Blogging Wuthering Heights: Part 22

Finally, ghosts! Thanks for making it this far, Coffinmaker! —Sparkitors

Chapters XXIX-XXXI

Before this chapter, I had developed a theory that I liked to call the Bummer Theory. The theory was that after chapter 28 (or XXVIII for all you Romans out there—oh, and hey! I like your helmets!) this book couldn't get any more depressing. I mean, Chapter 28 was a real downer. Edgar Linton died and it looked like Cathy was gonna get carted off to live with Mister Milquetoast Linton and Heathcliff "Foot-Punch Your Face" Heathcliff for the rest of her life.

Which is, unfortunately, what happens in this chapter, which also disproves my Bummer Theory by being even more of a downer than the last one.

First, Heathcliff comes and drags Cathy off physically to Wuthering Heights. Just to rub it in that he's the Master of the House(s), he leaves Nelly on as the housekeeper at Thrushcross Grange, so Nelly and Cathy have to be separated.

While Cathy is out of the room packing her things, Heathcliff gets perhaps the creepiest he has ever been in the book. He says that yesterday he got the sexton, who is basically a gravedigger but with a way more awesome title, to dig up the grave where the original Catherine lies. He opened the coffin lid and perceived that Cathy, the dead one, hasn't changed at al—i.e., not rotted away as a skeleton. Which is even more freaky, even to a Coffinmaker.

Nelly chides Heath Crunch for disturbing the dead, and he says that that wasn't the first time. A few days after she died he began digging at her grave out of sheer anguish, and then he had some sort of ghost reality show encounter with what he believes was Catherine's spirit. He says that ever since he has been tortured by feeling that Cathy is nearby, yet untouchable and unseeable.

Man, Cathy can't even be a ghost right. Untouchable? Unseeable? If I were a ghost I'd do awesome ghost things, like dissolve alka-seltzer tablets in people's water when they're not looking. I always thought a ghost would probably look something like alka-seltzer tablets dissolving in water, actually. All bubbly and phantasmic. And their voices would sound like someone with bubbles coming out of their mouth.

Nelly hears that life is anything but happy for Cathy at the Heights from her informant, Zillah, the Heights' housekeeper. The only person who makes any attempt to be nice to Cathy is Hareton, Hindley Earnshaw's son, who can't read or write. He seems to have something of a crush on her, but she despises him so much that his niceness is limited.

And thus, rather anti-climactically, ends Nelly's story. Lockwood, who I remember with tears in my eyes is the Narrator, resumes with his story, saying that he thanked Nelly for her time in that sappy way of his, and, after a short visit to the Heights, left again for London.

Smeyer's thoughts after reading these chapters: After reading this section of the book, Stephenie Meyer decides to write ghosts into her stories and give them a confusing backstory like the werewolves. One day in 1830, Carlisle's brother Esmund (don't ask) fell in love with—the most scandalous relationship yet!—a white handkerchief. The two rent a hotel room and the first ghost is born. They call him Snotty.

My thoughts after reading these chapters: My editor should beat me generously because I turned these chapters in late. On deadline night, I was watching The Spectacular Spider-Man on Netflix. But I promise I will forgo such distractions in the—is that Doc Oc? Get out of here!

In the next chapters: The ghost of Edgar Linton will join the ghost of Catherine, and the two of them will torture Heathcliff twice as much. Every time he walks into a quiet room, he hears the sounds of two people making out. Finally, he confronts them.
Heathcliff: All right, seriously, ghosts of Cathy and Edgar! Get a room!
Ghost of Edgar: (in spooky ghost voice) You're just jeeeaaaaaaaaalooooouuuuuuus!
Heathcliff: Jealous? Why would I be jealous of a ghost?
Ghost of Edgar: Becaaaaauuuuuse! I'm having crazy wild ghoooooost make-out sessions with your loooooove!
Heathcliff: All right, seriously, shut up.
Ghost of Edgar: I wiiiiiill in just a seeeeecond, because her ghostly tooooongue is gonna be in my mooouuuuth!
Heathcliff: Okay, mister! One more peep out of you or Cathy and I'm seriously gonna kill myself and kick the crap out of you!
Ghost of Edgar: Mmmmm...sorry, can't talk...mmmmm...
Heathcliff: Dear lord.

We think Coffinmaker gets funnier as the book gets more miserable. Thoughts?

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