You know, I tried. I really did. I was only 20, but still . . . a failure is a failure. I did make it to the end, but so what? I completely failed to get it. Worse, I completely failed to enjoy it.

Lots of people I really respect did get it, and did enjoy it. If not for them, I would suspect the entire thing of being a sham. I enjoyed "Portrait" but still found something . . . cold or hollow in it. Same thing with "Dubliners". Technically brilliant, but only "The Dead" really moved me.

You could easily persuade me that I'm to blame in my responses to all these. But I doubt anyone could ever convince me that Joyce could write poetry. I read through his poetry a few times, and every single poem sucked ass.

Yeah; I agree about Dubliners and The Dead (though I seem to recall there was one other story I liked). Ulysses is kind of a totemic smartypants book, so I'm still drawn to give it a shot.

I did that with Infinite Jest, and it was -- perhaps surprisingly -- really worth it. More than worth it. It's a great, great book, even with all its annoying features.

For a long time, I made a point of resisting reading the Monsters of Literature, partly from perversity, partly on the principle that they just couldn't be as good as their press. But most of the canon-ish stuff I've read really has been great.

Except Wuthering Heights.

I read Wuthering Heights a long time ago, but I remember liking it. Course, that's probably because I can relate to all the smoldering dark passion.

I loved Wuthering Heights. Its in my top ten all time favourite novels. I thought it was absolutely brilliant.

As to Ulysses, I too have failed to appreciate it. More than that, I don't understand how other people are able to get it. It seems to me that it must be fundementally incomprehensible unless you lived in Dublin around the time it was written. I equally find Don Quixote entirely unapproacheable. Understandable yes. Interesting absolutely not. And certainly not the least bit funny these modern days.

Jesus, Don Quixote? That's an awesome book. And call me a pretentious git, but I actually found it pretty funny.

Other possible counts against me for being a pretentious git: I found Gargantua and Pantagruel funny, as well as Tristram Shandy (though footnotes are absolutely crucial for the latter).

Well, I read Wuthering Heights long, long ago; I was probably 17. But I recall it being a lot of "you're such a jerk, I can't help but love you", a plotline which I deeply despise. Is that memory accurate, or should I re-evaluate?

Gosh, I don't remember much of Wuthering Heights. I think I read it when I was 14. I keep meaning to reread it, though. I'll file a report if I do.

Yeah, Chris, I remember when I first met you, you were reading Gargantua and Pantagruel. A bit too scatalogical for my taste.

As to Wuthering Heights Anne...I like it so obviously I think its more than "you're a jerk and I love you". I found it exceptionally atmospheric - gloomy, socially claustrophobic. It gave me a sense of the everyday horror of living in isolated, rural nineteenth century north of england where the patriach's word was law. That sort of thing is common enough in a lot of nineteenth century "gothic" fiction but no where is it so well developed as in WH in my opinion.
And I liked the class interaction between the upwardly mobile Heathcliff and the established gentry and the way that worked out on personal levels. I always tend to root for the underdog so the tragedy of Heathcliff's ultimate failure was moving for me. And I found the love story moving too. It was so tragic being mucked up as it was with questions of property and all that.

hey, I stumbled onto this site while looking for info for a Greek research paper, and it was interesting, so I kept reading, and found your dilema over what Wuthering Heights was about. Seemings how I just finished reading it as part of my English 30-1 course for my High School diploma, I figured I might be able to lend a hand. WH is a novel by Emily Bronte that spans over about 50 years, covering 2 generations. The beginning is about an orphan (possibly an illegitimate child of Mr. Earnshaw) who was named Heathcliff (served as both first and last names). Mr. Earnshaw had a daughter Catherine and a son, Hindley. Everyone but Catherine hated Heathcliff and regularily abused him. Catherine and Heathcliff loved each other deeply, but when Mr. Earnshaw dies, Hindley gets custody of Catherine and Heathcliff and makes Heathcliff little more than a stable hand. Catherine admits to the housekeeper and her confidante Nelly(also the storyteller for the most part of the book) that "it would degrade me to marry Heathcliff." Heathcliff overhears this and runs away. He returns 3 years later stinking rich, shortly after Catherine and Edgar Linton marry. Heathcliff is bent on getting revenge on whoever hurt him in the past. He has Hindley morgage his house to himself to support a gambling and drinking problem. He marries Edgar' sister, Isabella, impregnates her, he also beats her often. Isabella runs far away and has a son by Heathcliff named Linton. Catherine, who since childhood has used temper tantrums to get what she wants, causes herself to become sick, both mentally and physically. She is sick for about a year, then dies while giving birth to a daughter, named Catherine. Young Catherine, most often called Cathy, is hated by Heathcliff (probably because she is the product of Catherine's choice of marrying Edgar rather than him), yet adored by Edgar and leads a very sheltered life. Isabella dies, and Linton goes to Heathcliff to be raised. Cathy meets Linton, Heathcliff and Hindley's son, Hareton, when she goes "exploring" and leaves Thrushcross Grange property only to end up on Wuthering Heights property. Cathy and Linton(a very sickly child) form an attachment, but Edgar and Nelly both disapprove. Nevertheless, they secretly correspond everyday through letters. Heathcliff holds Nelly and Cathy as prisoners in his house and forces Linton and Cathy to marry. This marriage helps him with the whole revenge preoccupation because it puts Linton as sole inheritor of all of Thrushcross Grange as Edgar had no son. Having Linton as inheritor and Heathcliff's weak-willed son, this gives him possession of Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. Edgar dies, Cathy is dirt poor, and forced to live with Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights when Linton dies. All of Heathcliff's life plans of revenge are unsuccessful when Cathy forms an attachment with Hareton. Heathcliff dies, and a young boy out on the moors sees Heathcliff and "a woman" ghosts on the moors, and we are lead to believe that even though Heathcliff and Catherine could not be together in life, they were together in death. Cathy and Hareton, in the end of the novel, are happy together, and set to marry soon. This novel I personally found somewhat hard to follow in somespots, and most definately boring when Lockwood tells the story for the fist 50 pages as he tends to go on and on, some of his sentences spanning half the page! But over all, it was a good read! I hope this helps!

Good lord. I hope you got an A.

(But wasn't the question "Why is it good?")