Customer Reviews

Villette (Signet Classics)

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

It was her last completed book, always in the shadow of Jane Eyre. It was insightful, irreverent, angry, tragic, funny, bizarre, gothic and wonderfully honest. At the time, the novel was harshly criticized by men, even feminist men like George Eliot's lover. But George Eliot herself and Virginia Wolf believed it to be her best work.

How unusual first of all to have a heroine like Lucy Snowe, not of noble blood, not rich, not charming, not even good-looking as women (esp in the Victorian period) were expected to be. Like the other characters, she is flawed, contradictory and multi-faceted in a way one rarely sees in literature but continually witnesses in real life. Yet she is decidedly brilliant, original and imaginative like no other. Unconventional and delightfully subversive!

In many ways, this is a truly modern novel to this day. I've never read a novel that so honestly and unflinchingly captures the plight of a woman-artist making her own way in the world despite the obstacles thrown in her path.

Villette - astonishing! Difficult to decide whether this is a book to love or loathe; no middle ground seems possible. Lucy Snowe is a compelling, engaging narrator; her sharp sarcasm pricks holes in the most inflated personalities and makes us laugh at life's absurdities. But at the same time, Bronte's level-headed narrator is caught in a morass of despair and loneliness from which she never completely escapes. The storyline becomes enmeshed in a dark, surreal web, unsettling and discouraging; this reviewer almost gave up on the book halfway through. Lucy Snowe, like Jane Eyre, can find beauty in unlikely places; but unlike her earlier counterpart, it seems that happiness, for Lucy at least, is too good to be real.

Engaging, poetic, thought-provoking, skilfully created, deeply unsettling and profoundly dark. A mysterious, tragic narrative.

As far as I'm concerned, Virginia Woolf had it right. This is Charlotte Bronte's best work, even if it isn't nearly as well known as _Jane Eyre_. I re-read it every few years; it's one of my favorites. It's a sort of coming-of-age story written from the perspective of a young woman who has nothing, not even a smidgeon of self-esteem, but who manages to build a life for herself where she has friends and meaningful work. I suppose that sounds a little dull, but Bronte is such an acute observor of people that every character is three-dimensional. The main character, Lucy, changes throughout the book, and her topics of discussion, her word choices, even her sentence structure slowly evolve with her, illustrating her growth. It's unsentimental and unromanticized, but I do like all the characters in it, even with all their flaws.

I now completely understand George Eliot's statement about Villette (Signet Classics): "I am only just returned to a sense of real wonder about me, for I have been reading 'Villette' ... There is something preternatural about its power." I have just read this book for the first time and finished it a few days ago, yet I could not immediately write a review as I was still so submerged in the language, the story, and the characters, that I wanted to stay with them for a little while longer before I withdrew.

Virginia Woolf called Villette (Signet Classics) Brontė's finest novel, and though this is the first of hers that I have read, it was indeed a true masterpiece. The intricate character descriptions were vivid and priceless, gentle even in their thoroughness, which cannot but seem harsh at times. There was a quiet and restrained passion to this novel and to Lucy Snowe which I found powerful and compelling. Brontė's personifications were numerous - Death, Reason, Feeling, Hope, and her soul to name a few - and wonderfully imaginative and descriptive. Interesting to note were the comments and undertones disparaging Catholicism and the Catholic Church, and also the emphasis on the superiority of England, the English, and Englishwomen to their "continental" counterparts.

I must admit that though I was somewhat engaged at the beginning, I became subsequently less so. If this occurs with you also, please do not let it deter you, do not put the book away - I read the last 300 pages in one sitting. I found this novel very moving and in this last sitting experienced the range of human emotions - sorrow, as I despaired that Lucy would ever find happiness in her life; joy and anticipation for each interaction between M. Paul and Lucy (the scene in the evening when M. Paul sits at the table beside her and takes offense to her making room for him had me laughing out loud); surprise, despair, anger, and more - I do not want to give specifics on occurrences in the novel which I myself would not have wished to know before I read it.

At the beginning of her stay in Villette I found Lucy Snowe too placid and weak, but my opinion was reformed and though, as I said before, there is a quietness and restraint to her, there is also an underlying passion which is full and lively and which no one could possibly overlook. I loved Paul Emmanuel and even now, writing about him for this review, I cannot help but smile at my memory of him. He sees Lucy as others do not and I truly relished every clash - and increasing moments of accord - between them. Lucy says to herself on the subject of M. Paul: "You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in Life's sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray" (p. 371).

BOTTOM LINE:
READ THIS BOOK!! I borrowed it from the library and the day after finishing it I ordered a copy, as I already feel a need to reread it and immerse myself in Villette (Signet Classics) once more.

SUMMARY (from the Penguin Classics back cover):
"With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, a headmistress who spies on her staff, and her own complex feelings - first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a teacher in Brussels, Charlotte Brontė's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances."

Villette was Charlotte Bronte's last novel, written after she'd achieved significant recognition for Jane Eyre (actually, both novels were written under the pseudonym Currer Bell, and it wasn't until after her death that her real identity was revealed). Villette is said to be her most autobiographical novel, and it does appear to be with the many parallels that can be drawn between her life and the fictional life of Villette's protagonist, Lucy Snowe.

It's not an eventful book per se. It's being told as a past memory, by a now very old Lucy, as she retells the story of her life, at least in pieces - working as a companion to an old woman, then as a teacher in a French school for girls, and the relationships she forms with two men in particular (this is an almost an exact mirror of a point Charlotte's life). It's not a happy book, but not a sad one, either. It's just....real, I guess. I finished it with a sense of sympathy for Lucy and a little sadness for Charlotte. You get a very stark impression of Charlotte through Lucy: dignified and maybe a little humorless, if only because she's very serious about her reputation (Lucy as a teacher/headmistress, Charlotte as a writer), and disappointed in love.

One passage really stood out to me. Lucy is having an internal debate, and it's the old one we all have at one point or another: what we dream of as possibilities and how 'reason' mocks us: "'But if I feel, may I never express?' 'Never!' declared Reason. I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never - never - oh, hard word! This hag, Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination."

Villette has always been my favorite book. The use of language and description is superior to her other works. I wouldn't need to see a movie of this book, I already feel like I walked in the garden or sat in one of the classrooms. When I first read the ending, I actually loved it, and still do.

First off, this is a must read. Yes, some of the proclaimed emotions don't ring true, but that's because we have a narrator who is trying to force herself to feel only certain things. Lucy Snowe is an unreliable narrator of sorts and her willful denial of her true emotions makes her all the more complex and nuanced. And sad. This is not a novel about forcing the reader to believe implausible things; it's a novel about desperate denial. Villette and The Professor are both enjoyable and enlightening for any Bronte fan.

Now: has anyone else noticed the incredible amount of proofreading errors in this Signet edition? Holy cow! There's a glaring error every twenty pages or so! I find such errors very distracting when I am reading.

The heroine of this lesser known of Charlotte Bronte's novels is called Lucy Snowe, which means "light" and "cold". Thrown upon her own resources at the tender age of 14, Lucy sets out for France and, by the skin of her teeth, lands a job at a girls' school in Villete. As her name suggests, Lucy holds herself aloof from all the usual interests of young women. Coincidence and improbability plays major roles in the plot of this novel, and if the reader is intolerant of such, the book will not satisfy. Rich in symbolism, Villette serves as a metaphor for the lives of women in Victorian Europe. Particularly striking is the mystery of the spectral nun who appears in garret and garden cloister. For the modern reader, Villette suffers from too much "sermonizing." It's possible, however, to balance the religiosity with the humor invested in relatively minor characters, such as the proto-feminist Ginevra Fanshawe, who "has suffered less than any" other woman in Lucy's world. Ginevra is refreshingly, sometimes comedically, unrestricted by the conventions of her society. It requires but little imagination to hear the voice of Charlotte herself, who indeed lived much of her life in similar circumstances, in the thoughts and soliloquies of Lucy. In the end, Lucy's defensive remoteness is breached, but the reader is left to decide exactly how her story plays out.

Lucy Snowe is on her own. She has no money, no family, and nowhere to go. In an effort to escape her painful past, she flees England. In the vessel to France, she meets a young woman who tells her about a boarding school in a town called Villette. And that is where Lucy ends up, becoming a teacher after a rather short time working as a servant. She meets some rather interesting characters, including Madame Beck, an eccentric woman who, for some strange reason, searches through Lucy's belongings and moves about quietly in the night. She also gets to know the girl she met at the boat, Miss Ginevra Fanshawe, better. Miss Fanshawe is a self-absorbed, spoiled flirt. Lucy is not amused with the way Ginevra uses people, especially a secret admirer that she calls "Isidore." Lucy also meets the young and dashing Englishman Dr. John. His presence and other occurrences bring back past grievances for Lucy. She has been through some terrible things. Will she have new things to overcome in Villette?

This is the first time I read Charlotte Bronte's final novel. Jane Eyre is one of my all-time favorite novels, which begs the question: what took me so long to read this one? I have always meant to read it, but for some reason was never compelled to do so until now. And I'm so glad I did. Villette has Bronte's signature autobiographical storytelling style (addressing the reader) and keen eye for twists and suspense. There are some similarities with Jane Eyre. Lucy Snowe, like Jane, goes through many things and has to make it on her own. Lucy, like Jane, is also a teacher. But there are also things that are unique in this story. The characters are well developed and compelling, and the narrative kept me turning the pages. The dialogue in this book is not quite as wordy or as theatrical as the ones between Jane and Mr. Rochester -- something you might like or dislike. Also, the conclusion is subject to the reader's interpretation. It's rather vague, definitely not as straight forward and final as Jane Eyre. The ending might be an acquiring taste for some. I for one love these types of endings. They are thought provoking and let you fill in the blanks. The one bad thing about this book is the French dialogue. I don't understand a word of French, and I'm lost whenever the characters talk to each other in French. I should have gotten an edition that includes the translations. Other than that, I enjoyed this book. First published in 1853, Villette is a beautiful piece of classic fiction that should have been as popular as Jane Eyre. Emily Bronte used to be my favorite out of the two authors (couldn't keep Wuthering Heights out of my mind for a long time), but I think that Charlotte has now taken that spot. Read this if you haven't taken the plunge.

In my view a five star book is one that touches your heart and leaves you better off as a human being. For me, Charlotte Bronte's Villette is just such a book.

It doesn't start out that way. The novel is divided into three parts which I might label, despair, hope and fulfillment. The story is told in the first person by the book's protagonist, Lucy Snowe. At the start Lucy is 14 years old and, bereft of parents, is living in 19th century England with her godmother, Mrs. Bretton and her 16-year-old son, John Graham, a good-hearted, fun loving boy. Into this household comes 7-year-old Polly whose mother has just died and whose father is arranging to move to Europe. Polly takes to the antics of John Graham but largely ignores the kind efforts of the bland Lucy. This beginning sets the tone for Lucy as a retiring introvert with low self-esteem and expectations from life.

The arrangement soon breaks up as Polly and her father leave and Lucy sets out to begin her working life. She finds a job taking care of a disabled woman and appears ready to settle for (she says) 30 years of living a marginal life. But fate intervenes when the woman dies and Lucy sets out again to find a means of support. She decides to go to France and on the way over meets a young girl who attends a school for girls in Villette and who, accordingly, suggests that Lucy seek employment there. Arriving at night, and in one of the many unrealistic coincidences that pervade the book, Lucy finds the school run by Mrs. Beck, a capable but prying women. Initially Lucy is employed to take care of Mrs. Beck's three small children but she soon is given the job of English teacher. The year progresses, but Lucy's negative worldview dominates. She criticizes the other teachers, and in particular the professor of literature, M. Paul. The novel reaches an initial climax at the end of the first part (Chapter 15,The Long Vacation) when left alone at the school for the summer Lucy becomes very despondent and, wandering out into a storm goes to a Catholic church, "confesses" to a priest and then going out collapses on the street. In another coincidence, she is found by the priest and a doctor just happens to be nearby.

Part two begins with Lucy waking up in seemingly familiar surroundings. She discovers that the doctor who rescued her is not other that John Graham, now in the ten years that have elapsed since she first lived with him has become "Dr. John" and has moved to Villette with his mother. Lucy stays with Mrs. Bretton and Dr. John for some time until she recovers physically. But she also begins to evolve psychologically. She finds comfort in the friendship these two people offer her, but her happiness is still a result of the actions of others. Upon recovery she returns to the school and begins to receive a series of letters from Dr. John. She treasures these letters and they become her only source of happiness.

At this point Polly and her father, now improbably a count, re-enter the story and Dr. John meets her by rescuing her from a fire at a theatre performance which he and Lucy attended. The inevitable happens and Polly and Dr. John fall in love. But here Lucy shows her continuing growth. She realizes that her happiness and fulfillment is not to be found with Dr. John and she puts away his letters.

As the story progresses through parts 2 and 3 it comes to focus on the evolving relationship between Lucy and Professor Paul. A number of circumstances develop, including the conflict between Lucy's Protestantism and the Roman Catholicism of M. Paul and the French people. Mysteries abound and things are never what they seem. As the book moves toward its climax relationships are settled and finally a bittersweet ending occurs.

I found the character development of Lucy and M. Paul in particular, and the evolution of their relationship, to be the most outstanding aspects of this book and the reason why, in the end, I gave it five stars. Bronte herself is said to have stated that she thought Villette to be her best work. Whether you will agree or not, it is certainly worth reading. Just do not give up on what seems at first to be a dull and uninspiring book featuring a dull and uninspiring main character. Finally I would say that one person gave this book a poor rating (one star) because "the plot turns on improbable circumstances." But Bronte was not especially concerned with plot in this novel; she was concerned with character development and in showing how a women in Victorian times could evolve. That is the meaning and greatness of the book, not the plot.