Is Heathcliff a Murderer? by John Sutherland

Retrieved from: ILL (a.k.a., the library)
(019282516x)

This is a series of books based on the subtitle of this first one: "Great Puzzles in Nineteenth-Century Literature." It was recommended in the bibliography of the most recent Thursday Next book; now I know where Fforde gets (some of) his ideas! Topping it all over, the cover of the copy I read has a lovely picture of Olivier as Heathcliff on it.

Confession: I didn't read this cover to cover. I read the Intro and the chapters on the books that I've actually read. In other words, having never read The Tenant of Wildfell Hall by Anne Bronte, I skipped the chapter called "Who is Helen Graham?" because I don't have even a faint clue who she is! But the chapters on Jane Eyre and Oliver Twist et al. were very interesting.

I'll do the highlights in the order I read them:

• "How does Victor make his monsters?" Mary Shelley, Frankenstein--There are some fascinating sexual overtones here that have been completely missed by filmmakers more interested in making this a story about science than about humanity.
  
• "Is Oliver dreaming? Charles Dickens, Oliver Twist--This is about when he is rescued and taken to the country but "dreams" he sees Fagin at the window. I don't actually remember this part of the book myself.
  
• "Is Heathcliff a murderer?" Emily Bronte, Wuthering Heights--The question whether Heathcliff actively smothered Hindley, or just didn't assist him to keep him from dying. Some would say there's no real difference; he's culpable and that's all that matters.
  
• "Rochester's celestial telegram" Charlotte Bronte Jane Eyre--In her later writings, Bronte insisted that she didn't belief in romantic miracles to further the plot. Yet, miles away from Rochester, Jane clearly hears him calling her at the very moment he later admits to saying her name. What was Bronte talking about??
  
• "R.H. Hutton's spoiling hand" Henry James, The Portrait of a Lady (and Eliot's Middlemarch)--In which we find out that the first edition of both of these books end differently from subsequent editions most likely because Hutton, a well-known literary critic, denounced them for the "moral collapse" of the main characters. The authors went back and rewrote the ending to "clarify" that they really didn't mean the reward immorality. sigh
  
• "What does Edward Hyde look like?" R.L. Stevenson, Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde--Interestingly, Stevenson never provides a detailed description of the evil Mr Hyde, even though he does a masterful job of telling us what Dr. Jekyll looks like. Why?
  
• "Is Alec a rapist?" Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'Urbervilles--Well, depends on your definition of rape, now, doesn't it?
  
• "Mysteries of the Speckled Band" Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes--There are several: why did two women raised in India not recognize deadly Indian snakes? Were the Misses Stoner some kind of sex-slaves of their step-father? Why did Miss Stoner die so young, subsequent to the solving of the mystery itself?

So obviously, if you didn't "do" 19th-century Brit-lit, you won't get much out of this book. Not to worry! Sutherland has done several other books. Can't wait to read them. I'm hoping he eventually hits some more American authors. ahem.