Ginny's Reviews > Villette

Lucy Snowe hates you. She's writing her story for you, you're experiencing the most intimate contact there can be between two people, and she hates you. It makes for a hard read.

Her older sister, Jane-- you remember her?-- she loved you. Most of you probably had to read her story in high school, whereas not one teacher in a thousand would touch Villette. Nor should they. High schoolers have enough rejection to cope with. Most of them were probably bored or annoyed with Jane, but you have to give the woman credit: she did love you. That one sentence: "Reader, I married him"; do you hear the love in that? She is with you, she tells it calmly and sweetly, the thing which (if you cared at all) you've been dying to hear. And she trusts that you do care. She doesn't even question it. She brings you straight into the fold, giving peace to herself, to Mr. Rochester, and to you in one quiet sentence.

Not so Lucy Snowe. She is sure that you don't care, sure that you want to read some other story, that you're not tough enough or insightful enough to handle hers. So she hides from you, and sneers at you from behind her hands. She clothes her reticence in language of modesty, of restraint, of sensitivity to your tender feelings, but it's very plain that the truth is much uglier: she doesn't trust you and she doesn't think you're worthy.

I'm sure you can find reasons for her to be this way: she had a difficult childhood; she was repeatedly overlooked by people she adored; not enough people have cared, so she just assumes nobody does. The psychoanalysis is all very interesting and makes for some good class discussions, but it doesn't take away the bitter taste. Lucy Snowe hates you, distrusts you, looks down on you. And you, poor reader, separated by bars of space and time and reality, can't do a thing to show her she's wrong.

It's a fucking brilliant book.