Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte is the most hateful, toxic yet passionate and compelling “love story” I’ve ever read.

SPOILER-FREE THOUGHTS AHEAD

Just an hour ago, I finished Wuthering Heights and I've scarcely collected my thoughts. Despite the Victorian era prose and suffocatingly toxic cast of characters, I found myself captivated by the story and prose. With a cynical wit I've scarcely seen in other books, Wuthering Heights builds a bleak little town filled with cantankerous and none-too-bright people. Even the educated folks are either pompous rich brats like Cathy, or genuine psychopaths like our loveable Heathcliff.

What immediately stood out for me was just how viscerally Emily Bronte wrote about love and hate. She doesn't just have characters say how they feel, oh no, no, no. She relishes in having characters perform unhinged rants about the sheer extent of their passion or contempt for one another. Highlights include:

Nelly: "For shame, Heathcliffe, let God punish the wicked, and learn to forgive "

Heathcliffe: "God won't have the satisfaction that I shall."

Or

Cathy, seeing the most hateable man in existence: "Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same"

And many, many more.

But through all the clever dialogue and captivating drama, what I adore most about Wuthering Heights is that it's secretly another genre: horror.

More specifically, gothic horror. It doesn't have any campy wraiths like A Christmas Carol, but it most definitely has "ghosts." Wuthering Heights, and it's gloomy inhabitants, actively spite outsiders that foolishly try to bring it to the present, so obsessed it is with the past. Those who stay long enough eventually become "ghosts" of themselves, fated to linger on past regrets, fueled naught by hatred.

Of course, the book has actual ghosts, but I love how unsettling it's manifestations are. The lone "ghost" never quite reveals itself, only through subtle prods, tricks of the eyes, and gentle whispers. It's almost pathetic, and yet there's a dogged determination in these unruly wraiths to never let the living exist in peace.

Thematically, the theme of "ghosts" applies to the overarching theme of obssession and revenge too. When the living commit themselves to hatred, then they're no better off than the dead they try to avenge.

I haven't even talked about the brilliantly subtle comments on class, the rare yet witty comedy, or the complexities of each and every character. All I can say is if you like to read about miserable people with horrible lives like my masochistic self, then Wuthering Heights is the book for you.