Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Villette (Diversion Classics)
    Unavailable
    Villette (Diversion Classics)
    Unavailable
    Villette (Diversion Classics)
    Ebook730 pages11 hours

    Villette (Diversion Classics)

    By Charlotte Brontë

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Featuring an appendix of discussion questions, the Diversion Classics edition is ideal for use in book groups and classrooms.

    When a family tragedy leads Lucy Snowe to work as a governess in a remote French town, she falls for M. Paul Emanuel, a professor. But between supernatural threats and villains conspiring to keep them apart, Lucy and M. Paul's future begins to look uncertain. Bronte's final novel, VILLETTE is a stunning gothic romance, and an intriguing counterpoint to JANE EYRE.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDiversion Books
    Release dateDec 15, 2015
    ISBN9781682302354
    Unavailable
    Villette (Diversion Classics)
    Author

    Charlotte Brontë

    Charlotte Brontë was born in Yorkshire in 1816. She was the third of six children, two years older than Emily, and four years older than Anne. After schooling she worked as a governess, and then taught in Brussels. In 1846 she returned to England and published poems by her and her younger sisters, under the pseudonyms, Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell. In 1847 she completed Jane Eyre, which was published to considerable acclaim. Both her younger sisters also wrote novels. Emily wrote Wuthering Heights, and Anne penned Agnes Grey and The Tenant of Wildfell Hall. Charlotte married in 1854 and died in 1855.

    Read more from Charlotte Brontë

    Related to Villette (Diversion Classics)

    Related ebooks

    Gothic For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Let The Bones Talk

      Jun 16, 2021

      Let The Bones Talk
      6 min read

    • Article

      Let The Bones Talk

      Jun 16, 2021

      Let The Bones Talk
      6 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary

      Jun 17, 2020

      Mrs Macarthur’s Secret Diary
      7 min read

    • Article

      Jason the Heat Guy

      Jan 11, 2021

      Jason the Heat Guy
      11 min read

    • Article

      Ghost Girl, Banana

      Aug 21, 2023

      By the time I was 25, there were only two things I remembered about Mumma. The first was that she smelled of watermelons, the second was that we were happy. We’d taken our father’s name of course, but a name is only half a story. The other half exist

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Man Behind the Counter

      Mar 4, 2019

      The Man Behind the Counter
      8 min read

    • Article

      Sadie: A Ghost Story

      Aug 4, 2017

      Sadie: A Ghost Story
      3 min read

    • Article

      Supportive Husband

      Sep 12, 2023

      There were less intimate places available, so it was odd when a woman took the seat directly facing mine across the subway aisle. I looked up from my book and right back down: a couple of months before, we’d gone home together. She had a Southern acc

      22 min read

    • Article

      Learning To Walk

      Oct 28, 2019

      Learning To Walk
      5 min read

    • Article

      Estella’s Fate

      May 17, 2023

      Estella’s Fate
      7 min read

    • Article

      Estella’s Fate

      May 17, 2023

      Estella’s Fate
      7 min read

    • Article

      My Best Friend

      Oct 1, 2020

      My Best Friend
      6 min read

    • Article

      G’day – And Goodbye

      Aug 25, 2021

      G’day – And Goodbye
      4 min read

    • Article

      The Last Friend on Earth

      May 4, 2023

      It was as if Doreen Saunders had been waiting for me, passing the time until my arrival. She might as well have been sitting in a rocking chair, knitting needles clicking, jam tarts cooling on the side, the door wide open, waiting for the next visito

      6 min read

    • Article

      Summer Reading Guide

      Jan 2, 2022

      Summer Reading Guide
      6 min read

    • Article

      Ashleigh Bryant Phillips

      Jun 10, 2020

      Ashleigh Bryant Phillips
      6 min read

    • Article

      Justice

      Mar 15, 2018

      I had been told that the interviewer was waiting for me outside in the hotel garden. The muffled oceanic roar of traffic rose steadily from the nearby road. She was sitting alone on a bench amid the raw planted beds and network of gravel paths, gazin

      22 min read

    • Article

      In The Garden Of The Fugitives

      May 18, 2018

      In The Garden Of The Fugitives
      24 min read

    • Article

      Table Talk

      Jun 1, 2023

      Table Talk
      11 min read

    • Article

      The Courage To Be Happy

      Feb 1, 2023

      MARRIAGE and columns have this in common: you tend to repeat yourself. More than once in these pages, I have quoted the New Yorker’s legendary film critic Pauline Kael. After President Nixon’s landslide victory in 1972 she wrote: ‘I live in a rather

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Woman At Home

      Jan 29, 2019

      From the journals of Samuel P. Perceval,bookseller: Covent Garden, Dec. 15, 1974 This spring, I found a curious letter sewn into the hem of a coat belonging to my late great-aunt Florence. Crudely enveloped in what appeared to be a page torn from

      5 min read

    • Article

      Four Of A Kind

      May 3, 2023

      Four Of A Kind
      4 min read

    • Article

      ‘Cygnet’: Featured Fiction from Season Butler

      Jun 25, 2019

      A excerpt from Butler's debut coming-of-age novel, set in an appealingly rich world with quirky, flawed characters and a dramatic oceanfront landscape. The post ‘Cygnet’: Featured Fiction from Season Butler appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Villette (Diversion Classics)

    4/5

    1,563 ratings67 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I found it a rather slow read. Parts were in untranslated French, which I couldn't understand. Other than going off to Vilette Lucy was very passive. She just watched what was going on around her. Because she held so much back it was hard to care about her. Her romance with M. Paul seemed jarring. Suddenly once he is leaving she loves him. Up till than it didn't seem like she even really liked him and he wasn't very likeable.
    • 3/5
      Wow - this book took me forever to read. I admire Charlotte Bronte's writing style, her word choices are wonderful. However, the story itself wasn't nearly as interesting as the back cover described. This is a semi-autobiographical book of Charlotte's life when she lived in Belgium. What a sad and lonely life it must have been. Lucy Snowe was the main character in this story and it starts when she was young (around 10) and living in England. The majority of the rest of the book takes place in the city of Villette where she serves as a teacher in a girls school. She meets up with people from her childhood and their company gives her some sort of small social life. Otherwise most of her time is spent at the school. There she meets and falls in love with an eccentric professor. This book is not nearly as enjoyable as "Jane Eyre" but I'm glad I read it. But I did find it quite tedious in many parts.
    • 5/5
      Lucy Snow, the star-crossed narrator of Villette, is a destitute, lonely, and intelligent young woman who ventures into a vaguely sinister francophone country in order to find work and forge some of the thickest emotional armor in British literature. She is also a devious and unapologetic liar. You can never escape Lucy’s mind, but neither can you trust it. This result is an intense story that simmers just below the boiling point. But what saves the book from turning into an overheated psychological chessgame is the inexorable, heartbreaking, and yet ultimately redeeming need for love. Indeed, it contains one of the most passionate romances ever written. How to find love without letting others, including the loved one, manipulate and exploit our need for love? How to write a novel that is searlingly emotional without being sentimental or melodramatic? That is Charlotte Bronte’s achievement, and Lucy’s painful but necessary defensive maneuvers taught me how to survive some of the more bleak periods in my life.
    • 3/5
      This was a difficult book to read, though I did enjoy it - it's Brontë's writing style that makes it tough. But the subject matter and themes are also a bit dense and hard-going, and this novel won't appeal to most people, I imagine.The story is based loosely on Brontë's own experiences in Belgium, and there are striking similarities to her previous and well-known work Jane Eyre. Lucy Snow in Vilette is also reserved, an orphan, and someone who prefers to watch rather than participate in the world. But even while she observes the people around her, she is being observed, making this a great book for fans of the Gaze in literary theory & criticism. Ultimately, I'd say that Vilette is like Jane Eyre squared, and a good deal more interesting for it. But even so, it was difficult to read and rather long, and I prefer Jane to Lucy. The final statements of each book are nearly the same, in any case: for the heroines to thrive, they must have the power and control in their lives (ie: Jane must be Rochester's caretaker, Lucy must become her own mistress).
    • 5/5
      Villette was the first Charlotte Brontë (or any Brontë sister) novel that I read. I was told it is a lot less popular and a lot darker than Jane Eyre. But the darkness of the book is what made me absolutely love it. That and its narrator.Lucy Snowe is the definition of an unreliable narrator, with her manipulations and lacunae, but who doesn't love to distrust a narrator? She, as a narrator, is what makes this novel fascinating. Though she is melancholy and pained as a character and seems to never step up and act or stand up for herself when it counts, she is skillful and witty in her story telling. She lies to you and tells you she's doing it, she keeps things from you sometimes without you realizing it, and she intentionally refuses to tell you major pieces of the plot and her life. It definitely makes for a unique read and keeps the reader trying to figure her out from page one until the end.But the dark and depressing parts of Lucy, and of the plot, are very well-written as well. For me, her story was relatable and inspired sympathy. I really came to love and root for Brontë's narrator, even if the author herself despised the young woman.
    • 4/5
      Villette is the semi autobiographical story of Lucy Snowe, a young woman of 23 who travels to Villette, a fictional town but modeled after Brussels, Belgium, where the author and her sister did travel for teaching positions. Ms Snowe does not know French, travels alone and is fortunate to find a position as a teacher in a boarding school because she speaks English. While traveling she befriends a young, shallow woman by the name of Ginevra Fanshawe, reunites with her Godmother and her son and becomes friends with M. Paul Carlos David Emanuel. She also runs into a former acquaintance named Polly, a serious young woman of high virtue. This is a Gothic romance and there are spectres of a nun and love that is met with adversity. Themes include the clash of protestantism and catholicism and gender roles and isolation.
      This is the author's third novel, the first being Jane Eyre. The first is probably a better story in scope but this novel is enjoyable, the protagonist has many admirable characteristics and the men in the book are generally of good qualities. This novel was criticized at the time for not being suitably feminine in portraying Lucy Snowe, therefore I think the author was successful in getting her social commentary on the life of single women in Victorian England heard.
    • 5/5
      I understood Lucy and her plight, from her loneliness and aloneness to her irrational impulse to get up and flee from what she wants. If not out loud, I was mentally coaxing her to "Just DO such-and-such! Go for it! Who cares what those other folks think? Who are they, anyway?"--all the while understanding why she wouldn't do as I coaxed and realizing the probability that, if I was in her position, I might not do as I coaxed either. (Ha! Show us ourselves, Brontë, and we'll accordingly see where and how we can become something better.)I don't know if it was the author's intention to make anything "cute" about her characters, but her style of writing often breeds cuteness in the characters and their relations with one another. Lucy and M. Paul grow into such a cute pair, likely, I think, already stuck on each other long before they recognize it, or at least long before Lucy does.Toward the end of the novel, I began reading in a passionate rush, the climax goading me forward faster than I moved through the majority of the story, even drawing an audible groan or something akin to a vindictive growl from me at one point (though I had to check it, since I was reading in a public place at the time.) Earlier details which could easily have been arbitrary turned out not to be, as a purpose was ultimately brought out of these details. Throughout the book, I was pleased by Brontë's ability to surprise me, to handle the character development, the plot, and the execution in ways I would not have foreseen. Sometimes I thought her choices strange; but then, who wants to read a book for which you can accurately predetermine every turn the plot will take and exactly how the characters will be in every respect? That wouldn't leave much of a need for the author's work or imagination--you could have just written the book yourself and saved the trouble of procuring it from elsewhere. Hence, the "strange" choices served to strengthen the book as a whole, and while I would have assumed there'd be a need for me to rate this book below Jane Eyre, now a favorite novel of mine that would be hard to match, saying this book didn't amaze me wouldn't be an accurate statement. I appreciate it differently than Brontë's most popular novel, but not unequally. A wonderful read!
    • 5/5
      In the introduction to the second volume of Absolute Sandman, Alisa Kwitney defined literature as fiction that creates "a taste for itself" rather than simply satisfying pre-existing tastes.

      I read this definition the same night I finished Vilette, and thought it went a great way to explaining why I love nineteenth-century novels. Written just as the novel was getting into stride, novels like Vilette are bold and striking because their authors knew they were being more ambitious than much of what had come before, and knew better than to play by the rules. The Brontës are of course a special case because they were women literally playing by their own rules, writing fiction under male pseudonyms for a readership which they had little in common with. (Of course at the same time the Brontës are writing gothic novels, but they are no more true gothic novels than Sandman is a true horror comic.)

      So Vilette is long, winding, off-kilter, and occasionally a little sentimental or frustrating, but it's a fantastic novel, because it's so rich and convinced of its own richness. It's a theological inquiry into the meaning of suffering, an off-kilter courtship novel, an orphan story, a psychological study, a gothic novel rich with symbolism, a story about gender roles, a story about nationality and faith, and a postmodern novel with an unreliable narrator who dares to end her tale with a piece of metafiction which led to infuriated letters from Brontë's close friends.

      There is only one Vilette. It's a really good novel. Go read it!

      ETA: Oh, I did mean to put in a little note about how you will spend like a fifth of the novel flipping to the end to read French-to-English translations. I have some basic French reading comprehension but there is an awful lot of it in this one. I suppose it simply was very common to speak French in 1850s England. It's a common assumption of many novels of the period but Vilette is one of the most extreme. I bet it would be really enjoyable for confident bilinguals, though, because she does such an interesting job code-switching.
    • 5/5
      Why on God's green earth does everyone read Jane Eyre, but not this amazing book?
    • 4/5
      The plot was full of rather unbelievable chance encounters and re-encounters, descriptions were slow to very slow. The character studies, however, were flawless.
    • 5/5
      I totally love this book. It has mystery, romance, and ghosts.
    • 3/5
      This story went on and on and on. For the most part it was a very slow read- I wasn't into the characters, not much happened for a long time, and, it just kept going for 556 pages! Lucy Snowe almost never stands up for herself, and I was rather frustrated with her early relationship with M. Paul. That got better at the very end, but still... Things took a long time to come together, and I have to admit that I chastised her many times for her inaction. I was also highly disturbed by the ending- this story is supposed to be somewhat autobiographical, which makes me wonder how that related to her biography. I kept wanting to change Lucy's actions- to make her stand up for herself, to explain things to her, to remind her that she is not some sort of worthless slug or something. So was Charlotte Bronte completely miserable during this period of her life? Don't read this if you expect something light or enjoyable...
    • 5/5
      I was suprised by how much I loved this book. I haven't (gasp) read Jane Eyre, so I wasn't sure what to expect from Bronte, except that it might be a bit of a slog since it is 19th-century British literature.The main character, Lucy Snowe, is a hard nut to crack, but once I started to appreciate her tone and manner of describing people and situations, I soon began to see what a passionate and admirable person was underneath the staid and proper exterior that was presented. For a book written in 1853, Lucy Snowe is ages ahead of her time -- a single woman working to support herself in the world without the assistance of a husband or family. She is brave and smart, and you end up rooting for her right through to the end.I loved this passage: "Behind the house at the Rue Fossette there was a garden - large, considering that it lay in the heart of a city, and to my recollection at this day it seems pleasant: but time, like distance, lends to certain scenes an influence so softening; and where all is stone around, blank wall and hot pavement, how precious seems one shrub, how lovely an enclosed and planted spot of ground!"Lovely, lovely book. Also, it makes me want to brush up on my French.
    • 4/5
      I liked it better the first time I read it. Bronte gets a little carried away with the flowery Victorian language, and the romance was not as compelling as I remembered.
    • 5/5
      I have different editions of this book in every place I've lived, just in case. It is my safety net and my high wire all in one. This edition has no notes, so you have to translate the French and German yourself, kids, but it does have an intro by Angela Carter. Hard to believe that until 35 years ago, this book was out of print...
    • 5/5
      I can't express how wonderful this book is. Villette shows great insight into human nature, and the narrator's perspective of other characters was fascinating.
    • 4/5
      Usually upon finishing a book if I have clearly defined feelings for it either way, those feelings shall become muted over time and I will forget the initial burst of emotion which created such an opinion. I have to say that this is far from being the case with Villette. This being my first book by Charlotte (no, I haven't read Jane Eyre yet), I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. Having read Austen and found it incredibly dreary, repetitive and passionless, I was concerned that perhaps this owed a certain amount to the socialisation of the period and would have Charlotte be the same. Having read Villette, I have since discovered that her opinion of Austen was much the same as my own.The story follows Lucy Snowe as she struggles to find her feet after becoming all but destitute. She bravely decides to move to the continent to try to find work there and eventually becomes an English teacher at a girl's school. The reader is taken into Miss Snowe's confidence, learning of her loneliness, her joy, her hopes, her disappointments. We watch the shifting fortunes of those close to Lucy, and I found that far from Austen's entirely predictable story lines, I really did not know what was going to happen in the end to most of the characters. These are complex people as opposed to two-dimensional moral examples. Lucy occasionally behaves in an unreasonable way, yet I would always find myself empathising, chuckling and believing I would most probably have reacted in exactly the same way. This, I believe, was the ultimate charm of Villette: believable, warm, or even intensely irritating characters who were wonderfully fleshed out and brought to life. Lucy Snowe is as strong a female character as you would ever be likely to find in most modern fiction, and this delighted me. Her dry, witty commentary on unfolding events always made me laugh and by the end of the story I felt I had made a dear friend. I may not have yet read Jane Eyre, but believe me, I soon will.
    • 3/5
      Due to the vagaries of life, Lucy Snowe, at the age of 23, leaves England ends up in the small town of Villette where she takes up a position as a teacher in a school. There she must deal with the precocious pupils, the headmistress with a tendency to spy on everyone in her purview, and her complex feelings for young Dr John and one of the professors at the school, M. Paul Emmanuel.Villette is a study in patience both for Lucy and the reader. Lucy's existence and the multitude of plights she deals with are rather dull and Lucy as a character is rather unsympathetic. Although she is the narrative voice, she doesn't truly appear in the narrative at the outset, with the focus given rather to supporting characters. Thus is the trend set in place of supporting characters being far more interesting than Lucy, who while an upstanding individual isn't compelling in her own right and tends towards being irritating with her frequent soliloquies on the nature of her solitary life and its hardships. The descriptive and more literary passages are longer than necessary with descriptive phrases always coming in sets of three when a single one would be far more effective. While exploring the experience of a young woman teaching abroad, the narrative has no overarching major plot and seems like Lucy to drift slowly from one point to another. Intriguing as being the most autobiographical of Charlotte Bronte's novels, it remains a very poor cousin of the far more brilliant work that is Jane Eyre.
    • 3/5
      Interesting to read the author's semi-autobiographical novel. The main character, Lucy Snowe, was such a contrast with Jane Eyre, her more famous literary "sister"; the latter was more straightforward and open. Lucy was closed-in, emotionally stunted, and self-critical, introverted. In the days where women were appendages of their fathers and husbands, Lucy made her own way herself and a life for herself as a schoolteacher in the town of Villette [i.e., Brussels]. The story follows her life at Mme. Beck's school, where she teaches English, and follows her relationships with others and several romances. The novel tries to be a gothic, with the appearance of a spectral nun, who had connection with Mme. Beck's. The book is uneven; some parts drag and others fly by.
    • 4/5
      A very enjoyable read - though it is a bit of a 'typical' Charlotte Brontë it also held some surprises.Lucy, a young woman with no family who can take care of her, travels abroad and finds a position as English teacher at a girls' school. Though her situation is difficult at first, she encounters some old friends and begins to find her place in Villette, with old friends and new friends helping her through her troubles.The novel is in some ways typical, a story of a female teacher and her hardships, with some obligatory gothic elements and female hysteria, but at the same time Brontë gives the novel an original twist.The book focuses very much on the interpersonal relations in the school, where the headmistress spies on her pupils and employees, and where there are intrigues going on that influence Lucy's position and future. Brontë weaves an intricate web of relationships, in which new acquaintances of Lucy turn out to be intimately connected to old acquaintances. In the midst of the intrigues and manipulations at the school, Lucy has to find her way to stay true to herself, whilst simultaneously maintaining her position in the school. Apart from this, Brontë plays with the narration, turning Lucy at times into an unreliable narrator, giving an extra dimension to the novel.Definitely more rich than I had expected, and a novel I'd like to re-read in the future.
    • 4/5
      I've had this book on my shelves for years, and I finally plowed through it. It took almost four weeks, which is a long time in book years, for me, anyway. I just had such a hard time getting into the protagonist's head for the first three-quarters of it or so, and I disliked most of the members of the "supporting cast", with one exception, that being Mrs. Bretton. Finally, however, Lucy Snowe really clicked for me, and the rest of the book was quite enjoyable. It wasn't Jane Eyre, but on the strength of those chapters the book was able to stand alone on its own merits for me. I was touched by the growing relationship between Lucy and the man she loved; I was glad to see some of the uselessly annoying characters come to have a raison d'être before the last page. I won't mention the one thing that really bothered me about the story, even after I really began to enjoy it, because I don't want to spoil it for anyone, but if it weren't for that one thing I'd probably have given this book a better rating.
    • 4/5
      I am not able to finish this book at this time and hope to get back to it in the fall.I read half and did enjoy the story and the writing...so far. I plan to go back.
    • 5/5
      Jane Eyre will forever surpass all Bronte novels, in my mind. But this, this, is a beautiful novel.
    • 4/5
      It was slow for a good majority of the book, but I sped through the last few chapters. I encourage those that take this on to consider the times this is written in and how singular Lucy is to be as strong and independent, self aware yet un-self conscious, brave yet not reckless. She is truly a heroine for the ages.
    • 4/5
      "I seemed to hold two lives--the life of thought, and that of
      reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter."

      Lucy Snowe, the book's heroine, has good common sense, steely nerves, and no protectors. Not for her the life of a hothouse bloom--she must fend for herself from an early age. After the old woman she works for dies, she is left homeless and without friends or family to appeal to. On the spur of the moment, she uses her small store of money to go to France, and thence, to the little town of Villete. There, she lucks into a position at a ladies' school, headed by the strong-minded, light-moraled Madame Beck.

      Bronte made a few choices I didn't like. The book is almost comically prejudiced against "popery" and foreigners in general. The paragraphs upon paragraphs of how beautiful, dainty, feminine, delicate-minded, etc. Polly is seem to last forever. And I'm still not sure why Bronte had a nun haunt the school (I assumed it was to A) remind us of Lucy's repression and B)fufill the need for sensationalism), only to explain away the spectre in a sneering aside.

      My problems aside, I enjoyed this book, mostly because I loved Lucy so much. She has a low opinion of herself but very high standards, is often depressed but refuses to be ruled by her darker moments, is thoughtful and introverted. She is, overall, someone I'd very much like to meet. Although she has a keen eye and recognizes her friends' faults, she never turns her incisive wit against them. After her love becomes disillusioned with his own paramour, the frivolous, selfish Ginevra, he denounces her to Lucy. Lucy points out that as mercenary as Ginevra is (as she warned him at the start), she has many good qualities; Lucy doesn't sound like a goody-two-shoes, but rather a girl defending her friend. Bronte writes friendships very well and very realistically, and these relationships, along with Lucy's engaging personality, are the backbone of the novel.
    • 5/5
      "These struggles with the natural character, the strong native bent of the heart, may seem futile and fruitless, but in the end they do good. They tend, however slightly, to give the actions, the conduct, that turn which Reason approves, and which Feeling, perhaps, too often opposes: they certainly make a difference in the general tenor of a life, and enable it to be better regulated, more equable, quieter on the surface; and it is on the surface only the common gaze will fall. As to what lies below, leave that with God. Man, your equal, weak as you, and not fit to be your judge, may be shut out thence: take it to your Maker--show him the secrets of the spirit He gave--ask him how you are to bear the pains He has appointed--kneel in His presence, and pray with faith for light in darkness, for strength in piteous weakness, for patience in extreme need. Certainly at some hour, though perhaps not your hour, the waiting water will stir; in some shape, though perhaps not the shape you dreamed, which your heart loved, and for which it bled, the healing herald will descend. The cripple and the blind, and the dumb, and the possessed, will be led to bathe. Herald, come quickly! Thousands lie round the pool, weeping and despairing, to see it, through slow years, stagnant. Long are 'times' of Heaven: the orbits of angel messengers seem wide to mortal vision; they may en-ring ages: the cycle of one departure and return may clasp unnumbered generations; and dust, kindling to brief suffering life, and, through pain, passing back to dust, may meanwhile perish out of memory again, and yet again. To how many maimed and mourning millions is the first and sole angel visitant, him easterns call Azrael."Language and philosophy like this is what is to be found in this magnificent novel.I found myself cussing a lot when reading this book. It got more severe as the story snowballed to it's end. Not in a bad way, you know, but it had me hook, line, and sinker, and my feelings were toyed with and yo-yo-ed about. I didn't want this book to end. You should read it, savor it slowly, translate the French as you go, it's worth it.Lucy Snowe is maddening. She is her own worst enemy. If there were ever a case for manifesting one's destiny - well, I mean, was she cursed, or did she curse herself? "the negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know." I think there's an argument for both. It occurred to me that for all her haranguing of Ginevra, really they weren't so different. They both craved attention and security and approbation, but in dissimilar ways. At least Ginevra was open about it, while Lucy was utterly incapable of making her needs known. It reminded me that it takes one to know one. Lucy, at one point (though briefly), begins to think of Ginevra as a heroine, and I think I understand why. She would never have traded places with her but I think she must have secretly admired her gumption. Lucy doesn't hate people. She has an utterly astounding font of patience and keen observation and forbearance for people behaving badly, people behaving thoughtlessly, people's innate self-centeredness, she forgives it all. She's no picnic either. She'd like to be that disinterested, unfeeling, untouchable, cold observer of people. But lordy, she's so far from effecting that and she only half knows it.
    • 4/5
      This radio dramatization of Villette is good, but not great. The writing does a good job of compressing the novel to fit into the format, and the acting is fine, but I found the direction/production a bit off-putting and at times even a bit confusing. So I rate this four and a half stars for the story, three and a half for the production, for an overall four stars.
    • 3/5
      Villette tells the story of an English girl (young woman) who finds work a a teacher in France. Unfortunately, I don't think Villette has aged as well as other books from this time period. Lucy is not a very sympathetic main character; she can be quite whiny. I think that is actually my main problem with the book: a lot of things are very repetitive, as well as a bit predictable. I didn't hate the book, but I wouldn't really recommend spending time on it.
    • 4/5
      I picked up Villette after my recent reread of Jane Eyre; surely Charlotte Brontë's genius, so sure and strong in her famous Gothic classic, would not fail in this novel. It did not, but it is of a different kind. I am not disappointed exactly, but I am left a bit thoughtful about the merit of the book. This review will contain some spoilers.Villette is well known for being an autobiographical novel. Many of its events are drawn from Brontë's experiences when she lived in Brussels at the pensionnat of M. and Mme. Héger. Knowing this gave me additional interest; it always fascinates me to see how writers take the stuff of their lives and weave it into art. This story is narrated by Lucy Snowe, a young woman who leaves England after a unspecified family disaster of some kind. She finds a position at a pensionnat, a French school for young ladies, where she struggles to learn French and understand the culture around her. She achieves this by studying the girls at her school, her fellow teachers, and the owner, Madame Beck. Lucy Snowe is an interesting character. I found her less easy to like than Jane Eyre; she is cold and sensible and easily put upon. Though she is very observant of those around her and holds firmly to her moral convictions, she is passive in many ways and cannot perform if she is put on the spot. At one point in the story she muses on the vastly different ways her friends view her; some see her as shy and self effacing, others as passionate, and still others as crusty and harsh. She certainly has a wryness to her. By the end of the novel I was her friend, but not her passionate ally. We are constantly reminded what a "little man" is M. Paul, one of Lucy's fellow teachers. Brontë's portrayal of his character is fascinating. He is a terrible autocrat who loses his temper over the smallest things, but when he truly is sinned against, he is all patience and compassion. In some ways the relationship between M. Paul and Lucy reminded me of Jo March and Professor Bhaer in Alcott's Little Women, though with a distinctly darker cast. The other characters are excellent: Ginevra Fanshawe in particular is one of my favorites, not because I found her likeable but because Brontë apparently finds her fascinating, and delineates her nature so well that I felt I knew her too. I appreciate Brontë's ability to get down to the core of her characters, and have them interact believably with one another. The "mystery" of the story, the stock Gothic ghost running around the pensionnat at night, is certainly not the leading feature. I will say that Brontë certainly misled me; I thought it was someone else entirely! I would not have credited the perpetrator with that kind of ingenuity. But really it is only a sideshow to the more important things happening within Lucy. Brontë's dislike of Roman Catholicism is a major theme of the story. I found it incisive, perceptive, and merciless — though she acknowledges some of its better qualities and creates some worthy characters who are Catholic. But Lucy sees too clearly to allow herself to be converted; she remains a Protestant and this, perhaps, is the ultimate reason a union with the Catholic M. Paul is never realized. It is projected and planned, but fate intervenes... Brontë's famously ambiguous ending is not impossible to unravel. Lucy's earlier statement, that some lives are meant to be happy while others are fated to sorrow, seems to come true. She feels herself fated to be excluded from the joyful tent of those blessed ones, as when she watches them from afar during a fête in the city. Despite the generally sad, heavy feel of the book, there were moments of humor when Brontë describes the ridiculousness of M. Paul or the girls in the school. Lucy's wry observations of the people around her hint at a sense of humor buried under the narrow and unhappy circumstances of her life. Mary Anne Evans (George Eliot) preferred this book to Jane Eyre, and I can understand why she would with her interest in people and relationships rather than Gothic atmosphere. Indeed, Villette reminded me a great deal of Middlemarch at times. Dr. John Bretton is very similar to Tertius Lydgate, though he does not make Lydgate's mistake. Lucy is not quite a Dorothea, though they share a kind of ascetism. Villette was published in 1853 and Middlemarch came almost twenty years later, published in serial form in 1871–72.Brontë uses a lot of French in the dialogue, and it was slightly frustrating to have to flip to the back of the book and check the endnotes every time someone uttered something in French. I wish my edition (Oxford World's Classics) had footnotes instead of endnotes. But it would have been far worse to have no notes at all. I'm just not used to reading interruptedly like that. I am still thinking about this novel. In some ways it felt a bit of a chore to get through; not much happens in its 500 pages, and it did not grip me as Jane Eyre did. But I think it gives us a clearer picture of Brontë herself, and I found it worth reading for its character sketches alone. But I did not love it.
    • 5/5
      You feel you are actually in this school. And all that repressed feeling...... An all-time favourite.