Wuthering Heights

By: Emily Brontë

Narrated by: Patricia Routledge

Length: 14 hrs and 15 mins

Publisher's summary

The passionate and tragic story of Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff is one of the high points of 19th-century Romantic literature. In the relationship of Cathy and Heathcliff, and in the wild, bleak Yorkshire Moors of its setting, Wuthering Heights creates a world of its own, conceived with a disregard for convention and an instinct for poetry and the darkest depths of the human soul in torment.

Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.

Patricia Routledge Does Wuthering Heights Justice!

What does Patricia Routledge bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?

No-one absolutely no-one does character voices like Patricia Routledge, her vocal range is like no other i have listened to. She brings the story to life, her voice is so animated and dramatic....she does not read....she performs. If you have hated every attempt hollywood has made to reproduce this great classic on the big screen.....Patricia Routledge's performance is as good as it gets.

The Best Performance

I own several versions of this story, but Mrs. Routledge’s is the best! I feel like I heard parts for the first time. I worried I would hear Hyacinth Bucket while listening, but she isn’t there at all! She did a wonderful job allowing us to feel each emotion of each character!

Wonderful narration. Questionable story.

Unsure as to why Wuthering Heights is the “must read” classic that it is. No doubt Emily Brontë is a magnificently gifted writer, and the characters are complex. However, I found the plot disjointed and on the whole...bland. There was not one character the reader could possibly have sympathy for or even root for, and for such a long novel there was little to no plot. On the whole I was disappointed in the story. Emily Bronte wrote very interesting characters but gave them almost nothing to do.

Magnificent Performance

Great narration for an indispensable classic. The characters are so vile and crooked that I had to listen in parts, the story is so intense. This is a reread for me, my first on paperback. The audio version provided more realism and discovery.

Gothic Romance — Well-Told and Well-Read

Those who misunderstand the word "romance" and come into this novel expecting to find a star-crossed story of unrequited love will be more than a little disappointed. Passion, yes. Emotion, for sure. But classical lovers, not so much.

The characters in this story move the reader not so much by the strength of their own character but by the tragic way they became who they are, and how wrongs done to them in past generations bleed into the future.

I don't read a lot of fiction but was impressed with what I think are unique aspects of how Emily Brontë tells this story. The use of multiple first-person narrators lends verisimilitude to the description of the events. There are 2 major and maybe 3-4 minor narrators. Oddly, the primary narrator, Nelly Dean, who is an observer adjacent to much of the story, might be the only admirable character in this odd tale.

It's fascinating to me to find that I don't have to love or admire the main characters, nor be sympathetic to their wants and needs, to find the story a good one. I don't believe Brontë tries to get me to identify with any of them. But she still makes me strongly feel ways about the story.

People complain about the reader (Patricia Routledge), but they're really complaining about the way certain characters are written. Joseph speaks with a Yorkshire accent that is written out phonetically in the book. Routledge reproduces this accent, which is undecipherable to the uninitiated. You can get enough words and guess by the way he speaks exactly what he is thinking. And it's no worse (better, perhaps) than sister Charlotte's "Jane Eyre", in which Adele often speaks in her native French — with no translation offered for the reader.

This book is well out of my comfort zone but I'm very happy to have read it. I'll likely read it again.

what is grief if not love persisting?

strange, cold man who loves in cruelty. dramatic ladies who cannot express emotion unless they bring others down with it. the housekeeper who tells the story is the warmest character who is untainted by the darkness and the haunting

superb narration

loved Patricia Routledge's interpretation of a classic. Well worth listening to a book I have read several times. It is a classic for good reason.

Brilliant Writing, Depressing Reading

I'm almost glad I read it, but wouldn't recommend it to anyone. Watch the movie and try to forget how horrid the characters actually were in the book. : )

Excellent voice actor!!

The narrator made all the difference in this most passionate of love stories. I've never felt the story so well in my own reading but I will having heard this.

Not the right narrator for big chunks of the book

Would you consider the audio edition of Wuthering Heights to be better than the print version?

Audio is not better, I still read most books in print, but there is something about listening to classics. It is nice to savor the sound, to not rush, to have the book surround you as you do tasks.

What other book might you compare Wuthering Heights to and why?

Well, Jane Eyre, but also the Gaskell books, or all of George Eliot. Nothing is as tumultuous as Wuthering Heights.

What aspect of Patricia Routledge’s performance would you have changed?

I love Patricia Rutledge, and for the most part she does a fine job here, but there are a few characters that were so wrong that I wasn't sure I could finish listening to the book. I wish I had gotten one of the other versions because I like "rereading" the classics. I did like her version of Nellie though.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

It would be the tormented boy, Linton, except this version makes him a nasal whiney mess, so it is hard to feel much sympathy.

Any additional comments?

This has earned its reputation and is well worth a listen. But maybe not this narrator.