Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre

[issybird]

Originally Posted by poppypete

I read JE as a teenage and WH in my twenties. JE was quite good, liked to come back to it sometimes. But WH was a disaster - totally unrealistic narration from an old woman of things she somehow never forgot (in detail) and scenes she never witnessed. It didn't really appeal to me in any way, so definitely JE. Villette was nice, though I can't remember much of it. Need to check out The Tenant of Wildfell Hall

I have to stick up for WH here! I thought Emily Brontë was scrupulous in regard to Nelly Dean's narration, limiting it to things she saw or was told, however unlikely. Nor was Nelly an old woman; she was a contemporary of Hindley's and thus only a few years Healthcliff's senior. The story might be implausible, but I think both books score pretty high on the implausibility scale.

I think Villette a superior novel to Jane Eyre, but it lacks the compulsive sweep of the latter.

[BelleZora]

I followed Jane Eyre with Wuthering Heights. I'm on Team Jane. I was immersed in Jane Eyre beginning to end, but Wuthering Heights was a slog for me. I wanted to love it, but it wasn't happening.

[gmw]

Dave Allen put the kibosh on Wuthering Heights for me. I'll never be able to even hear the title without chuckling at the memory of Dave Allen and (was it?) Jacqueline Clarke, calling to each other.

[poppypete]

Originally Posted by issybird

The story might be implausible, but I think both books score pretty high on the implausibility scale.

fair enough

[DiapDealer]

Originally Posted by gmw

Dave Allen put the kibosh on Wuthering Heights for me. I'll never be able to even hear the title without chuckling at the memory of Dave Allen and (was it?) Jacqueline Clarke, calling to each other.

Had to mention that my nostalgia meter just went off the scale at the mere mention of Dave Allen.

[BenG]

I seem to remember an SCTV Jane Eyre sketch featuring Joe Flaherty playing Rochester with an Eddie Anderson impersonation and going to work for Jack Benny after the fire.

[sun surfer]

Hm, all this time I've thought for sure I've already posted in this thread but seems I haven't.

I read both Wuthering Heights and Jane Eyre long ago and close together for school when I was a teen. I loved them both and both are two of my all-time favourites, but there is a clear winner here for me- Wuthering Heights.

They both have this beautiful gothic melancholy that I really like, but I think what sets Wuthering Heights apart, especially for its time period, is that it goes above and beyond with its originality and its fierce and fiery all-consuming passion. Spoilers ahead, so proceed carefully - but it can somewhat be compared to the woman locked in the attic in Jane Eyre. In that novel, such passion is a crazy Other, locked away and then destroyed, and then order is continued. In Wuthering Heights, such passion is forefront and consumes the major characters.

Similarly, the central couple of Jane Eyre is more conventional, even if Jane is very well written. The central couple of Wuthering Heights is very unconventional, again especially for its time. So I think Jane Eyre is a great book, but Wuthering Heights is even greater for its devouring eccentricities. Of course, taste and ymmv and all that, and I haven't read the books in forever, though I have seen the most recent films of each (both from around 2011).