Changing Heaven

THIS is the true sequel to Wuthering Heights. Not that Jane Urquhart intended it to be, but it so outstrips Return To Wuthering Heights by Anna L'Estrange that it cannot help but unwittingly assume that mantle.Whereas L'Estrange's sequel is a fairly linear novel, which continues the saga through the lives of Heathcliffe and Catherine's descendants, Hareton and young Cathy, Urquhart gets inside Bronte's head and brings us the spirit of her creation, rather than the mere mechanics.Urquhart's stunning grasp of Emily Bronte's psyche is echoed in Camille Paglia's own cracking assessment of Bronte and her work in the magnificent Sexual Personae. Here, in Paglia's analysis of Bronte's self-referential high romantic prose poem, she writes of how the Byronic Heathcliffe is both Bronte's own projected animus (put simplistically, her Jungian Inner Male component) and in the context of the story, Cathy's as well. This metathesis, or literary transsexualization comes across in Urquhart's own brilliant re-weaving of the Brontean strands. Yet, such is the subtlety of Jane's unfoldment, that the female characters, including Emily Bronte (in spirit form, as is Arianna Ether) seem almost peripheral to the calculatedly one-dimensional, self-indulgent male characters. Such of course, is the history of patriarchy, in which women have traditionally been the Second Sex.The only exception to the male group thus defined is the character Hartley, who, by comparison is an almost Shamanic figure - a man in balance, who has surrendered to the wisdom of the eternal Feminine.I believe that Jane Urquhart has captured the elemental genius of Bronte's original work, with its relatively anarchic temporal shifting and box structure, in particular Bronte's deliberate use of the singular form of 'heaven' (in a related poem), rather than 'the heavens', which would be a more common choice when writing about the weather, the sky etc. The changing heaven is the changing Heaven, and the use of weather as a metaphor in Wuthering Heights, and therefore Changing Heaven, reminds you of the tornado in The Wizard of Oz, which again represented a vortex, connecting the worlds at the opposite ends of the labyrinth. Yin and Yang, Life and Death, Masculine and Feminine etc.Yet, as Dorothy discovered, when you have truly found yourself, Oz is Kansas. She never left, she merely transformed. Similarly, the temporal convergence that finally connects the female divine Trinity in Jane's epic work is a simliar point of transcendence, and resolution.I was so impressed by Changing Heaven that I even mentioned it at a pivotal point in my own impending modern gothic novel 'One Star Awake', and in my first work of non-fiction, Sirius Moonlight - concerning the suppression of the Feminine in patriarchal culture - such is the influence that Urquhart's mistresspiece has had on me - likewise, with Camille Paglia.Even the inspired act of latching onto the Bronte poem's phrase 'changing heaven' and relating it to th

This book was brought to my attention by my editor who (like Urquhard, I think) hails from Canada. What a treat I had reading it. There were strong, feminist themes throughout the book that reminded me a little of Urquhard's collegue, Margaret Atwood (argh! I told myself I wasn't going to make this comparison...), but the work in Changing Heaven is much gentler than what I would expect to see from Atwood (whom I also enjoy). And then there are Urquhard's landscapes. Normally, I'm an inveterate skimmer of descriptive prose, but not here. Her descriptions were just too good to miss.Last but not least, Emily Bronte shows up toward the end of the book. How massively cool can a book get?

Jane Urquhart has created yet another masterpiece. this is the third Urquhart novel i've read, and this brillinat author never ceases to captivate my imagination with her beautiful, poetic prose. this is the story of several seemingly unrelated characters who grow and develop before the reader, and as you get deeper into the story, their lives are inevitably intertwined in peculiar and fascinating ways. the main characters are a turn-of-the-century baloonist; the young Emily Bronte; a woman in the midst of a troubled love-affair; and the man that connects the pieces in this intriguing puzzle. the main themes in this exquisitely written novel are the loves and passions that bring the characters to a common ground. they are all fascinating and eccentric, and reading about their lives and losses has definitely added to my knowledge and perspective of human nature. a must read for those fascinated by human nature and its aftermaths.

for any classic literature fan who loves Emily Bronte, this book is excellent. The way the ghost of Emily refers to Heathcliffe as "Mr. capital H" is hysterical. This Canadian author is a rare find and I love the way she writes. Maybe one hundred years from now we'll be reading her novels in high school English classes also