In her introduction to my 2004 Barnes & Noble Classics edition of Wuthering Heights, author and critic Daphne Merkin calls the novel a fever dream. I can’t think of a more apt take on this weird, unhinged book. Yet, somehow, Wuthering Heights manages to do what only great literature can — stand the test of time, in the grand sense of generations and in the personal.

Like many American women, I first read Wuthering Heights as a teenager after reading a round of 19th century novels (mostly Jane Austen). All I knew going into it was that it was a classic, it was a passionate love story, it was dramatic, it was beloved. Then I read it, and I fucking hated it.

I thought every character was awful, except for maybe Edgar (though he didn’t always help himself) and poor, stupid Isabella. Cathy, Jr. was okay sometimes. Heathcliff and Cathy, Sr. deserved each other (not in a good way), and I didn’t feel much when either of them met their ends. I saw no great love story in any of it.

Now a few decades later, I can appreciate Wuthering Heights in other ways — as perhaps the greatest gothic saga of the Romantic period, a revenge tale, a character study of a hurt person who hurts people, an examination of British class structures, a literal ghost story. I truly enjoyed my reread of this bonkers novel and now have an itch to wander along a Yorkshire moor.

But why travel to Yorkshire when you can just go to your local AMC and watch Emerald Fennell’s campy, rococo bodice-ripper of an interpretation? I won’t spoil anything, other than to say there is a beautiful mise-en-scene involving leeches. Fennell continues to make lavish, opulent movies full of mucus and body fluids. Was her adaptation of Wuthering Heights good? I’m not sure. Did I enjoy the sensation of this movie washing over me? Yes, although it drags a bit towards the end. Is it faithful to the book? Hell no, and I’m okay with that.

If you have not read Wuthering Heights and want to see the movie, see the movie first. Then read the book if you want a completely different experience. I’m here if you want to talk, especially about Isabella and THAT scene.