@kitwhitfield.bsky.social
Novelist ‘as tart, dark and juicy as a summer pudding’. World Fantasy Award finalist. She/her. Timeline cleanse queen. The Gyrford series: tinyurl.com/nvvetupj Horror reviews: https://tinyurl.com/5cyf7x5v Rep: Sophie Hicks.
No, how interesting! My graspof music theory is very basic; are there recordings of his work being played the way he wrote it?
I never heard of Baroque tuning before, but now I think I want to hear everything played in it.
youtube.com/shorts/7e0Qw...
Gotta say, that is truly going above and beyond for a bit of naughty graffiti. Hats off to whoever did this.
Or think The Secret History is a style guide...
Along with the editors and writers suing for having their names used, I wonder if the consumers could sue for fraud or false advertising? It is, after all, illegal to ‘sell’ something you can’t deliver, and they for sure couldn’t deliver real experts’ participation.
Sadly the answer tends to be 'no'. But she tried.
Unreliable narrators serve many functions in Wuthering Heights. But the VERY FIRST one is to tell readers that in this world, wishful thinking and romantic fantasies are a luxury some people can't afford.
17/17
But Bronte tried very hard to warn the reader: yes, you'll come in expecting a certain kind of 'hero' - and anyone who assumes that of Heathcliff gets their backside kicked. That's how I'm beginning the story; are you listening?
16/
Adaptations tend to think like Lockwood or Isabella: they look for the good heart, the pearl inside.
Because they tend to be made by the kind of person who got to grow up a Linton, not a Heathcliff. Someone who simply doesn't know how trauma can break you. 15/
Too much mistreatment turned a tough, angry boy into a sadistic, immovable man.
And if you insist on imagining that's romantic, he classes you with the people who doled out that mistreatment.
14/
By his late teens, Heathcliff is an angry, traumatised, resentful boy for whom being told to have 'a good heart' means being told to don a mask - and one that people can see past anyway.
By the time he's a man, he's done too much harm himself to go back from that. 13/
Heathcliff can't trust anyone who thinks he's got a good heart. He doesn't believe it himself, and trying to have one only ever made him vulnerable. Yes, once he loved someone, but she hurt him and then she died, and now that window is closed.
It's too late. 12/
So for Heathcliff, being mistaken for a romantic figure is associated with people who hurt him.
It's not seeing his real self, to Heathcliff. It's rejecting it and demanding he pretend to be someone more acceptable.
When, because of his race, he will never fully be accepted anyway.
11/
The only person who loves him unconditionally is Cathy, who doesn't expect him to be kind, just loyal to her.
And for unconditional love, he will be.
But everyone else expects him to be a 'rough diamond' - and none of them love him.
10/
The one time Nelly tries to tell him 'A good heart will help you to a bonny face' and encourages him to 'frame high notions' of his lost past, he actually tries to 'look quite pleasant' - and then is attacked on sight by Hindley.
He learns that it doesn't work.
9/
He's expected to have a good heart under his rough manners - and it's demanded by people who don't treat him well.
To him, that expectation means 'I don't love you; I just want you to be someone you can never be.'
8/
The absolute softest interpretation is that Heathcliff is a man whose self-esteem was broken at the root.
It's not romantic to be deracinated orphan dropped amid strangers; it's appalling. And when that happens to Heathcliff, the strangers abuse him.
7/
The only person Heathcliff ever loved was the person who did not expect him to be loveable.
There's a tragedy of trauma in that - but it's a terrible thing to pin fantasies to. Heathcliff savages anyone who tries.
6/
Heathcliff loves Cathy, yes. Because she doesn't mistake him for a nice person.
Anyone who dreams that he's just passionate is a person he would hate.
It's easy to want him to be romantic.
Wanting it would guarantee his enmity.
5/
And anyone who makes that assumption, he hurts.
Not because he hates 'showy displays of feeling', but because he hates to be misunderstood, and that is a misunderstanding.
The trick the book pulls is clever and dangerous.
4/
Heathcliff isn't averse to 'showy displays of feeling': he feels things very loudly and acts upon those feelings without any 'reserve' at all.
Catherine tries to give Isabella the same warning. The book is full of people insisting on considering Heathcliff's roughness only superficial.
3/
Bronte knows fine well readers might see him as romantic, and the absolute first thing she does is say, 'Look, you softie, that is a dangerous mistake here. He's not mysteriously passionate, he's openly violent. Still think he'd like you? How daft are you?'
2/
The funniest thing about WUTHERING HEIGHTS is that its unreliable narrator Mr Lockwood begins by mistaking Heathcliff for a Byronic 'misanthrope' and thinks that's cool and deep. ...To which Heathcliff responds, 'Who is this tit? Set the dogs on him!'
1/17
One week since SCRATCH MOSS was released. Have you got your copy yet?
www.canelo.co/books/scratc...
#booksky #bookqw word: LAUGH
Fairy-smith Jedediah had a bad father. So did his little neighbour Franklin, which is why Jedediah took Franklin under his wing at a young age.
Now much older, they talk over the found family they've become.
Buy here: tinyurl.com/nvvetupj
Isn’t it great? I don’t know when I last read a book so thoroughly enjoyable!
Book Cover of the Day:
🖼️ Kerry Buck
How they made the audience feel? Crystal clear and 100% consistent in every movie.
They're one of the best demonstrations of Clover's antagonism, because the 'How would I get out?' question mentally traps you too.
If you want to suffer alongside, Saw has you covered. 2/2
Cool!
You mention Carol Clover. I think a key to the Saw movies is that they are, as she says, 'antagonistic' to the audience. Use puzzles to keep you engaged in something hard to watch.
I'd say that's more core to the appeal than Jigsaw himself, even. As you say, he wasn't consistent, but... 1/2
Yes, I agree that posters showing gore don’t respect the game!