Travels and Books: Reading in the coffee shop: Wuthering Heights, by Emily Bronntë.

It was in my last trip to London, when I found this old book in the small library of the hotel's lounge. I took the novel in my hands, and I realized that it was a very old book, it belonged to a lady, the first owner of the hotel, according to her granddaughter, the current owner.

It was very cold outside, a rainy and stormy day, so I decided to take a cup of hot chocolate as I began to read the book .

I had heard of this novel many times, but it was the first time that I had the opportunity to read it.

Wuthering Heights is a classic of English literature, and it's the most beautiful novel of the Brontë sisters, in this case of Emiliy (1818 -1848), who only wrote this book and she died a year later.

English literature of the nineteenth century shows all its splendor in this novel, through the passionate love of a young and rich heiress, and her tormented stable boy, a young man with gypsy features, but very handsome and rude.

The intensity of the feelings, the brutality of the characters, and the primitive energies of love and hatred pervaded the entire story.

Wuthering Heights is also the name of the farmhouse where the story takes place.
The books's core theme is also the destructive effect of jealousy and vengefulness.
In fact the two main characters Heathcliff and Cathy can not love each other in a normal way, in real life.
They will love each other when they will be dead, and people from the region will see them as ghosts walking together through the countryside.
Cathy married with the wrong man, in the real life, and Heathcliff felt despised all his life.

Saint-Germain-des-Prés (the literary district of Paris) : Le café de Flore,

La Place Fürstenberg, Les Deux Magots.

Simone de Beauvoir used to write in Café de Flore, next to the white flowers (one of her characters, and a Simone's friend remembers me the character of Cathy in Wuthering Heights).

When the book, Wuthering Heights first published was considered controversial, due its depiction of mental and phisical cruelty, and also by the challenges to the strict Victorian ideals of the day.

Later and now is widely regarded as a classic of Englsih literature, and the book has inspired numerous film adaptations with great success.

I personally liked the book, but I was very surprised about the feeling of revenge, this is not love.

Probably the two main characters were not enough mature, balanced and free in a corseted society to love each other, and be happy in this life.