Call me, Ishmael

It could all have been so different. Just think: every thorny literary problem solved by modern technology. Who hasn’t read “Wuthering Heights” and gnashed her teeth at poor Cathy’s fate, yoked to dreary Edgar Linton when we all know she yearns to swoon into hunky Heathcliff’s arms? But alas, unaware that her beloved is listening, she appears to refuse him in no uncertain terms: “It would degrade me to marry Heathcliff now.” And so Heathcliff lopes away into the storm-wracked night without hearing the rest of her speech (“he shall never know how I love him”), and readers are denied the swoony bliss of true romance. So admit: You’ve thought it. I’ve thought it. We’ve all thought it. If only they’d had their phones!…