greatest of all Victorian novels, and Matthew Arnold said: ‘For passion, vehemence, and grief she has had no equal since Byron.’
In modern times, critics – such as the great Elaine Showalter, Sandra Gilbert, and Susan Gubar – as well as novelists and poets, from Daphne du Maurier, Helen Oyeyemi, and Margaret Drabble to Sylvia Plath have all admired, considered, been inspired by Brontë’s ‘fiend of a book’. Playwrights and choreographers, artists and composers too, in print, in opera, and song, in ballet, and plays, on screens large and small.
Here, just a few examples: Genesis’s 1976 album Wind and Wuthering and Kate Bush’s chart-topping ‘Wuthering Heights’ released two years later, both of which use direct quotations from the novel itself; the all-female Japanese opera company Takarazuka Revue, and the Northern Ballet Company; Hotbuckle Productions Theatre Company, and The John Godber Company, in a version adapted and directed by Jane Thornton; the leading Asian touring company, Tamasha, with a piece set in the deserts of Rajasthan.
And, of course, film. The earliest known screen adaptation was filmed in England in 1920, though the most famous is the 1939 black-and-white starring Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon (and David Niven as Edgar). It omitted the second generation’s story, but was firmly situated on the Yorkshire Moors, as was Andrea Arnold’s 2011 adaptation. Luis Buñuel’s 1954 Spanish-language adaptation, Abismos de Pasión, was set in Catholic Mexico, and Yoshishige Yoshida’s 1988 version was set in medieval Japan.
The sheer ingenuity and range of work inspired by Wuthering Heights is testament to the power of the ideas within the novel, the depth of characterisation, and the emotional intention of the story. As technologies change what can be achieved on screen and stage, there will be ever-new interpretations of the text, shaped and refashioned, keeping the passion for the story alive in new generations of audiences all over the world.
Now, here is this collection, published to celebrate the bicentenary of Emily Brontë’s birth in 1818. I won’t spoil the surprise of the stories that follow by summarising the work of the wonderful writers who have contributed, except to say that the pieces are wide-ranging and clever, moving and thought-provoking. Interestingly, a majority are set in modern times, rather than in the period of the novel or indeed EB’s own time. Some are about what we would call – in modern terms – violent and toxic relationships; others about the collision of grief and identity; some are visceral and savage, and others infused with the emotion and beauty of Wuthering Heights. There is even the promise of a school musical! What the stories have in common is that, despite their shared moment of inspiration, they are themselves, and their quality stands testament both to our contemporary writers’ skills, and the timelessness of Wuthering Heights. For, though mores and expectations and opportunities alter, wherever we live and whoever we are, the human heart does not change very much. We understand love and hate, jealousy and peace, grief and injustice, because we experience these things too – as writers, as readers, as our individual selves.
I’ll end where we began, with Emily Brontë’s words – and what is surely one of the most beautiful closing paragraphs in all of literature – as Lockwood looks down on the graves of Heathcliff, Linton, and Cathy. It’s a magnificent full-stop of a sentence.
‘I lingered round them, under the benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath and the harebells, listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass, and wondered how any one could ever imagine unquiet slumbers for the sleepers in that quiet earth.’
TWO YOUNG WOMEN ARE standing in a hotel lobby, on either side of a polished-wood reception desk. They are staring at each other.
It is a Tuesday in February. Outside the hotel, lorries bump and thump along a dual carriageway. Beyond the dual carriageway, there is a wide esplanade, and beyond the esplanade a beach, where grey and brown waves chop against the pebbles, and a red warning flag furls and corrugates in the wind before straightening with a snap.
‘Do you have any form of identification?’ the young woman behind the desk asks politely, lightly enough, but the thick ticking of the clock on the wall behind her makes the query sound emphatic.
The hotel lobby is empty, apart from the two women. Victorian-era, once very grand, it has a vaulted ceiling and curving staircase, but the carpet is frayed now, the furniture worn. From the bar and restaurant on the other side of the lobby comes the faint smell of disinfectant and cabbage, even though no one has cooked cabbage in this hotel for over fifty years.
The reception desk is shiny oak; the brass clock ticks loudly; the walls are painted a leaden green colour that hints at a sanatorium. At the end of the reception desk is a white plastic orchid in a brown plastic pot.
Who are you?
Good question.
The other young woman, the one in front of the desk, is called Maria. Maria has never been asked for identification at a hotel before, but then she has never shown up like this, walking in off the street with no luggage, a small backpack, and a stare in her eyes. A beanie hat is pulled low over her black curls, and there are shadows beneath that stare. The receptionist is slender, with a neat navy jacket, and fair hair in an immaculate ponytail. Her skin is very fine, the only make-up she wears is a slick of pale lipstick. Maria knows how she looks to this young woman. They are each other’s inverse.
Maria reaches into the backpack and hands over a driving licence. The receptionist glances at it and hands it back. She doesn’t write anything down. Maria scans the receptionist’s face for signs of suspicion or hostility, but her expression is a calm, professional blank. Maria thinks how habituated she now is to interpretation, how experienced at watching a face.
In high season the room the receptionist offers – a deluxe double with a sea view – would be over two hundred pounds a night, but it’s a Tuesday in February, and Maria gets it for eighty-five. Breakfast is included.
‘Would you like to pay now or at checkout?’ the receptionist asks.
Maria has two credit cards that she has never used: when she applied for the mortgage on her flat three years ago, the broker told her it would be good for her credit rating to have a couple of cards, or even a small loan, as long as she made the repayments on time. The mortgage companies liked evidence of an ability to service debt. This amused Maria at the time, the idea of a company thinking that being in debt already made her a more attractive proposition. She never uses the cards, and, as she pulls one out of her purse, she takes a quick look to check that she has even bothered to sign on the back. She hands it over. That’s how easy it is, she thinks. She can’t use the joint account, but she has the credit cards. The bill won’t arrive for a month.
Why didn’t I think of this before?
The deluxe room is medium-sized and has mushroom-coloured walls. There is a huge sash window, almost floor to ceiling, that looks straight out over a narrow ornamental balcony with rusting ironwork, across the dual carriage-way to the sea. Maria drops her backpack, sits on the bed, and stares at a distant oil rig, blurred against the horizon, the brown-and-grey water still chopping and falling, the red flag furling and snapping repeatedly. After a while, she closes her eyes, begins to breathe deeply, and falls into a short but intense sleep.
When she wakes it is still daylight: just. She rises from the bed, switches the kettle on, makes a cup of tea, and returns to the bed, sitting upright
