Spotted these last week on a lunchtime bookshop browsing session. Was tempted on both counts! Such beautiful covers. The last time I read Wuthering Heights was at school in English literature class. It was the one book that stood out amongst all others and captivated me. And possibly every other girl in class. Probably the highlight of an otherwise fairly dull school experience was reading that book.

Heathcliff! Wow! He certainly livened up a pretty boring grammar school education! He was also the kind of man that many a young girl aspired to, not necessarily a good thing. But your average boy next door was pretty dull in comparison to the feisty, wild, masculine, passionate, dark, moody Heathcliff. He was the Call of the Wild. The Call to Adventure. And represented the type of passion mostly confined to Fairytales (Or Nightmares!), with his unwavering obsession and dedication to the story’s heroine both in Life and Death.

The windswept moors, doomed love, stately homes, wild horses and the elegant, tempestuous, somewhat spoilt Catherine, her own worst enemy choosing an ivory tower of emptiness with Linton over the earthy, enduring passion of her one true love Heathcliff. Those letters, the back and forth relationship, the mixed emotions, the ongoing drama and the moment Heathclifff eavesdropped on her talking about him and fled, hurt, without hearing the conversation in context. Aaaagh! But she really didn’t mean it. She was talking with her head not her heart. Too late. Poor Cathy. Poor Heathcliff. And he disappeared into the night.

“It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now; so he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he’s handsome, Nelly, but because he’s more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same; and Linton’s is as different as a moonbeam from lightning, or frost from fire.”

“My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods: time will change it, I’m well aware, as winter changes the trees. My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He’s always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don’t talk of our separation again: it is impracticable.”

“Oh! you said you cared nothing for my sufferings! And I pray one prayer—I repeat it till my tongue stiffens—Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living; you said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!”

Heathcliff, Wuthering Heights

I will read Wuthering Heights again and I want to pick the one with the most beautiful cover and perhaps an illustrated version. That would be amazing. Am also going to check out some Graphic Novel versions of Wuthering Heights. It is and always will be a Timeless yet utterly Tragic Classic. Thank-you Emily Bronte.

I have never read “Something Wicked this Way Comes”, written by Ray Bradbury in 1962. But remember seeing the film, produced by Disney in 1983 on TV. Really sinister about a storm brewing and the carnival coming to town and of course “Mr Dark”. A very powerful central character, also known as “The Illustrated Man” and “Leader of the Autumn People”. For every person who joined his Dark Pandemonium Carnival he had a tattoo on his body of each new recruit.

The small town is never the same after the circus arrives. There is excitement in the air, lives change, wishes are granted but there is a terrible price to pay.  There is a sinister Carousel scene that was creepily memorable and an intense library scene where there is a showdown between good and evil. It was a really good supernatural movie with some amazing characters and so many layers of meaning. Definitely going to watch it again and definitely going to read the book. “The library is always an adventure!” (Ray Bradbury, Something Wicked this Way Comes)

“By the pricking of my thumbs, Something Wicked this way Comes”

Macbeth, William Shakespeare

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