The Podcast of the Lotus Eaters

00:00:00.000 Hello, and welcome to this episode of Chronicles, where today we're going to be talking all about

00:00:18.520 Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte. Now, I will just tell you that this particular book has been

00:00:24.920 sat on my shelf for years and years now, and I'm sure I bought it at some second-hand bookstore

00:00:32.080 many years back, obviously intending to get round to it, and this has given me

00:00:36.420 the perfect opportunity to do so. So, by all means, let's cue the Kate Bush and get on with it,

00:00:43.880 shall we? So, because this is my first time reading it, I will just say out of the gate that

00:00:50.620 I can already tell that this is a novel that is well worthy of its reputation, but also a novel

00:00:58.600 that's definitely going to reward you for numerous readings. You can tell that there are so many

00:01:05.120 subtle details weaved into the text, and it's really remarkable. Honestly, from the beginning of the

00:01:11.380 story, I was genuinely hooked by it. And another thing as well that I think just kept me so engaged

00:01:19.580 in the tale was the fact that it was so different to the story that I was actually expecting, because

00:01:27.520 you have all of these Hollywood films that kind of paint the relationship between Kathy and Heathcliff

00:01:36.400 as a classic romance in many ways, because that's obviously the type of story that Hollywood want to

00:01:43.500 tell. But I think actually that's to do a real disservice to the type of relationship that Emily

00:01:51.040 Bronte is putting to the page here, because it really caught me by surprise. It's far from romantic,

00:01:58.120 really. It's very, very toxic, very destructive. And also as well, just to say that that relationship

00:02:07.020 between Heathcliff and Kathy, which you see over and over again on the film is actually only the first

00:02:14.080 half of the novel as well. This is a story of generations and how what happened to that generation

00:02:23.080 obviously goes on to impact the second generation through the cycle of revenge and healing and all

00:02:30.240 these sorts of questions. And so it's a really ambitious story. And it's made all the more

00:02:36.860 wonderful having it set, seeped in this Gothic mystique, you know, as it takes place on the

00:02:44.660 Yorkshire moors, which if you've never been to, by the way, I will, you know, advise you to go and

00:02:50.500 check them out because they are genuinely breathtaking. And I suppose another thing as well is that when you

00:02:56.300 are living a life that rural, as Emily Bronte did for much of her life, then the moors today will be

00:03:05.000 very, very similar, right? You'll still be able to go out and see nothing but them but nature for miles

00:03:12.680 and miles around. They are truly extensive, and a real marvel in their own right. And so it's

00:03:19.020 automatically a fantastic place to stage a story in. And yeah, it was very impressive. So let's begin

00:03:28.400 by talking a little bit, shall we, about the Brontes, the Bronte sisters, and Emily in particular.

00:03:35.240 One thing to note is that they were, as was standard for the time, a very large family. Their father was

00:03:41.940 an Irishman, and their mother was Cornish, a daughter of a Cornish merchant. And when Emily

00:03:48.820 was very, very young, they came up to Yorkshire to settle there because her father had basically

00:03:55.740 obtained a position as a curate at the local church in Haworth, where Emily lived for most of her life

00:04:04.040 and where the Bronte Museum now exists today. Most of what we know about Emily comes from her sister

00:04:11.640 Charlotte, who outlived her, though didn't really go on to have a very extensive life of her own. And that

00:04:18.920 really is something that defines the story of the Bronte sisters. They're constantly surrounded by death

00:04:27.020 and sadness and, you know, a grim nature. And especially when you see into Emily's letters and the things

00:04:37.120 that she was writing, you see, actually, that far from sort of like a pantheistic love and just, you know,

00:04:44.440 some sort of hippie out in nature, just sitting under the trees, you see a darker mind at work. There is

00:04:51.520 something truly gothic in her very view of the world and kind of a cynicism towards nature itself,

00:04:59.940 but still with a reverence for its power. And Emily and Charlotte and Anne and all the rest of them, they lost

00:05:09.260 two of their sisters very, very young to typhus when they were at a boarding school nearby because of the

00:05:17.900 unsanitary conditions there. And you see something very similar happen in Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre, actually,

00:05:25.600 where someone dies at the school. But through all of this, the Bronte sisters are very well documented.

00:05:34.500 And also, we don't really know a great amount about Emily herself. She seems to have been the quietest.

00:05:43.500 She was also definitely the one that stayed around Yorkshire the most out of the three of them.

00:05:49.540 When Wuthering Heights was first published back in 1847, it received a very mixed reception,

00:05:58.320 to say the least. People were very taken aback by how dark the characters were, by how none of them

00:06:06.620 seemed particularly redeemable. They basically said that Emily, under the pen name of Ellis Bell,

00:06:14.880 had just misunderstood literature and that it was quite a clumsy piece of work. And so it's a shame

00:06:23.400 that she only lived another year after its publication and passed away at the age of 30 from tuberculosis.

00:06:31.300 And she never actually got to see the fame that her novel would go on to have. Also, just another

00:06:38.600 thing to say is that in addition to Charlotte and Anne as her sisters, she did also have one brother

00:06:44.960 who survived into adulthood, and that was Branwell, Branwell Bronte. And we see from him the actual

00:06:52.980 painting of the three sisters together. And it's definitely one of the most important things that

00:06:59.500 we have in terms of getting an idea about who they were as people. So I've decided for the purpose

00:07:06.460 of Wuthering Heights, that because it is split so perfectly down the middle, with the first half

00:07:12.740 of the story taking up Cathy and Heathcliff and that generation, and then the second part taking up

00:07:19.680 characters like little Cathy, her daughter, and Linton, and some of the other characters who are

00:07:26.460 brought into it, that we're going to split it into two parts. Because even though it is a pretty

00:07:32.520 standard length, I mean, I've got it here in 245 pages, it's pretty dense. And though I, you know,

00:07:40.400 whenever I do the story telling aspect of Chronicles, I always script it and, you know, to try and give

00:07:47.160 it a richer texture. There is simply so much that happens in Wuthering Heights, so many little moments,

00:07:54.000 that it's genuinely impossible to put them all in. So I'm going to go through the story now,

00:07:59.460 I'll tell you it all, and then we will talk about the first half of Wuthering Heights.

00:08:13.180 1801. I have just returned from a visit to my landlord, the solitary neighbour that I shall be

00:08:19.140 troubled with. This is certainly a beautiful country. In all England, I do not believe that I could have

00:08:24.640 fixed on a situation so completely removed from the stir of society. A perfect misanthrope's heaven.

00:08:31.880 And Mr. Heathcliff and I are of such a suitable pair to divide the desolation between us, a capital fellow. 0.99

00:08:38.560 He little imagined how my heart warmed towards him when I beheld his black eyes withdraw so suspiciously

00:08:45.100 under their brows, as I rode up, and when his fingers sheltered themselves with a jealous resolution,

00:08:52.100 still further in his waistcoat, as I announced my name.

00:08:57.180 These words are the account of Mr. Lockwood, a man of society, just moved to the rural grandeur of Yorkshire.

00:09:05.080 He is a respectable man of unimpeachable manners, but such sociability is wasted on his brooding, sinister landlord,

00:09:14.420 Mr. Heathcliff, who lives at the oppressive residence of Wuthering Heights.

00:09:19.920 Mr. Lockwood's visit there introduces him to a dour collection of characters.

00:09:24.580 Joseph, an austere and aged servant.

00:09:27.740 Hairton, a strong young man of limited learning.

00:09:32.280 Zilla, a hardy gossip serving as a housekeeper. 0.82

00:09:35.500 And a young woman of the most grave disposition.

00:09:39.780 Mr. Lockwood learns that her name is Catherine Heathcliff,

00:09:43.180 and that she was once married to Mr. Heathcliff's son, who has since died.

00:09:48.820 Mr. Lockwood is forced to sleep at Wuthering Heights for the night,

00:09:52.000 as the moors are mantled by darkness, and there is no guide to spare.

00:09:56.600 The hospitality is cold, and in that restless night he sees the name Catherine scratched into the window ledge.

00:10:04.680 Resting near it is Catherine's childhood diary, and Mr. Lockwood begins to browse through it.

00:10:10.860 Earnshaw, Linton, Heathcliff, all of these family names follow on in various etchings.

00:10:17.140 The house is haunted by memory and malice and regret, and perhaps something more.

00:10:23.800 Mr. Lockwood begins to dream, and in that dream he attends a sermon at a chapel,

00:10:30.420 but is defensive when the pastor accuses him of sin.

00:10:34.220 The congregation descends into a cacophony of clubs and violence,

00:10:38.740 until the dream is shattered, as branches from a nearby tree smash through the window,

00:10:44.320 waking Mr. Lockwood, as he recounts.

00:10:47.000 I muttered, knocking my knuckles through the glass and stretching an arm out to seize the importunate branch.

00:10:54.420 Instead of which, my fingers closed on the fingers of a little ice-cold hand.

00:11:00.200 The intense horror of nightmare came over me.

00:11:03.720 I tried to draw back my arm, but the hand clung to it, and a most melancholy voice sobbed.

00:11:09.660 Let me in. Let me in.

00:11:12.960 Who are you? I asked, struggling meanwhile to disengage myself.

00:11:17.820 Catherine Linton.

00:11:20.720 It replied shiveringly.

00:11:23.120 Why did I think of Linton? I had read Earnshaw twenty times for Linton.

00:11:28.040 I'm come home. I'd lost my way on the moor.

00:11:31.780 As it spoke, I discerned obscurely, a child's face looking through the window.

00:11:38.820 Terror made me cruel, and finding it useless to attempt shaking the creature off,

00:11:44.400 I pulled its wrists onto the broken pane, and rubbed it to and fro till the blood ran down and soaked the bedclothes.

00:11:52.520 Still it wailed.

00:11:54.120 Let me in.

00:11:55.220 And maintained its tenacious gripe, almost maddening me with fear.

00:12:00.140 How can I? I said at length.

00:12:03.560 Let me go, if you want me to let you in.

00:12:06.620 The fingers relaxed.

00:12:08.240 I snatched mine through the hole, hurriedly piled the books up in a pyramid against it,

00:12:12.820 and stopped my ears to exclude the lamentable prayer.

00:12:17.320 I seemed to keep them closed above a quarter of an hour.

00:12:21.380 Yet the instant I listened again, there was a doleful cry moaning.

00:12:26.080 Be gone! I shouted.

00:12:28.260 I'll never let you in.

00:12:29.440 Not if you beg for twenty years.

00:12:32.160 It is twenty years, mourned the voice.

00:12:36.040 Twenty years. I've been a waif for twenty years.

00:12:40.420 Thereat began the feeble scratching outside, and the pile of books moved as if thrust forward.

00:12:47.340 I tried to jump up, but could not stir a limb, and so yelled aloud in a frenzy of fright.

00:12:52.620 Mr. Lockwood's yell awakens Heathcliff, who enters with his natural antagonism.

00:12:59.100 But as he hears his guest's explanation, and the name of Catherine Earnshaw, and the visitation from her ghost, a change passes over Heathcliff.

00:13:09.320 I stood still, and was witness involuntary to a piece of superstition on the part of my landlord which belayed oddly his apparent sense.

00:13:19.200 He got onto the bed, and wrenched open the lattice, bursting, as he pulled at it, into an uncontrollable passion of tears.

00:13:28.120 Come in. Come in. Come in, he sobbed.

00:13:31.880 Cathy, do come. Oh, do once more. Oh, my heart, darling, hear me this time. Catherine, at last.

00:13:42.080 The spectre showed a spectre's ordinary caprice.

00:13:46.160 It gave no sign of being, but the snow and the wind whirled wildly through, even reaching my station and blowing out the light.

00:13:55.000 There was such anguish in the gush of grief that accompanied this raving, that my compassion made me overlook its folly.

00:14:03.080 And I drew off, half angry to have listened at all, and vexed at having related my ridiculous nightmare, since it produced that agony.

00:14:12.280 Though why was beyond my comprehension.

00:14:15.620 At daybreak, Mr. Lockwood is soon on his way back to his home at Thrushcross Grange,

00:14:20.440 not wishing to stay at Wuthering Heights any longer than needed.

00:14:24.780 When he returns, he relays his impressions of Mr. Heathcliff to his housekeeper, Nellie Dean.

00:14:30.680 She begins to explain her own part in the history of the mysterious Catherine.

00:14:35.140 Nellie had once lived at Wuthering Heights herself, growing up alongside the Earnshaw children, Hindley and Catherine, whilst her mother nursed them.

00:14:44.160 One day, Mr. Earnshaw departs on business to Liverpool,

00:14:47.400 and on his return he brings with him something that will doom the fates and fortunes of every life in the home.

00:14:55.160 Heathcliff.

00:14:56.260 Young, feral and dark. 0.95

00:14:58.760 He has all the bearings of a gypsy. 1.00

00:15:01.200 But Mr. Earnshaw is affectionate towards the young lad, which fosters bitter feelings from Hindley,

00:15:06.680 who feels his rightful attention as the eldest son is being denied to him.

00:15:11.100 These two become sworn enemies.

00:15:12.840 But from the very beginning, young Catherine adores Heathcliff.

00:15:17.680 They spend their days wandering the moors in childish mischief.

00:15:21.840 The years press on, and before Hindley goes away to study,

00:15:25.940 Mr. Earnshaw makes him swear that he will look after Heathcliff once he is gone.

00:15:31.140 Mr. Earnshaw dies sometime later, passing peacefully with Catherine singing at his side.

00:15:37.020 But when Hindley returns, he does not keep his promise.

00:15:41.560 Heathcliff, once his father's favourite, is reduced to the status of servant.

00:15:46.860 But Heathcliff ably endures this slight, seeing as he is still able to enjoy his time with Cathy.

00:15:53.140 One day, Heathcliff and Cathy are up to their usual games, and spying on the civilised Linton family,

00:16:00.300 in their home at Thrushcross Grange, the same house that Mr. Lockwood now resides in as tenant.

00:16:06.000 Alarmed by the trespassers, the Linton's dog sets upon young Cathy,

00:16:10.140 and she and Heathcliff are brought inside to see her wound.

00:16:13.880 But the Lintons look down on the unkempt Heathcliff with revulsion, and send him on his way.

00:16:19.240 Whilst Cathy stays recovering, the Lintons cultivate her appearance into an elegant and sophisticated young lady,

00:16:27.540 though she remains wild at heart.

00:16:30.400 On the passing of Mr. Earnshaw, Hindley had become the master of the house,

00:16:34.920 though great tragedy befalls him as he loses his wife during childbirth.

00:16:39.660 Though she is able to deliver him his only son, Hairton, before she passes away,

00:16:45.100 Hindley's depression strikes deep, and he becomes an alcoholic.

00:16:49.800 After spending time with the Lintons, Cathy begins to fall in love with their son, Edgar.

00:16:55.100 He is gentlemanly, stable, and has great prospects for the future.

00:16:59.640 But ever doubt gnaws at young Cathy, as she confides in Nellie.

00:17:04.240 Today, Edgar Linton has asked me to marry him, and I've given him an answer.

00:17:09.140 Now, before I tell you whether it was a consent or denial, you tell me which it ought to have been.

00:17:15.480 Really, Miss Catherine, how can I know? I replied.

00:17:18.580 To be sure, considering the exhibition you performed in his presence this afternoon,

00:17:22.800 I might say it'd be wise to refuse him. 1.00

00:17:25.180 Since he asks you after that, he must be either hopelessly stupid or a venturesome fool. 1.00

00:17:30.040 If you talk so, I won't tell you any more. 1.00

00:17:32.700 She returned peevishly, rising to her feet. 0.98

00:17:34.980 I accepted him, Nellie.

00:17:37.560 Be quick and say whether I was wrong.

00:17:40.040 You accepted him?

00:17:41.540 Then what good is it discussing the matter?

00:17:43.880 You have pledged your word and cannot retract.

00:17:46.900 But say whether I should have done so.

00:17:49.600 Do, she exclaimed in an irritated tone, chafing her hands together and frowning.

00:17:55.980 Cathy insists that her love for Edgar is genuine.

00:17:59.000 So, why does she complain about her unhappiness? 0.98

00:18:02.560 Your brother will be pleased.

00:18:04.440 The old lady and gentleman will not object, I think.

00:18:07.460 You will escape from a disorderly, comfortless home into a wealthy, respectable one.

00:18:12.480 And you love Edgar.

00:18:13.820 And Edgar loves you.

00:18:15.260 All seems smooth and easy.

00:18:16.560 Where is the obstacle?

00:18:17.900 I've no more business to marry Edgar Linton than I have to be in heaven.

00:18:21.260 And if the wicked man in there had not brought Heathcliff so low,

00:18:25.200 I shouldn't have thought of it.

00:18:26.600 It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now.

00:18:30.160 So, he will never know how I love him.

00:18:33.180 And that, not because he's handsome, Nellie, but because he's more myself than I am.

00:18:38.820 Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same thing.

00:18:42.760 And Linton's is as different as a moonbeam from lightning or frost from fire.

00:18:48.300 But Heathcliff overhears only the worst of this conversation.

00:18:51.740 And is overwhelmed with betrayal upon hearing that Cathy sees marriage to him as degrading.

00:18:57.220 He flees Wuthering Heights for many years.

00:18:59.820 And Cathy falls ill with despair for the first time.

00:19:03.340 She can do nothing but accept Edgar's marriage proposal.

00:19:06.860 So, she moves to Thrushcross Grove as Mrs. Catherine Linton.

00:19:11.460 There she lives with her husband, his sister Isabella,

00:19:14.300 and the lifelong confidant and servant, Nellie.

00:19:18.000 The house is a haven of order and affection.

00:19:21.340 Those shadows linger in Catherine's or restless spirit.

00:19:25.380 Then, one evening, Heathcliff returns.

00:19:28.700 Tall, athletic, darkly handsome,

00:19:31.800 his rough edges polished by mysterious wealth and travels.

00:19:35.300 As Govington begrudgingly invites him into his home.

00:19:39.740 If you enjoyed this piece of premium content from the Lotus Eaters,

00:19:43.120 head to our website where you can find more.

PREVIEW： Chronicles #35 ｜ Wuthering Heights Part 1

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