Literature and Twilight.
So, I realize that me just writing summaries of my day is kind of boring. I’ll try not to do that all the time.
Today was an interesting day though. Kayleigh, Lillian and I drove to Perry to request some public records. Some of the places apparently don’t exist, and we were driving around for 30 minutes trying to find them. That was annoying. We’re requesting records for someone else’s article– meaning, we’re doing the grunt work for someone else and she’s going to put her name on the byline. But we have to do it since it’s an assignment, and I’m not a fan of failing. What really bothers me though is that some of the records that she gave us are ones that are not actually public, so I looked like a huge jerk-idiot while this judge pulls out this huge book and reads me some section of some article. Then made a copy of it for me. I just feel like this woman, as a professional journalist, should know which records are public and which are restricted. That’s all.
More importantly though, I discovered that Lillian loves 3 Ninjas. She is the first person outside of my family who has seen this movie, and I was convinced I had made it up until about a year ago. You don’t understand how exciting this is.
Anyway, what I actually wanted to blog about is this. If you didn’t click the article, it basically says that Wuthering Heights now has a Twilight cover and that sales are boosting. (The cover has the tagline “Bella and Edward’s favorite book”).
Are you kidding me? ARE YOU KIDDING ME?
I know Stephanie Meyer impresses the 13 year old girls who read those vapid collections of words with fancy books like Wuthering Heights and Mansfield Park, but people who actually read literature recognize the fact she has no idea what she’s talking about.
Bella, the whiny female lead, loves Wuthering Heights and Meyer just hits her audience over the head with forced parallels.
People realize that Wuthering Heights isn’t really a happy love story, right? I mean, that’s pretty obvious. Love (loose term) is what destroys them. It doesn’t bring them together. They go INSANE. It’s not romantic the way Heathcliff tortures people or digs up her body so that he can snuggle with it. That’s just creepy. Cathy’s not likable either. In fact, she’s a huge biatch who manipulates people to get whatever she wants– even though she doesn’t know exactly what that is.
That’s the whole point: Wuthering Heights is not romantic. They aren’t Darcy and Elizabeth, they aren’t Westley and Buttercup, they aren’t Cosette and Marius. I know people think this is the ultimate romance, but it’s not. It’s obsession, creepy obsession disguised as intense love. But they’re just insane. INSANE.
I guess they’re perfect for each other in the sense that they manipulate and use everyone around them because they’re emotional sadomasochists. They love destroying everyone and everything. The second generation mirrors the first, and Heathcliff is still messing with them. Selfishness and regret don’t make love, they make terrible people.
Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy Wuthering Heights, I just wish people would interpret it correctly. It’s not a love story. That’s all.
And what’s more: Wuthering Heights is literature, Twilight is a collection of words, typos and grammatical errors. Also, it’s just stupid.
On a happier note: I have my schedule and I have started to finalize my Honors Thesis.
Quote of the day: “Dreams do come true, if only we wish hard enough. You can have anything in life if you will sacrifice everything else for it.”— J.M. Barrie, Peter Pan
Kathleen Blogs 
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Garrett Crozier , kathleen erin. kathleen erin said: Day three, where I talk[rant] about a link from @fuggirls concerning Twilight and Wuthering Heights: http://bit.ly/91B40V […]
Rocky loves Emily. Rocky loves Emily. Rocky loves Emily.
(I’m gonna be a creepy stalker and comment on your blog a lot, mkay? I promise not to dig up your dead body and snuggle with it though).
I’m super okay with that. I like comments. I also like you.
We should have an awesome movie marathon before you leave for NYC.
PS- Kayleigh watched Newsies. Yessss.
I should have read this comment before making a comment on a more recent post about educating Kayleigh in nineties movie musicals. YES TO THE MOVIE MARATHON.
thank you.
i saw the rebranded book in the local bookstore and just about threw a fit. wuthering heights is my favourite bronte novel, partly because of the atypically unlikable main characters and partly because the language is so evocative, and the plot is so strange from a historical perspective. i just cry inside at the thought that an entire generation will link emily bronte with stephenie meyer. talk about dragging her name through the mud. and i’m sad that it took that piece of drivel for bronte to become popular, too. not to mention i hate the idea of myself being anything like bella (in that i like the book as well.)
the chinese have a wonderful saying that translates as ‘to teach fish how to swim’ (showing off your rudimentary skill before an expert). to me, that pretty much sums up everything that there is to be said about meyer using wuthering heights in her drivel, or even thinking about trying to draw a parallel between her characters and bronte’s.
i would say heathcliff and catherine fit edward and bella in that one is creepily obsessed and the other is…ok, catherine doesn’t really fit bella. maybe she’s how bella wishes she could be? but aside from whether they parallel each other or not…wuthering heights is not good foreshadowing at all, considering h and c never end up together and, as you say, love destroying everyone and everything. it’s almost as if meyer ignored the first chapter, read the next few, and then gave up on it.
i have to say though, that if she gets more people to read wuthering heights, it’s not completely a bad thing. i’m just thinking about how shocked the 13 yr old girls will be when they read it. xDD
however, i have to point out that #1 it’s not edward and bella’s favourite book, it’s bella’s. edward hates the book – he mentions at least once that it’s not a love story, the characters are unlikeable, they destroy each other, and he has no idea why bella keeps rereading it. i don’t remember the exact words and refuse to own a copy of the book. 🙂 #2 the other romance that keeps getting brought up in twilight, and that i think edward likes better, is romeo and juliet. he quotes lines from that at her quite a bit, if i remember correctly. considering how *that* romance ended…um, yeah. *wince*
though i would argue that cosette and marius would fit edward and bella perfectly (vapid, whiny, love at first sight-ness). i never liked them either. always thought eponine was too good for marius, even if she’s a street rat and he’s an aristocrat student. but then i wanted christine to end up with the phantom too. maybe i just have a thing for the underdog. 😀
i’ve talked enough…will leave you alone now. sorry…i don’t often get the chance to talk books. most of my contemporaries think twilight is advanced reading, way above their level, and don’t know who charles dickens is, much less emily bronte. i’m not sure they’re aware the lord of the rings is a book. anyway. done now.