I completed my Leaving Certificate (See Footnote) at Oatlands CBS, Stillorgan, Dublin in 1977, yikes, 1977!! A lifetime ago.
At the time I was not very good at, or interested in, most of the subjects, but I loved English, in part due to my teacher Mr. Gorman, who helped nurture in me a love of words and the appreciation of a good piece of writing.
Mr. Gorman, (we rarely knew our teachers’ first names), had an infectious passion for his subject and it rubbed off on some of us, well me for sure. (Apologies for the use of the word infectious, BTW)
So, with our thoughts really on important things like Friday night dates, becoming the next Barry Sheene and the revival of Manchester United under Tommy Docherty, we bravely battled through King Lear, the poetry of Emily Dickinson, JD Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye and the rest. Sometimes we were bored, sometimes not, as old Gorman did his best to enliven some pretty grim material.
A Wee Aside
I often wonder about Catcher in the Rye as a suitable novel for impressionable seventeen-year-old boys/men. It has to be one of the most depressing books ever, even if it is brilliant.
But the real stumbling block for many of us mixed up, self-conscious, unfocused teenagers was the literary mountain that was called Wuthering Heights.
Now, I realise I am going out on a limb here. Emily Bronte’s novel Wuthering Heights is a recognised masterpiece, a classic. It is read and revered by many. BUT…
To my mind, Wuthering Heights is one of the slowest, darkest, gloomiest pieces of literature ever written. It wanders around the dreary Yorkshire Moors like a lost sheep with no light at the end of any of its many tunnels. The characters are gloomy, the weather is gloomy, the setting is gloomy. Maybe it is just my ailing memory but wasn’t everybody at death’s door too.
I have just read a synopsis of Wuthering Heights in preparation for this piece and even that was a struggle! Reading it as a seventeen-year-old male with too many hormones and an attention span of a goldfish was torturous. We ploughed through it like a large bowl of unseasoned porridge. Maybe it was food for the literary soul but it certainly wasn’t much fun.
Enter Kate Bush
Yet, somehow, I manged to get a good result in my Leaving Certificate English, despite, or because of, Wuthering Heights. I moved on gleefully, leaving the Yorkshire Moors well and truly behind me. That was one novel/bowl of porridge I would never plod through again.
And then, out of the blue, in 1978, a Doctor’s daughter appeared on Top of The Pops, singing a song called Wuthering Heights. I was in love.
Kate Bush hollered, wailed and shrieked her way though Wuthering Heights like a crazed banshee. The song meandered, changed course, modulated key, had an uncertain tempo and made no sense. It was, quite simply, wonderful!
To coin a phrase; the song Wuthering Heights had more hooks in it than the average fisherman’s basket.
It was amazing to hear the 4-minute transformation of a sort-of-Gothic novel into a sort-of-pop song. There is no way this should have worked, yet it did.
On Top of The Pops Kate danced and pranced about in ethereal, flowing dresses pleading to Heathcliff, “Let me in through your window” and a thousand males reached for the window latch of their imagination, screaming “Let her in, for God’s sake, man, let her in!”
Kate injected a passion into the song that would have greatly enhanced the novel.
Conclusion (Of Sorts)
In my view the song Wuthering Heights was way, way better than the novel that inspired it, and the world had been introduced to a truly brilliant and innovative artist.
So, I bought Kate Bush’s album “The Kick Inside” which contained Wuthering Heights and it too was weird, unfathomable, and brilliant. Apparently, Kate wrote “The Man with the Child in his Eyes” when she was fifteen!! There really is no comment to make, is there?
I am still a fan of the enigmatic Kate Bush today. “Hounds of Love” from the mid-80’s, is maybe the best ever album by a female artist (although, Tapestry by Carole King gives it a good run for its money). Then came The Red Shoes (a hidden gem), and a while ago there was “Aerial” another brilliantly eccentric album.
Sorry, Mr. Gorman
Your efforts to educate me fell short. I prefer Kate Bush to Emily Bronte, or even Emily Dickinson. But all was not in vain, my love of literature (well, a good book really) survived, can I introduce Fredrick Backman, the best writer I have discovered in years?
OK, I understand, next issue…….
Footnote: In 1977 the Leaving Certificate in Ireland prepared the lucky few for University, another few for jobs in the Civil Service or a bank, and the rest for emigration.