Project Rational — Rocky Farm Studio Books

PROJECT RATIONALE

SOURLAND: Wuthering Heights, New Jersey

My project began as simply choosing to re-read the novel, Wuthering Heights, and I remembered that much of the language around relationship, family, child rearing, or romantic attachment is not relatable to a modern reader; sometimes it’s unclear what’s happening in these chapters. So, I wanted to look at the issues around dysfunctional families and romantic obsession in Victorian culture that have been stricken from the modern view of psychological health, especially for young people. I began the process of translating, through research, each word and phrase that required a modern understanding and accurate analogies.

Sourland paints a realistic view of mid-century American rural society while also adding magical elements, blurring the lines between fantasy and reality. By adding supernatural phenomena in an otherwise mundane setting, a union of the real and the magical is created, just as Bronte did in her classic tale. It follows 6 year old Caroline and 7 year old Hadley from their meeting in 1971 to the very end of their lives. The Sourland Mountain of New Jersey, an isolated place long thought to be haunted, makes a perfect setting for Victorian gothic homage. Behind the novel’s standalone value, it is a study in Victorian vs. modern societies for those familiar with Bronte’s story.

Having said that, certain scenes, which were not meant to be magical in Bronte’s story, e.g., Heathcliff’s attempt at exhuming Catherine’s body in the graveyard, or instructing the sexton to have his coffin side removed along with Catherine’s opposing side, so that their bodies could rot and mix together, presented a modern day impossibility. In scenes like those, in order not to lose their psychological impact, I changed them to dream sequences.

I think “translations” can open up literature from the past. We can get people who don’t have access to learning 18th century Yorkshire and Victorian English thinking about what Emily Bronte can tell us about our own culture and inform our current moment.

In my translation of Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights, I extract the author’s interest in familial abuse, violence, and obsession, and make it understandable to a contemporary audience. I explore the novel’s significance and the challenge of translating child neglect and emotional and physical violence from her Victorian world to the present day, hoping to impart historical empathy.

I wanted to be analogous with her depictions of violence; and be very careful with the language of the body because Emily Bronte is so interested in physical appearances and how they reflect inward character and moral traits. The way that she connects the body of each character with power, apathy, jealousy, kindness, despair—that is all very interesting to me.

When the text uses words and phrases whose use and definitions have changed in modern American English, I didn’t want to use her original terms. One small example is how Bronte uses “wink,” which does not mean the same thing as “wink” means to us; it means to turn a blind eye—changing a scene’s meaning considerably for a modern reader.

Readers and Victorian Studies students often cite examples of violence and cruelty in the original novel, such as a young boy’s hanging of puppies. But this is not a description of violence; it simply sets a scene for the reader. Drowning, hanging, and shooting were the only methods 18th century people had to control animal populations, especially in a remote rural farm setting like Wuthering Heights. Although Bronte certainly uses this detail to set the mood of a scene, she was not ascribing cruelty or sadistic behavior on the part of the actor, which is how it is commonly interpreted by readers today. Assigning the task to a child may be her commentary, but that is all. These are the parts where analogy is critical to maintain the scene and message. In Sourland my character boxes the puppies for transport to a shelter, because to do otherwise in a modern environment would be cruel and violent. Without analogy to reflect contemporary norms, the distractions of past cultural behaviors can destroy the spirit of her book. That makes a big difference in how her characters are judged and understood.

Emily Bronte gets readers thinking the most about questions of their own emotional reactions and cultural moment. We’re still defined by relationship; we’re still wrestling with many of the same questions about gender and power. She’s also concerned with many of the same questions we are. For example, how does violence, betrayal, or degradation change us? She’s interested in the psychology of trauma.

In Sourland, readers experience the power of forgiveness and how forgiveness can be used as a healing device, a way of reasserting control over our own lives. These are universal human experiences.