Set the scene: A cold, dark, Granite City night, you come in and shake the snow from your drenched fluffy hooded coat and stomp excess snow and water from your boots drop your bags and head to change into those fluffy pj's that have been beckoning all day.
Pyjama and slipper boots ready you whip up a home made hot chocolate complete with canned cream, mini marshmallows and grated chocolate, throw a blanket around your shoulders and settle on the sofa. Cosy setting at the ready you pick up your favourite annual winter read, in this case Wuthering Heights, and scene.
At Christmas there is really nothing better than grabbing a blanket, cup of hot choccie and snuggling down with a good book. I think this is a tradition that nobody can escape, unless of course you're running about like a mad man trying to get Christmas gifts last minute (tut-tut) So with that in mind I thought I would share my annual winter read, why I love it and what it means to me!
At this time of year I'm afraid Dickens and his Christmas Carol just doens't do it for me, in fact nothing says Christmas to me more than Wuthering Heights (despite there being no mention of the festive season in the book!)
Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte
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| Overly loved copy of Wuthering Heights |
I first discovered Wuthering Heights when I was in my final year of school, so about 5 years ago, during an assignment where our English teacher asked us to abandon our comfort zones and read a genre we traditionally wouldn't (with most of the girls choosing the ever so original Twilight - which they traditionally would have read anyway ugh!) so I opted for one of the classics and decided Wuthering Heights dark undertones and twisted story line sounded far more interesting than the trials and tribulations of Mr Darcy or indeed Edward Cullen! During the assignment I read the book two or three times and so began my long lasting love and Christmas tradition of enveloping myself in Bronte's world.
What draws me so much more to this book than the other classics is that the heroine is a very flawed and real character who isn't like your run of the mill female characters from the classics who quite frankly allow their men to walk all over them. Likewise our anti hero, Heathcliff, isn't all frilly shirts and afternoon tea, you really have to look hard and dig deep to find any real and 'usual' romance in the novel.
Of course as a bonus the scenery and entire landscape which Bronte paints of the moors, which you can kind of see on the cover, Wuthering Heights and the locations the characters find themselves in are just spectacular, so chilling, dark and wintery which of course explains my need for a hot chocolate whilst reading!
I'm not going to explain the plot in great detail for those of you who haven't read it but still may but I will say it will be unlike anything you have ever read before and it far surpasses the times in which it was written especially from a feminist point of view, and I'm not for a moment saying that Cathy in the book is a feminist role model but for the times it was set and written in, but I'm pretty damn sure she was.
Do you have any winter traditions you uphold year upon year no matter what? Share them with me in the comments below or tell me your best reads on
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Until next time folks.
H.Elizabeth x
