Heathcliff, pin-up boy for romance (?)

Glamour discusses 'How popular culture has romanticised dark, tormented love – and completely warped our idea of what a healthy relationship should look like'. As you can imagine, Wuthering Heights is a case in point:

Just writing this makes me feel tired. It was intense and ultimately unhappy, but exactly the sort of love I had dreamt of growing up as a Wuthering Heights obsessive. In hindsight, using the book’s leading man Heathcliff – someone so tormented by love that he had sex with his paramour’s corpse – as the pin-up boy for romance was obviously and regrettably a few beats off.

There was a line in Brontë’s novel that I thought to be the most beautiful expression of love in history: “I cannot live without my life, I cannot live without my soul.” I thought that love was something to be endured, and that it was my destiny to live my life with a creative troubled soul whom I would prop up and be strong for all of time. I was so, so stupid.

Nearly every woman I know has a roughly similar story – a toxic relationship that is basically a huge existential emotional puzzle that needs solving. We spend months, sometimes years, trying to decipher this stuff like it’s the Da Vinci Code. None of this is our fault – we are taught through popular culture that this is what love is. (Ella Alexander)

We don't fully agree as you also grow up reading about tigers that come to tea or the Gruffalo or Peter Pan and you do learn that they're not real and not any less fun for that reason. 

Syfantasy (France) recommends Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Mexican Gothic est une belle découverte en horreur. Dracula, Lovecraft et les sœurs Brontë se sont donnés rendez-vous au cœur du Mexique pour accompagner la plume de Silvia Moreno-Garcia et proposer une roman lugubre et prenant. N’ayez pas peur (ou peut-être que si en fait…) et foncez ! (Louis - CINAK) (Translation)

Far Out Magazine discusses Kate Bush and the punk movement.

In addition to her iconic tracks such as ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘Running Up That Hill’ and ‘Babooshka’, Bush has also gained much respect for her independence as a female artist in a male-dominated industry. After all, it was 1978 when she released her debut single ‘Wuthering Heights’, and the snotty, male-dominated first wave of punk was in its supremacy. (Mick McStarkey)

On The Sisters' Room, Maddalena De Leo posts about The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society and its Anne Brontë (fictional) connection.