Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

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

    Only $9.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Villette
    Villette
    Villette
    Audiobook (abridged)7 hours

    Villette

    Written by Charlotte Brontë

    Narrated by Mandy Weston

    4/5

    ()

    Switch to ebook

    About this audiobook

    Written by the author of the ever-popular Jane Eyre, Villette is widely admired as Charlotte Brontë’s finest work. The story follows the fortunes of a young teacher at a girls’ school in the French town of Villette and is superbly told by Mandy Weston. It is an adventure story, a romance and a French lesson all in one! The much-praised unabridged recording released last year returns here in a more accessible abridged format.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateNov 1, 2008
    ISBN9789629547585
    Author

    Charlotte Brontë

    Charlotte Brontë, born in 1816, was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sisters, and one of the nineteenth century's greatest novelists. She is the author of Villette, The Professor, several collections of poetry, and Jane Eyre, one of English literature's most beloved classics. She died in 1855.

    More audiobooks from Charlotte Brontë

    Related to Villette

    Related audiobooks

    Classics For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      The best-ever ROMANCES

      Jan 7, 2021

      The best-ever ROMANCES
      2 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

      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

      Begin Again

      Jun 14, 2022

      My grandfather came to live with me. There was nowhere else for him to go. What had happened to all his children? Death, decay, exile—I hardly know. My own parents died of pain. But I must not be too gloomy, at the beginning, or you will leave me, an

      6 min read

    • Article

      THE Dark Light

      Oct 14, 2020

      THE Dark Light
      9 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

      That Summer

      Jun 18, 2024

      That summer we had decided we were past caring. It was just too tiring, rushing back and forth between mental institutions. My father was in a well-known sanatorium in Switzerland, but to see him each month mistaking himself for Alfred de Musset, tal

      4 min read

    • Article

      Estella’s Fate

      May 17, 2023

      Estella’s Fate
      7 min read

    • Article

      A PRECIOUS Moment In Time

      Jun 17, 2019

      There’s something about Lambrook Hall that always draws me back and I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been here. I don’t really care if it’s hundreds, to be honest. I can’t resist it. I’m in the dining room again now. Not the ballroom or the lib

      6 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

      The Man I Should Have Married

      Dec 29, 2019

      The Man I Should Have Married
      11 min read

    • Article

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows

      Nov 1, 2022

      DULCE DOMUM From The Wind In The Willows
      11 min read

    • Article

      Jason the Heat Guy

      Jan 11, 2021

      Jason the Heat Guy
      11 min read

    • 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

      High Rise

      Aug 6, 2021

      High Rise
      24 min read

    • Article

      Estella’s Fate

      May 17, 2023

      Estella’s Fate
      7 min read

    • Article

      The MEET-CUTE

      Jul 3, 2024

      The MEET-CUTE
      6 min read

    • Article

      Notes on Etiquette

      Mar 1, 2019

      Notes on Etiquette
      10 min read

    • Article

      The Bathroom

      Jun 10, 2024

      Content Disclosure: Sexual Innuendo The garage light flips on like a flashbulb, freezing me in a mug shot. “Del, you out here?” my wife says sleepily as she steps down the cement riser. She looks at me standing before the window; then her attention i

      12 min read

    • Article

      A Simple Heart (1997)

      Mar 1, 2022

      A Simple Heart (1997)
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Wanders: When home is not a haven.

      Jul 25, 2013

      The job in the North was a good job for what it was. I was not excited about it, but I was satisfied because it would take me away from the city where I had lived with Paul, and where every drugstore and bar and credit center was heavy with the memor

      13 min read

    • Article

      Women We Love

      May 6, 2024

      Women We Love
      18 min read

    • Article

      Hard Metal

      Jun 10, 2023

      When Raúl gave me his security job for August, he told me not to see anything. You don’t see nothin’, he said, because we both know I get curious. Sometimes the other guys think I’m soft, the way I get lost in my head. My girlfriend says it’s trauma,

      6 min read

    • Article

      Night At The Freud Museum

      May 29, 2024

      A night at the Freud Museum! The idea appeals. The post Night at the Freud Museum appeared first on The Millions.

      13 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Villette

    4/5

    1,627 ratings79 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      It pains me to say it, but I think that I may identify with Lucy Snowe more than any other character in literature, and thus, in many ways, Brontë herself. It doesn't surprise me that she shares my own Myers-Briggs type (INFJ), as Lucy is a forbearing, passionate character who suffers as a result of her own humility, and she deceives everyone around her in thinking her the strong, silent type who is completely content with who she is, when in actuality life for her is a miserable, never-ending torture. But she pushes through it anyway, never complaining, even when there's no hope and all her dreams are shattered before her. She won't go down in history, and few might remember her, but her effect she has on others' lives is beyond her comprehension.
    • 4/5
      Lucy Snowe is an inconsistent character, and even a tad incredulous for being so private and keeping things so close to her chest. But this is what I can identify with. How many times have I kept quiet and not acknowledge that I was there? I know you? Indeed, a character created almost a century ago still has resonance today. And this is why these books are classics.
    • 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.
    • 1/5
      I read where Villette was the ruination of Charlotte Bronte's career, and I can understand why. The story is disjointed and difficult to follow. It may be difficult to follow if one doesn't know a great deal of conversational French, as entire paragraphs are written in French. Just terrible!
    • 5/5
      Fist class narration. Be aware it is abridged. Great story.
    • 1/5
      I read where Villette was the ruination of Charlotte Bronte's career, and I can understand why. The story is disjointed and difficult to follow. It may be difficult to follow if one doesn't know a great deal of conversational French, as entire paragraphs are written in French. Just terrible!
    • 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
      "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.
    • 3/5
      Similar in some ways to [Jane Eyre:], a young girl finds herself alone in the world and in need of an occupation. She takes all she has and travels to France and there finds work in a school. She is the narrator and the only one who can interpret the actions and feelings of the other characters in the book. She is perhaps a bit too introspective for my taste. There are two men who feature in her life, an old friend and son of her godmother, and the professor associated with the school where she teaches. After many ups and downs and long searching for love, or even a place to call home, she finally finds happiness (maybe, because it is left a little to the imagination) with the professor. I had a hard time really getting into this story. I liked [Jane Eyre:] much better.
    • 3/5
      This is a story of a single English woman in 19th century France, lonely, withdrawn, and private, who nearly gives up on finding love. Although shown affection by her god-mother, god-brother, and a few friends, she's still always the outsider. She steps out alone with nothing but faith, patience, and perserverance. I liked the story alot but it tended to ramble too much for me. Also, part of the dialogue is in French, which I could not translate. I recently read "Agnes Grey" by Charlotte's sister, Anne, and I liked Anne's writing style best.
    • 4/5
      I finally read Villette by Charlotte Bronte, and there was so much to love about it.

      There were so many sections I tabbed and quotes I loved. It’s an understated type of love though...with low currents and no euphoria!lol

      I still don’t see how this book has not been made into a proper movie or reproduction (there’s a 70s one if I remember correctly, but haven’t been able to find it), considering it even has gothic elements that could be explored. Jane Eyre will always have a place in my read shelves, but I’m very happy to finally add Lucy Snowe.

      Just four quotes to remember Lucy by:

      “While I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a glorious year I can recall – how bright it comes back to me!...if few women have suffered as I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love. It was a far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him: it was such a love as honored protected, and elevated, no less than it gladdened her to whom it was give.”

      “No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.”

      “But solitude is sadness” “Yes; it is sadness. Life, however, has worse than that. Deeper than melancholy lies heart-break.”

      “The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.”
    • 5/5
      Lucy Snowe is such a fascinating character. Brontë's ability to add so many layers to her narration is what makes the book. The withholding of self, of feelings, the tricks we play on ourselves to endure suffering -- the contrast of her with the other female characters -- the humor -- the intrigue ... The end still got me.
    • 2/5
      I put off reading this book for a long time, because I feared that no other Charlotte Bronte work could match my love for Jane Eyre -- and I was right. I really struggled through this. I read an interesting critical essay in the introduction that spelled out some reasons why I should like it, but the novel simply did not grab me. So next summer I'll try another, maybe Shirley or The Professor.
    • 5/5
      Well this is a weird one. Very interesting to read, for sure, but a profoundly strange book, and as powerful a fictional adaptation of loneliness as I can remember reading.
    • 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.
    • 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
      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.
    • 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 few thoughts:
      - Villette didn’t capture my imagination as either [Shirley] or [Jane Eyre].
      - I never really warmed up to the heroine Lucy Snowe (no pun intended) - she fascinated me, but not enough.
      - Liked the gothic elements which created an eerie feeling throughout the novel - the appearence of a ghost - a white nun….
      - Liked also the descriptions of Lucy’s loneliness and despair and her deliberate attempts to be an independent free spirit.
    • 4/5
      Davina Porter does a fabulous narration of this classic. Persevere past the first few chapters as the story picks up after the first section of her somewhat priggish youth.
    • 3/5
      SPOILERS THROUGHOUT THIS REVIEW

      TL;DR: There are a few things I liked about this book, but overall, to me, this is an instance where changing times and mores have rendered earlier centuries’ attitudes too distasteful to be ignored.

      I liked the main character. Miss Snowe is clever, resourceful, and knows what she wants (even if her ambitions are low). Her snarkiness plays a big role in her charm. She’s a wonderfully complex character. There were enough interesting musings and general bird’s-eye views on life mixed in with the text, too. It drags in places, but overall the narrative maintains a pleasant momentum.

      However.

      The attitudes espoused in the book and held up by the characters as “how things ought to be” I found too distasteful to overlook: there’s aggressive patriarchal abuse, there’s sanctimonious posturing with religious credentials, and there’s colonial-style racism aplenty. They may make the text a rich field to explore intellectually, but they annoyed much of the reading pleasure out of me.

      First, there’s the gender issues. Viewed as a romance novel, Villette presents the main character, introverted expat teacher Lucy Snowe, with the choice between two love interests. One is an ideal (English)man, whose ideal spouse is one who is his intellectual partner. And on the other hand there is M. Emanuel, a domineering, exacting brute with frightening anger management issues and temper tantrums, who will not tolerate contradiction or even imagined disobedience. His ideal woman is one who obeys him absolutely (an arch eyebrow will trigger a “know your place, woman” speech), who immerses herself in him, lives up to his exacting yet unspoken standards, and who successfully navigates his moving-the-goalposts scrutiny. Spoiler: This is the one Miss Snowe ends up choosing.

      Brontë “redeems” M. Emanuel in true battered-woman form: his exactitude, tyranny and temper tantrums merely stem from genuine, full-on passion and honesty, dontcha see? That’s just who he is. Also, he’s been hurt before: doesn’t that earn him indulgence and compassion? That time he scolded her for wearing clothes that weren’t mouse-grey and wildly (and knowingly) exaggerated their showiness because even a mild “transgression” is a transgression? That’s not domineering, it just shows you he cares. His constantly lording his academic superiority over her, well he only means the best for her, and his expectations are high! Don’t you see that he needs to test her, to be sure she’ll live up to his standards? It’s for her own good. Really, he means well. That time he showed her some much-needed affection and then went completely incommunicado for two weeks, well, that was necessary because he was preparing a surprise, and he would not be able to keep it from her if she subjected him to her sincere and irresistible feminine questions. So you see, it really was her own fault. Also, her emotional despair during the interval is irrelevant, this really was about his emotions.

      Lucy Snowe (and the reader) is not to notice the systematic pattern of denigration and abuse. We are invited to see him as a poor, suffering victim who needs fixing by a special woman who can see the real person underneath the abuse and tyranny.

      This is where the religious hypocrisy comes in: M. Emanuel is, after all, a very pious man -- surely that will vouch for his decency?

      Much is made of Emanuel’s strongly held Roman Catholicism: to illustrate that, it is revealed that he has been spending his last twenty years in self-imposed mortification, near-poverty and deprivation, in order to benefit people who kinda sorta wronged him. Brontë presents that as laudable and redeem-worthy because isn’t he just sooo pious? I thought it was merely perverse, a case of ostentatious and downright pathological Catholic guilt taken to extremes. Especially because the revelation about his mortification is presented to the reader as an invitation to reconsider the quality of his character: it takes principles and lofty morality and strength of resolve to commit to this course of action. Well, no. To me, this turns the whole affair into a case of ostentatious flagellation, designed to trigger goodwill: showy Catholic suffering used as emotional manipulation while pretending to high morality. Somebody is suffering beyond necessity; therefore the issue deep and admirable and worthwhile. No, it really, really isn’t. (It is true that it is Brontë who sets it up like this, but in-universe it is M. Emanuel who expects the revelation to change Miss Snowe’s opinion of him, too.)

      And finally, there is the racism. The main cast consists mostly of smug, impossibly arrogant English expats looking down on both the locals and the immigrants -- except other Englishmen, and the occasional Frenchman, who, after all, represents a prestigious and long-standing High Culture. They are so smug they do not realize they are immigrants too -- and do not realize their smugness. The native people of Labassecour/Belgium are generally described as too rural, ugly and stupid to merit any interest, except for a few of the ones who’ve mastered enough French to not sound like a local. Anyone who’s worth noticing is either a French or an English expat/immigrant; even the indigenous royalty, nobility and bourgeoisie is dismissed haughtily, not to be taken seriously as company or one’s intellectual equals.
      (Disclaimer: I myself am Belgian.)

      It’s not as though these issues are mainly located in the background as (well, the racism is, usually): the patriarchal abuse is held up front and center, and the main focus of the book, and this made it too hard for me to give the book the benefit of the doubt. The fact that pretentious religious posturing is presented as a redeeming factor did not help.
    • 3/5
      I was surprised that I liked this one.
    • 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.
    • 5/5
      [Villette] by Charlotte Bronte
      It is hard to believe that Villette was published in 1853 and yet its style is so very reminiscent of its era. It reads like a Victorian novel but one with hardly any plot to speak of, there are ghosts, there are love stories, there are strict manners and men rule the world, but we see this through the eyes of Lucy Snowe a very unlikely hero. It is a psychological study first and foremost but one in which the protagonist thinks and acts according to the proscribed values of the world in which she lives. It is the psychological aspect and the unremarkable story line that seems to portend towards modernism, but Bronte’s writing locks it firmly in the world of the Victorian novel.

      Lucy Snowe as an unmarried women without any prospects must work for her living. She is not particularly attractive and so without good looks or money she has little to offer on the marriage market, especially at a time when there were far more young women than men in the world. She has just enough money to seek her fortune on the continent and has some luck in finding a place as an assistant in a girls school in the country of Labassecoeur. Labassecour to all intents and purposes is France and I would imagine that Bronte made it an imaginary country because of the anti-French feel of much of her novel. A major theme of the novel is how hard work, diligence and knowing ones place in society is essential for an unmarried woman to survive. Lucy is quiet and undemonstrative on the surface with an iron will that keeps her feelings in check, but inside her head which is where most of the story takes place she is both vulnerable and passionate. She does not allow herself to fall in love and yet her inner feelings are centred on two extraordinary men and we follow her hopes her desires and her confusion as she tries to come to terms with her feelings and her position in society.

      It is a novel where we have to rely on other peoples observations of Lucy Snowe to get a more balanced picture. Lucy herself is not so much unreliable as perplexed in her thoughts and as she is telling her story in the first person then the reader must sift the evidence. Bronte’s point in presenting such a character is to demonstrate how difficult it was for a woman to make her way in such a closed (to her) society. How should an intelligent woman come to terms with her situation? Paulina a childhood friend says of Lucy:

      “Lucy I wonder if anybody will comprehend you all together”

      and:

      M Paul to Lucy “You want so much checking, regulating, and keeping down” This idea of keeping down never left M Pauls head; the most habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of it.

      Here is the rub because not only must Lucy keep her vulnerability and passions in check she must also keep her rebellious spirit from surfacing too often. Those people who know her best perceive this in her as do the readers who are privy to her thoughts and her occasional outspoken and prickly comments to others.

      Bronte was able to develop other themes through Lucy that were topical at her time of writing. I have already mentioned the anti French feeling, but this is also entwined with an inbuilt anti-catholicism. Lucy is fiercely protestant and finds herself living and working in a catholic school and falling in love with a catholic man. It is no accident that the school in which she works is run a little like a police state with Madame Beck keeping her pupils and teachers under constant surveillance. M Paul also boasts of how he spies on all the pupils and teachers and this is likened to the catholic religion that is seen as one of control and manipulation of peoples souls. Lucy must rebel against this, but she needs to use all her resources so as not to fall foul of the system.

      Bronte’s metaphor for a troubled mind is a storm, sometimes a storm at sea and these always precipitate a major event in Lucy’s life. M Paul’s character is perceived as stormy and at the end of the novel it is a storm that represents a slightly ambiguous ending. Bronte’s writing here and in the ghost scenes is most representative of what we have come to know as Victorian gothic. However it is the exploration of the thoughts and feelings of Lucy Snowe that takes this novel out of the general run of novels of it’s time. It is insightful, it is thought provoking, it is not perfect as one imagines a novel should be, but it is one of those books that I look forward to re-reading. 5 stars.
    • 5/5
      "A sorrowful indifference to existence often pressed on me.",, 21 July 2015

      This review is from: Villette (Penguin English Library) (Paperback)
      Other reviews have delineated the storyline; I'm just going to say that I was within five pages of the end (on tenterhooks as to whether our narrator, Lucy Snowe, ends up with a happy or unutterably wretched life) when I had to stop and go to work. I was yearning to come home and find out all the time I was there - must be the proof of a compelling work.
      Charlotte Bronte's descriptions of utter loneliness and inner, but hidden, torment make for a moving and unforgettable read. While her friends remark on "steady little Lucy...so quietly pleased, so little moved yet so content", she observes "little knew they the rack of pain which had driven Lucy almost into fever, and brought her out, guideless and reckless, urged and drugged to the brink of frenzy".
      Superb read.
    • 5/5
      Look, Virginia Woolf called it Bronte's "finest novel," and George Eliot wrote, "Villette! Villette! Have you read it? It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power." I couldn't agree more. I was fortunate enough to read this is the first English course to get me hooked on 19th century British lit. We read it over the course of three weeks, so it was the perfect way to digest the magic of Villette. A love story that is far more rewarding than that of Jane Eyre (which I also love), Villette is a treasure.

    • 4/5
      Very passionate and convincing, this work is rather powerful and sad. I could relate very well to the heroine.
    • 4/5
      I'm a big fan of Jane Eyre, so this had been on my to-read list for a while. I'm glad I finally picked it up! I liked that the novel dwells so much on friendships; ultimately the romantic elements feel a bit like an afterthought or obligation, which is fairly unique for a novel from this time period.