Note: There are some spoilers below for a book that is almost 200 years old.This is a book I read to fill gaps in my having read The Great Books. It is pitched as “the greatest romance.” In my understanding of the Romance genre, that is not a true statement. This may be a Romantic (as in the aesthetic movement of the early 19th century) novel but it is certainly not a Romance (as in a story regarding a growing relationship between two or more characters which must by genre convention end in a Happily Ever After, or at least Happily For Now).That is not to say there are no love stories in this book, much like Romeo and Juliet contains a love story while remaining entirely one of Shakespeare’s Tragedies. Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff do fall in love. The realities of their world do conspire to keep them apart. The whole star-crossed spiel. But, the story is not really about that love story. Nor is it about either of the love stories involving Catherine Linton (generally called Cathy to distinguish her from her mom, the other Catherine). The story is really about what Heathcliff will do to anyone and everyone who is unlucky enough to be in his presence once his happily ever after with Catherine (Earnshaw) is denied.Now, that may sound like I am disappointed in the book. I am not. I am disappointed in everyone who simplified this book down to “a love story” or “the greatest love story” and in doing so deprived teenage me who was so sure that romances weren’t his thing of this revenge tour aboard the Hot Mess Express. Because that is the best way I can describe the second half of this book.The book is framed as a story told by Ellen “Nelly” Dean to Mr. Lockwood, a man who is renting the estate of Thrushcross Grange from Heathcliff. She tells of how Heathcliff was found as an orphan and brought to the estate of Wuthering Heights by Mr. Earnshaw, the master of the house. Over time, his daughter Catherine and Heathcliff become friendly and then fall in love. All is mostly good until Mr. Earnshaw dies and Catherine’s older brother Hindley becomes master of the manor and then Hindley’s wife dies shortly after. Hindley becomes a drunken jerk who neglects his son and treats Heathcliff and Catherine horribly.At this point, Catherine marries Edgar Linton, because he has more money to provide (but part or her reasoning is that she’ll be better able to take care of Heathcliff). Heathcliff wanders off to no one knows where to make a bunch of money somehow.There’s a lot of tension during this point where Mr. Linton basically knows Catherine loves Heathcliff more than him and Heathcliff actually marries Linton’s sister out of spite. It culminates with Catherine and Heathcliff having a brief romantic reunion before she gets sick and then dies in childbirth.So now, Heathcliff has been denied Catherine both by her marrying Linton and by her death. Isabella Linton also sees the writing on the wall and gets the hell out of dodge, running away to give birth to Heathcliff’s son, Linton. This is the point where the train of Heathcliff’s emotions entirely lose any sight or sign of the rails.We pick up again with Linton Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw (son of Hindley) living with Heathcliff at Wuthering Heights and Catherine Linton (Catherine daughter of Catherine) living with her father Edgar at Thrushcross Grange. Heathcliff has gotten hold of Wuthering Heights by buying out all the mortgages on the property that Hindley took out while drunkenly neglecting things.What ensues is Heathcliff’s Xanatos gambit of arranging who meets who and who marries who and how wills are written and who gets to write a will to bring both properties under his control and make people miserable because he couldn’t have his dream girl as a teenager.It is a masterclass of absolute petty villainy and I loved going through to see what terrible thing would happen next. So yes, I recommend reading this book, but know, it is not a love story. It is a story about the lengths someone will go to to absolutely wreck everyone’s lives when they don’t get their way.Thing to Use in a TTRPG or StoryThis year, I’ve been doing a lot of my reading to check out the things that inspired the games I like to play and the authors whose work I like to read. In that spirit, I thought I might add a section to blog posts on a storytelling lesson or piece of scenery or something I might lift from each book.Here, that thing is the Yorkshire moors and the weather.Look at this fog, look at the rolling featureless landscapeI didn’t mention it above, but this tale of lovers scorned and petty revenge takes place on the moors of West Yorkshire in England. Just this rolling landscape of not much to see that gets often covered in fog or rain. The dreary landscape gives such an excellent landscape to the dreary sufferings the characters put themselves into. So being mindful of the symbolism we can create using simple choices about setting like weather is what I pull from this one. (I may also pull an absolute petty tyrant in Heathcliff for use elsewhere, but that’s just too obvious.) Do you have a scene coming that you want to be more somber? Add some fog or rain to the description and draw on centuries of sad rainy scenes in literature.
