Dropping by for a chat...

I'm still here, really! Just incredibly busy. Tech rehearsal for my play and my graduation are both on Thursday, and then the play is going on all weekend. We're doing The Real Inspector Hound by Tom Stoppard. If by some chance you're in Seattle, come see it at West Seattle High School (not actually my school), 3000 California Ave SW, Friday at 7:30, and Saturday at 2:00 and 7:30.

I'm not even here just to advertise! After ages and ages and various interludes of reading other things, I've finally finished Wuthering Heights. I've been reading The Elegance of the Hedgehog, by Muriel Barbery, but I needed a lightweight book to bring with me at the last minute as I was heading out the door so I grabbed Wuthering Heights, and then I got back into it and finished it all in one go this morning. I guess I just needed a break from it.

I'm not sure how I feel about it. It's far too dreary to become a favourite; my favourite books are exclusively happy, or at least hopeful. Of the three Bronte's I've read, this is certainly my least favourite, but it's also the only unhappy one. It's very compelling, anyway, and everyone in it has such a forceful personality. It's also nearly impossible to understand most of the characters, they're all so exaggeratedly passionate. But not, I think, unrealistically so. It's an interesting combination. I sort of wonder if the environment of the Heights and the moors surrounding is what promotes such extremes of feeling.

Anyway, I'm glad to have read Wuthering Heights, though I don't think I'll read it again. I'll be back soon to talk about The Elegance of the Hedgehog, I've almost finished that.

Bronte one, Bronte two, Bronte three.

I'm definitely going to be posting here less often until the end of June, because this is my busiest time of the year, and I have ridiculous amounts of things going on. I have to graduate, put on a play, go to classes, and help Nova move out of the Mann building. I suspect my reading time will be rather cut short as well, but I am working on some things.

I started reading Wuthering Heights on Saturday, and am already well into it. Now that I can say I've read all three Bronte sisters, it's rather interesting to compare them. It was easy for me to get into Wuthering Heights, the story really jumps in quickly and it's put together in such an interesting way, with different people telling the story, even people who are totally tangential to the story. On the other hand, I have a really difficult time getting into Charlotte Bronte's novels, though Jane Eyre is one of my very favourite books. Of the Bronte's novels, I have read Jane Eyre, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and now a good chunk of Wuthering Heights. I started Villette, but did not get very far. I think Jane Eyre is the most conventionally structured of these, in that it retains the first person narrative throughout the whole book, without changing narrators or throwing in diaries or letters. Nineteenth century first person novels still seem strange to me, though I'm not sure why.

I loved Jane Eyre and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, and I am fully expecting to love Wuthering Heights too, though I suspect it will be less satisfying.