lacedtight replied to your photoset
To be fair, the characters ARE all horrible people, and you DO want bad things to happen to many of them. Reviews have been saying this since the book was first published.
Context is everything. ;)
What we have here are a group of people who believe that hating a character is an insult to the novel. They are having a strong emotional reaction to Bronte’s writing and interpreting that as boredom, dismissing the novel because they didn’t like the feelings it evoked in them. “Bad” characters are automatically equated with bad writing. In all, they see these problems (that were put into the storyline deliberately) and think that merits a one-star review.
On the other hand, you have people who hate the characters and wish for their death while recognizing that it takes an extremely skilled author to push them to that point. When the book was first published, many reviewers marveled that someone could pen such a plot without spinning into depression and suicide. They saw it as wild, savage, brutal, and so new that it was impossible not to feel awe towards it. Even those who hated it admitted to desperately needing to finish the book and being struck by the sheer power of each character.
Are you allowed to hate Catherine and Heathcliffe? Oh god yes. Should you want them to die? Probably. But does all that mean your reading experience was wasted, that this is therefore an awful book? Absolutely not. If someone hates Wuthering Heights, I’d hope for a better reason than “stupid characters.” I’d take you more seriously if you felt nothing towards them.
![The Book: ”Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
Reviewed by an anonymous user on Amazon:
THERE IS REALLLY ACTUALLY TWO WORDS THAT I THINK SUMS UP Jane Eyre boring and senseless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reviewed by “Mark” on Amazon:
Based on the fact that the average review is 4.5 stars, I’m going to assume that most of the reviewers have been women. That said, I think I’ll offer a different perspective than the rest of the reviewers. That perspective is that this book is one of the most boring, bland, lifetime-ish wastes of paper known to (wo)man. To give an example of what I mean, it takes 3 CHAPTERS to lead up to the failed wedding! The author goes into great detail describing every little minute insignificant meaningless thing that happens (such as a chapter for her to say she didn’t want Rochester’s gifts)-and it takes her 20 frickin pages to say that she’s leaving a guy. Somehow, this got to be considered a literary classic about feminine empowerment. Just don’t complain about guys liking stuff like Die Hard and football games and not being in touch with their feminine side after having to read [stuff] like this in English class.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0qbruKh611qfai32o1_500.png)
The Book: ”Jane Eyre” by Charlotte Bronte
Reviewed by an anonymous user on Amazon:
THERE IS REALLLY ACTUALLY TWO WORDS THAT I THINK SUMS UP Jane Eyre boring and senseless!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reviewed by “Mark” on Amazon:
Based on the fact that the average review is 4.5 stars, I’m going to assume that most of the reviewers have been women. That said, I think I’ll offer a different perspective than the rest of the reviewers. That perspective is that this book is one of the most boring, bland, lifetime-ish wastes of paper known to (wo)man. To give an example of what I mean, it takes 3 CHAPTERS to lead up to the failed wedding! The author goes into great detail describing every little minute insignificant meaningless thing that happens (such as a chapter for her to say she didn’t want Rochester’s gifts)-and it takes her 20 frickin pages to say that she’s leaving a guy. Somehow, this got to be considered a literary classic about feminine empowerment. Just don’t complain about guys liking stuff like Die Hard and football games and not being in touch with their feminine side after having to read [stuff] like this in English class.
The Book: “Wuthering Heights” by Emily Bronte
Reviewed by an anonymous user on Amazon:
I am repelled by the absurd peregrinations of Bronte’s spiteful, petty-spirited, self-absorbed characters. The character of Heathcliff is that of a nightmarish beast, and Catherine isn’t much better. And yet Emily Bronte wants us to LIKE these people. I read this book at the same time as OTHELLO, and to be honest I found my self liking even Iago better than these shallow fools — at least Iago probably deserved to be a lieutenant! If this is a classic, then so’s the phone book. It’s ludicrous, witless, and excessively overwritten to boot. At one point, the reader of WUTHERING HEIGHTS will realize that there have been five (or so) mawkish death scenes, some fights and scuffles, and countless effusions of absurd and overblown emotion. And yet one is less than halfway through the book, and Bronte’s still wuthering along as if the reader were yet awake. Again, I must compare it to OTHELLO, and find that in all respects it comes up short — Othello even has better Moors. It’s not a classic — it’s a really old British romance novel.
“I am satisfied that if a book is a good one, it is so whatever the sex of the author may be. All novels are or should be written for both men and women to read, and I am at a loss to conceive how a man should permit himself to write anything that would be really disgraceful to a woman, or why a woman should be censured for writing anything that would be proper and becoming for a man.”
"It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquillity: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it."
- Charlotte Bronte, Jane Eyre (via chamaeri)
Emily Brontes Wuthering Heights.
"Charlotte’s Bronte’s Jane Eyre is among the greatest of gothic novels, a page turner of such startling power, it leaves its pale latter-day imitators like Twilight flopping for air like a stranded fish."
- Roger Ebert (via thatwetshirt)
(via devouringbooks)
"I shall be called discontented. I could not help it: the restlessness was in my nature; it agitated me to pain sometimes."
- Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
