|
Grevling posted:Assegai by Wilbur Smith. The perfect white protagonist, the black best friend who is also his sevant but they're totally equals and the protagonist of course becomes an honorary Maasai and the Maasai have exotic spirit visions about the protagonist and his love interest. The extremely cartoonish villain, a German baron who tries to fly a loving blimp from Germany to Africa. That's his master plan and the center of the plot. Wilbur Smith books are "dad books" to me, along with Clive Cussler, Bernard Cornwell, Alistair MacLean etc., because they're my dad's favourites.
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 11:48
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 19:08 |
|
|
The thing to remember about Wuthering Heights is that it's a horror story. An isolated rural community with one foot in the world of the supernatural has to deal with a direct manifestation (Heathcliff and his unnatural bond with Catherine), handles it extremely poorly, and pays the price. The violation of taboo is there to shock, yes, but to shock with a purpose - it reminds us that we're in an alien, hostile world now, and ordinary human social norms will not protect us. As in any horror story, there are points when we're encouraged to feel satisfaction at an ordinary, human monster getting some of what's coming to them (Hindley) and points when we're simply encouraged to feel terror and sorrow at the fate of an innocent victim (Isabella). In fact, it's actually a little more hopeful than most novels of its genre Heathcliff is, if not redeemed, at least defused by the end, and Hareton and Cathy Junior manage to put their horrific pasts behind them and begin to live healthy, happy lives together.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 12:31
|
|
|
I dunno about the supernatural element, but there's definitely something to it about cycles of abuse and Romeo and Juliet style young dumb love having horrific consequences. I do like that the framing device is an outsider hearing the story from a servant and proceeding to bugger off from all of these crazy people, but then returning some time later to sheepishly realise the survivors worked things out for themselves without his help.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 12:47
|
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:I dunno about the supernatural element, but there's definitely something to it about cycles of abuse and Romeo and Juliet style young dumb love having horrific consequences. There’s a clear supernatural element. Apart from Cathy Senior killing herself through sheer force of will and then returning as a ghost, there’s Heathcliff himself, the ‘queer, dark little thing’ of alien emotions and alien powers. Something to understand about Wuthering Heights is that it’s a Gothic romance, and Gothic literature is basically reactive commentary on a previous genre, Romance. Basically, Romance was the pursuit of the ‘sublime’, the alien, unknowable, and transcendent, which Romantics like Wordsworth and Shelley held as the truest form of beauty. Gothic stories are more cynical - the sublime can be beautiful, but its alien incompatibility with humanity is as terrifying as it is alluring. It’s a big reason for Wuthering Heights’s multiple layers of unreliable narrators - they exist to preserve the mystery of what, exactly happened, because the sublime is not something the human mind can truly process. Even Lockwood, who literally saw a ghost, still has difficulty believing what happened by the end of the book.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 13:42
|
|
|
Oh, right. It's been a long while since I read it. Edgar Allen Poe would be firmly within the original Gothic tradition then?
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 14:10
|
|
|
Oh, god, yes.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 14:50
|
|
|
Poe is probably like the first person most people would associate with the phrase "Gothic literature."
|
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 18:18
|
|
|
The Vosgian Beast posted:You want fries with that persecution complex? And to think I left out the joke about lit majors working at McDonalds on purpose.
|
|
#
?
Nov 5, 2017 23:30
|
|
|
ryonguy posted:And to think I left out the joke about lit majors working at McDonalds on purpose. Facebook uncle spotted
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 03:59
|
|
|
Fair nuff, it's super obvious now that I think about it, just wanted to be sure since I'm not familiar with the actual original trappings of Gothic rather than its mutated descendants.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 04:31
|
|
|
Darth Walrus posted:There’s a clear supernatural element. Apart from Cathy Senior killing herself through sheer force of will and then returning as a ghost, there’s Heathcliff himself, the ‘queer, dark little thing’ of alien emotions and alien powers. Something to understand about Wuthering Heights is that it’s a Gothic romance, and Gothic literature is basically reactive commentary on a previous genre, Romance. Basically, Romance was the pursuit of the ‘sublime’, the alien, unknowable, and transcendent, which Romantics like Wordsworth and Shelley held as the truest form of beauty. Gothic stories are more cynical - the sublime can be beautiful, but its alien incompatibility with humanity is as terrifying as it is alluring. It’s a big reason for Wuthering Heights’s multiple layers of unreliable narrators - they exist to preserve the mystery of what, exactly happened, because the sublime is not something the human mind can truly process. Even Lockwood, who literally saw a ghost, still has difficulty believing what happened by the end of the book. Gothic literature is hardly a reaction to the Romantic; it began at the same time or earlier... Are you sure Wuthering Heights is supernatural? It's been a while since I read it, but Heathcliff's alien-ness is rhetorical and the ghost is a matter of perception, could go either way. It certainly flirts with the supernatural though. Safety Biscuits has a new favorite as of 05:08 on Nov 6, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 05:05
|
|
|
All I know about Heathcliff: Heathcliff, no one should terrify the neighborhood. But Heathcliff just won't be outdone, playing pranks on everyone.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 05:29
|
|
|
Pretty accurate.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 06:09
|
|
|
Safety Biscuits posted:Gothic literature is hardly a reaction to the Romantic; it began at the same time or earlier... The supernatural was almost always a metaphor that could be explained away by a character being hysterical or insane in a lot of Gothic works. They're still pretty supernatural in tone.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 07:58
|
|
|
Safety Biscuits posted:Are you sure Wuthering Heights is supernatural?
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 10:12
|
|
|
There's actually been Serious Articles written about how Heathcliff is a vampire. Well, a metaphorical vampire, not a literal one.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 11:12
|
|
|
Screaming Idiot posted:All I know about Heathcliff: Heathcliff, no one should terrify the neighborhood. But Heathcliff just won't be outdone, playing pranks on everyone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=el9kKP3aZbE
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 13:27
|
|
|
Safety Biscuits posted:Gothic literature is hardly a reaction to the Romantic; it began at the same time or earlier... Yeah, I should have been more specific. The Gothic movement as a whole predates Romanticism by some distance, but the particular vein of mid-to-late-nineteenth century British Gothicism that Wuthering Heights was part of was heavily influenced by Romanticism. As for the supernatural elements, as I mentioned, keeping it vague and (mostly) otherwise explicable is just part of the genre, but there’s enough weird poo poo going on to let you know that something outside normal human experience is going on here. Heathcliff’s bizarre death-by-haunting is another example.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 13:43
|
|
|
All this reminds me of is Mansfield Park, Jane Austen’s parody of Gothic lit and its critique. The main character is a Gothic uberfan and inadvertently causes trouble when she visits the titular manor and imagines all the residents entangled in genre tropes (“the whole west wing is closed for renovations? The Lord of the Manor must have a crazy first wife hidden there!!!”). All ends well, but one of the takeaways is not believing in rumors and the supernatural when there are perfectly rational explanations as well as not getting too caught up in the stories one reads. vvv gah thank you I always transpose those two titles!!!! SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL has a new favorite as of 03:06 on Nov 7, 2017 |
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 13:49
|
|
|
Northanger Abbey  Darth Walrus posted:Yeah, I should have been more specific. The Gothic movement as a whole predates Romanticism by some distance, but the particular vein of mid-to-late-nineteenth century British Gothicism that Wuthering Heights was part of was heavily influenced by Romanticism. Tiggum posted what I thought was right; it's ambiguous, which seems like the best solution to me. I just thought you said it was explicitly supernatural within the text.
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 16:57
|
|
|
Turn of the Screw went completely over my head for this exact reason. Oh no, ghosts! Or are they!?!?!
|
|
#
?
Nov 6, 2017 17:10
|
|
|
So I love Gothic stories. That's 100% my jam. I still CANNOT hate Wuthering Heights enough. And that "layers of unreliable narrators" is almost half of it. Because if you tell me the narrator is unreliable after I read a story that I absolutely hate, what I am getting out of this is that the writer of the book is an rear end in a top hat. Oh, the story was comically overly dire to the point where a super misanthropic, clinically depressed teenager thought it was laying it on way the hell too thick, but that's just because the maid's a bitch! gently caress you, writer. I'm going back to Poe where at least I don't shrug when people die just because they deserved it and I'm not disappointed when anyone survives. Save that for crappy Eli Roth horror movies. In retrospect, I think the unreliable narrator thing pisses me off because the entire story is told by an unreliable narrator, not just certain events that are open to interpretation based on perception. When it's all that vague, then what's the point? The other half is the reaction of people saying how it's such a powerful romance. No, none of that was romantic, stop it right this instant. It was abusive. STOP. Also, the mood really didn't work for me. At some point, I felt like it was trying so hard to be dark that it failed to set any mood other than "fake". The aforementioned "child casually murdering puppies in the background" detail, for example? By the time I got to that, I was so deadened to feeling anything but irritation from that book that I didn't notice it until a classmate said something stupid about it. I don't like hearing about animals being hurt in general, but I was incapable of caring anymore. Honestly, that book gave me such a viscerally negative reaction that maybe THAT was supernatural. I've never quite hated a book like I hate Wuthering Heights. Even learning more about it just irritates me more. When I die, I can be turned into an infinite motion machine just by playing the audiobook of Wuthering Heights at my grave. I'll never stop spinning. anyway, that's enough about how Victorian not-romance hell makes me see red
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 02:47
|
|
|
Northanger Abbey is the best. My favorite thing is the laundry list. I used to teach The Castle of Otranto and Northanger Abbey in succession, just so students would get the joke.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 02:59
|
|
|
And now I'm wondering how much the first part of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is basically a mashup of Wuthering Heights and Dracula through an extremely anime lens.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 04:05
|
|
|
Midnight Voyager posted:So I love Gothic stories. That's 100% my jam. I still CANNOT hate Wuthering Heights enough. And that "layers of unreliable narrators" is almost half of it. Because if you tell me the narrator is unreliable after I read a story that I absolutely hate, what I am getting out of this is that the writer of the book is an rear end in a top hat. Oh, the story was comically overly dire to the point where a super misanthropic, clinically depressed teenager thought it was laying it on way the hell too thick, but that's just because the maid's a bitch! gently caress you, writer. I'm going back to Poe where at least I don't shrug when people die just because they deserved it and I'm not disappointed when anyone survives. Save that for crappy Eli Roth horror movies. The idea that Wuthering Heights is a romance is a product of people finding out the author was a woman. Before that everyone just talked about how dark it was and whether that was good or satanic.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 04:52
|
|
|
Inescapable Duck posted:And now I'm wondering how much the first part of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure is basically a mashup of Wuthering Heights and Dracula through an extremely anime lens. You're missing the stir-in of Hellraiser
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 04:54
|
|
|
Midnight Voyager posted:When I die, I can be turned into an infinite motion machine just by playing the audiobook of Wuthering Heights at my grave. I'll never stop spinning. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 07:30
|
|
|
Midnight Voyager posted:The other half is the reaction of people saying how it's such a powerful romance. No, none of that was romantic, stop it right this instant. It was abusive. STOP. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 10:07
|
|
|
there wolf posted:The idea that Wuthering Heights is a romance is a product of people finding out the author was a woman. Before that everyone just talked about how dark it was and whether that was good or satanic. It is more likely that it was a female pseudonym; as I recall, Edmund: A Butler's Tale (a great rollercoaster of a novel, crammed with sizzling gypsies) by Gertrude Perkins was actually written by a man under a false name.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 10:07
|
|
|
are you saying Emily Bronte, the real life person who wrote under the male pseudonym Ellis Bell, is likely to have been a female pseudonym?
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 11:28
|
|
|
The purpose of the multiple unreliable narrators in Wuthering Heights is both to show that what happened was in many ways beyond human understanding (because you’ve got the literary effect of a whole bunch of people trying to wrap their brains around something inhuman) and to demonstrate that something extraordinary did happen - it’s important to note that when someone describes weird poo poo, it will be something they grudgingly acknowledge because it goes against the grain of their own biases, or they will gloss over it while making it clear to the reader that they’re mistaken to do so. It’s very much in the vein that would later be pastiched by Lovecraft’s cosmic horror - it’s clear that poo poo went down, and it’s also clear that our tiny human minds do not have the faintest chance of processing exactly what happened and why. All we know is that a strange boy named Heathcliff came into the community one day, that he formed a strange attachment with his adoptive sister, and that when he could not have her, he disappeared, came back as a mighty man of mysterious means, and destroyed said community for the insult, before dying himself by similarly mysterious means.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 11:54
|
|
|
Djeser posted:are you saying Emily Bronte, the real life person who wrote under the male pseudonym Ellis Bell, is likely to have been a female pseudonym? It's a Blackadder joke, ya goof.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 12:14
|
|
|
Djeser posted:are you saying Emily Bronte, the real life person who wrote under the male pseudonym Ellis Bell, is likely to have been a female pseudonym? Jesus Christ dude.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 15:03
|
|
|
Vincent Van Goatse posted:Jesus Christ dude. Are you getting mad at someone for not recognizing an obscure joke from a 1980s British sitcom? Because that’s not exactly common knowledge. I’ve seen the show myself and even I didn’t get the reference until Rascar Capac explained it.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 16:09
|
|
|
I probably shouldn't have made a joke, sorry. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 16:28
|
|
|
Wheat Loaf posted:I probably shouldn't have made a joke, sorry.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 16:28
|
|
|
Wheat Loaf posted:It is more likely that it was a female pseudonym; as I recall, Edmund: A Butler's Tale (a great rollercoaster of a novel, crammed with sizzling gypsies) by Gertrude Perkins was actually written by a man under a false name. Well it would have been if the manuscript hadn't been lost in a tragic fire.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 18:52
|
|
|
Oh it's just a Monty Python reference. Carry on. 
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 19:24
|
|
|
Djeser posted:Oh it's just a Monty Python reference. Carry on. Blackadder.
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 20:11
|
|
|
|
| # ? May 17, 2024 19:08 |
|
|
i am viscerally disgusted by you people
|
|
#
?
Nov 7, 2017 23:23
|
|