Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Wuthering Heights,' by Emily Brontë

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: The Book Review – Book Club: Let's Talk About 'Wuthering Heights,' by Emily Brontë (NYT, Feb 27, 2026)

Main Theme & Purpose

This episode of The New York Times' Book Review podcast is a spirited, multigenerational book club discussion on Emily Brontë’s 1847 classic, Wuthering Heights, prompted by its revived popularity following Emerald Fennell’s new film adaptation. Host MJ Franklin is joined by editors Jen Harlan, Sadie Stein, and first-time book clubber Nima Jeromey. Together, they unpack the novel’s gothic DNA, thorny character dynamics, generational trauma, and whether it really is "the greatest love story of all time." The episode explores both literary analysis and the cultural legacy of Wuthering Heights, includes fun modern parallels, reader reactions, and closes with recommendations for further reading.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Wuthering Heights at the Center of the Zeitgeist (00:28–06:12)

• Why Wuthering Heights, and Why Now?

  • The latest film adaptation by Emerald Fennell (director of Promising Young Woman, Saltburn) has made Wuthering Heights the buzziest book of early 2026.
  • The book’s timelessness and chaotic energy provide rich ground for book club examination.

• Lightning Fast Plot Summary

  • Nima Jeromey does a one-minute summary, emphasizing that even this is barely enough to encapsulate the plot’s wildness.
  • MJ: “There’s so much that happens… you could spend an hour just saying, like, this happens, and this is the context…”

2. First Impressions: Is It a Love Story? Or Something Wilder? (06:37–16:29)

• Jen Harlan (First-Time Reader):

  • Expected “neater” Austenian narrative, found instead a “feverish, passion-driven, disorienting experience.”
  • “If I had read this when I was 15… I would have fallen head over heels… Reading it as an adult… so messy and deeply frustrating.” (08:53)
  • “All of the characters pretty much are completely unsympathetic… it’s really like an obsession and codependency and revenge story.” (10:41)

• MJ Franklin (Host, First-Time Reader):

  • “It’s wild and feverish… volatile is the word.”

• Sadie Stein (Returning Reader):

  • Had “wrist and bleeding” phobia, noting early scenes are especially “violent and bloody.” (12:26)
  • Book is “propulsive,” “riveting, but not a romp.” Feels confusing if read in bits; best consumed quickly.

• Nima Jeromey:

  • As a teen, read for symbols; rereading as an adult, more attuned to unreliable narrators, especially Nellie.
  • “You are spiraling down, and then sometimes Nellie is being told another story by someone else… and Nellie is like, ‘What are you smoking?’” (15:04)

---

3. On Structure & Reliability: The Nested Narrators (16:29–20:13)

• The Value (and Intrigue) of the Frame Narrative

  • Multiple nested narrators: us → Lockwood → Nellie → Others.
  • Sadie: “You start to think… how sane is she? She’s been more traumatized than anyone.”
  • Jen: “She’s complicit in all events… could have intervened, but did not.”
  • MJ: “Nellie is kind of sinister… Shepherding letters, deciding what knowledge to share. She underplays her role.”

• Hermetic Worldbuilding

  • Sadie: “Tiny world—two houses, frequent moors. No one comes from the outside. Very like Emily Brontë’s experience.”

---

4. Characters: Sympathy, Violence, Obsession (24:17–33:17)

• Heathcliff’s Origin & Descent

  • Nima: “His villain origin story… forced into the role of servant, loses all chance of gentility.”
  • Becomes increasingly violent: “You want to see him rise up, but then… torturing everybody around him, including children.” (MJ, 27:05)
  • Jen: “There’s a brief moment of freedom/wild joy for Cathy and Heathcliff… then society and abuse change them both. Suppression eats them alive.” (27:51)

• Cruelty to Children & the Next Generation

  • Sadie: “The cruelty to children is the hardest to read. Harriton’s story is especially sad—initially loved, then coarsened by Heathcliff.”
  • Jen: “Young Linton starts sweet, devolves into a spineless weasel under Heathcliff’s influence.” (29:23)

• Is It A Love Story? (Major Theme)

  • Jen: “Not a love story… more an obsession, codependency, and revenge story.”
  • Nima: “There is a gesture at love, in Catherine’s argument that marrying Edgar Linton is ultimately to benefit Heathcliff.” (31:18)
  • Sadie: “Lack of love is what drives the story… a study in deprivation, and ensuing trauma.”
  • MJ: “The book’s marketed as the ‘greatest love story,’ but isn’t it just… cringe and violent?”

• Notable Quote:

  • Sadie: “In a weird way, it’s all so incestuous… for the modern reader, it’s hard to feel it’s romantic.” (33:11)

---

5. Quick Round: Notes and Observations (33:59–38:18)

• Jen: “Song in my head was ‘Daddy, I Love Him’ by Taylor Swift. That’s Kathy’s deal.” (33:59)
• Sadie: “Everyone is horrible, yells, and violent to each other—remarkable for the times.”
• Nima: “Defense for different character names is they’re emotionally freighted—at the climax, Catherine becomes ‘Mrs. Heathcliff,’ which is meaningful.”
• MJ: “This book is dishy, fun. I kept gasping and wanted to read parts aloud.”

---

6. On Style, Pacing, and Atmosphere (37:28–38:18)

• All Action, No Description

  • Very little “filler” or “quiet contemplation.” (Jen)
  • “Relentless, fun, can’t put it down, but overwhelming.” (Jen, 37:45)

• Dialect Difficulties

  • Sadie: “The sections with Joseph in broad dialect—I had to skip some.” (38:08)

---

7. Film Adaptation: Emerald Fennell’s ‘Wuthering Heights’ (38:18–47:33)

• Differing Views

  • Sadie: “The movie is a very different animal… Opens with a crowd scene. Already we’re in a different world. Doesn’t resemble the book’s hermetic, claustrophobic setting.”
  • Jen: “Cuts 50% of characters and 80% of plot. Focuses on just Kathy and Heathcliff—feels like Romeo & Juliet on the moors with a big fog budget.”
  • MJ: “Less an adaptation, more a mood board. It’s style, aesthetics, and vibe over fidelity to plot. Big swing that doesn't always land, but fun to watch.”
  • Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi, as adults, seem miscast for “teenager-level” passions.
  • Notable: Potential as a future “camp classic” or for themed viewing parties.

• Broader Point:

  • MJ: “Why remake or reimagine a classic? Because it’s interesting. That’s what art is for.”

---

8. Book Recommendations: If You Liked Wuthering Heights… (47:49–54:08)

• Jen’s Picks:

  • The Safekeep by Yael Vanderboeden – Isolated house, obsession, revenge, “great twists.”
  • Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia – Gothic mansion, twisted families, dark secrets.
  • Hark! A Vagrant (webcomic) by Kate Beaton – Delightful comics riffing on Brontë.

• Sadie’s Picks:

  • Villette by Charlotte Brontë – “Deeply weird,” less lurid but just as rich.
  • Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier – Classic gothic tragedy, darkness at the heart of love.

• Nima’s Pick:

  • The Idiot by Elif Batuman – Coming-of-age tale, emotional stunting, tormented love, “photo negative” of Wuthering Heights.

• MJ’s Picks:

  • The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald – Obsession, reinvention, outsider narrator.
  • The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas – Vengeance epic; ties to Wuthering Heights’ revenge themes.
  • Note: Listeners reference theories about Gatsby being a racial “other,” paralleling Heathcliff’s ambiguity.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• Jen Harlan [08:53]: “If I had read this when I was 15… I would have fallen head over heels… Reading it as an adult… so messy and deeply frustrating.”
• Sadie Stein [12:26]: “If you have a highly specific phobia involving wrists and bleeding… this is hard to get through.”
• Nima Jeromey [15:04]: “You are spiraling down and down and down. And then sometimes Nellie is being told another story by someone else…”
• Sadie Stein [19:47]: “She feels responsibility for various characters, but each of them dies or is taken away. So what is keeping her?”
• Jen Harlan [27:51]: “As they get older… the more they try to suppress their wildness, the more it literally eats her alive from the inside.”
• Sadie Stein [33:11]: “In a weird way, there’s also… it’s all so incestuous… for the modern reader, it’s hard to feel it’s romantic.”
• Jen Harlan [33:59]: “The song that kept getting stuck in my head… was not ‘Wuthering Heights’ by Kate Bush, but ‘Daddy, I Love Him’ by Taylor Swift.”
• MJ Franklin [36:26]: “A lot of darkness and a glimmer in the distant moors of light.”
• Jen Harlan [46:49]: “If nothing else, this movie is making more people go read the book and revisit the Brontës and is good grist for criticism.”
• Sadie Stein [54:43]: “I would wander the moors with you all anytime.”

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:28 – MJ Franklin introduces the book club and panel
• 04:54 – 1-minute challenge: What is Wuthering Heights about?
• 08:47 – First impressions, ‘feverish’ quality
• 11:58 – How they first read the book (and why it’s confusing)
• 14:14 – Nima on rereading as an adult
• 16:29 – Frame narrative, reliability, and Nellie’s complicity
• 18:54 – The hermetic, claustrophobic social world
• 24:17 – Breaking down Heathcliff, Catherine, the trauma/violence
• 29:44 – Is it a love story, or an obsession?
• 33:59 – Open notebook: quick takes and fun observations
• 37:28 – Pacing and style: all action, no filler
• 38:18 – Film adaptation: review, comparison, and adaptation philosophy
• 47:49 – Book recommendations: what to read next

---

Tone, Atmosphere & Style

• Fun and deeply engaged, mixing irreverence (“possible necrophilia”) with literary analysis and personal reaction.
• The book club panel bounces between serious critique and playful banter, invoking Taylor Swift, Tumblr GIFs, and references to cultural touchstones like Wishbone and The Room.
• Generational gap acknowledged (Jen: “If I’d read this at 15…” Sadie: “You never were a 14-year-old girl…”)
• Lively and inviting for listeners who haven’t read the book—or are considering revisiting it.

---

Further Engagement

• Online discussion continues via NYT Book Review’s community comment section (readers’ voices included in the episode at [22:03])
• March pick previewed: Kin by Tayari Jones

---

Summary Prepared by: [Podcast Summarizer AI]
For more detailed literary discussions, subscribe to The Book Review or join the online book club at NYT.

Transcript

[Jen Harlan]

This podcast is supported by On Investing, an original podcast from Charles Schwab. Each week, hosts Liz Ann Saunders, Schwab's chief investment strategist, and Cathy Jones, Schwab's chief fixed income strategist, along with their guests, analyze economic developments and bring context to conversations around stocks, fixed income, the economy, and more. Download the latest episode and [e-mail] oninvesting or wherever you get your podcasts.

[MJ Franklin]

I'm Gilbert Cruz and this is the Book Review for the New York Times. On this week's episode, our monthly book club discussion hosted by MJ Franklin. February marked the peak of Wuthering Heights fever, given the recent film adaptation, and MJ gathered a fantastic group of book review editors to talk about Emily Bronte's gothic classic. Mj, over to you. Hello and welcome to another book club episode of the Book Review podcast. I'm MJ Franklin and you know, it's funny. We here at the Book Review are always watching out for what books are popping in a year, what books are sticking, what are the books readers don't want to miss. And so far this year, it seems like there's been one big it book that everybody is talking about. And yep, you guessed it, it's Wuthering Heights, a book that Originally published in 1847 and yet it seems to be the event of 2026 so far. In general, the book is a perennial reader favorite, but this year it got a big boost back into the Zeitgeist because of a new film adaptation by Emerald Fennell, the director behind movies like Promising Young Woman and Saltburn, and we thought a great beloved classic. That's back in the conversation. That sounds like a book club pick for us. And joining me in our Wuthering Heights deep dive are several of my esteemed colleagues. First up, we have two returning guests, Jen Harlan. Hi Jen. Hi MJ And Sadie Stein. Hi Sadie.

[Sadie Stein]

Thank you for having me.

[MJ Franklin]

We also have a first time book clubber, a big newcomer, Nima Jeromey.

[Nima Jeromey]

Hi, MJ Said with such a deep

[MJ Franklin]

voice, such a good timbre.

[Nima Jeromey]

That's my Heathcliff voice.

[MJ Franklin]

Oh my God.

[Jen Harlan]

And here are the winds on the moors.

[MJ Franklin]

Now, Nima, you've been at the Book Review for a while. You've joined other podcast episodes, but never a book club. By way of introduction, can you tell us what you do here at the Book Review and what you like to read?

[Nima Jeromey]

I am a preview editor who looks at nonfiction, books, history, politics, a lot of war, a lot of violence, not a lot of books like Wuthering Heights, unfortunately. Although I was an English major in college and read Wuthering Heights as part of kind of masterpieces of English in high school, which.

[MJ Franklin]

Can I blow up your spot a little bit? You taught us a very fun fact about Wuthering Heights in high school. Can you share that with us? Do you feel comfortable?

[Nima Jeromey]

Oh, what? I don't remember. What was the fun fact?

[MJ Franklin]

You told me that the paper you wrote on Wuthering Heights was the only paper you got an A on in high school. Is this true?

[Nima Jeromey]

Oh, that's right. And now looking back at it, I'm not even really sure I read Wuthering Heights back in high school. I may have just done a search online on Gutenberg for the word fire and then read a paragraph around every instance of that word and then wrote an essay based on that.

[Jen Harlan]

The truth comes out.

[MJ Franklin]

We're already only a few minutes in. You've given us a lot to consider. Welcome to book club podcast.

[Jen Harlan]

Getting spicy already.

[Nima Jeromey]

I did read it this time, though. I promise.

[MJ Franklin]

Thank you.

[Sadie Stein]

And that actually sounds like kind of a lot of work went into it. Almost as much as reading the book.

[Jen Harlan]

Some might say more. Yes, just reading the book.

[MJ Franklin]

Well, I'm excited for you to join us for this book club. I'm excited for you as well, Sadie. Jen. Before we dive into our Wuthering Heights conversation, I have my typical admin notes, general note. There will be spoilers in this episode. If you want to avoid spoilers, pause this, go read the book, and then come back. You may have already absorbed spoilers again. This came out in 1847, but we are going to dive all the way in. Second, we will discuss the film adaptation of Wuthering Heights later in this episode. This is a book podcast. We'll focus on the book itself for the most part, but in the back half, we'll dive into the book. We'll try to keep that very spoiler light, but that is coming up. And then after that, we'll also talk about recommendations, as we always do. So there's a fun second half. And then, last but not least, at the end of the episode, we will reveal our march book club pick. So stay with us to the end to find out what we're reading next. And with that, let's dive in to get started. Nima, could you give us a brief setup of Wuthering Heights in one minute or less? I'm putting you on a timer. Is your initiation. You're hazing. Can you give us a setup? One second. I'm gonna get My timer ready? You have one minute, starting now.

[Nima Jeromey]

All right. And if there can be any rain, sound effects added to this, or wind,

[MJ Franklin]

this is five seconds.

[Nima Jeromey]

I would appreciate that.

[Jen Harlan]

It'll be the wind in the background.

[Nima Jeromey]

The story begins with basically a city guy named Mr. Lockwood who rents a house in the Yorkshire countryside in a place he thinks is very beautiful but has very bad weather. His landlord is a kind of cranky guy named Heathcliff who lives on an estate called Wuthering Heights, named after the bad weather.

[MJ Franklin]

We got 30 seconds left.

[Nima Jeromey]

It's extremely unwelcoming. And then he goes back to his house and asks his housekeeper Nellie, what the hell is going on with this guy.

[MJ Franklin]

20 seconds.

[Nima Jeromey]

And then she tells him a really long story across many sittings that is basically about how he was brought in the landlord, as this grimy little kid that the father of the house basically found on the street. And everything unravels from there.

[MJ Franklin]

That is one minute. Well done. I feel like there's so much else that happens in here, but part of the reason why I wanted to do the one minute challenge is because, one, I love a little game, and then two, is there's so much that happens in this book that I feel like you can spend an hour just saying, like, this happens, and this is the context, et cetera.

[Jen Harlan]

But this is the book review book club podcast, not the book recap podcast.

[MJ Franklin]

Exactly.

[Sadie Stein]

Yeah. Like, I look at my notes here, and I wrote possible necrophilia, possible incest, definite in all caps, madness and violence.

[MJ Franklin]

Anything that you would add, Jen?

[Jen Harlan]

No, I think that pretty much sums it up. I think it is a thorny, action packed book. It's basically like a telenovela on the English moors with all of the drama and twists and turns that that implies.

[MJ Franklin]

It truly is. And, Nima, you're a friend of the pod. You're a friend of mine.

[Nima Jeromey]

Sure.

[MJ Franklin]

I'm gonna let you finish what you present.

[Nima Jeromey]

Okay. Just to lay out the scene. I will, I will.

[Jen Harlan]

Just a little bit.

[Nima Jeromey]

So basically, Nellie, the housekeeper, tells Mr. Lockwood a really long story across many sittings. They need a lot of breaks, which I think is a kind of fun thing for a frame narrator to do. And the story's basically about how Heathcliff, as a young boy, falls in love with Mr. Earnshaw, the earlier owner of Wuthering Heights, d a girl named Catherine. And Catherine grows increasingly obsessed with Heathcliff. But how can she be in love with this grimy little kid that her dad basically found on the street? Wuthering Heights is a ghost story. It's a gothic. It's a star crossed romance. Maybe we're going to debate whether it is the greatest romance love story ever told. It's also a science experiment. It crosses generations. There are kids in the second half who rehearse the sins of their fathers and mothers. It is dishy, it's gossipy. It's kind of like a reality show where Nellie, who was there for almost all of the events, is kind of like the devious producer and it just does not.

[Jen Harlan]

She's the Chris Harrison of this book.

[MJ Franklin]

Yes. My God. Oh my God.

[Nima Jeromey]

It just does not stop stressing you out. In other words, it's a masterpiece.

[MJ Franklin]

Done and done. Well done.

[Jen Harlan]

That was very good.

[MJ Franklin]

Applause in the studio.

[Sadie Stein]

Woo.

[Nima Jeromey]

Sorry, that took over one minute.

[Jen Harlan]

It's a lot. I don't, I don't think anyone could sum up all of this book in one minute.

[Sadie Stein]

There's a hate bush maybe, but even

[Jen Harlan]

she took longer than 60 seconds and

[MJ Franklin]

she had the language of dance as well.

[Sadie Stein]

Yeah.

[Jen Harlan]

End of song.

[MJ Franklin]

So this is a book that I feel like has such like a lofty reputation. I feel like it's like even the name Wuthering Heights feels like this stately type of title. And then you read the book and you're like, this is wild. Like the backstory. So I'm just curious to hear your thoughts on it. I'm gonna start with you, Jen. Cause this was your first time reading Wuthering Heights?

[Jen Harlan]

Yes.

[MJ Franklin]

Correct.

[Sadie Stein]

Yes.

[Jen Harlan]

I'm one of the newbies of the group.

[MJ Franklin]

How did you feel about the book? Like it, hate it, feel mixed.

[Jen Harlan]

I have been grappling with this question since I read it. I am no stranger to like the literature of this era. As listeners of the podcast will know I'm a big Jane Austen fan. I also had previously read and really loved Jane Eyre, which is by Emily's sister Charlotte. And I love a got. And so I went into this expecting something more along those lines, I think where it was a little bit of like a neater, very gripping, but pretty logical and easy to follow narrative. And instead I found myself as disoriented as the people on the moors by the wind. A lot of people refer to Emily as the poet of the Bronte sisters. And there was definitely a lot of. You can see that in the language. This book is almost feverish. There's so much passion. And we can get into later whether we consider this actually a love story, which I think Nima and I disagree on. But I, I think if I had read this when I was 15 and a teenager whose frontal lobe hadn't fully developed and who was like, every feeling that you feel feels like the biggest feeling that anyone has ever felt. And no one has ever felt this way before. I would have fallen head over heels for this book. Reading it as an adult. There were so many moments where I found like Nellie that I just wanted to grab the characters by the head and shake them. And so I found it both enrapturing and engrossing and also so messy and deeply frustrating. And all of the characters pretty much are completely unsympathetic. They make terrible decisions. I don't know that any of them really understand what people call it a love story, but it's really like an obsession and codependency and revenge story. And so, yeah. So I guess my answer to your question of did I like it? Is yes and no.

[MJ Franklin]

I think so. There's something that you said that I loved. It's the word feverish for me that perfectly captures this book from the start. Cause you get this like Man Lockwood, our narrator, the frame above, the frame above the story, he comes in and there's a big storm. He's being chased by dogs. He's in this room. There's names like it's. It's wild and feverish. And then you get into what the story actually is and the passions of these characters. And it's the word that I wrote down a lot when I was reading it was volatile. And this was the first time I read it as well. I told my friends this, who at first seemed shocked and then they were like, wait a second, you were never a 14 year old girl. That's when they read the book. And they were like, our generation had Twilight, other generations had Wuthering Heights. And I feel like you can, for me, I was like, oh, I see a direct line between yes.

[Jen Harlan]

In my notes, there's a lot of girl in all caps and a lot of like, everyone is crazy, exclamation point.

[MJ Franklin]

What about you, Sadie and Nima? You've read this before and now you're reading it again. So I have a two part question. First is, when did you first read this and do you remember how you felt about it? And then the second part is, how did you feel about it as an adult?

[Sadie Stein]

I will admit that I first read it in high school and then I was assigned it twice in college and neither time could I get through it because I have a certain phobia about something that happens very early in the book. And both times I grew so faint when reading it, that until this rereading, I had not actually read it since I was a 14 year old girl,

[MJ Franklin]

I think we can say. And I think it helps bring you into the vibe of the book. It's that early on, like the first, like two or three chapters, a ghost hand reaches into the house and there's blood. And that's it. That's it. We're gonna save Sadie. But it's violent. It's violent and bloody.

[Sadie Stein]

If you have a highly specific phobia involving wrists and bleeding, and apparently it's not uncommon, then this is hard to get through as there are certain movies I won't mention.

[Jen Harlan]

I'm learning so much about you today, Sadie.

[MJ Franklin]

Wait, so then you couldn't get through it again, the times in college. But when you first read it, what was your impression? And what was your impression now, beyond

[Sadie Stein]

the trauma of those early scenes? My impression both times, and I was remembering it, is just such a propulsive read. I kind of couldn't put it down. I think it would be very confusing if you picked it up over the course of months. And I know you listened to it, right, Nima?

[MJ Franklin]

Yeah.

[Sadie Stein]

But I think if you are really immersed in it, first of all, it is confusing because there are a lot of kind of juniors and namesakes, so

[Jen Harlan]

many characters with the same name.

[Sadie Stein]

And frankly, they're all intermarrying within these two families. So there aren't many last names either. But a romp is certainly not the word, but riveting.

[MJ Franklin]

It is riveting. It really as a story moves because you're flashing back and forth between the past, which is where you get Kathy or Catherine and Heathcliff's story to the present where Lockwood is hearing the story from Nellie. And again, like there are dogs being sicked on people and there are people running away and there are sicknesses and horses, horses and betrayals and all of this stuff. It is so riveting. What about you, Nima?

[Nima Jeromey]

Well, when I was in high school, I was a very stodgy, symbolic reader who was just looking for images and icons to create almost mathematic inside of the book. This is why a search online of a single word in the text was the way I was going about it. And this time I was paying a lot of attention to the narrators, who I think in a way kind of thematized Jen's reaction. I mean, like the first layer is you. And you are just saying to yourself, what the hell? Why is this happening? There are so many moments in the book where people are just saying the most heinous things about someone while they're standing right there to Nelly in a way that feels improbable. Then there's Mr. Lockwood, who is driven, like many of the characters, by irrational horniness. He really.

[Jen Harlan]

Most of the characters in this book,

[Nima Jeromey]

he wants to sleep with this really angry young woman that he meets at his landlord's house named Kathy. Many such cases, once again. And then you have Nally, who is basically driven by not wanting to feel guilty over how bad all of this went. She is the housekeeper, and the house has not been kept very well. And so basically, every time she narrates something, she's like, I did the best I could. I told on everyone whenever I could. I let some things go, I didn't let other things go. And you are spiraling down and down and down. And then sometimes Nellie is being told another story by someone else. My favorite scenes are when Nellie is talking to Catherine alone. And Catherine is saying stuff like, heathcliff is more myself than I am. And Nellie is like, what are you smoking?

[MJ Franklin]

Wait, so what did this do to the reading experience, having all of these frames?

[Nima Jeromey]

I think it's what drives you through the book. I think knowing what everyone's interests are so clearly and kind of makes it so that you are dragged through the book. Even if you don't understand or sympathize with what they want. You know what they want.

[Jen Harlan]

Yeah.

[Sadie Stein]

I was telling MJ this morning. This started a real existential crisis for me, kind of on the subway the other day. And because you've got these nesting doll narrators, as you mentioned, you've got, first of all us, then you've got Mr. Lockwood. Then you've got Nellie. Then within that, you have long letters, you have Kathy's hysterical monologues, you have Heathcliff ranting. And at a certain point, you start to think, but Nellie. Ellen. She's called Mrs. Dean, but I presume that's a courtesy title. How sane is she? I mean, she. I get it. In the land of the blind, the one man aye is king. But at the same time, she's kind of trauma dumping the whole time. Would she remember all this dialogue decades later? Word for word is how she relates it. And she's been more traumatized than anyone. She's raised several kids and had them taken away from her, seen them destroyed, experienced everyone's death. So she can't have come out of this fully intact.

[Jen Harlan]

No. I think she has one line where she says to Lockwood, I went about my household duties, convinced that the Grange had but one sensible soul in its walls, and that lodged in my body. But it really does make you question, like, how sensible is that soul? Like, she, as Nima mentioned, is sort of complicit in all of the events that she's recounting. She was there. She could have intervened. She could have talked to someone. She could have opened up this very toxic, codependent little circle that all these people are in that is making them act crazy because they're so isolated and insulated that there's no sort of, like, voice of reason or perspective that comes from the outside world.

[Sadie Stein]

Exactly. She feels responsibility for various characters, but each of them dies or is taken away. So what is keeping her? I think you can't overstate. And this is another thing that struck me on this reading. The hermetic, tiny nature of this world. It is literally set between two houses, Wuthering Heights and Thrushcross Grange. And with occasional forays onto the moors, I think one or two trips to church. But it's just this one very small cast of people. No one else comes in from the outside world. They don't go anywhere. And that's actually very accurate to the author's experience. Cause even by Bronte standards, she was totally a hermit.

[MJ Franklin]

That's an excellent point. And for me, the frame narrative was one of the most interesting things about the book. Of course, there's a lot of drama that happens, but the frame narrative made me think, okay, Emily Bronte is not just telling a tumultuous, toxic love story. She is doing something. And I feel like, as you pointed out, the story itself is so condensed and contracted, and then the storytelling is so expanded. This is just who I am as a reader. I love a narrative that makes you doubt, not necessarily just an unreliable narrator, but like a storytelling convention that really requires you to probe and poke around. And I feel like that was an element here that I really, really enjoyed. I also found Nellie to be kind of sinister, as you mentioned. Like, all of her charges kind of die, but she is. I mean, not kind of die, they do die, but she as a. I guess, Kathy, sort.

[Jen Harlan]

Young Kathy survives to the end, but.

[MJ Franklin]

But then she herself is positioning herself as just the storyteller, but she has so much agency in the story itself. She is the person shepherding letters back and forth or responding or not responding. She is the person who has the knowledge and can make the choice whether to share it or not. And I found that kind of sinister, the way she underplays her.

[Sadie Stein]

I also see her being horrible to the young Heathcliff when he first comes to the house. And I think part of what makes it her reliable is that she admits to being wrong, which not all the characters in this book can do. But I feel like there's not a single person in this book who is wholly sympathetic.

[MJ Franklin]

All right, so that's the frame structure of the novel. Let's dive into the characters next. But before we do that, let's take a quick break.

[Jen Harlan]

This podcast is supported by McDonald's hot honey sauce. You'll want to make sure you're on time for the McDonald's breakfast menu now that it has the Hot Honey Sausage Egg biscuit. And for later in the day, try the Hot Honey Snack Wrap. It may beat what you thought was your fave. Hot Honey Sauce is at McDonald's for a limited time only.

[MJ Franklin]

A spectacle far beyond your imagination. Be amazed, be moved. Be there.

[Jen Harlan]

For an experience that will stay with you forever.

[MJ Franklin]

Disney's the Lion King on Broadway get [e-mail] for centuries, the emerald was believed to have almost magical properties, including the ability to improve eyesight.

[Nima Jeromey]

Fascinated by this stone, Emperor Nero always carried one with him. According to legend, he even watched chariot races while looking through an emerald.

[MJ Franklin]

And as surprising as this may seem,

[Nima Jeromey]

some believe that this was the very first pair of sunglasses.

[MJ Franklin]

Listen now to Voice of Jewels, a podcast by l' Cole School of Jewelry Arts with the support of Van Cleef and Arpels. And we're back. This is the Book Review Podcast. I'm MJ Franklin. I'm with Sadie Stein, Nima Jeromey, and Jen Harlin, all editors here at the Book Review, and we're talking about Wuthering Heights. Before we jump back to our conversation in the studio, I just wanted to share some reader comments from our Book Review community. Right now we have an article up on the New York Times headlined Book Club Read Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte with the Book Review. Readers from all over are discussing the novel in the comments section there, and here are just a few that I loved. Stephen from Louisiana writes, wuthering Heights is probably the greatest one off novel ever written. It is also the epitome of the classic Gothic novel. The plot's complexity of human compassion and cruelty is weaved into a tapestry that leaves the reader haunted by humankind's brutalities. Lara from Connecticut writes, I am fascinated and delighted that in 2026, Wuthering Heights is having a moment. To me, the theme of the young girl raised in the dramatic, real, rugged, raw beauty of the Moores sed by the superficial and artificial glamour of the society. And fashion is at the core of the tension of what it is to be human. And then one more. Someone writing as B from Europe had a longer comment, but there was a snippet that I really loved, and that is only years later, since I first read Wuthering Heights. I finally realized the reason why I was so attracted to it in the first place. It was the discovery that people, if they are not careful, are able to create their own personal mental hell. A hell more powerful and destructive to yourself than any external factor could conjure. So those are a few comments. You can continue that conversation online. But now back to our discussion in the studio. All right, reset. Before the break, we were chatting about the frame narrative of the novel. Now I want to turn to our central lovers, Catherine and Heathcliff.

[Nima Jeromey]

Should we set up just a little bit that Heathcliff comes in and for a while, because Mr. Earnshaw likes him so much, he has a kind of moment where he could be brought up, educated, cared for, fed well, like everyone else in the house. And then I believe what happens, Mr. Earnshaw dies and Catherine's brother Hindley takes over. And he does not like Heathcliff. And basically Heathcliff is forced to live in the house as a servant and not well brought up anymore. And everything changes. And this is when he is a little rough around the edges, but any chance he had of kind of being a genteel person when he grows up is gone. And this is kind of his villain origin story in a weird way. And it leads him, I think, in the second half to act like an evil scientist. So basically in the second half, what happens is everybody has kids. Catherine dies in childbirth with a pregnancy that is not really signaled to the reader.

[Jen Harlan]

That comes out truly out of nowhere

[Sadie Stein]

to where you kind of wonder if Emily Bronte knew how pregnancy works. There's not one, but two where they seem to be an advanced pregnancy.

[Jen Harlan]

And no one's noticed, no one has any idea.

[Nima Jeromey]

And Hindley, the brother, has a kid, Harrington. But Hindley, who is an alcoholic, dies. And basically, as a form of revenge, but also a form of experimentation, Heathcliff marries a woman named Isabella. He also has a kid who's Catherine's sister in law. Who's Catherine's sister in law, messy. And they basically, they're the only people in this. They basically he takes these two boys and he's like, one of them is descended from me and the other one is descended from my arch rival. And I'm basically going to flip it around and prove a thing about nature versus nurture.

[MJ Franklin]

This is a thing that I found so interesting about Heathcliff as a figure because you, for a little bit, do sympathize with him in that he was brought in. He had no choice. He was a kid. And then he is intentionally degraded, deprived of an education.

[Jen Harlan]

Not just education, but like, of food. He is beaten repeatedly. They make him stand in the corner while everyone else has.

[Sadie Stein]

And then he's sort of humiliated. As they grow older and Kathy moves into more elevated social circles.

[MJ Franklin]

Exactly.

[Sadie Stein]

But it's unrelenting.

[MJ Franklin]

So you want to see him rise up. But then he starts kind of torturing everybody around him, including children. And early on, there's a scene before.

[Jen Harlan]

And dogs.

[MJ Franklin]

And dogs. Early on, there's a scene.

[Nima Jeromey]

There's a lot of dogs in this book.

[MJ Franklin]

A lot of people.

[Sadie Stein]

Hurts is killing those puppies.

[Jen Harlan]

There's a lot.

[Sadie Stein]

Yeah.

[Jen Harlan]

Bad things.

[Sadie Stein]

Seems to overcome his psychopathy.

[Jen Harlan]

But the dogs in this book. Sorry, we keep cutting you off.

[MJ Franklin]

It's just that, like, as a. He's so violent. And you want to see him rise up and dunk on his enemies. But then for literal children. And there's a scene where I think, like, Hindley is drunk and he drops young Hareton and Heathcliff catches him. And then Nellie sees that Heathcliff realized that he had saved the child of his enemy and briefly considered whether or not he should smash his head on the ground. And it's hard to read. And that violence contrast the great love in the book.

[Jen Harlan]

I think this is part of what's so tragic about both Heathcliff and Catherine. And also maybe part of why they're so drawn to each other is that there is this moment while Catherine's parents are still alive where they have this really beautiful friendship and this beautiful freedom where they're not trying to, or at least not trying very hard to comply to societal expectations. They run wild. They spend all their time together. They're wandering around the moors. And then as they get older and this abuse starts to be heaped on them. And also these societal expectations, that of the proper way to be a lady or to be a gentleman. And neither one of them can conform to that. Even Catherine's more successful at it. She is apparently the most stunningly beautiful woman to ever walk the moors of England. And no one can resist her. And she does infiltrate the Lintons and marries the wealthy neighbor. But even when she's in that house and she's supposed to be the lady of the manor, she still is drawn to this Kind of wilder side that cannot be tamed. And the more she tries to suppress that, the more it literally, like, eats her alive from the inside.

[Sadie Stein]

Yet there's so much that's upsetting in the book. There's so much death and violence. But as you say, the cruelty to children is some of the hardest to read, especially the Harriton story, because he's initially loved and treated well. And then his life also turns on the whim of Heathcliff's experimentation and hatred. And you see him made as coarse and cruel as he can.

[Jen Harlan]

And with young Linton, too, who's Isabella and Heathcliff's son, he. After Isabella dies and he comes back and Heathcliff takes custody. When he comes there, he's pretty frail, but seems fairly sweet and, like, kind kid. And then you see him kind of devolve into this sniveling, manipulative, spineless weasel of a person.

[MJ Franklin]

That is an excellent point, but can I do a hard pivot before we kind of get lost in the murk of the overlapping relationships? So we've been chatting for about 30 minutes, and we haven't yet touched on one of the big questions surrounding the book, which is, is Wuthering Heights a love story? That's been a thorny question, especially because the movie had the tagline, the greatest love story of all time. And I want to know how you think about the novel. Is it a love story in the first place? And I want to be specific and point out the distinction between romance and a love story. One of the rules for romance as a literary genre is that there is always the quintessential happy ending. That phrasing love story, though, is different. It's broader. It's more encompassing. So I want to know, do you consider Wuthering Heights to be a love story?

[Jen Harlan]

I wouldn't call this love story. Typically, at least the way we think of, like, a romance novel today, almost everyone ends has a happy ending. I would call this a. I would definitely call it big R, romantic. There's so much about the moors and nature, like, that clearly runs through this book, which makes sense, given what Emily Bronte would have been reading while she was growing up. And I would call it a romantic melodrama and a very passionate story. I don't think I would call it a love story, in part because I think the relationship that Catherine and Heathcliff have isn't really about each other, but each other as kind of like objects that come to symbolize something more. And it's definitely a story of obsession. But I'm not sure I would call it love.

[Nima Jeromey]

There is that one part where. And we can't trust Nellie, but Catherine is talking to Nellie and says, I'm going to marry this other guy who we haven't even brought up really Edgar Linton, who after a dog bite or something, she ends up at his house for six weeks. Classic

[Jen Harlan]

forced proximity, a classic trope.

[Nima Jeromey]

And she says, the reason I'm gonna do it is because Heathcliff is poor. He has nothing to his name, and if I stay rich then I can better take care of him. Then Heathcliff goes away and makes his own fortune, but she doesn't know that's going to happen. And I would say that's a. I mean, at least a gesture at something like love that is meant to be, at least in her own eyes, self sacrificing, because she clearly really wants, but has it in her head that it's not possible.

[MJ Franklin]

Our colleague A.O. scott recently wrote a story asking is Wuthering Heights actually the greatest love story of all time? And he had a compelling. I don't know if I totally agree, but I was compelled by his argument that love at its core is the animator, the engine of the obsession that drives the novel. Sadie, you're making a skeptical, quizzical face.

[Sadie Stein]

Quizzical face. I guess I think it's lack of love that is the driver of the story. I think it's a study in deprivation of love and how it then comes out in this twisted form and then the ensuing generational trauma. In a weird way, there's also, frankly, it's all so incestuous, literally or otherwise, that it's hard for the modern reader to feel it's romantic.

[MJ Franklin]

I think there's a cringe element to it. In addition to the violence of it all, there's also just the. Your cousins.

[Sadie Stein]

You're like, they're all related to each other.

[Jen Harlan]

Well, and even Heathcliff and Catherine are ostensibly adopted siblings.

[Sadie Stein]

And Ellen sometimes talks about being Hindley's foster sister, but never. Or Catherine's. It's quite obscure. And that's leaving aside the possible necrophilia.

[MJ Franklin]

And with possible necrophilia, I think that is our sign that we should probably wrap up our conversation about the book itself and then start to pivot to some of our other segments. But before we do pivot, I'm curious. Are there other things you want to touch on? I'm gonna call this quick round open notebook quiz. And I think we should just go around and look at our notes and share things that we have thought about. That we've prepared, but we haven't yet gotten to discuss. I'm just gonna go around the horns.

[Jen Harlan]

Maybe the thing I'll say is that the song that kept getting stuck in my head while I was reading this book was actually not Wuthering Heights by Kate Bush, but Daddy, I Love him by Taylor Swift. That, I feel like, really sums up Katherine's entire deal. And I just wanna say, RIP Kathy, RIP Emily Bronte, you would have loved Taylor Swift.

[MJ Franklin]

I love that. What about you, Sadie?

[Sadie Stein]

I think I was struck as a modern reader by the relative equality for the times between men and women, between serv and their employers. Everyone is horrible to each other. Everyone yells at each other. Everyone's violent to each other. And that is interesting and strange.

[MJ Franklin]

Nima, you're up.

[Nima Jeromey]

I'm gonna mount a defense for how many different ways people get referred to in this book, because this is the modern reader's biggest complaint. It's like Mr. Earnshaw, but what's his first name, blah, blah, blah. And I'm gonna say that actually the poet Emily Bronte uses this to great effect, especially at the climax of the book, which is when Linton Heathcliff is dying. Catherine. Mr. Heathcliff is there. And he brings Catherine to Linton, who is dying. And on his deathbed, what's going to happen is that all of the titles and properties for both houses are going to transfer to Heathcliff. And all of the sudden she goes from being referred to as Kathy or Catherine to being referred to as Mrs. Heathcliff. And when Linton finally dies, Nellie refers to Heathcliff as her father in law. And these names, which kind of seem like 19th century quirks, actually end up being extremely emotionally freighted.

[MJ Franklin]

I hear you. But even just listening to you talk now, I was like, wait, who are you?

[Sadie Stein]

I actually found that very confusing. Come on.

[Jen Harlan]

Although I will say, to Nima's point, I do think there is something powerful about in the end, even though Heathcliff is left alone and ultimately dead, that in the end, this future that he wanted for himself so much in a way does come to pass. Because in the end, there is a Catherine Heathcliff who is the one who survives.

[MJ Franklin]

Yeah.

[Sadie Stein]

And we haven't really mentioned that. There is sort of a final kind of hopeful kind of redemptive arc for the next generation.

[MJ Franklin]

A lot of darkness and a glimmer in the distant moors of light. My last thing that I wanted to mention is that this book is really fun. I feel like it's so oppressive in terms of, like, again, the lofty quality to It. It's a classic, so it feels like homework. Sometimes when people are like, you haven't read Wuthering Heights? And then it's so violent. But the book itself is so dishy, so fun. I kept reading passages and wanting to turn to my partner and be like, guess what just happened? Heathcliff just said what? Oh, my gosh, this great confession of love. What is going on? I had a great time reading it. And that for me, I tried to lean into because it does get confusing, it does get uncomfortable. And so for me, I tried to pay attention and do my studious taking notes and all that stuff. But then I also. Just to make sure I had a great time. And I would recommend readers have fun with this book.

[Sadie Stein]

Oh, my gosh, it's so lurid. And it's also really, really fun to read aloud.

[Nima Jeromey]

It's also all action and dialogue, which I think is part of that effect. I mean, Jen, maybe you can back me up from reading a lot of these books, but, like, there's not a lot of description of armoires and drawing rooms.

[Jen Harlan]

There's no, yeah, no descriptions like clothing. And there's no quiet contemplation as you walk across the fields. This is action, action, action, drama, drama, drama. Relentless. And it can be no filler. Yes, all bangers, no skips, which can be overwhelming and exhausting in a way, but also is totally repulsive and you just can't put it down.

[Sadie Stein]

I just have to say the sections with Joseph in broad written out Yorkshire accent. Oh, God, the dialects are hard. I had to skip some of this.

[Jen Harlan]

Nearly indecipherable.

[MJ Franklin]

Fair enough, fair enough. But that's the book itself and we wanna talk a little bit about the movie. And for that, Nima, at the time of this recording, you have not yet seen. And so we will say goodbye to you so we don't spoil it. This segment will be spoiler light. But still, if you want to go on fresh, be like Nima. Pause and Nima will be back later. I feel like the Avengers, like Captain

[Jen Harlan]

America, Nima will return.

[MJ Franklin]

Book recommendations, but we're going to pivot to the movie. Nima, we will see you in just a few minutes. All right, so Nima has stepped out. And with that, we are free to dig into the movie. A little setup. First, the director, Emerald Fennell or Sadie, you mentioned off mic that her name might actually be Fennell, has recently adapted Wuthering Heights into a major motion picture starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie. Or as I'm thinking about this, adapt May be too strong a word because it's really a different take on the Bronte story altogether. We've seen the movie though. I'm curious, what did you think of the film in general as a film? And also I'm curious, how do you regard this movie as a reader? How do you consider it alongside the book? We love to compare and contrast and so I'm just curious. Your thoughts? Wuthering Heights film Go.

[Sadie Stein]

Okay. The movie is a very different animal to the book. I think it's safe to say it's

[MJ Franklin]

from the outset, like characters are missing.

[Sadie Stein]

This is kind of my thing.

[Jen Harlan]

A lot of characters.

[Sadie Stein]

I actually feel like there's both. There are fewer characters. But at the same time I felt like there were two major category errors because the book for me is so much about this kind of claustrophobic, hermetic world. And the movie, it will not be too much of a spoiler to say opens with a huge crowd scene.

[MJ Franklin]

So already that was really notable to me too.

[Jen Harlan]

It was really jarring. Yeah.

[Sadie Stein]

Already you're like, okay, we're in a different universe. Because that's kind of the point of the book. I think it's where the book derives its power and its menace. And I would also say that there's kind of a, I feel, category error about the nature of the love story. Because in some ways I find Heathcliff and Kathy's love, or whatever you wanna call it, one of the less convincing relationships in the book. I feel like it's told more than shown in certain ways. Well, yes and no, but it's so outsized. And I feel like what makes the book really great is the web of. Of relationships and intergenerational trauma.

[MJ Franklin]

So then condensing some of the characters, cutting some of the characters, you.

[Sadie Stein]

Not in itself, of course, that's necessary when you're doing a two hour movie of such a big book, which is baggy at points. But it doesn't have much to do with the book for me. And I think you can enjoy it on other terms, on its own terms, but it's really a different story completely.

[MJ Franklin]

What about you, Jen? How did you feel? We saw this movie together.

[Jen Harlan]

We did. It's actually. It's interesting what you said about Kathy and Heathcliff, Sadie. Cause now that I'm thinking about it, I don't know that I'd really clocked this, but I feel like in the book you hear each of them speak about their obsession or passion for each other a lot, but you don't actually see them together very Often. And the movie, which cuts, I would say, about 50% of the characters and like 80 of the plot from the book. And the 20% that remains bears what I would describe as a glancing resemblance to the plot of the book is so wrapped up in these two people. And you spend most of the movie, I would say, with these two actors on screen. And so their chemistry and their relationship, like the movie Emerald Funnel really puts the whole movie on that. And I just didn't. I didn't. There's a lot of set pieces in this movie. I mean that in both, like, the physical sense, but also, like, the metaphorical. There's a lot of. I feel like if this movie had come out in the peak Tumblr era, it would have been like, GIFed and screenshotted all over that site. There's a lot of bold aesthetic choices happening, but I just found them all pretty shallow. And ultimately, it felt like a fundamental misunderstanding. Or maybe just like the version of Wuthering Heights that exists, as the book is not the story that she wanted to make, really. I felt like what she wanted to do was Romeo and Juliet, but she wanted to set it in 1800s and really with a big fog budget.

[MJ Franklin]

I agree. I completely agree. I feel, though I had a more generous take than either of you, I don't think that the movie is, quote, unquote, good. I feel like the movie is incoherent, and the two main characters had a notable lack of chemistry. The sets and the costumes were so vivid and sometimes felt inappropriate in a way that took me out of it. However, I liked that this was a huge swing, and it tried to do something different and vibrant and stylish. And I don't know if that swing always landed for me, but I had a great time watching it. Though I did think at certain points this movie is too long.

[Jen Harlan]

Yeah, I got bored in the middle.

[MJ Franklin]

For me, it was less a Wuthering Heights adaptation in that it took the story and tried to move it to a film. And for me, I considered this to be more of a Wuthering Heights mood board in the sense that it feels like Emerald Fennel focused on the energy and the mood and the vibe of more than the plot of the book and just try to capture that aesthetic sensibility totally.

[Sadie Stein]

It was all vibes.

[MJ Franklin]

And what I appreciated about the movie is how Emerald was able to enhance some of the feelings and the tones and textures of the book, the tone of passion. Jen, again, you mentioned that, like, you don't actually see Kathy and Heathcliff together a Ton. You just hear them talking about their love. So getting to see that a little bit heightened or seeing the violence of it. There's something about how she was able to kind of stylistically, aesthetically enhance the tones of the book or emphasize them. I really liked aesthetic. That's the word that I would say about the movie. Was it a good movie? I don't know. Was it successful at what it tried to do? I think kind of. Would I have done what it tried to do? Probably not.

[Jen Harlan]

I think my other sort of fundamental issue with it is that I think Catherine and Heathcliff and the decisions that they're making only make sense in the context of the book. If these are two teenagers whose frontal lobes have not fully developed yet and who think every feeling I'm feeling is the biggest feeling that anyone has ever felt and no one will ever understand. And that, like all consuming and impulsive passion is very adolescent. And this is no comment on the talents of Margot Robbie or Jacob Elordi, but they are both adults. Adults with presumably fully developed frontal lobes. And to see them running around and acting and making these decisions as adults, I just didn't buy it. I will also say, though, and I've said this to you before, mj, we went to a press screening which was full of well behaved, fairly sedate journalists who were there being professional. And I do think I perhaps would have had a better time seeing this movie with a few friends, with a few drinks, where you could, like, react to some of the. And just be like, taken along on the bonkers rollercoaster ride of the film.

[MJ Franklin]

Absolutely.

[Jen Harlan]

Because I have liked that. I've enjoyed being taken on a ride like that with Emerald Fennell's previous movies. And it just, it wasn't clicking for me with this one.

[Sadie Stein]

Let's do a room style rewatch.

[MJ Franklin]

Oh, my gosh. I would love that. I would love that.

[Sadie Stein]

It could be a camp classic, right?

[Jen Harlan]

So many. So much potential for themed cocktails and food. Although I refuse to eat a fish and jelly. That's not my.

[MJ Franklin]

There's one last thing I want to say about the movie. I feel like this is what art is for. I found myself getting so miffed by the people online being like, why did she remake this in the first place? If she had her own vision, why try to adapt it in the first place? And I'm like, because it's interesting.

[Jen Harlan]

It's also because of exactly what you said. Because she had her own vision and she wanted to. Like, that is why we make art.

[MJ Franklin]

Yes. And it's fun to say like this worked and this didn't work and this I didn't love it for this reason. Like that conversation. I've been loving the reviews and they've been so negative, but negative and interesting, fun, exciting ways and it's good criticism and I feel like it's good. It's notable art that has inspired good criticism and I think that's what art's for.

[Jen Harlan]

And I guess, you know, if nothing else like this movie has, is it making more people go read the book and revisit the Brontes and is good grist for criticism, which is people who work at the Book Review who our job is criticism. Like all for that. So I will thank Emerald for that.

[MJ Franklin]

Cheers for that.

[Sadie Stein]

And it got us into this room and I am really glad for that.

[MJ Franklin]

All right, so that's the movie. Let's bring Nima back in and talk about some Post Wuthering Heights book recommendations. One sec. Nima, welcome back.

[Nima Jeromey]

Thank you. Thank you for preserving my innocent ears.

[MJ Franklin]

Anytime, anytime. So I want to know after readers have finished Wuthering Heights, what would you recommend they pick up next? This could be for whatever reason, it could be because it's another great gothic novel you love. Maybe it's another tale of love and obsession. Maybe it's another Bronte novel that you just want to give more shine. I defer to you. Just give me some book recommendations. I'm gonna start with you, Jen.

[Jen Harlan]

I have two, both of which are contemporary but I think share a lot of sort of DNA with this book. The first book this made me think of was the Safekeep by Yael Vanderboden

[MJ Franklin]

and a past book club pick.

[Jen Harlan]

Yes, and one of my favorites from the last few years. Setting wise, this could not be more different. It's set in the Netherlands Post World War II, but is set similarly in a house that is kind of isolated in the countryside that has a dark and mysterious history. It is a story about societal outcasts. The narrator of the book is this really deeply unpleasant in a lot of ways woman who gets entangled in this very passionate but suppressed story with her brother's girlfriend who he kind of illogically sends to stay at the house with her. It's also a story about obsession and long plotted revenge. I don't wanna spoil too many of the there's some real great twists in the book that I don't want to spoil, but if you like Wuthering Heights, I think you would also like that. The other one I wanted to mention is Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno Garcia. This is, as the title implies, a gothic novel set in Mexico about, and again has twisted families and a dark house that seems to that is very hermetic and infiltrates perhaps physically as well as metaphysically its inhabitants and leads to some dark, dark things. And then the other thing I just want to shout out is that my favorite Wuthering Heights adaptation is the cartoonist Kate Beaton, who had a webcomic called Hark a Vagrant, did a series of Wuthering Heights cartoons that are so delightful, so wonderful, they are all on the Internet. Hark a Vagrant. You can go find them there.

[MJ Franklin]

I love those comics, but I had not read Wuthering Heights, so I don't think I got the jokes there. I need to go revisit those.

[Jen Harlan]

Yeah, I loved them before I had read the book. And then I went back and revisited them, having read the novel, and loved them even more. They're truly delightful.

[MJ Franklin]

Love those. Go check those out, everyone. What about you, Sadie?

[Sadie Stein]

Okay, if we're doing a couple, obviously you can do another Bronte. But my favorite, oddly, is Villette by Charlotte Bronte, which is less lurid but deeply, deeply weird. So I'd recommend that.

[MJ Franklin]

You had me at deeply weird. We love a weird book on this podcast.

[Jen Harlan]

A double deeply weird.

[Sadie Stein]

And then you must. I'm sure you know what I'm going to say, because everyone on the desk knows that Rebecca is probably my favorite novel in some ways. It's certainly the one I reread the most. And of course, by Daphne du Maurier. And of course, it is a classic gothic, albeit set in the first half of the 20th century. But like this one, I think it's a book that people talk about as romantic or romantic suspicious, when in fact there is a darkness and a sickness to it, which is brilliant. And one day I hope we will talk about it for book club. Cause it is so rich and so good and so fun, and I think, in its way, a perfect novel.

[MJ Franklin]

I love this. I also love that book. Yeah. What about you, Nima? Book recommendations.

[Nima Jeromey]

Mine's kind of a palette cleanser, but with, I think, a lot of the same things driving it. And it might even be a photo negative of Wuthering Heights. It's Aleph Batuur, Battuman's the Idiot. This is a kind of tormented love story about someone who is very, very emotionally stunted. And the arc of the narration follows the arc of the story. You essentially get these bits and scraps from Batuman's character, who's a Turkish American Harvard freshman who has an intense, largely epistolary that is via email, because it's set in the 1990s romance with a Hungarian math student who is very tall, not named Yvonne. And like Wuthering Heights, it's in a way also a coming of age story. And I think that instead of having disapproving family members or a disapproving society, she has a kind of forbidding mind that's closed off from itself. And the more it kind of cracks open, the more chaotic she and the narration become. And that's why I think it is a good pairing for Wuthering Heights.

[MJ Franklin]

That is an unexpected pairing that I totally.

[Nima Jeromey]

I love that book.

[MJ Franklin]

But not framed it in that way. I love that. Thank you. If this were an English paper, I'd give you an A.

[Nima Jeromey]

Finally, two A's.

[Jen Harlan]

Gold stars for everyone. What about you, mj?

[MJ Franklin]

I have two recommendations. The first is the Great Gatsby. Ooh, maybe it's because another New York Times podcast, Cannonball with Wesley Morris, just did an episode on this. But I've been thinking about Gatsby, and that's another book about love and obsession and reinvention, and it ends in tragedy. And it's told sideways through an adjacent narrator who actually has a lot of agency in the story. There are also theories that Gatsby was a black man who was passing as white. So there's that comparison with Gatsby.

[Nima Jeromey]

We didn't even talk about him in this book. He's brown.

[Sadie Stein]

He's other, for sure. I've heard Gatsby could have been. He was originally Jewish, too, on the Lower east side.

[MJ Franklin]

Interesting. Wow.

[Sadie Stein]

But that's.

[Jen Harlan]

Yeah, save that for another podcast.

[MJ Franklin]

There are a lot of theories about Gatsby, but the one is also similar to Heathcliff. He is other from this cohort that he has joined in that he has reinvented himself to try to court this love that seems distant. And it's a book that's about obsession in a different way, and it's also volatile. So the Great Gatsby and the other is if I was thinking about the vengeance revenge aspect of Wuthering Heights. And I recommend you go read the Count of Monte Cristo. Talk about another book of life, Conquest for Revenge.

[Jen Harlan]

All of my knowledge of the county of Monte Cristo comes from the Wishbone episode of that book.

[Sadie Stein]

So I love the recurring motif.

[Jen Harlan]

Listen, I will take any opportunity I can to sing the praises of Wishbone and that.

[MJ Franklin]

Sadly, friends, that's all the time we have. Sadie, Nima, Jen, thank you so much for this. This has been really fun.

[Sadie Stein]

This was the best. Thank you.

[Nima Jeromey]

Thanks. I'd love to take a break from war and violence in the real world. Whenever you'd like to have me again,

[MJ Franklin]

yes, please come back.

[Sadie Stein]

I'm sure this is a break from

[Nima Jeromey]

violence, but my books are far less horny than this.

[Jen Harlan]

Well, this was a delight. I would wander the moors with you all anytime.

[MJ Franklin]

Thank you. Thank you. And now, as promised, the title of our March book. We are leaving the windy moors because in March we will be reading and discussing Kin by Tayari Jones. This is a novel that comes eight years after her acclaimed book An American Marriage. And now Tayari Jones is returning with a sweeping story of sisterhood and found family. If you listened to our winter books preview a few weeks ago, you heard me raving about this one and I thought, let's make it a book club pick. Let's read it and discuss it together. I love it so much. I want to talk with readers about it. We will be discussing that book on the podcast that airs on March 27th. We're also chatting about the book online. Right now we have an article up on the New York Times headlined Book Club Read Kin by Tayari Jones with the Book Review. Leave a comment and join the conversation there. We cannot wait to discuss this novel with you, but in the meantime, happy reading. That was MJ Franklin hosting our monthly book club roundtable discussion, talking with Sadie Stein, Nima Jeromey, and Jennifer Harlan about Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights. Thanks for listening.

[Jen Harlan]

Hey, it's Olivia from Ollie. Getting better sleep this year is totally doable, but skip the lettuce tea in the mouth tape. These sleep trends are getting unhinged. Ollie Sleep gummies help you fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up refreshed. Just melatonin, L theanine and botanical extracts. No weird wet salad aftertaste. Better sleep can start tonight. Go to olly.com to choose your snap news. These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

[Sadie Stein]

I.