Always a bit wary of reviews of my favourite books, I approached ‘No Coward Soul’ with curiosity and caution. I was pleased by Christopher Rush’s teaser and despite having read Wuthering Heights ooh… well a lot of times, it made me excited to read it again with yet another set of fresh eyes.
Rush gives us many a glittering detail from the fact that Emily Bronte was a woman born in 1818, and that this exquisite and unmatched tale, her only completed story, is a jewel amongst literary jewels borne of the Romantic era. This novel is ‘dominated by the grand passion that exists between a Catherine Earnshaw and Heathcliff, an affair that is not only endlessly unconsummated and deferred, but is ultimately inimical, destroying both lovers’. He also delights with sharp insights and his own sentiments sliced straight from his heart.
I thoroughly enjoyed the way Rush takes us on a stroll through the book via this commentary, revelling in the broodiness, the raw anguish, the howling grief, the chilling coldness of the soul and the very root of it all, survival.
A beautiful observation both inspirational and galvanising. I started re-reading one of my many copies immediately.
Appletree Books 