Beauty (also slashiness and some Brontes)

[citrus_java]

This enchanted beauty actually moved me to read Wuthering Heights at the time. Also, this was the main way I liked guys before the Winchesters came into my life.

When I finished the book, I was kinda lost - no idea what the appeal was, why I'd just read that, and what was going on with the mood changes and genre changes and why I was expected to be rooting for their love and just a big WHAT . I guess with time and with trying to be supportive of Twilight fans, and with loving fucked up relationship stories myself, and being kinda intrigued with masculinity in the story, perhaps I have a better understanding of that now? Slightly better? If you like it and feel like showing me the awesome, I want to see.

Anyway, at the time, this made me feel vindicated:


Back to the beautiful Noel and the guys getting flustered over him!
The long version - awesome and delightfully slashy feedback. If you don't have the patience for the who thing, skip to that.

And the second version. if you don't feel like watching the whole thing you might want to jump to 02:00 - that's Noel's BFF and very... very slashy partner. Slashy like comparing their relationship to falling in love. Slashy like Noel saying he's read slash about giving him a blowjob and had to touch himself. Slashy like that.

Comments

[balder12.livejournal.com]

That was awesome! I've sung along with the Pat Benatar version of that song more times than I care to admit.

I kind of love Wuthering Heights, but I love it in the same way I love other Victorian horror stories like Dracula, Carmilla, or The Turn of the Screw. I think it helps to recognize that Emily Bronte doesn't think she's depicting a positive romantic relationship. It's a horror story where sexual passion is the monster.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Interesting. The whole "ghost running around" is definitely less scary than that, in the book. I'll think about it more. Thank you!

At the time a person I knew sent their English Prof mother to explain to me why it was amazing, and she said things like "the Jane Austen ending!" which honestly just left me hanging as to why that was a good...

As for singing along - oh, you're not alone!

[applegeuse.livejournal.com]

I second what balder12 said!

I think it helps to recognize that Emily Bronte doesn't think she's depicting a positive romantic relationship. It's a horror story where sexual passion is the monster.

I've never been able to read WH as a ~good ~romance! It's a horror story full of destruction. And IMHO, Nelly Dean is the most interesting character. Also Lockwood! Because he is hilarious.

The Brontes really do write some messed up relationships. Even Anne! (Who in that comic is the one with ~sense.) In one of her books, the hero horse-whips another dude into a coma because he is jealous of him. And he still gets the girl. XD

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Interesting that you both think so! The impression I got in general was that people watched the '80's miniseries (?) and found all that passion romantic, and that other people liked to mock it, like in the Thursday Next books. I just read it as an earlier version of some of the romance tropes I'm less comfortable with (personal taste), only perhaps more extreme and with less of the disturbing-sweet reassurances that it is indeed romantic. It's interesting to think of it as intentional, as a horror story. I don't think I've heard that before.

Huh, what intrigues you in Nelly?

The Brontes really do write some messed up relationships. Even Anne!

Oh no! I haven't read anything by her yet, but that comic put her on my list of "perhaps"...

In one of her books, the hero horse-whips another dude into a coma because he is jealous of him. And he still gets the girl.

Wow, that's... yeah.

[balder12.livejournal.com]

We've talked before about how I love Stockholm syndrome fic, but hate fic that essentially gives a character Stockholm syndrome and calls it true love. I feel like the same kind of distinction is at work here. Wuthering Heights is dark fic that knows it's dark fic. Twilight is fic that thinks it's being romantic when it's actually being creepy.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

*on board*
I definitely agree about the distinction, and I like and dislike both of those too :)

[applegeuse.livejournal.com]

Anne Bronte is my favorite. :3 That book I referenced, Tenant of Wildfell Hall, is my favorite of the Brontes' books! Anne's only got two books--a really boring little one about a governess and then Tenant, which is amazeballs.

FWIW, Agnes Grey (the boring governess book) probably has the least problematic romantic relationship out of any of the books, and I think Anne's being really snarky in Tenant.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Hmm, OK, perhaps I should read it anyway :)
Thanks!

Agnes Grey (the boring governess book) probably has the least problematic romantic relationship

I don't mind problematic relationships just for being problematic, they can be fascinating and they can even be romantic, it's more about how they're presented, what path I'm taken through while reading them, and in a big way - what the story seems to assume I'd think and feel.

[balder12.livejournal.com]

Yes, Nelly makes for a fascinating pov character because she so obviously despises the protagonists. Plus, I get the sense she has her own unrequited thing going on with Cathy's older brother. And Lockwood is kind of a sick ticket when you get down to it. I love how casually he tells the story about how he fell in love with a woman, wooed her, and then lost all interest in her as soon as she noticed he existed. He has no idea how messed up that is.

Also, am I the only one who thinks Heathcliff might be Cathy's half-brother? Because I re-read the novel recently, and the possibility occurred to me. What kind of nineteenth century English gentleman brings home a non-white street urchin and treats him like a son unless it's his bastard child?

[applegeuse.livejournal.com]

Yeah! Nelly is fantastically interesting. She's very manipulative and has a vested interest in the narrative she's telling, and a lot of people don't even remember she's the one who tells the bulk of the story to Lockwood. (Or, honestly, that Lockwood even exists. XD)

I always thought that story about Lockwood's failed little ~romance was meant to be silly and funny, another example of his buffoonery--like how he mistakes a pile of dead rabbits for cats or piteously falls neck-deep in snow. IIRC, he had merely ~decided they were in love after sharing a bunch of glances and hadn't even talked to her, essentially fabricating a Great Romance in his mind that didn't actually exist. (I tried to look up that scene again in my copy but of course I couldn't find it! /o/)

Oh man, there is definitely cause to think Heathcliff is Cathy's half-brother! Definitely, definitely.

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Manipulative is interesting :)
I suppose I very much notices both Lockwood and Nelly because at the time i was trying very hard to figure out how to plot a thing I was trying to write. I was about a person coming into a situation and slowly discovering what's been going on, but it wasn't exactly a detective plot. And I was having a lot of trouble with them figuring it out step by stem - how to make both plots interact interestingly rather than take from each other, how the protagonist might try to figure things out, and how they might manage to, without taking steps too big and without just being told. WH started out like it was going to do exactly that, and I was excited to read something that did what I was trying to do and see what made it work - but then it didn't really. So I certainly noticed Nelly and Lockwood.


I always thought that story about Lockwood's failed little ~romance was meant to be silly and funny, another example of his buffoonery--like how he mistakes a pile of dead rabbits for cats or piteously falls neck-deep in snow. IIRC, he had merely ~decided they were in love after sharing a bunch of glances and hadn't even talked to her, essentially fabricating a Great Romance in his mind that didn't actually exist.

Och, the way you describe it makes it seem so interesting and delightful...

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Not the only one! I wondered about that, but it seemed to be sort of disregarded/brushed over. At first I expected it to become a thing later, but it didn't.

I like your take on Nelly and Lockwood. I suppose it mostly left me unsure what I'm expected to do with it, as a reader. I noticed it, but was left wondering whether it was going to turn into something, develop, or I'll need to use it later to understand something they said differently (it has a little detective story to it), or whether I was just interpreting it as disturbing cause my paradigms are different from those of the time or the author - I didn't know what to do with it, so I just didn't. Not too familiar with the genre :)

[big-heart-june.livejournal.com]

oh so brilliantly done! I love! ♥ also, this song, I will always crank up the volume!

[citrusjava.livejournal.com]

Aw, yay!
*cranks up the volume*
*drives past the Impala, singing with you, just catching Dean's disapproving expression as he turns to Sam to bitch about the music*
:)

It's OK, we can say hi next rest stop, perhaps.