Spent $40 on a fancy annotated copy of 'Wuthering Heights' for our club and it just made our argument about Heathcliff's motives even more confusing.

The footnotes kept contradicting each other, so now half of us think he's a tragic hero and the other half are convinced he's just a terrible guy, and we wasted a whole meeting going in circles.

2 comments

2 Comments

spencer_thomas41mo ago

Honestly, it's just a book. People have been arguing about it for over a hundred years, so your club isn't going to solve it in one meeting. The footnotes prove there's no single right answer. Maybe the point is that he's both a terrible guy and a tragic figure, and that's what makes it interesting. You didn't waste the meeting, you had the exact discussion the book is meant to start. Save the fancy copy for next time and just talk it out.

henrym1429d ago

My buddy's book club had the same meltdown over that character last month. They spent an hour going in circles trying to label him a hero or a villain. The host got so stressed she almost called the whole thing off. Next week they just talked about the parts that stuck with them, no big plan, and it was way better. Sometimes you just gotta drop the deep take and let people say what they actually thought.