Books
written in the elevated prose of 19th century English
literature have a certain charm. If you can get past the
tuberculosis, syphilis, dysentery, kissing (and marrying) cousins,
the writing, with its somewhat stilted syntax, has a certain
seductive quality. Its graceful grammar, even the vocabulary, appeals to me in ways I can't really define or defend.
Partially
due to my age, partially due to my love of language, I have a
tendency to sound like a stuffed shirt when I should don the prose
equivalent of the casual pullover. I'm inclined to receive
when I should get, speak instead
of talk. In
casual conversation, I still
distinguish can (what
is possible) from may (what
is allowed). And don't get me started on will
and shall.
Incidentally, this might explain, in part anyway, why I love
reading Wodehouse and watching British comedies. Or maybe it's the
other way round; spoiled on the stirring elocution of poets, I dread
the brute with the bullhorn.
For
whatever reason, the
snob in me balks at the attitudinal contrast from yes to
yeah; pardon? to huh?; perhaps to pfft;
maybe to meh. And
it's this difference, this speaking with authority versus
sleepwalking, that stirs something within me to reject the limp
tongue for the limpid. Call it indigestion. Blame my mother for
blaring vinyls of Mozart and Beethoven to a babe confined to his
crib, but this literary fetish, for good or ill, is real, and I'm
happiest when well fed.
Wuthering
Heights was published in 1847, so it's steeped in the prim prose
of that era. Planted in the Yorkshire moors, northern England, the
story recounts the stark and tragic lives of two generations of
families, related by way of a
literary gimmick. You've probably seen it before. A protagonist walks
into an inn and is treated to a fireside chat; or a wounded,
bedridden soldier or sailor recuperates in either a private or
military hospital and spins a yarn for his physical therapist; or an
officer with too much free time tells a tale the patient patiently
dictates. Whatever the
relationship, whether Donaldon's “Ser Visal's Tale” or Conrad's
Lord Jim, such stories
depend upon both the impeccable memory of the narrator and the
formidable stamina of the author who must inevitably postpone trips
to the loo and often fast for the duration.
I
celebrate artistic license. I'm a great practitioner of suspending
disbelief. But in Heights, we see this gimmick in almost
exaggerated form. Detailed exposition, as well as reams of dialogue
no one could possibly recount with such precision decades after the
events have unfolded, are conveyed by the housekeeper as if she were reading directly from her diary. This tests both the patience and the
credulity of the reader.
For those who consider this novel a love story, I would ask them to disavow this notion and remember love's lesser, though more seductive, siblings: infatuation, lust, and obsession. A critic expressed a similar sentiment about Lolita, claiming it was perhaps the most convincing love story ever written. Lest we forget, love isn't abusive or callous. Those are corruptions of love. At its heart, love is a virtue, not a vice. The feelings or emotions that accompany love are not love itself but rather reflections of it, like the sun's light illuminating the moon or the flavor of food rather than the nourishment itself. Love is commitment, devotion. It inspires oaths. We sacrifice what we want for the needs of those we love. Neither Lolita nor Wuthering Heights would recognize love in its pure form. Instead, those books describe relationships depraved and detrimental to the parties involved.
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