So in a recent interview, UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown compared himself to the Byronic hero of Wuthering Heights, Heathcliff. This has set off a bit of reaction from the press, as in the Guardian article “Brown reveals his wuthering romantic side”:
His comment was seized upon last night by opposition politicians and literary experts. The Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: “Heathcliff may be dark and brooding but he is also ruthless and vindictive. He ended his life a broken and tormented man haunted by a ghost. Tony Blair perhaps?”
Andrew McCarthy, acting director of the Brontë Parsonage Museum in Haworth, Yorkshire told the Daily Telegraph: “Heathcliff is a man prone to domestic violence, kidnapping, possible murder and digging up his dead lover. He is moody and unkind to animals. Is this really a good role model for the prime minister?”
Over in the Guardian book section, a commentator wonders if Brown was thinking of Laurence Olivier in the 1939 film adaptation instead of the character in Emily Brontë’s book.
Still, one wonders, has Brown actually read the book recently? If he had then he’d know that Heathcliff is actually a half-savage Gypsy boy who skulks around the Yorkshire moors in the freezing cold, sleeps in stables and drives the woman who loves him to an early grave. He is mostly a hair-trigger away from violence and can be guaranteed to lash out with his fists if anyone so much as gives him a funny look. Oh, and he also speaks in such an impenetrable dialect that it’s all but impossible to know what he’s going on about.
Actually, now that I think about it, that sounds more like our President. ;)
Coincidentally, I both read the book and saw the 1939 movie back in January — the film first, which I don’t usually like to do, but it was on TCM one night. From my notes after reading the book:
The first thing I had to do is “de-visualize” the characters from the just-seen 1939 movie, as they are not the same people at all, not to mention there are many more of them. Took a while, but the confusion cleared as time went by. That film had been mentioned as having been a faithful adaptation — as enjoyable as it was, it was in no way adequate in translating this book. In fact, it has character and place names in common, and little else.
Wuthering Heights is available at Project Gutenberg. It’s just awesome — if you haven’t read it, or haven’t since high school, please do. It became one of two new favorite books from my classics reading in 2008, Dracula being the other.
You gotta wonder. 
