Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Wuthering Heights,' by Emily Brontë

Cats played another move. She played Stoop for 36 points. I've got a Z, which is 10 points.

“I'm guessing Tango is not a word, let's see.”

Tango is a word. Oh, Dan played his last turn. Let's see who won. It's so close. But I did win.

New York Times game subscribers get full access to Crossplay. Our first two player word game. Subscribe now for a special offer on all of our games. I'm Gilbert Cruz, and this is the book review for The New York Times. On this week's episode, our monthly book club discussion hosted by MJ Franklin.

February marked the peak of Wuthering Heights fever given the recent film adaptation and MJ gathered a fantastic group of book review editors to talk about Emily Bronte's Gothic Classic. MJ, over to you. Hello, and welcome to another book club episode of the book review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin, and you know, it's funny.

We here at the book review are always watching out for what books are popping in a year.

What books are sticking, what are the books readers don't want to miss. And so far this year, it seems like there's been one big, it book that everybody is talking about. Yep, you guessed it. It's Wuthering Heights, a book that originally published in 1847, and yet it seems to be the event of 2026 so far. In general, the book is a perennial reader favorite, but this year it got a big boost

back into the zeitgeist because of a new film adaptation by Emerald Fennel, the director behind movies like Promising Your Woman and Saltburn. And we thought a great beloved classic that's back in the conversation. That sounds like a book club pick for us. And join me in our Wuthering Heights deep dive or several of my esteemed colleagues.

First up, we have two returning guests. Jen Harlan, hi, Jen. Hi, MJ. And Sadie Stein, hi, Sadie. Thank you for having me.

We also have a first-time book clumber, a big newcomer. Neema, Jeremy. Hi, MJ. I said it's such a deep voice, such a good timber. That's my Heathcliff voice.

Oh, my God. And here are the wins on the more is now. Neema, you've been at the book review for a while.

You've joined other podcast episodes, but never a book club.

“By way of introduction, can you tell us what you do here at the book review and what you like to read?”

I am a preview editor who looks at non-fiction books. History, politics, a lot of war, a lot of violence. Not a lot of books like Wuthering Heights. Unfortunately, although I wasn't English major in college and read Wuthering Heights as part of kind of masterpieces of English class in high school. Which, can I blow up your smile a little bit?

You told us a very fun fact about Wuthering Heights and high school. Can you share that with us? Do you feel comfortable? Oh, what was the fun fact? You told me that the paper you wrote of Wuthering Heights was the only paper you got in a high school.

Is this true? Oh, that's right. And now looking back at it, I'm not even really sure I read Wuthering Heights back in high school. I may have just done a search online on Gutenberg for the word fire and then read the paragraph around every instance of that word and then wrote an essay based on that. The truth comes out.

We're already only a few minutes in. You've given us a lot to consider. Welcome to Brooklyn. I guess it's feisty already. I did read it this time though, I promise. Thank you. And that actually sounds like kind of a lot of work.

Quinten to it. Almost as much as reading the microphone more. Yeah. I'm excited for you to join us for this book club. I'm excited for you as well, Sadie Jen.

Before we dive into our Wuthering Heights conversation, I have my typical admin notes. General note, there will be spoilers in this episode.

“If you want to avoid spoilers, pause this, go read the book and then come back.”

You may have already absorbed spoilers. Again, this came out in 1847. But we are going to dive all the way in. Second, we will discuss the film adaptation of Wuthering Heights later in this episode. This is the book podcast. We'll focus on the book itself for the most part. But in the back half we'll dive into the book.

We'll try to keep that very spoiler light.

But that is coming up. And then after that, we'll also talk about recommendations as we always do.

So there's a fun second half. And then last but not least, at the end of the episode, we will reveal our March book club picks. So stay with us and to the end to find out what we're reading next. And with that, let's dive in to get started. Nima, could you give us a brief setup of Wuthering Heights in one minute or less?

I'm putting you on a timer. Is your initiation your hazing? Can you give us a set up one second and get my timer ready? You have one minute. Start egg.

No. All right. And if there can be any rain sound effects added to this new wind?

I would appreciate that. It's going to be the wind to the back.

The story begins with a basically a city guy named Mr. Lockwood who rents a house in the Yorkshire countryside.

In a place, he thinks it's very beautiful but has very bad weather. His landlord is a kind of cranky guy named Heathcliffe who lives on a state called Wuthering Heights. Named after the bad weather. He got 30 seconds left. It's extremely unwelcoming.

“And then he goes back to his house and asks his housekeeper Nelly what the hell is going on with this guy?”

20 seconds. And then she tells him a really long story across many cities that is basically about how he was brought in. The landlord has this kind of tiny little kid that the father of the house basically found on the street and everything unravels from there. That is one minute. Well done.

I feel like there's so much else that happens in here. But part of the reason why I wanted to do the one minute challenge is because one level of game. And then two is there's so much that happens in this book that I feel like you can spend an hour just saying like this happens. And this is the context, etc. So this is the book review book club podcast, not the book recap podcast.

Exactly. Like I look at my notes here and I wrote possible necrophilia possible insists definite in all caps madness and violence. Anything that you would add, Jen. Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up. I think it is.

It is a thorny action packed book.

It's basically like a telenovela on the English moors with all of the drama and twist in terms that that implies.

It truly is. And Nema, you're a friend of the pod, you're a friend of mine. Sure. Let you finish with. [laughter]

Okay. Just to get out the scene, I will. It's still little fix. So basically, Nelly, the housekeeper tells Mr. Lockwood a really long story across many settings.

“They need a lot of breaks, which I think is a kind of fun thing for a frame narrator to do.”

And the story is basically about how Heathcliff as a young boy falls in love with Mr. Earnshaw, the earlier owner of Wuthering Heights dotter, a girl named Catherine. And Catherine grows increasingly obsessed with Heathcliff. But how can she be in love with this grimy little kid that are dad basically found on the street? Wuthering Heights is a ghost story.

It's a Gothic. It's a StarCraft romance. Maybe we're going to debate whether it is the greatest romance. Love story ever told. It's also a science experiment.

It crosses generations.

There are kids in the second half who rehearse the sins of their fathers and mothers.

It is dishy. It's gossipy. It's kind of like a reality show where Nelly, who was there for almost all of the events is kind of like the devious producer. And it just doesn't.

She's the Chris Harrison of this book. Yes. It just doesn't stop stressing you out. In other words, it's a masterpiece. It's done.

Well done. That was very long. It's a lot. I don't think anyone could sum up all of this book in one minute. There may be a debate.

But even she took longer than 60 cents. And she had the language of dance as well. Yes. And a song. So this is a book that I feel like has such like a lofty reputation.

I feel like it's like, rather even the name, rathering heights feels like this. Stately, he type of title. And then you read the book. You're like, this is wild. Like the backstory.

So I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on it. I'm going to start with you, Jen. Because this was your first time reading, weathering. Yes, correct. One of the new bees of the group.

How did you feel about the book? Like it. Hate it. Feel mixed. I have been grappling with this question since I read it.

I am no stranger to like the literature of this era as listeners of the podcast. Well, now I'm a Beijing Austin fan. I also had previously read and really loved Jane Eyre, which is by Emily Sister. Charlotte. And I love a Gothic story.

And so I went into this expecting something more along those lines.

“I think we're with a little bit of like a neater.”

Very gripping, but pretty logical and easy to follow narrative. And instead I found myself as disoriented as the people on the moors by the wind. A lot of people are referred to Emily as the poet of the bronte sisters. And there was definitely a lot of you can see that in the language. This book is almost feverish.

There's so much passion. And we can get into later, whether we consider this actually a love story, which I think Neema and I disagree on. But I think if I had read this when I was 15 and a teenager, who's front to low hadn't fully developed and who was like every feeling that you feel

feels like the biggest feeling that anyone has ever felt to know and has ever felt this way before,

Reading it as an adult. There were so many moments where I found like Nelly that I just wanted to grab the characters by the head and shake them. And so I found it both in rapturing and engrossing and also so messy and deeply frustrating. And all of the characters pretty much are completely unsympathetic. They make terrible decisions.

I don't know that any of them really understand what people call it a love story, but it's really like an obsession and co-dependency and revenge story. And so yeah, so I guess my answer to your question of did I like it is yes and no. I think so. There's something that you said that I loved.

It's the word feverish. For me that perfectly captures this book from the start because you get this like man, lockwood or narrator or the frame above the frame above the story. He comes in and there's a big storm. He's being chased by dogs.

He's in this room. There's names like it's wild and feverish. And then you get into what the story actually is and the passions of these characters. And it's the word that I wrote down a lot when I was reading it. It was volatile and this was the first time I read it as well.

I told my friends this who at first seemed shocked and then they were like wait a second.

You were never a 14 year old girl.

That's when they read the book and they were like our generation had twilight. Other generations had weathering heights. And I feel like you can from me I was like oh I see a direct line between us. In my notes, there's a lot of girl in all caps. That's a lot of like everyone is crazy.

What about you, Sadie and you've read this before and now you're reading it again. So I have a two-part question.

“First is when did you first read this and do you remember how you thought about it?”

And then the second part is how did you feel about it as an adult?

I will admit that I first read it in high school and then I was assigned it twice in college.

And neither time could I get through it because I have a certain phobia about something that happens very early in the book. And both times I grew so faint when reading it that until this rereading I had not actually read it since I was a 14 year old girl. I think we can say and it helps bring you into the vibe of the book. It's that early on like the first like two or three chapters a ghost hand reaches into the house. And that's it.

We're going to say Sadie but like it's violent. It's violent. If you have a highly specific phobia involving risks and bleeding and apparently it's not uncommon, then this is hard to get through as our certain movies I won't mention. So learning so much about you today.

So then you couldn't get through it again the times in college.

“But when you first read it, what was your impression and what was your impression now?”

Beyond the trauma of those early scenes. My impression both times and I was remembering it is just such a propulsive read. I kind of couldn't put it down. I think it would be very confusing if you picked it up over the course of months. And I know you listen to it right, Nema, but I think if you are really immersed in it,

first of all is confusing because there are a lot of kind of juniors and names say many characters with the same name.

And frankly they're all intermarrying within these two families. So there aren't many last names either. But around is certainly not the word, but rivet it. And it really has a story moves because you're flashing back and forth between the past, which is where you get Kathy or Katherine and Heathcliff's story to the present,

where Lockwood is hearing the story from Nellie. And again, there are dogs being sick on people and there are people running away and there are sicknesses and horses,

“and betrayals and all of this stuff. It is so riveting. What about you, Nema?”

Well, when I was in high school, I was a very staggy symbolic reader who was just looking for images and icons to create almost mathematical charts inside of the book. This is why a search online, a single word in the text was the way I was going about it. And this time I was paying a lot of attention to the narrators, who I think in a way kind of themeatize Jen's reaction. I mean, like the first layer is you, and you are just saying to yourself, what the hell? Why is this happening? There are so many moments in the book where people are just saying the most heinous things about someone while they're standing right there,

to Nellie in a way that feels improbable. Then there's Mr. Lockwood, who is driven, like many of the characters by irrational horniness.

He wants to sleep with this really angry young woman that he meets at his landlord's house named Kathy, many such cases once again.

“And then you have Nellie who is basically driven by not wanting to feel guilty over how bad all of this went.”

She is the housekeeper and the house has not been kept very well.

And so basically every time she narrates something, she's like, "I did the best I could. I told on everyone whenever I could.

I let some things go. I didn't let other things go. And you are spiraling down and down and down and then sometimes Nellie is being told another story by someone else. My favorite scenes are when Nellie is talking to Katherine alone and Katherine is saying stuff like, "He clef is more myself than I am."

“And Nellie is like, "What are you smoking?" Wait, so what did this do to the reading experience, having all of these frames?”

I think it's what drives you through the book. I think knowing what everyone's interests are so clearly and the kind of makes it so that you are dragged through the book, even if you don't understand or sympathize with what they want, you know what they want.

Yeah, I was telling MJ this morning, this started the real existential crisis for me kind of the subway the other day.

And because you've got these nesting doll narrators as you mentioned, you've got first of all us, then you've got Mr. Lockwood, then you've got Nellie, then within that you have long letters, you have Kathy's hysterical monologues, you have heatclif, ranting. And at a certain point, you start to think, but Nellie, Allen, she's called Mrs. Dean, but I presume that's a courtesy title. How sane is she?

“I mean, I get it in the land of the blind, the one man, I as King, but at the same time, she's kind of trauma dumping the whole time.”

Which you remember all this dialogue decades later, word for word, which is how she relates it, and she's been more traumatized than anyone. She's raised several kids and that I'm taking away from her, seeing them destroyed, experienced everyone's death.

So she can't have come out of this fully intact.

Now, I think she has one line where she says to Lockwood, I went about my household duties convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body. But it really does make you question like, how sensible is that soul, like she, as you mentioned, is sort of complicit in all of the, all of the events that she's recounting, she was there, she could have intervened, she could have talked to someone, she could have opened up this this very toxic code dependant little circle to all these people are in that is making them act crazy because they're so isolated and insulated that there's no sort of like voice of reason or perspective that comes from the outside, she feels responsibility for various characters, but each of them dies or is taken away.

So what is keeping her there? I think you can't overstate, and this is another thing that struck me on this reading, the hernetic tiny nature of this world, it is literally set between two houses, weathering heights and rush cross Grange and with occasional forest onto the moors, I think one or two trips to church, but it's just this one very small cast of people, no one else comes in from the outside world. They don't go anywhere, and that's actually very accurate to the author's experience, because even by brand they standard she was totally a hermit.

That's an excellent point, and for me, the frame narrative was one of the most interesting things about the book. Of course, there's a lot of drama that happens, but the frame narrative made me think, okay, Emily Bronte is not just telling a tumultuous toxic love story, she is doing something. And I feel like as you pointed out, the story itself is so condensed and contracted, and then the story telling is so expanded. This is just who I am as a reader, I love a narrative that makes you doubt. Not necessarily just an unreliable narrator, but like a storytelling convention that really requires you to probe and poke around, and I feel like that was an element here that I really really enjoyed.

I also have an element to be kind of sinister, as you mentioned, like all of her charges kind of die, but she is not kind of died, they do die. But she has Kathy's revised to the young Kathy's next to the end, but then she herself is positioning herself as just the storyteller, but she has so much agency in the story itself. The person shepherding letters back and forth or responding or not responding, she is the person who has the knowledge and can make the choice whether to share it or not.

So see her being horrible to the young Heathcliff when he first comes to the house, and I think part of what makes it her reliable is that she admits to being wrong, which not all the characters in this book can do.

But I feel like there's not a single person in this book who is wholly sympathetic.

Alright, so that's the frame structure of the novel. Let's dive into the characters next, but before we do that, let's take a quick break. I'm Juts and Jones, I'm a reporter and meteorologist at the New York Times. For about two decades, I've been covering extreme weather, which is getting worse because of climate change, and it's becoming more important to get timely and accurate weather information.

“That's why we send these customized newsletters letting you know up to three days in advance about extreme weather that could impact you or a place you care about.”

At the times, you can be confident that everything we publish is based off the most accurate, scientific and vetant information available to us. Because we want you to be able to make real time decisions about how to go about your life. This is the kind of work that makes subscribing to the New York Times so valuable, and it's how you can support fact-based, independent journalism. So if you'd like to subscribe, go to NYTimes.com/subscribe. [Music]

And we're back. This is the Book Review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin, I'm with Sadie Stein, Nemo Zeromi, and Jen Harlan, all editors here at the Book Review, and we're talking about weathering heights.

“Before we jump back to our conversation in the studio, I just wanted to share some reader comments from our Book Review community.”

Right now, we have an article up on the New York Times headline Book Club, read Weathering Heights by Emily Brontay with the Book Review. Readers from all over are discussing the novel and the comments section there, and here just a few that I loved. Steven from Louisiana writes, "Weathering heights is probably the greatest one-off novel ever-written. It is also the epitome of the classic Gothic novel. The plot's complexity of human compassion and cruelty is weaved into a tapestry that leaves the reader haunted by human kinds of brutality.

Lara from Connecticut writes, "I am fascinated and delighted that in 2026 weathering heights is having a moment. To me, the theme of the young girl raised in the dramatic, real, rugged, raw beauty of the moors, seduced by the superficial and artificial glamour of the society in fashion is at the core of the tension of what it is to be human." And then one more, someone writing as B from Europe, had a longer comment, but there was a snippet that I really loved, and that is, only years later since I first read weathering heights. I finally realized the reason why I was so attracted to it in the first place.

It was the discovery that people, if they are not careful, are able to create their own personal mental hell,

a how more powerful and destructive to yourself than any external factor could conjure.

So those are a few comments you can continue that conversation online, but now back to our discussion in the studio. All right, reset. Before the break, we were chatting about the frame narrative of the novel. Now I want to turn to our central lovers, Catherine and Heathcliff. Should we set up just a little bit that Heathcliff comes in and for a while, because Mr. Earnshaw likes him so much, he has a kind of moment where he could be brought up, educated, cared for, fed well, like everyone else in the house.

“And then I believe what happens? Mr. Earnshaw dies, and Catherine's brother, Hindley takes over, and he does not like Heathcliff.”

And basically Heathcliff is forced to live in the house as a servant, and not well brought up anymore.

And everything changes for him. And this is when he is a little rough around the edges, but any chance he had of kind of being a gentle person when he grows up is gone. And this is kind of his villain origins story in a weird way, and it leads him, I think, in the second half, to act like an evil scientist. So basically, in the second half, what happens is everybody has kids, Catherine dies in childbirth with a pregnancy that is not really signal to the reader. Then come out. Yeah, out of nowhere.

To the point where you kind of wonder if Emily Bronti knew how pregnancy works.

No, no, no, it's no, it has any idea.

“And Hindley, the brother has a kid, Harrington, but Hindley, who is an alcoholic,”

dies.

And basically, as a form of revenge, but also a form of experimentation, Heathcliffe Mary's a woman named Isabella, he also has a kid.

His Catherine sister-in-law. His Catherine sister-in-law. Messi. Messi. Emily people.

Emily people. They basically, he takes these two boys, and he's like, one of them is descended from me. And the other one is descended from my arch rival. And I'm basically going to flip it around and prove a thing about nature versus nature. This is a thing that I found so interesting about Heathcliffe as a figure.

Because you, for a little bit, do sympathize with him in that he was brought in. He had no choice. He was a kid. And then he is intentionally degraded, deprived of an education.

“Which is a education like a food, he is beaten repeatedly.”

They may come stand in the corner while everyone else has. And then they sort of humiliated as they grow older and cat the moves into more elevated social circles. Exactly. It's unrelenting. So you want to see him rise up.

But then he starts kind of torturing everybody around him, including children. And early on, there's a scene before. And dogs, early on, there's a lot of dogs in this book. A lot of things happened. He's killing those puppies.

There's a lot of bad things.

He can never come and psychopathy, but dogs on this book.

Sorry, we keep cutting you off. As a figure, he's so violent, and you want to see him rise up. And don't go on his enemies.

“But then for literal children, and there's a scene where I think, like,”

"Hindley is drunk, and he drops young heriton, and he's clipped catches him. And the Nellie sees that Heathcliff realized that he had saved the child of his enemy, and briefly considered whether or not he should smash his head on the ground. And it's hard to read. And that violence, and trust, the great love in the book."

I think this is part of what's so tragic about both Heathcliff and Catherine, and also maybe part of why they're so drawn to each other, there is this moment while Catherine's parents are still alive, where they have this really beautiful friendship in this beautiful freedom, where they're not trying to, or at least not trying very hard to comply,

just societal expectations. They run wild. They spend all their time together, they're wandering around the more, and then as they get older, and this abuse starts to be heaped on them, and also the societal expectations that the proper way to be a lady,

or to be a gentleman, and neither one of them can conform to that, even Catherine's more successful at it. She is apparently the most stunningly beautiful woman to ever walk the Moore's Vingland, and no one can resist her, and she does infiltrate the lintens and marries the wealthy neighbor,

but even when she's in that house, and she's supposed to be the lady of the manner, she still is drawn to this kind of wilder side of her nature that cannot be tamed, and the more she tries to suppress that, the more it literally eats her alive from the inside. Yet, there's so much that's upsetting in the book, there's so much death and violence,

but as you say, the cruelty to children is some of the hardest to read, especially the Heriton story, because he's initially loved and treated well, and then his life also turns on the whim of Heathcliff's experimentation and hatred, and you see him made as course and cruel as he can. And with young Linton, too, who's Isabella and Heathcliff's son,

after Isabella dies and he comes back and Heathcliff takes custody. When he comes there, he's pretty frail, but seems fairly sweet and like kind kid, and then you see him kind of devolve into this sniveling, manipulative, spineless, weasel of a person. That is an excellent point, but can I do a hard pivot before we kind of get lost

on the mark of the overlapping relationships, so we've been chatting for about 30 minutes, and we haven't yet touched on one of the big questions surrounding the book, which is, is weathering heights a love story. That's been a thorny question, especially because the movie had the tagline, the greatest love story of all time, and I want to know how you think about the novel.

Is it a love story in the first place? And I want to be a specific and point out the distinction between romance and a love story.

One of the rules for romance is a literary genre, is that there's always the quintessential happy ending.

That phrasing love story, though, is different, it's broader, it's more encompassing, so I want to know, do you consider weathering heights to be a love story?

Almost everyone ends, has a happy ending.

I would call this a, I would definitely call it Big R romantic. There's so much about the more is a nature like that clearly runs through this book, which makes sense, given what Emily Brontay would have been reading while she was growing up. And I would call it a romantic melodrama, and they're at a very passionate story.

“I don't think I would call it a love story in part because I think the relationship that Catherine and Heathcliffe have isn't really about each other,”

but each other as kind of like objects that come to symbolize something more, and it's definitely a story of obsession, but I'm not sure I would call it love. There's that one part where, and we can't trust Nelly, but Catherine is talking to Nelly and says, "I'm going to marry this other guy who we haven't even brought up really Edgar Linton, who after a dog bite or something, she ends up at his house for six week classic romance plot."

Of course, proximity, classic trope. And she says the reason I'm going to do it is because Heathcliffe is poor, he has nothing to his name, and if I stay rich, then I can better take care of him. Then Heathcliffe goes away and makes his own fortune, but she doesn't know that's going to happen. And I would say that's a, I mean, at least a gesture at something like love that is meant to be, at least in her own eyes, self-sacrificing because she clearly really wants to be with him,

but has it in her head that it's not possible. Our colleague, Ayoscott, recently wrote a story asking, "Is, whether I'm high, it's actually the greatest love story of all time?" And he had a compelling, I don't know if I totally agree, but I was compelled by his argument, that love, at its core, is the animator, the engine of the obsession that drives the novel.

Sadie, you're making a skeptic moment.

“It's a physical face, I guess. I think it's lack of love that is the driver of the story.”

I think it's a study in deprivation of love, and how it then comes out in this twisted form, and then the ensuing generational trauma. In a weird way, there's also, frankly, it's also incestuous, but earlier, otherwise, that it's hard for the modern reader to feel it's romantic. I think there's a cringe element to it.

In addition to the violence of it, there's also just like the, your cousin's. Yes, you're related to it. Well, and even Heathcliff and Katherine are essentially adopted siblings.

Ellen sometimes talks about being Hindley's foster, sister-but-never.

Katherine's, it's quite obscure, and that's leaving aside, then possible.

“And with possible necrophilia, I think that is our sign that we should probably wrap up our conversation about the book itself,”

and then start to pivot to some of our other segments. But before we do pivot, I'm curious, are there other things you want to touch on? I'm going to call this quick round open notebook quiz, and I think we should just go around and look at our notes and share things that we have thought about that we've prepared, but we haven't yet gotten to discuss.

I'm just going to go around the horn. Maybe the thing I'll say is that the song that kept getting stuck in my head, while I was reading this book, was actually not wintering heights by Cape Bush, but Daddy I love him by Taylor Swift. That I feel like really sums up Katherine's entire deal.

All right, Peter, all right, Peter Emily Brontay, you would have loved Taylor Swift. I love that, what about you, Sadie? I think I was struck as a modern reader by the relative equality for the times between men and women, between servants and their employers. Everyone is horrible to each other, everyone yells each other, everyone's violent to each other,

and that is interesting and strange. Neema, you're up. I'm going to mount a defense for how many different ways people get referred to in this book, because this is the modern reader's biggest complaint.

It's like Mr. Earnshaw, but what's his first name, blah, blah, blah.

And I'm going to say that actually the poet Emily Brontay uses this to great effect, especially at the climax of the book, which is when Linton Heathcliff is dying. Katherine, Mr. Heathcliff is there, and he brings Katherine to Linton who is dying. And on his deathbed, what's going to happen is that all the titles and properties for both houses are going to transfer to Heathcliff.

And when Linton finally dies, Nellie's refers to Heathcliff as her father-in-law. And these names, which kind of seemed like 19th century quirks actually end up being extremely emotionally frated.

“I hear you, but even just listening to you talk now, I was like, wait, who are you talking about?”

That's very confusing.

Although I will say to Nema's, what I do think there is something powerful about in the end,

even though Heathcliff has left alone and ultimately dead that in the end this future that he wanted for himself so much in a way does come to pass because in the end there is a Katherine Heathcliff who is the one who survives. And we haven't really mentioned that there is sort of a final, kind of hopeful, kind of presumptive arc for the next generation. A lot of darkness and a glimmer in the distant moors of light. My last thing that I wanted to mention is that this book is really fun.

I feel like it's so oppressive in terms of, again, the lofty quality to it. It's a classic, so it feels like homework sometimes when people are like, you haven't read weather in height, and then it's a violent, but the book itself is so dishy, so fun. I kept reading pastures and wanted to turn to my partner and be like, "Guess, what just happened?" Heathcliff just said, "What?" Oh my gosh, this great confession of love. What is going on?

I had a great time reading it and that for me, I tried to lean into because it does get confusing.

It does get uncomfortable. And so for me, I tried to pay attention and do my studio taking notes and all that stuff, but then I asked, I just wanted to make sure I had a great time, and I would recommend readers fun with this book. Oh my gosh, it's so lyrid and it's also really, really fun to read a lot. It's also all action and dialogue, which I think is part of that effect. I mean, Jen, maybe you can back me up from reading a lot of these books, but like, there's not a lot of description of armwars and drawing rooms.

There's no, yeah, no descriptions like clothing and there's no, there's no quiet contemplation as you walk across the fields. This is action, action, action, drama, drama, drama, relentless and... Aw, it can be no filler. Yes. All bangers, no skips, and which can be overwhelming and exhausting in a way, but also is totally propulsive and you just can't put it down. I just had to say the sections with Joseph in broad written out Yorkshire accent.

I had to skip some early and decipherable. Fair enough. Fair enough. But that's the book itself. And we want to talk a little bit about the movie. And for that, Nima at the time of this recording, you can get him not yet seen it. And so we will say goodbye to you, so we don't spoil it.

“The segment will be spoiler light, but still, if you want to go on fresh, be like Nima, pause,”

and Nima will be back later. It's feel like the Avengers, like Captain. Nima will return, Nima will return. Look recommendation. But we're going to pay that to the movie, Nima, we will see you in just a few minutes. All right, so Nima has stepped up, and with that, we are free to dig into the movie.

A little set up first, the director Emerald Fennel, or Sadie, you mentioned,

off-mic that her name might actually be Fennel, has recently adapted weathering heights into a major motion, pictures starring Jacob Elority and Margot Robbie, or as I'm thinking about this, adapted maybe too strong award, because it's really a different take on the Bronte story altogether. We've seen the movie, though, I'm curious, what did you think of the film,

in general, as a film, and also I'm curious, how do you regard this movie as a reader? How do you consider it alongside the book? We love to compare and contrast, and some just curious, or thoughts, weathering heights film. Go.

Okay, the movie is a very different animal to the book.

“I think it's safe to say it's from the outset, like characters are...”

Well, this is kind of my thing. I actually think there's both... There's fewer characters, but at the same time, I felt like there were two major category errors, because the book for me is so much about this kind of claustrophobic, hermetic world.

In the movie, it will not be too much of a spoiler to say, it opens with a huge crowd scene. So it was really notable to me, too. It's a jarring. Yeah, or rather you're like, okay, we're in the different universe,

because that's kind of the point of the book. I think it's where the book derives its power and its menace. And I would also say that there's kind of a... I feel category error about the nature of the love story, because in some ways, I find he's cliff and Kathy's love,

or whatever you want to call it.

I feel like it's told more than shown in certain ways.

Wow, yes, I know. But it's so outsized. And I feel like what makes the book really great is the web of relationships and intergenerational trauma. So then condensing some of the characters,

cutting some of the characters, you... And that in itself, of course, that's very when you're when you're doing a two-hour movie of such a big book, which is a baggy at points, doesn't have much to do with the book for me.

“And I think you can enjoy it on other terms on its own terms,”

but it's really a different story completely. But what are you doing? How did you feel? We saw this movie together. We did.

It's actually, it's... It's interesting when you said about Kathy and he's Cliff Sadie, because now that I'm thinking about it, I don't know that I'd really clocked this, but I feel like in the book,

you hear each of them speak about their obsession or passion for each other a lot, but you don't actually see them together very often. And the movie, which cuts, I would say, about 50% of the characters,

and like 80% of the plot from the book. And the 20% that remains, there's what I would describe as a glancing resemblance

“to the plot of the book is so wrapped up”

in these two people, and you spend most of the movie, I would say, with these two actors on screen. And so their chemistry and their relationship, like the movie, Emerald Donald really like puts the whole movie on that,

and I just didn't buy it. I didn't, there's a lot of set pieces in this movie. I mean, that in both like the physical sense, but also like the metaphorical, there's a lot of, I feel like if this movie had come out

and the peak tumbler era, it would have been like just in screen shot it all over that site. There's a lot of bold aesthetic choices happening, but I just found them all pretty shallow,

and ultimately like it felt like a fundamental misunderstanding,

or maybe just like the version of weathering heights that exist as the book is not the story that she wanted to make really, I felt like what she wanted to do was Romeo and Juliet, but she wanted to set it in 1800s,

with a big fog budget. I agree, I completely agree. I feel that I have more generous take than either of you. I don't think that the movie is quote unquote good. I feel like the movie is incoherent,

and the two main characters had a notable lack of chemistry, the sets and the costumes were so vivid and sometimes felt inappropriate in a way that took me out of it. However, I liked this was a huge swing,

and it tried to do something different and vibrant and stylish,

and I don't know if that swing always landed for me,

but I had a great time watching it, though I did think of certain points this movie is too long. Yeah, I got bored in the middle. For me, it was less a weathering heights adaptation in that it took the story and tried to move it to a film,

and for me, I considered this to be more of a weathering heights mood board in the sense that it feels like Emerald Fennel focused on the energy and the mood and the vibe of the book more than the plot of the book, and just tried to capture that aesthetic sensibility. Totally, it was all vibes.

And what I appreciated about the movie is how Emerald was able to enhance some of the feelings and the tones and textures of the book, the tone of passion, again, you mentioned that you don't actually see Kathy and Heathcliff together a ton. You just hear them talking about their love,

so getting to see that a little bit heightened or seeing the violence of it. There's something about how she was able to kind of stylistically, aesthetically enhance the tones of the book, or emphasize them, I really liked aesthetic.

That's the word that I would say about the movie. Was it a good movie?

“I don't know. Was it successful at what it tried to do?”

I think kind of what I have done what it tried to do, probably not. I think my other sort of fundamental issue with it is that I think Catherine and Heathcliff and the decisions that they're making makes only make sense in the context of the book. If these are two teenagers whose frontal lobes have not fully developed yet,

and who think every feeling I'm feeling is the biggest feeling that anyone has ever felt and no one will ever understand and that all consuming and impulsive passion is very adolescent. And this is no comment on the talents of Margarabi or Jacoba Lourdy, but they are both adults with presumably

fully developed frontal lobes and to see them running around

I will also say though, and I've said this to you before MJ,

“we went to a press screening, which was full of well-behaved, fairly”

sedate journalists who were there being professional. And I do think I perhaps would have had a better time seeing this movie with a few friends, with a few drinks, where you could react to some of the and just be like taken along on the bonkers roller coaster ride of the film. Absolutely.

Because I have liked that. I've enjoyed being like taken on a ride like that with remote funnels, previous movies, and it wasn't clicking for me with this one. Let's do a room style rewatch. Oh my gosh, I love that. I would love that.

It could be a camp for class, I think. So many, so much potential for themed cocktails and food, although I refuse to eat a fish and jelly. That's not my vibe. There's one last thing I want to say about the movie.

I feel like this is what art is for. I've found myself getting so mythed by the people on my,

“being like, why did she remake this in the first place?”

If she had her own vision, why try to adapt it in the first place?

And I'm like, because it's interesting. It's also interesting. Because of exactly what you said, because she had her own vision. And she wanted to, like, that is why we make art. Yes, and it's fun to say, like, this worked and this didn't work.

And this, I didn't love it for this reason. Like, that conversation, I've been loving the reviews. And they've been so negative, but negative and interesting, fun, exciting ways. And it's, it's good criticism.

And I feel like it's good. It's notable art. It's inspired good criticism. And I think that's what art is for. And I guess, you know, if nothing else like this movie has is it making more people go read.

The book can revisit the bronchets and is good grist for criticism, which is people who work at the book review. Who are job is criticism, like, all for that. So I will thank everyone for that. And it got us into this room.

And I am really glad for that. All right. So that's the movie. Let's bring Nima back in and talk about some post-weathering heights book recommendations. One sec.

Nima, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you for preserving my innocent ears. Anytime anytime. So I want to know, after readers have finished weathering heights,

what would you recommend they pick up next? This could be for whatever reason. It could be because it's another great Gothic novel you love. Maybe it's another tale of love and obsession. Maybe it's another bronchela novel that you just want to give more shine.

I defer to you, just give me some book recommendations. I'm going to start with you, Jen. I have two, both of which are contemporary,

“but I think share a lot of sort of DNA with this book.”

The first book this movie Think of was The Safe Keep by your old man who did.

It was book club pay. Yes, and one of my favorites from the last few years. Setting wise is cannot be more different. It's set in the Netherlands post World War II, but is set similarly in a house that is kind of isolated in the countryside

that has a dark and mysterious history. It is a story about societal outcast. The narrator of the book is this really deeply unpleasant. It is a story of a woman who gets entangled in this very passionate but suppressed story with her brother's girlfriend, who he kind of illogically sends to stay at the house with her.

It's also a story about obsession and long-plotted revenge. I don't want to spoil too many of that. There's some really great twists in the book that I don't want to spoil, but if you like whether in heights, I think you would also like that. The other one I wanted to mention is Mexican Gothic by Sylvia Moreno Garcia.

As the title implies, a Gothic novel set in Mexico about, and again, has twisted families and a dark house that seems to, that is very hermetic and infiltrates perhaps physically as well as metaphysically. It's inhabitants and leads to some dark dark things. The other thing I just want to shout out is that actually my favorite weathering heights adaptation

is the cartoonist Kate Beaton who had a web comic called "Hark of Agrant" to the series of "Withering Heights" cartoons that are so delightful, so wonderful. They are all on the internet, "Hark of Agrant" and you can go find them there. I love those comics, but I had not read "Withering Heights" so I don't think I got the jokes there. I need to go revisit those.

Yeah, I loved them before I had read the book and then I went back and revisited them having read the novel and loved them even more. They're truly delightful. Go check those out, everyone. What about you, Sadie? Okay, if we're doing a couple, obviously you can do another Bronte, but my favorite oddly is the lat by Charlotte Bronte, which is less lured but deeply, deeply weird.

So I'd recommend that if you had deeply weird, we love all the books on this podcast. A double deeply weird. And then you must, I'm sure you know what I'm going to say

It's certainly the one I reread the most. And of course, by Daphne Demorei,

“and of course, it is a classic Gothic albeit set in the first half of the 20th century.”

But like this one, I think it's a book that people talk about as romantic or romantic suspense when in fact, there is a darkness and the sickness to it which is brilliant. And one day, I hope we will talk about it for Vook Club because it is so rich and so good and so fun. And I think in its way a perfect novel. I love this. I love that book. Yeah, what about you, Nina? Book recommendations.

Mine's kind of a palette cleanser, but with I think a lot of the same things driving it, and it might even be a photo-negative of weathering heights. It's Alif Batumons, the idiot. This is a kind of tormented love story about someone who is very, very emotionally stunted. And the arc of the narration follows the arc of the story. You essentially get these bits and scraps from Batumons character,

who's a Turkish-American Harvard freshman, who has an intense, largely a pyslary, I even email because it's set in the 1990s romance with a Hungarian math student who was very tall named Iván. And like with her heights, it's in a way also a coming of age story. And I think that instead of having disapproving family members or

disapproving society, she has a kind of forbidding mind that's closed off from itself. And the more kind of cracks open, the more chaotic she and the narration become.

“And that's why I think it is a good pairing for weathering heights.”

That is an unexpected pairing that I totally appreciate. I love that book, but not framed it in that way. I love that. Thank you. If this were an English paper, I'd give you an A. Finally, two A's.

Gold stars. What about UMJ? I have two recommendations.

The first is the Great Goutsby.

Ooh. Maybe it's because another New York Times podcast can and ball with Wesley Moore is just an episode on this. But I've been thinking about Goutsby. And that's another book about love and obsession and re-evention and

end in tragedy and it's told sideways through an adjacent narrator who actually has a lot of agency in the story. There are also theories that Gatsby was a black man who was passing as white. So there's that comparison. We didn't even get the re-evention.

He's brown. He's other for sure.

“I've heard Gatsby could have been he was originally Jewish too.”

I'm not very sad. Interesting. But that's, yeah.

Say that for another podcast.

There are a lot of theories about Gatsby. But the one is also similar to Heathcloth. He is other from this cohort, but he is joined. And then he is reinvented himself to try to court this love. That seems distant.

And it's, it's a book that's about obsession and a different way. And it's also volatile. So they're great Gatsby. And the other is, if I was thinking about the vengeance revenge aspect of weathering heights.

And I recommend you go read the Count of Monte Cristo. Talk about another book of lifelong conquest for revenge. So all of my knowledge of the Count of Monte Cristo comes from the Wishbone episode. Listen, I will take any opportunity.

I think that's the phrases of Wishbone. And that's, sadly, friends. That's all the time we have. Sadie, Nima Jen. Thank you so much for this.

This has been really fun. This was the best, thank you. Thanks. I'd love to take a break from war and violence in the real world. Whenever you'd like to have me again.

Yes, please come back. I'm sure this is a break from violence. My books are far less horny than this. Well, this was a delight. I would wander the Morris with you all anytime.

Thank you. And now, as promised, the title of our March book. We are leaving the windy moors because in March, we will be reading and discussing kin by T. R. E. Jones. This is a novel that comes eight years after her acclaimed book in American

marriage, and now to R. E. Jones is returning with a sweeping story of sisterhood and found family. If you listen to our winter books preview a few weeks ago, you heard me raving about this one and I thought, let's make it a book club pick. Let's read it and discuss it together.

I love it so much. I want to talk with readers about it. We will be discussing that book on my podcast that arrows on March 27. We're also chatting about the book online.

Right now, we have an article up on the New York Times headline book club read kin by T. R. E. Jones with the book review. Leave a comment and join the conversation there.

happy reading.

“That was MJ Franklin hosting our monthly book club roundtable discussion.”

Talking with Sadie Stein, Neema Geromy, and Jennifer Harland about Emily

Brontay's "Weathering Heights." Thanks for listening. [BLANK_AUDIO]