15 Oct 2018, 4:14 pm
We can't start quite yet because of Kraftiekortie.
Perhaps I'll read a few forwards and post some questions to frame the Introduction of the book.
I was going to post the family tree but I don't know if that gives away too much plot (do you agree, sianann?)
*just a bit more shameless propaganda*
Good call on the avatar, feels!
Hi Isabella!
I’m either not getting notifications of posts or getting them way later (like today) so apologies for the late reply.
I’ll try fit in with whatever timeline is going!
The family tree plot is a good idea...I see how it could give away aspects of the story but like yourself, I’ve read the book multiple times and knowing what happens doesn’t take away from the reading at all.
I’m currently listening to Kate Bush’s Wuthering Heights on loop as preparation
15 Oct 2018, 4:24 pm
That's ironic because I've asked for no notifications but I get them regardless!
I'm lolling around reading intros and essays. Kortie will be back tomorrow / Tuesday but we'll have to see if he's up for it right away. Regardless I'm pretty much good to go whenever you'd like. I'm a little busy tomorrow but can always make time.
according to my memory (which is often faulty):
ready = Sianann, Redxk, feeli0, Isabella
unsure = April and Korts (but willing to let us start)
I really have no idea how to organise this but I think we can just post titles in bold when there are questions or themes to share. Feel free to post as you'd like, please! 
Enjoy Kate! 
15 Oct 2018, 4:32 pm
Sounds good!
Someone suggested a different forum for the reading group but I disagree with that. I like this place for all its 502s and warts. It feels like a large family gathering (like no other) and people go off into one room to do one thing and other people are doing another - but we are all connected here. A very unique experience. Because we are unique people, individual and special in our own ways - but to have this common neurodiverse thingy gives us a deep appreciation of one another and how we operate. OK rant over. 
15 Oct 2018, 4:46 pm
Someone suggested a different forum for the reading group but I disagree with that. I like this place for all its 502s and warts. It feels like a large family gathering (like no other) and people go off into one room to do one thing and other people are doing another - but we are all connected here. A very unique experience. Because we are unique people, individual and special in our own ways - but to have this common neurodiverse thingy gives us a deep appreciation of one another and how we operate. OK rant over.
Agreed, 100%. I couldn't have articulated that any better myself. Thanks.
Besides, me learn another platform? LMAO I'm rolling on the floor. This beast was hard enough.
15 Oct 2018, 5:09 pm
I'm lolling around reading intros and essays. Kortie will be back tomorrow / Tuesday but we'll have to see if he's up for it right away. Regardless I'm pretty much good to go whenever you'd like. I'm a little busy tomorrow but can always make time.
according to my memory (which is often faulty):
ready = Sianann, Redxk, feeli0, Isabella
unsure = April and Korts (but willing to let us start)
I really have no idea how to organise this but I think we can just post titles in bold when there are questions or themes to share. Feel free to post as you'd like, please!
Enjoy Kate! Just checked the lunar calendar...the moon moves into Aquarius on Wednesday; the Aquarius Moon is “forward-looking, progressive and inventive. We’re inspired to improve and grow.” So that’s my little contribution to considering when’s a good time to start (with help from Cafe Astrology)!
15 Oct 2018, 5:25 pm
I'm lolling around reading intros and essays. Kortie will be back tomorrow / Tuesday but we'll have to see if he's up for it right away. Regardless I'm pretty much good to go whenever you'd like. I'm a little busy tomorrow but can always make time.
according to my memory (which is often faulty):
ready = Sianann, Redxk, feeli0, Isabella
unsure = April and Korts (but willing to let us start)
I really have no idea how to organise this but I think we can just post titles in bold when there are questions or themes to share. Feel free to post as you'd like, please!
Enjoy Kate! Just checked the lunar calendar...the moon moves into Aquarius on Wednesday; the Aquarius Moon is “forward-looking, progressive and inventive. We’re inspired to improve and grow.” So that’s my little contribution to considering when’s a good time to start (with help from Cafe Astrology)!
Also Jane Eyre was published October 16, 1847 (171 anniversary! lol bad math) (that surely counts for something?)
16 Oct 2018, 2:46 am
That's a sign if ever there was one
16 Oct 2018, 10:58 am
16 Oct 2018, 5:28 pm
17 Oct 2018, 7:56 am
Post 1: Background Information
Wuthering Heights
Written by Ellis Bell (Emily Jane Brontë), aged 29
Published December, 1847
Thomas Newby and Sons
Early Criticism of the novel:
How a human being could have attempted such a book as the present without committing suicide before he had finished a dozen chapters, is a mystery. It is a compound of vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors….
~ Graham’s Lady’s Magazine, 1848
The volumes are powerfully written records of wickedness and they have a moral – they show what Satan could do with the Law of Entail
~ Tait's Edinburgh Magazine, 1848
In 'Wuthering Heights' the reader is shocked, disgusted, almost sickened by details of cruelty, inhumanity, and the most diabolical hate and vengeance ... The women in the book are of a strange fiendish-angelic nature, tantalising, and terrible, and the men are indescribable out of the book itself
~ Douglas Jerrold's Weekly Newspaper, 1848
Modern Criticism:
The most beautiful, most profoundly violent love story of all time
Georges Bataille, Literature and Evil, 1957
Emily Brontë's prose has a directness and strength that is unmatched in Victorian fiction
The Annotated Wuthering Heights, ed. Janet Gezari, 2014
WH is one of the greatest love stories in the English language. It is also one of the most brutal revenge narratives
Oxford World's Classics, ed. Helen Small, 2009
The most vigorous continuation of Romanticism in Victorian Literature
Oxford World's Classics, ed. Helen Small, 2009
Tradition
German Romantic folklore
High Romanticism (Shelley, Byron, Sir Walter Scott)
May have been inspired by Mary Shelley's The Last Man, 1826
Themes to consider as you begin the book:
(Feel free to add to this list as you note more)
- Duality (everything comes in pairs or with opposite forces)
- Metaphysical inquiry, Mysticism, animal instincts
- Darwinism and Natural Law or Nature vs. Nurture
- Natural vs. Supernatural
- North (primitive, Old English archaisms) vs. South (gentry class, social ambition)
- Idealism vs. vanity and betrayal
- Heaven vs. Hell (In the tradition of Romanticism and in the 'love vs. lost love' themes of Percy Shelley)
- Hypermorality vs. Transgression and Atonement
- Inclusion vs. Exclusion
- Attraction vs. Repulsion
- Storm vs. Calm (as metaphor and literally)
- Boundaries (of self, as well as walls, windows, gates, doorways, locks)
- The roles of diction, language and literature
- Conventions of the Romantic genre vs. parody of sentimental romance
The story is presented as a within a story within a story with embedded narratives
It has been called a "double third person" narrative (Lockwood retelling from Nelly retelling from others hearsay)
It is meant to be a rhythmic spoken text much like a fireside chat
That being said HAPPY READING! I'm finally starting the novel itself today!
Please posts thoughts or questions as you read, and I will post again at the end of Chapter 5.
(Do your best with Joseph's dialogue please! Your edition may have translations available but otherwise read phonetically)
~ Isabella Linton
17 Oct 2018, 9:02 am
17 Oct 2018, 9:05 am
A most unusual introduction, indeed. Unlike many works of previous periods.
A very tense introduction of aspiring tenant to landlord. Unsociable curs, indeed----even the human owner!
The air is quite heavy like the Moors....but lacks the Fragrance of the Moors.
Chapter 1, alas!
So perverse! Did it present you with an immediate sense of alert, anxiety and bafflement?
It is meant to suck you into their bizarre microcosm so you lose your sense of time and place, reality and imagination.
An odd chapter, indeed. Keep reading! Focus on the narrative technique and whether there is a reliable narrator.
17 Oct 2018, 9:10 am
17 Oct 2018, 9:14 am
17 Oct 2018, 9:56 am
17 Oct 2018, 11:02 am
Two points for Kortie!
Pay attention to animals ~ it's a savage book about animal instinct.
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