Wuthering Heights

I have very bizarre memories of Wuthering Heights ... I read the first half when I was younger, focusing on the older Catherine. In fact, I probably got up to around the point when she had her daughter and dies. Years later, at university, studying Gothic Novels, I decided to start at the point where I left off. So, in my mind I only had the younger Catherine! It led to a very strange way of looking at the novel. So eventually, I had to read the whole book from start to finish. I'm glad I did!

I went to the theatre with my Mum round about the time I began reading Wuthering Heights to watch a production of it. I can still picture the window, the tree, the ghostly figure ... it was very well done.

And I can't leave this post without mentioning the fact that "Wuthering Heights" by Kate Bush is presently at no 16 (out of about 2500) on my husband's "most played" list! (163 plays so far since he downloaded it ...)

Frankenstein

Yet another Gothic Novel, although this time I would hope that I'd have read this anyway at some point. We watched bits of the video with Robert De Niro. The sections we saw were, in retrospect, truly moving. The story has got so much to teach us today, since there are so many occasions when we become frightened of what we don't understand. As an RE teacher, I really should use this book/film so much more often in my lessons ...

Northanger Abbey

Another novel on both my Gothic Novels set text list, and in my "Complete Works of Jane Austen" list. A large house, a brother and sister ...

The Mysteries of Udolpho

Now I am getting onto books that I have really savoured and enjoyed. This is a *really* long book, with densely packed descriptions of forests, trees, monasteries, old buildings, countryside ... It took an age to read, again for my Gothic Novels course, but it was worth it. What was the mysterious horror that the heroine, Emily St Aubert, witnessed in the castle?