I've never seen so many people talk about Emily Brontë and Wuthering Heights. It's been quite mind-blowing - really, very surreal. We talk about the Brontës every day and everyone else is kind of joining in on this conversation, and it is everywhere. So many people are picking up the book for the first time and discovering the Brontës for the first time.
A few days after Emerald Fennell's film adaptation of "Wuthering Heights" came out, a friend sent me an Onion headline about a bookseller frantically pulling classics off the shelf before Fennell enters the store. No beloved novel could be safe from the dangers of the director introducing anachronistic costumes, original songs by Charli XCX, selectively color-blind casting, and explicit B.D.S.M. scenes for its Byronic hero.
Someone running across a phalanx of these self-professed "book nerds" wouldn't be wrong to sense a connection to 21st century pop music fandoms, the social networks supporting artists like Taylor Swift or Charli xcx. Bookstores with names like Slow Burn or Lovestruck sell bookmarks or other trinkets emblazoned with Swift lyrics alongside those with quotes from leading romantasy author Sarah J. Maas.
