganz schön lang- der weg war ganz hübsch lang.

Wuthering Heights is one of those books that makes you rush to the bookstore the day after you finish it to find everything with the name Brontë on it. And then you are struck by the well-known fact that this is Emily Brontë's only novel. At least that's how I experienced it. The modernity of the novel is almost frightening. Emily Brontë doesn't write about love as if it were something sacred or God-given; not the sense of romantic idealization, as was otherwise common around 1800. Instead, love here becomes an illness. Something pathological. A force that does't redeem, but destroys and literally drags you to the grave, if I may be permitted this joke. Catherine and Heathcliff don't love each other; they infect each other, if we stick with the image of this “disease“. Their bond isn't tender, but an existential bond that allows no separation. Brontë completely redefines love in this book: not as an ideal, but as an obsession and possession that finally leads to self-destruction. And nature, which, as the title suggests, plays a major role, isn't merely a mirror of the soul. Nor is it a romantic backdrop, but rather a shaping force. It creates these characters, shapes their personalities and is fundamental to their uncompromising nature. Brontë doesn't allow humans and nature to hold hands harmoniously but rather presents them as raw identities. The fact that a novel from 1847 breaks so radically with the conventions of this era and dares to expose love as a destructive disease (and ends up to be more progressive than Emerald Fennel's movie adaptation) fascinates me as much as it disturbs me. It offers no comfort, it simply remains after reading it. And I think that's why it took me so long to sort my thoughts on this masterpiece.