Customer Reviews

The Professor

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

I read this in a class with a lot of people who love Victorian novels, and almost everyone hated it. By general consensus it was dry and featured an unlikeable main character. For this reason, I wouldn't recommend it to many people. Nevertheless, I generally enjoyed it. It wasn't as good as Jane Eyre or Villette, but I am glad I read it.

It is a love story, and as such, I thought it succeeded. What most people saw as dry, I saw as sparse, unsentimental narration. I thought it made the love story a little more original and fresh for me. Though if this sort of storytelling isn't for you, I definitely wouldn't read it.

The other problem that most people have with this is the character of William Crimsworth. At times, he is a chauvenist and a racist. These are difficult aspects to overcome for many.

I think there are two ways to see the novel. First, it can be seen as a decent love story between a flawed man and a woman who may offer him redemption. I don't think this is a totally unenjoyable way to read it. You could also see it as a satire on the chauvenistic, supposedly self-reliant Crimsworth. It's probably a little more successful if you see it this way. If you don't like it one way, look at it from the other. Don't read this novel before Jane Eyre or Villette, but this can be a pretty good read.

"The Professor", by Charlotte Bronte, was the author's first novel but it was not published until after her death (and perhaps she refashioned it to some degree later in her novel "Villette"). It is the tale of William Crimsworth, a man without parents and forsaken by his brother, who is forced to make his own way in the world. He decides to try his hand at teaching and travels to Brussels to teach English at an all-boys' school.

Once at the school in Brussels, he immediately begins a successful, if not profitable, teaching career. Soon enough he finds himself teaching four classes per week at the neighboring school for girls, and also finds himself falling for the headmistress Mlle. Reuter. Inexperienced with women, he is susceptible to and deceived by her whiles and charms until love enters his life in the form of a fellow teacher-pupil Frances Henri. As is to be expected, despite the abuse Crimsworth suffered from his brother, and having nothing of his own, he manages to work his way into wealth and is able to marry the woman he has fallen in love with.

At the beginning of "The Professor", Crimsworth confesses that is narrative his not exciting and he holds true to his word, especially since he can be a rather irksome narrator. While not a novel to shake the foundations of literature, "The Professor" offers insights into who Charlotte Bronte would become as a writer. Her characters, a few who are one-dimensional, are mainly well-sketched and drawn out; and despite her claim to the lack of excitement in her narrator's story, his tale unfolds briskly and with few unexpected revelations. Having been a governess herself, (the novel is based on her own experiences), Bronte combines asides about the state of education and the relationship that exists between teacher and pupil. Some of these insights hold true for today as well, making "The Professor" an undated and well-written account of man's struggle for success and happiness.

**Two things I disliked about the Wordsworth Classics edition. This version was rampant with typos throughout the entire novel; the same mistakes were repeated numerous times. I was also maddened by the fact that entire conversations in French were not translated, and therefore not understood, especially during the climax of the story.

For a young writer's first attempt this novel is quite well-written and the plot is fairly well-conceived. However, the narrator is badly done (the Bronte girls should never try to write from a man's perspective!) and the narrative is both dull and sentimental. The characters have none of the strength and personality which makes Jane Eyre such a timeless favorite. I prefer Charlotte's later work, which has acquired depth and realism. In The Professor, her emotional maturity had clearly not caught up to her precocious intellect.

The Professor is the story of William Crimsworth, a young man of small means and weak family connections who travels to Brussels to earn a living. He settles there as an English professor in an all-boys school and teaches part-time in the neighbouring girls' school. There he falls in love with one of his pupils, a poor lace-mender, and is pursued by the school's directress, an artful self-interested woman.

If this sounds rather dull to you, then you have the correct impression. The book is not as exciting as Jane Eyre or as moving as Villette. The narrative moves slowly, and Crimsworth is a very analytical type of character who does not scruple to record his thoughts on every detail. Nothing really dramatic happens and emotions are not heightened. But what I really dislike about this novel is the prejudiced portrayal of the Flemish, described often as coarse and unthinking, as inferior to the English.

The novel has a strong negative sound, very different to that in Villette. Although Crimsworth is the marble image of perseverance and self-control, almost to an inhuman level, he is haunted by hypochondria. There is a general sense of mistrust and hostility between all the characters. The editor explains in her introduction that this is the result of suppressed impulses and denied indulgences of the main characters, and reveals Bronte as a social critic. And there is one very interesting character, Mr. Hunsden, a cynical, but very like-able artistocrat who dislikes wealth (he's a bit like Rochester). Though the story is lacking in feeling, it still has bits here and there of beautiful prose and warmth that make it worth reading for a Bronte fan, but most others would judge it too slow-paced and dull.

The Professor proves to detail humanity in a way only Charlotte Bronte can. She depicts human nature, thought, and emotion brilliantly utilizing the English language to highten the reader's experience of the situation at hand. The Professor was, however, Bronte's first novel and, although controversial at the time, now seems to illustrate how much Bronte had grown as a writer throughout the years. In my opinion, Jane Eyre and Villete were her finest works, but The Professor is still a must read for any Bronte fan.

I read "The Professor" after completing "Villette" and learning that "The Professor" dealt with similar material. Anyone considering reading "The Professor" should know that there are three facets to the master-pupil relationship with regard to Charlotte Bronte: "The Professor", "Villette", and Bronte's own life. "The Professor" seems unrealistic, like a sugar-coated fantasy, because it is: through this novel Bronte realized her own dreams that never came true in reality. When Bronte wrote "The Professor", she still cherished dreams that she too could continue a relationship with her beloved master and operate her own school; this was never achieved. "Villette" is a much more sophisticated work because it actually engages with these issues, rather than day-dreaming about them. "Villette" is also much better crafted, and its characters are better shaped. However, for anyone interested in Charlotte Bronte, "The Professor" provides useful insight into the painful situation central to her life.

Readers aspiring to have a knowledge of Charlotte Brontė's work should read "The Professor" as it contains the key to much of her subsequent writing like "Jane Eyre" or "Vilette". The novel is based on the author's own experiences in Brussels. The central character, William Crimsworth, an orphan, leaves his dreary clerking post in a Yorkshire mill to start a career as a teacher of English in the Belgian capital. He falls in love with a Protestant pupil, Frances Henri, teacher and lace mender. However William's relationship is complicated by the manipulative and beguiling Catholic headmistress, Zoraide Reuter, and her cunning attempts to divert him from his destiny.
The novel, written in 1846, astonishes by its brevity and realism and by its portrayal of the heroine's insistence on a working career after her marriage.

As a fan of Jane Eyre and Shirley I was thoroughly taken aback by how much this book irked me. There was much I found commendable: the attempt to write from a male point of view, the contemplation of cultures and the assertionof female rights by a good female character. There is even humor in this book (the description of the students made me laugh aloud), but I disliked the obviousness of the novel: it is easy to predict. I was also very disturbed by the character's xenophobia and attacks on Catholicism, although those were the prevalent English views of the time. This book is really for people who want to see how the great Bronte developed as an artist and one of the finest writers of the English language.

Talk about a classic with loose ends. Lots of who's and why's. Not clear on many main points, Bronte overlooked basic reader questions that were never answered. I thought more of this novel BEFORE I read it and now I'm convinced that this is the least thought of novel of all of Bronte's masterpieces.

In vain did Charlotte Bronte attempt to publish this novel during her lifetime. The Professor was repeatedly rejected by publisher after publisher. The book was thought to lack the substance to interest and engage readers.

The novel is clearly drawn from Bronte's life experience during her time in Brussels, where she developed feelings for a married man named Constantin Heger. There are many similarities between the characters in this book and Charlotte's experience in Brussels, but there are also vast differences.

The novel is told from the point of view of William Crimsworth, an aristocrat who turns his back on his family legacy and sets off to begin a new life in Brussels. Here he makes the aquaintance of Zoraide Reuter, who initially illicits deep feelings in William until her deceptive behavior reveals her true nature.
Instead, William feels himself drawn to a plain, but intelligent young lady named Francis Henri. Francis is unlike other girls in the school. She is terribly shy and in no way fashionable, but her intelligence and her passion for education ignite William's interest.

The Profesor does not in any way compare to Jane Eyre. It's not surprising to know that the novel was not well received. It read painfully slow at times. There was no real climax in the story. However, hardcore Bronte readers will find themselves lost in Bronte's magical description of the human emotion. The Professor is simply a pleasant novel that probably only Bronte fans can appreciate.