My Life In Books: Caitlin O’Connor

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Wuthering Heights // Emily Bronte

wuthering heightsMy natural reflex to the question “What is your favourite book?” is to say “Wuthering Heights.” I first read it as an idle, ignorant Year Nine who didn’t fully appreciate Emily Bronte’s Gothic masterpiece, but still it moved me in a way a piece of writing had never moved me before. I re-read it last year for my AS English Literature coursework and I instantly became so enthralled with the danger of Catherine and Heathcliff’s forbidden love across the wild Yorkshire moors. I’m also intrigued with the repetition of history and its consequences, which is a prominent concept in the novel with its two mirrored volumes.

It’s a book I know I’ll read at 20 and find things I never noticed at 16, and again at 40 and find things I didn’t recall from being 20, and so on. Having visited Emily Bronte’s house in Haworth, I feel so connected to this book. I know I sound pretentious, it’s just hard to put into words how much I do actually love this story. It’s the only piece of literature, aside from Dannie Abse’s poem ‘Two Photographs,’ that has ever made me overwhelmed enough to cry.

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