PSA - Wuthering Heights next weekend

I can't wait for this. Heathcliff and Cathy are both perfectly cast in terms of how I picture them. This is still my favourite book ever.

Ooh I look forward to and dread these adaptations in equal measure.

As it's one of my favourite books, I'll be easily disappointed.

Heathcliffe does not look anywhere near dark and dangerous enough. In fact. the cast doesn't match my mental image of the characters at all.

I'm still excited though.

I am ashamed to say i have never read it. when i saw this first advertised i said to myslef i would read it, and still havent. I am certainly going to watch it, i loved Tom Hardy in that Martina Cole series last month.

Ooh thank you for this, I love Wuthering Heights!

Loof, I really wouldn't worry about Tom Hardy being dark and dangerous enough - he was absolutely terrifying in The Take last month. I can't see the cast letting it down TBH, they're all cracking actors very well cast - my only worry would be in the actual production - it is ITV after all, it's not a given that it'll be good.

Oh Claires, you should try and read it first - nothing will beat your own imagination.

It's such a brilliant book, it really gives me the creeps. I just love it.

I am going on a shopping trip tomorrow so might buy it while i am out. i do feel un-cultured that i havent read it?

I saw the trailer for this on telly tonight and wondered when it was going to be on. Definitely going to be watching it. I studied Wuthering Heights for my English Lit A Level some 12 years ago now! Don't know where the time goes to ?

Never mind being cultured, it's just terrific ?

That's good to know SC, I'll look him up. <Shallow> I think I wanted Heathcliffe to be a little bit more fanciable. Goran Visnjic or a darker version of Rufus Sewell maybe.

It's an ITV drama, they are going to make Heathcliffe brooding and misunderstood aren't they? Noooo ? Wuthering Heights is one of my favourite novels. I know that I am going to be compelled to watch this and be horribly disappointed. Anyone remember the last film version (Ralph Fiennes and Juliette Binoche). Utter claptrap.

?

I think it may be hard to make Heathcliff an effective anti-hero on screen, so I suspect you may be right.

Loof, I have faith, I have faith that TH can do it. Oh and I find him much more attractive in motion if that helps - I don't think he suits still images ? I sound like a creepy stalker now.

I think by far the most disturbing aspect of Wuthering Heights is that it came out of the mind of such a young, sheltered, innocent girl as Emily Bronte. How she even came to imagine such things is really really creepy.

Edgar doesn't look anywhere near pale and weedy enough for my imagination and I agree with Luthien about Heathcliffe, definitely not up to my imagination! ?

Excellent, thanks for the heads up

Snap! I also studied it about 10 years ago for English Lit A-level, did love the book but not read it since, think we over analysed it to death which has put me off a bit picking it up again. I'm forward to the series. I love Tom Hardy too ?

Looks great. I still wonder why Heathcliff is supposed to be a great romantic hero though; he's one of the most unpleasant men in the whole of Eng lit!

I read WH for the first time just a year or 2 ago, as I'm not really into period romances. In fact I found a novel stuffed full of the most selfish characters ever ?

That's what confuses me, characterising it as a romance seems bizarre given the subject matter and, yes, how vile most of the characters are. There again, Emily Bronte probably wasn't the most likeable of people, notable looper that she was.

I find the characters very sad - damaged products of their circumstances. Especially considering their ages in the book, Catherine is only a teenager when she dies.

I think that Heathcliff is a powerful romantic (anti)hero, particularly in the first half of the book, loving Catherine deeply. In the second half, he is terrible and wicked, but, to me, it reads as insanity borne from his love, loss, and a deep resentment of Hindley's treatment of him and the circumstances of his life that meant his love for Catherine could never come to anything.

i dont need to buy the book now?

Well, there's more to it than that ? and anyway, it's so well known as a story that I don't think there can be much in the way of spoilers!

Erm.... nope. i wouldnt have a clue about it, see, i said i was un-cultured?

? Sorry! I didn't even think ?

I'm actually cringeing.

? Princess Layabout has made me realise how rubbish i am so i am going out to get it tomorrow... just have to finish it before next weekend.

Oh no! I didn't mean that you were rubbish! Just that what Luthien has said really doesn't spoil the plot in any way, there's so much to it. Enjoy the book! Most TV adaptations really haven't done it justice IMO. It is fantastic - it's just not the kind of lovey-dovey costume romp that it's sometimes portrayed as.

I only got round to reading it because it's on the 1001 books to read before you die list ?. Speaking of which, I need to get back on that!

I am rubbish.. there are so many classics that i have no idea what they are about. so...i will buy this tommorrow and update with my progress?

I've just finished reading this for the first time since I did A Level English 10 years ago. Absolutely loved it this time around because I knew it so well from my A Levels I could pick out all the key phrases but without having to remember them.

If anyone's reading it for the first time and struggles with Mr Lockwood's narration, you can skip the first 3 chapters and pick it up from there and read those bits later on. That's what I did when I first read it on the advice of my english teacher.

Just to add to the PSA, I've just read that STV are throwing their toys out of the pram and refusing to show a fair few of ITV's drams, including WH.

like the one with timothy dalton in, that we were subjected to while we were doing our a-levels? ?

how come emily bronte was a looper? i don't know much about her tbh

Has anyone been to the Brontes' house in Haworth? I was fascinated by all the tiny books the children had written. I wonder how much material they must have got from their father who was a vicar and must have had some stories to tell about the community. Their imaginations were still amazing, especially Emily's.

I just went to add it to the Sky+ planner and discovered that we've got something called "Sirens" on STV instead. Panic over though, we can get it on ITV1 London on Sky channel 993, yay!