'Twas a Dark and Stormy Night...

I have a confession.

I'm an English Lit major (sometimes masquerading as an MIT student) and am supposed to be well-rounded in my lifelong reading experience. I've tackled many a classic that I wasn't quite ready for (I still haven't slogged through Catch 22 or Great Expectations, despite the looks of horror I get from my classmates), but out of the realm of books that I, as a twenty-year-old female student of literature, should have read, there are a few gaping holes. One, for instance, is The Devil Wears Prada. Another is Wuthering Heights.


WH is one of those towering pillars of British iconography that most people can discuss if it came up in conversation. Just because of its cultural status, I can kind of tell you the plot and the themes, and most definitely the setting. I think I've read the first few chapters, but I fell prey early on to Emily Bronte's heavy-handed dose of melancholy and high emotion. It didn't grasp me the same as Jane Eyre or anything by Jane Austen did, but I was aware of its literary value--hence the attempt at joining the 19th-century emo lit bandwagon.

However, the romanticized nature of the book still means something, so when Tasha and I found ourselves roaming the wild moors of Yorkshire yesterday under dark grey clouds and a strong wind, it felt pretty amazing to be standing on the actual Wuthering Heights.


We rode into the town of Haworth, possibly the quaintest dwelling in England, on what we saw as pretty much the Hogwarts Express. A real '40s diesel train! And the conductors were dressed in costume! Plus, to top it off, the town was indulging in a healthy display of WWII nostalgia for its annual 1940s Remembrance Day weekend, so there were plenty of soldiers and old-fashioned dancehall ladies wandering about artfully placed sandbags and yelping newsboys. It was like walking onto a film set for Swing Kids.



We got to explore the Brontes' home, where all four of the surviving children grew up and composed their famous works of art. Charlotte, Emily, and Anne all wrote novels while their brother Branwell was a portrait artist; even their father published papers on theology. Sadly, none of the four reached the age of forty, all dying before their father. They spent most of their lives living in this small house, in a tiny town in West Yorkshire.


But you can see where they got the inspiration for their grand plots: after tea among a crowd of infantrymen, Tasha and I took a six-mile walk up to Top Withins, the building where Emily sat and contemplated the story for WH. There's a sense of isolation up there that's oddly affecting; how can such a famous story have taken place in such an unassuming (though remarkably beautiful) place?


After walking in the Brontes' footsteps for a day, we caught the last steam engine train back to the little town of Keighley before heading back to Leeds. Our sore backs and tired legs made us acutely aware of the effects of soft student life... although it was well worth the climb to see one of the most famous literary settings of all time.