I simply had no idea. None whatsoever.
I'm not sure if I should hang my head in shame. Or brag.
Until going to see a fairly new ballet of Wuthering Heights, the other night, it turns out I had no idea what the novel was actually about.
The ballet was beautiful, but all the swooning, all the fighting, all the crawling on the floor (I picture dust and dirt all over the costumes, and it hurts). I couldn't for the life of me keep track of who was who...I didn't actually try, which was just as well, because I couldn't have been more wrong in what I thought the story was about.
I went home and read the Wikipedia entry for WUTHERING HEIGHTS. And I found out it is--
A POTBOILER.
I didn't know there were two Cathys. I didn't know Heathcliff was the bad guy. I was shocked to find Heathcliff was a lowbrow bully, in fact, with resentments galore. What kind of hero is that? Look at Olivier in the picture. No wonder I've been confused.
I thought Heathcliff and Cathy were doomed lovers, for some reason or 
other. I thought they were a kind of Romeo and Juliet, several hundred years later.
I thought Heathcliff was a sweetheart. I thought Cathy was, well, not spoiled and wild and a little touched in the head...or something.
And then I thought for sure that Heathcliff would marry the second Cathy, once I found out there was a second Cathy, but no. At least, though, Cathy's love for Hareton finally helped Heathcliff find goodness in his heart....
There were all kinds of other characters. Heathcliff's wife, Cathy's husband, the offspring of each. Oh, and Cathy's brother and his child whom Heathcliff treated shabbily the minute he got his hands on him. He did this as payback for how Cathy's brother had treated him way back when he was the foster kid, favored by the father over the brother, and Cathy, the first one, loved both of them, which was before she fell in love with and married Edgar--
Somehow I see Alexa Harrington....the re-incarnated Heathcliff?
Somehow I see Audrey Hepburn...I see Lassie. Surely there's a spot for Lassie.
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