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Villette

by Charlotte Brontë, A.S. Byatt (Introduction), Ignes Sodre (Introduction)

3.74 · Rating Details · 45,427 Ratings · 2,531 Reviews

"Villette! Villette! Have you read it?" exclaimed George Eliot when Charlotte Brontë's final novel appeared in 1853. "It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power."

Arguably Brontë's most refined and deeply felt work, Villette draws on her profound loneliness following the deaths of her three siblings. Lucy Snowe, th ...more

Paperback, 573 pages

Published October 9th 2001 by Modern Library (first published 1853)

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Community Reviews

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Jan 22, 2008 Ginny rated it liked it

Shelves: you-should-read-this

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 ...more

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Jun 24, 2015 Jeffrey Keeten rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

“Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars--a cage, so peril, loneliness, an uncertain future, are not oppressive evils, so long as the frame is healthy and the faculties are employed; so long, especially, as Liberty lends us her wings, and Hope guides us by her star.”

When I was growing up in Kansas, my father farmed and worked long hours, and my mother worked the night shift at the hospital as a nurse's aide. Since my mother slept during the day, I had to be very quiet. I found that by be ...more

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Sep 21, 2010 Tatiana rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics, 1001, 2010, nostalgia

Still 5 stars...

I loved this novel. Obsessive reader as I am, I feel simply obligated to consume all kinds of reviews and discussions after finishing a book that left me in awe and baffled. This time I even ventured into the territory of critical analyses and interpretations. Many things came up during my quest to find out what people think of the heroine of Villette and the book as a whole - that this is a novel about a woman who fights to attain her independence, that Lucy Snowe is a liar, tha Still 5 stars...

I loved this novel. Obsessive reader as I am, I feel simply obligated to consume all kinds of reviews and discussions after finishing a book that left me in awe and baffled. This time I even ventured into the territory of critical analyses and interpretations. Many things came up during my quest to find out what people think of the heroine of Villette and the book as a whole - that this is a novel about a woman who fights to attain her independence, that Lucy Snowe is a liar, that almost all characters in the book - M. Paul, Pauline, Ginevre, Dr John - are representations of different sides of Lucy's (possibly schizophrenic) personality, that Villette is just a more depressing rehash of Jane Eyre, some other stuff that I don't even have a mental capacity to fully understand and reproduce here.

But I am a simple person, for me Villette is a story of a woman who was severely traumatized by deaths of her family at a young age and who, being introverted by nature, under the pressure of her misfortunes closes herself to the outside world completely. Lucy's whole life purpose is to guard herself from possible heartbreaks, to create a facade of serenity and unfeeling. But the strength of her passionate nature, her vivid internal life are such that suppressing them is impossible. The entire book is Lucy's never ending struggle to keep up her walls, not to let anyone in, not to feel, not to hope, not to love, not to get attached, not to reveal her true self in its clever, opinionated, passionate, desiring, jealous, petty glory. Does the heroine attain her freedom in the end? Does she escape a prison of her self-imposed loneliness? Yes, she does, but not for long. The person who sees and loves Lucy the way she is, who helps her not only financially, but psychologically, is given and taken away. And once again, Lucy is guarded and telling us her story, never allowing herself and us to see the true extent of her despair, unhappiness, and loneliness. But even what is hinted at is heartbreaking.

I loved this novel, loved it in spite of the numerous contrived coincidences, untranslated French dialog and sparse plot. Villette is a study of a woman's complex inner world and as such it is remarkable.

However there is another (sort of voyeuristic) reason why the book affected me so much. It is claimed to be heavily autobiographical and I find myself intrigued by Charlotte Brontë. I want to know this woman. How much of the book was real? Did the extent of Charlotte's loneliness and desire to be loved matched Lucy's? Was M. Heger, her real life professor, just like M. Paul? Did he awaken her soul, played with her and then discarded her when the affair interfered with his married life? Was M. Heger's wife as manipulative as Madame Beck? Did Charlotte ever regret refusing several marriage proposals to instead pine over men utterly unattainable? Did she blame herself for her inability to be happy? Why didn't she allow Lucy her happy ending? Did she think financial security was the maximum a woman like her could ever hope for and love was impossible?

I am off to try to find at least some answers to these questions... ...more

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Mar 21, 2014 Kelly rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Bronte fans, Victorian lit fans, feminists

Shelves: fiction, brit-lit, always-on-my-mind, victorian, owned, 19th-century, grande-dames, its-the-quiet-ones

This book is better than Jane Eyre, guys. This is where Charlotte Bronte shows her real brilliance. I hovered between giving this two stars and four for about half the book because I really wasn't sure what was going on beneath the surface. But then I figured out that I was stupid and didn't see half of the things that Charlotte Bronte had done. She's brilliant. Her narrator is completely unreliable. She's a tease. She withholds. She doesn't tell us the lines we wish most to hear. She deals with This book is better than Jane Eyre, guys. This is where Charlotte Bronte shows her real brilliance. I hovered between giving this two stars and four for about half the book because I really wasn't sure what was going on beneath the surface. But then I figured out that I was stupid and didn't see half of the things that Charlotte Bronte had done. She's brilliant. Her narrator is completely unreliable. She's a tease. She withholds. She doesn't tell us the lines we wish most to hear. She deals with feelings that should have fulsome paragaphs in oblique, obscuring half sentences. Fulsome paragraphs are written on subjects that one would not think of as half so important to a ladies' novel. The nature of God, the debate between Protestantism and Catholicism, Truth and Lies, the worst faults of humankind. These are all dealt with. She's also able to switch focuses, from far away observation, as if she is telling a fairy tale, to a prose that is close and intimately involved. Existentialist thoughts wind through here, religious rebellion against the existence of God, liberation of women.. a lot of things that a woman in 1853 probably shouldn't have been writing about.

Lucy Snowe, the main character and narrator, has her faults. You will want to wring her neck. Not only for what she teases us with, but what she says. Her always forebearing attitude, her martyrdom. The sense of how impressed with herself she is at times, all her protestations to the contrary. Secretly holding herself rather above the company, to steal a line from another famous female. But let's also remember that Jane Eyre isn't all that likeable for most of the book either. Lucy is as difficult to like.

The end is fascinating. To give away just a little bit of the book, she does not get the ending that one expects from Romantic books. The ending is a question mark. The reader can make of it what they will. She has no illusions, but we can have ours. Her happiness is completely different: solitary, alone, quiet... it provides a fascinating read though a feminist lens. I'd say the end has a bit of a message like 'A Room of One's Own,' but decades earlier, and with an appropriate veil. Interesting to note, the same male enabler is necessary, but it meets with a different end here.
Happiness is not what one thinks it is.

I really do have to warn that this novel is about repression and oppression and it reads like it too. The breaks out of this endless cycle are few and far between. It can be difficult to trudge through, as difficult as it is for Lucy to make it through. I made it by figuring out how Charlotte Bronte was playing with the reader, though. Pay attention to details. She will mention them and perhaps explain them chapters later, but not connect them for us. Victorian conventions are satirized gently and taken to task. I believe Charlotte Bronte is somewhat taking herself to task for believing the ridiculous things that women were encouraged to indulge in.

... and I've just noticed that I wrote this review sounding rather like a silly victorian writer. Oops. ...more

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May 01, 2016 Elyse rated it it was amazing

Having read Jane Eyre recently for the first time, ...it was suggested I read Villette....
A fantastic Kindle-Freebie!!!

I thought this story was terrific ...equally as good as Jane Eyre.
Lucy Snowe....lonely, introverted, .....and somewhat emotionally unavailable....it's easy to feel empathy towards her... harder to understand what she is thinking. - yet...she was easy to relate to. I could understand her struggles of bumping up against isolation -- and doubting who she was.
Bronte touches on th ...more

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Jan 14, 2017 Afaf Ammar rated it really liked it

Shelves: favorites, مترجم

"هذه الحياة ليست كل شئ فلا هي البداية ولا هي النهاية"

كانت هادئة,وقورة, ومسالمة, أقرب في رقتها للزهرة, وأشبه في حنانها بالظل الذي تصنعه أشجار الزيزفون على جانبي درب هادئ, بينما تغرب شمس الصيف متوارية في مروج الزنابق البعيدة.
فكانت جديرة لأن يقع إختيار القدر عليها كي تكون في الحياة خير رفيقة للحزن, وأمينة أسرار للحب.
وضعتها الحياة منذ طفولتها وبعد أن فقدت عائلتها على درب طويل, على إحدى جانبيه بدأت مشوارها في الحياة متشبثة بيد الحزن لا لأنها تحبه بل لأنه كان قدرها من البداية , وعلى الجانب الآخر بدأ م ...more

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May 12, 2012 Sparrow rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Sparrow by: Elizabeth, Kelly, Thomas

Shelves: classic-or-cannonical, girls-rule, up-hill-both-ways-in-the-snow, dangerous-hokum, reviewed, motherless-daughters, beards-are-mesmerizing

It is not possible for me to talk about this book without somehow spoiling it. I’ll hide the main spoilers, but there are some pretty awesome twists and turns in this book, so I recommend reading it with eyes that are innocent of review spoilers.

I have had this weird experience lately where books or movies or TV I watch are almost always either uncannily similar to my life – like, exact words I’ve said recently or experiences I’ve had – or totally offensive and appalling to me. I think it is doi ...more

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Oct 13, 2016 Heba rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites

..هذة المرة الاولى التي يصيب الحزن شغاف قلبي لمفارقة كتاب وكأنني فقدت صديقاً عزيزاً..
طوال قراءتي وعينايّ تتابع الحروف الصغيرة لكيلا يفوتني شيء من الجمال والرقي
ما ظنُك بفتاة متزنة ..عاقلة .. مسالمة الظل وهادئة الطباع وإذا بها تقع في حب أحدهم والذي لا يعدُها إلا صديقة مخلصة يأتمنها على اسراره..؟؟؟
ولم يدفعها لحبه إلا معاملته اللطيفة لها واهتمامه بأمرها
مهما ادعت المرأة من القوة والثبات لابد وان يأسرها الود والاهتمام وتلتمع نجمة الحب في عينيها وتشرق الأبتسامة على محياها
وبالرغم من ان الحياة كانت مُ ...more

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Sep 03, 2015 Araz Goran rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: روايات, أدب, أدب-كلاسيكي

يا الله كيف لي أن أصف هذه الرواية الجميلة..
إبداع من زمن الأدب الجميل.. حيث الكلمات تخرج بنقاء ورقة وإبداع لا مثيل لها، كأنها نسمة هواء عطرة تنتعش الروح بعدها وتنطلق بالفكر الى مجال آخر خارج نطاق هذا العالم المشوه.. هذه الرواية هي نقطة عبور الى الماضي الأدبي، حيث الأدب كان يعبر عن ذاته، حيث الكلمات المرتعشة تحت ريشة الفنان.. لم يكونوا في الماضي إدباء فحسب بل فنانون ،مارسوا فنهم بالقلم وبدنيا الكلمات..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

شارلوت برونتي المولودة سنة 1816 م - في يوركشاير - بإنكلترا الشاعرة وال
يا الله كيف لي أن أصف هذه الرواية الجميلة..
إبداع من زمن الأدب الجميل.. حيث الكلمات تخرج بنقاء ورقة وإبداع لا مثيل لها، كأنها نسمة هواء عطرة تنتعش الروح بعدها وتنطلق بالفكر الى مجال آخر خارج نطاق هذا العالم المشوه.. هذه الرواية هي نقطة عبور الى الماضي الأدبي، حيث الأدب كان يعبر عن ذاته، حيث الكلمات المرتعشة تحت ريشة الفنان.. لم يكونوا في الماضي إدباء فحسب بل فنانون ،مارسوا فنهم بالقلم وبدنيا الكلمات..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

شارلوت برونتي المولودة سنة 1816 م - في يوركشاير - بإنكلترا الشاعرة والأدبية والروائية الخالدة في تاريخ الأدب الانكليزي بأعمالها التي تتناول الجانب الإجتماعي والديني للمجتمع الانكليزي التي ترتكز على الجانب القوطي أساساً في بناء رواياتها.. من أشهر أعمالها رواية (جين آيير) التي كتبتها سنة 1847 م..

رواية (فيليت) هي آخر ما كتبت شارلوت والتي إنتهت منها سنة 1853 م..

تتحدث رواية (فيليت) عن قصة فتاة إسمها (لوسي سناو) حيث ترعرعت هذه الفتاة في الريف الانكليزي وعملت كخادمة ثم مربية للأطفال في منزل النبلاء والاثرياء في قريتها تلك..

ظلت (لوسي سناو) تنتقل من منزل إلى آخر إلى أن أنتهى الأمر بموت عرابتها، فقررت الهجرة إلى فرنسا بحثاً عن عمل آخر وفرصة آخرى للحياة..

أبحرت (لوسي سناو) الى فرنسا، شقت طريقها أخيراً الى إحدى البلدات في بلجيكا وهي بلدة (فيليت) حيث دارت معظم أحداث الرواية في تلك البلدة الهادئة..

إبتدأت (لوسي سناو) رحلتها في تلك البلدة بالعمل كمربية لإطفال السيدة (بيك) التي كانت تدير مدرسة داخلية للبنات وبمرور الأيام وجدت لوسي نفسها بمهنة التدريس ..

الرواية مليئة بالأحداث والمواقف وقصص الحب الجميلة لا تخلو من فكاهة وحزن وخيبة أحياناً.. رواية تجسد الجانب الاجتماعي والديني والأخلاقي لتلك الفترة وتظهر العلاقة بين أفراد الطبقات الإجتماعية وتسلط الضوء على حياة المثقفين والجانب الفكري والمعنوي لأبطال الرواية..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

رحلة جميلة مع هذه الادبية الرائعة،، أتصور أني لن أنسى هذه الرواية ما حييت.. هذه الرواية لم تُكتب للنسيان بل كُتبت لتبقى خالدة على صفحات التاريخ الأدبي..

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ملاحضة : ربما تكون هذه الرواية مملة بالنسبة للبعض خاصة للذين لم يقرؤوا في الأدب الكلاسيكي،، هي مغايرة تماماً لإسلوب الأدب الحديث ولغتها صعبة وخشنة بعض الأحيان وتحكي تفاصيل كثيرة داخل الرواية مع الأجواء الإرستقراطية التي لا تروق للبعض، لذلك لا أنصح بها للذين يعانون الملل في قراءة الروايات فهذا الرواية لا تصلح لهم..

...more

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Dec 17, 2015 Aubrey rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star, reviewed, heartbreak, books-are-the-best-invention, reality-check, 1-read-on-hand, virago, r-2013, 500-wm-to-post, r-goodreads, antidote-think-twice-read, antidote-think-twice-all

We denizens of 'The Book of Disquiet' salute you.

We of the small loves and small livings, the tiny joys and tiny dreams, bid you welcome. Our home is well-adjusted and self-assured, for if we profess ourselves any sort of connoisseur, it lies within those realms. Our work keeps us fed, clothed, ticking along at a methodical pace that matches the step of our action.

Our doings are wrested from the very root of us, and we cannot remember a time when our will was a creature without chain or muzzle.

W ...more

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Mar 30, 2009 Boof rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: my-most-amazing-books, comfort-reading, classics, read-in-2009, british-authors, 1001-books, victorians, uk

Reader, I heart Ms. Bronte! Reading Villette was like reading a huge epic that I was so emmersed in that I walked in Lucy Snowe's shoes, I felt what she felt. How many authors can do that to you?

Lucy Snowe is difficult to get to know at first. In fact, she is difficult to like. This is deliberate; she tells you about other people, what they think, what they feel, but precious little about herself, of whom she appears fiercely private. Only as the story unfolds does she start to let you in - I ...more

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Aug 11, 2010 Margaret rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature, victorian-fiction, favorites, brontes, authors-ab

I can do no better to begin with than to quote George Eliot, who upon reading Villette called it "a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre".

Villette is darker and more realistic than Jane Eyre, and more autobiographical (and perhaps thus even more powerful). Drawing on Charlotte Brontë's experiences in Brussels, Villette tells the story of Lucy Snowe, who leaves England in flight from a shadowy, unhappy past; she comes to "Villette" (i.e., Brussels) and becomes an English teacher at Madame Be ...more

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May 02, 2016 7jane rated it really liked it · review of another edition

(edited this with some expanding thoughts:) The story of a woman half-forced to indenpendence, having to find her way in a foreign, largely Catholic country; to find a satisfying job and perhaps love. It's not a straight, clear road that she might've hoped for, but something that makes her grow (view spoiler).

One has to remember while reading this that certain prejudices of Cathol ...more

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Jul 23, 2015 helen the bookowl rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was a really beautiful journey which often left me puzzled, but in the end I absolutely loved it. Lucy, our main character, is determined to become independent and make something of her life, and so she goes from England to France, more specifically to the village of Villette.
"Jane Eyre" is amongst my favourite books, so I was very interested to dive further into Charlotte Brontë's authorship. I did see some similarities between the two works; Charlotte Brontë likes to surprise her readers ...more

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Nov 09, 2016 Simona Bartolotta rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: in-english, 1800

So, so different from my Jane Eyre. But different is good too.

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Jan 20, 2016 Elham Kharidar rated it it was amazing

Recommended to Elham by: Teresa

Shelves: women-s-writings, england, favorites, classics

This book is dark, dark; even darker than any existentialist novel I have ever read, and how true and realistic. It seems that this novel is a kind of semi-autobiography.

Like Jane Eyre, this time also the book starts with the stories of a girl, Lucy Snow, living for a while with her godmother. But it was only for a short while. Then she grows up (we don't know anything about the years in between from her 14-23 – we just know that she had a difficult life that she had to work and nurse an old wom ...more

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Mar 08, 2016 Magrat Ajostiernos rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: clásico, 2016

http://cronicasdemagrat.com/2016/03/0...

Brillante.

Este libro empezó para mi de manera errática y detestando a su protagonista, pero lo he terminado en medio de un absoluto enganche y admirando profundamente a Lucy Snowe.
Una obra de la que se pueden sacar mil lecturas, impresionante la psicología de los personajes y siempre como tema central la búsqueda de la independencia.

Más profunda, sobria, madura y compleja que Jane Eyre.

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Sep 25, 2015 Captain Sir Roddy, R.N. (Ret.) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: british-literature, victorian-literature, favorites, historical-fiction, read-in-2010, the-brontes, my-western-canon, everymans-library-editions, author-bronte-sisters

I cry in anguish, "Oh Villette, Villette, Villette!"

It was a feeling that came upon me as I read this novel; the palpable feeling of—

The cold grey storms of the fall and winter, the relentless building winds, the rain pounding against the window—those dark and dreary days of loneliness—all of the losses have brought you a smothering and almost overwhelming mantle of grief. You see, and write of, the Love around you, but feel the throbbing ache, day after day, night after night, of never receivin ...more

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Apr 27, 2016 April (Aprilius Maximus) rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: 2016, around-the-year-in-52-books, classics

I have very mixed feelings about this one! On one hand, I absolutely ADORE Charlotte's writing because it is just so, so, so, SO beautiful. However, this novel started off being quite disjointed and confusing and I was often left puzzled by the randomness of the events and the varied pacing.
After reading Charlotte Brontë: A Life, I could clearly see the parallels between Villette and Charlotte's personal life. This book was practically an autobiography and in that sense, it was super different ...more

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Oct 01, 2011 Catie rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Recommended to Catie by: Tatiana

Shelves: read-in-2011, classics, romance

When compared to Jane Eyre, this novel seems often pronounced the more mature work of Charlotte Bronte. I think that’s true. However, this book is not more mature in the sense that it’s more open-minded, worldly, or settled. If Jane Eyre is the novel of a woman who believes in true love, hope, and positive destiny; who believes that there's a reason for strife, then this is the novel that’s written by that woman when she’s been disappointed in love and has lost her family and her dreams. This is ...more

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Dec 30, 2013 Jennifer (aka EM) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: lonely-hearts-club, 2013-gr-challenge, brontorama

*NEW REVIEW* (below)

Wowza. That's what you call a cliff-hanger. If I didn't know better, I'd swear she meant to write a sequel.............

What a fabulous, sad, strong, odd, ultimately sympathetic creature is Lucy Snowe. Despite (view spoiler), my feelings are optimistic for her. Indeed, I feel empowered by her.

Charlotte Brontë is my gal. A woman about 200 years ahead of her time.

More later.

_________________________________

Later.

Each year, I do a review of my reading ...more

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Apr 03, 2011 Nancy rated it it was ok

Shelves: classics, fiction, relationships

Villette lacks the fire and passion of Jane Eyre.
Since we already know this is a fictionalized version of Charlotte Bronte's time in Brussels where she had some sort of relationship with the professor she worked for, this may be the reason for the tameness.
There are many similarities in the characters of Jane Eyre and Lucy Snowe in that they are orphans, they are loners, they yearn for love and, for much of the book, they love from afar with no hope of reciprocation. Villette is a colder boo ...more

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Dec 08, 2016 Jan-Maat added it · review of another edition

Shelves: 19th-century, fiction

I finished Jane Eyre and I knew what I was going to write, I finish Villette and I am quite unclear.

My initial expectation was that it would repeat the earlier story: woman, abused childhood, education, passionate love, obstacle, punishments and rewards. Perhaps in large it does. The madwoman in the attic motif is repeated, this something that lodged in Bronte's imagination.

Again the pathological sense of difference between the British and the French, more specifically between the Protestant and I finished Jane Eyre and I knew what I was going to write, I finish Villette and I am quite unclear.

My initial expectation was that it would repeat the earlier story: woman, abused childhood, education, passionate love, obstacle, punishments and rewards. Perhaps in large it does. The madwoman in the attic motif is repeated, this something that lodged in Bronte's imagination.

Again the pathological sense of difference between the British and the French, more specifically between the Protestant and the Catholic. It is hard for me to know if this simply reflected the dominant social attitudes of British shortly after Catholic emancipation or the particular world of Haworth Parsonage. An interesting result of this is that Bronte, or more accuracy her narrator, Lucy Snowe, comes across as a kind of Dostoevsky - a person who going abroad was energised by their immense dislike of foreigners. Escape aboard does not represent freedom, new perspectives, a new mode of living. Instead for much of the novel it is a kind of exile.

I read in the introduction how the Brontes already as children had a passionate identification with the Duke of Wellington and liked to indulge themselves in violent fantasies involving the British army and horrible foreigners. I found it easy to go on to imagine Charlotte Bronte dressed as Britannia, but wielding a cat-o-nine-tails in place of the traditional trident, whipping her way through Belgium. With that firmly in mind the eventual relationship between Snowe and Monsieur Paul seems incredible.

This for me is the major difficultly in reading Villette. The narrative voice is extremely powerful, but does that mean that it is wise to take it as representing the authorial point of view, and if not quite where do we draw the line between Lucy Snowe and Charlotte Bronte? Despite her, in many ways quite narrow background and Tory attitudes Bronte did have a passionate relationship with a Catholic foreigner, and a married one at that, plainly something of that relationship is reworked in her presentation of attraction in both Jane Eyre and Villette - the male interest is not handsome in either case but he has a presence.

Reading now the book says both something about the nature of relationships between men and women and between women and society (which is perhaps the same thing but writ large) as perceived by the woman from the Yorkshire parsonage.

The first point is grooming, or slightly more nicely put seduction. We see in the opening chapters the young John seduce the even younger Paulina, and then put her aside once a more interesting option comes along in the shape of his school chums, and I imagine judging from those first conversations between Paulina and Lucy that something similar happened between Lucy and John too. This seduction method of relieving boredom is not unique to the men, Ginevra acts similarly towards the men that she is interested in. The key point for me is that the emotional investment is uneven, the pursuer is calculating, the pursued whole-heartedly engaged.

This all seems masochistic to me, we have characters caught up in relationships from which they can only receive pain. Since they don't escape them we can only assume that they gain something from them. This is one of the difficulties for me reading the book - Lucy's sense of having any right to pleasure or satisfaction is so repressed that the reading experience became oppressive. Naturally in the context of the book this seems like a reasonable analysis, then again she is the narrator.

Despite this this gloom Snowe is less oppressed by social status, she is relatively egalitarian in her outlook - a link between her and Monsieur Paul. Despite the police regime of the school, it is the internal oppression that is effective, not apparently the structure of society. That comes across as being something like a climbing frame, albeit one too crowded to have much opportunity to move. I might take the view that the internal oppression is so severe that the plan to open her own school is hidden from herself until late in the book, if less charitable that Bronte hit on it as a solution late on in the writing process. Either way this is a book with sudden movements after periods of oppressive continuity, like ice that suddenly cracks.

Snowe in that sense doesn't look like an accidental choice of name. If it suggests purity, it can also imply fragility, delicacy and cold. Despite which she endures down to the resigned, less than happy, more than unhappy ending, that Bronte manages to give her. An ending, on reflection, that offers more than Bronte's own.

In any case, I sense a reread, and that a different review will emerge after that.

...more

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Jan-Maat Issicratea wrote: "I have always found it quite compelling (I have read it twice, and you've almost persuaded me to a third reading.) Lucy's voice is ...more
Feb 27, 2016 01:57AM

Jan-Maat Leonie wrote: "I suppose I see Lucy's problem as less deliberate than masochism suggests to me, though certainly there is that as well. What I always ...more
Feb 27, 2016 06:45AM

Dec 23, 2011 Kim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobook

For a very long time I've thought that the only Bronte novel I would ever really like is Jane Eyre. I am very pleased to have put that idea to the challenge and proven myself wrong.

Villette is not an easy novel. To start with, like so many Victorian novels it is dense and slow moving, particularly in the middle section. The plot could be summed up in a single paragraph and no opportunity is lost to take a page to say what could be said in a single sentence. The narrative is heavily reliant on c
For a very long time I've thought that the only Bronte novel I would ever really like is Jane Eyre. I am very pleased to have put that idea to the challenge and proven myself wrong.

Villette is not an easy novel. To start with, like so many Victorian novels it is dense and slow moving, particularly in the middle section. The plot could be summed up in a single paragraph and no opportunity is lost to take a page to say what could be said in a single sentence. The narrative is heavily reliant on coincidence and is replete with anti-Roman Catholic and (to a lesser extent) anti-European sentiment. These are factors which can sorely test the patience of the contemporary reader.

As with Jane Eyre, Villette is a first person narrative in the form of a memoir. The heroine, Lucy Snowe, makes it clear that she is reflecting on events long past. Like her literary sister Jane Eyre, Lucy is poor and has to earn her own living. Again like Jane, Lucy is intelligent, self-contained and principled, with a passionate nature just below the surface. However, notwithstanding some similarities between the characters, Lucy is very different from Jane and her character is in part what makes the novel more difficult than Jane Eyre, but ultimately very rewarding.

Jane Eyre confides in her readers. As a narrator, she holds nothing back of what she is thinking and what she is feeling. She draws readers into her world, trusting that they will understand her and empathise with her. Lucy Snowe, on the other hand, keeps things back. She does not reveal everything she knows. Some of those things readers find out in due course. Other things remain hidden. Lucy's reticence can be frustrating, but it is part of her psychological profile. And at it's deepest level, this is what the novel is all about. Bronte does a superb job of revealing much more about Lucy's mind than Lucy appears to reveal as the narrator of her life story. Bronte's description of Lucy's depression, for example, is gut-wrenching. From being initially frustrated with Lucy, I was ultimately totally engaged by her. I ached for her in her despair, her depression and her loneliness. I desperately wanted her to find happiness. Her story continued to haunt me for day after I finished the book.

Villette said to be the most autobiographical of Charlotte Bronte's novels, with the town of Villette being based on Brussels, where Bronte taught, and the character of Paul Emmanuel being based on M Heger, the married teacher with whom Bronte fell in love. My knowledge of Bronte's life is sketchy, but this novel makes me want to understand her better. It also makes me want to read her other works, which is not something I ever thought I would want to do.

This is not a novel for a reader who wants something light and fluffy. It is not a novel for a reader who wants clean, spare prose or a fast-paced story. I'm glad that I listened to an audiobook - the Naxos edition narrated by the excellent Mandy Weston - as I suspect that my patience would have been tried by reading the text. Overall, it was a great experience. While I'm not totally persuaded that Villette is a better novel than Jame Eyre, it is nevertheless a very impressive work. ...more

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Dec 21, 2015 Cindy Newton rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: owned-books, classic-lit-english, b-n-classic

I'm not sure how to write a review for this book--I don't think I'm even qualified to. Yes, I read it, but not as well as it deserved. I went into it lightly, assuming that it was a weaker, watered-down, inferior version of Jane Eyre. By the end, I realized that this book is a force unto itself. The force of this book is subtle, though; it doesn't smack you between the eyes, but rather creeps up on you stealthily, winding almost invisible tentacles around your consciousness, catching you up into ...more

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Mar 28, 2015 Katherine rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: classics, 2010, literature-british, own

This book alternated between being frustrating and interesting. Charlotte Bronte has written some lovely lyrical passages but something oddly inconsistent happens with the protagonist, Lucy Snowe, and the two men in the book who are supposedly fashioned after love-interests from Charlotte's own life. It's as if Charlotte was hesitant or found it difficult to pin down the characters in her own mind. Perhaps a struggle between reality and fiction? At any rate there are some strange inconsistencies This book alternated between being frustrating and interesting. Charlotte Bronte has written some lovely lyrical passages but something oddly inconsistent happens with the protagonist, Lucy Snowe, and the two men in the book who are supposedly fashioned after love-interests from Charlotte's own life. It's as if Charlotte was hesitant or found it difficult to pin down the characters in her own mind. Perhaps a struggle between reality and fiction? At any rate there are some strange inconsistencies in the characters that make it hard for the reader to sympathize or relate. Besides these inconsistencies the reader has to be well-versed in French (or read an edition that translates the many French phrases) and be willing to wade through the long portions where Bronte waxes on and on. Occasionally some of these passages are actually profound but many simply seem long-winded and self-indulgent.

There is an underlying sense of sadness/depression permeating much of the novel. I'm wondering if this is a direct reflection of Bronte's own devastating loss of all of her siblings in the few short years prior to writing the novel?

I disagree with the "experts" that say this is Charlotte's true masterpiece. Yes, there is much to appreciate in it but I'm unable to warm to the main characters as I so easily and whole-heartedly did with Jane Eyre. Not so here. In comparison, Lucy Snowe's heart is a seed-bed of pain, severe judgement, and passion frozen beneath a cold facade of brittle sharp-edged ice--in fact she holds so much back in her narration that she becomes unreliable, making it difficult for the reader to like or trust her. In my opinion too much is held back, too much repressed and denied without apparent cause. This is not a heroine to embrace so much as pity.

Update:

Now that I've had time to mull over the book I can appreciate the characters and the story that Charlotte wanted to tell more than while in the midst of it. Perhaps it's one of those books that you have to already have read and have an understanding of to truly enjoy reading. Not that I'm up for a re-reading anytime soon, but I can see me coming back to it at some point.

Villette tells us much more about Charlotte than she would have ever been comfortable with had she realized how transparent her own emotions were in the telling. (No wonder M. Paul is a wretch one moment and the epitome of kindness the next, as Charlotte must never have been able to truly resolve her own feelings toward Heger whom she used as a model for this character.) I think her choice of the purposely vague ending is particularly enlightening. (view spoiler) I sense her not only wanting to give her readers a glimmer of hope but that she is trying to cling to it herself. Life had certainly stomped on her hard in the previous years and Villette seems almost like a battleground of all those warring emotions: depression, despair, loss, hope, endurance, strength. It's in this that I actually find the most to appreciate.

So even though there were points I strongly disliked the book I'm very glad now that I read it. It certainly is an interesting and fascinating contrast when viewed against Jane Eyre, my favorite book of hers and one of my all-time favorite books period. I LOVE Jane Eyre but I can appreciate Villette, mostly for what it reveals about Charlotte. ...more

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Apr 06, 2008 Kressel Housman rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Bronte fans, women, lovers of classics

Shelves: fiction, classics, all-time-favorite, victorian

Jane Eyre is one of my lifetime favorites. Every now and then, I take it off my bookshelf just to re-read my favorite scenes. So when I learned that Charlotte Bronte connoisseurs consider Villette her masterpiece, I was actually reluctant to try it. I didn’t want my favorite to get dethroned! But I didn’t deny myself the pleasure, and I was richly rewarded. Jane Eyre and Villette now share the throne quite comfortably.

I’ll admit that Villette has some very slow sections. The early scenes of the ...more

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Jan 28, 2015 Apatt rated it liked it

Shelves: classics

According to The Telegraph Charlotte Brontë’s Villette is better than her best known work Jane Eyre. This bold declaration alone put Villette in my reading list because Jane Eyre really is one of the best books I ever had the pleasure of reading. Having just read Villette I have to disagree with the Telegraph’s columnist, I should have known better, goddam hyperboles. Villette is a fictional city in France, the novel is somewhat autobiographical in that it is partly based on Brontë’s experience According to The Telegraph Charlotte Brontë’s Villette is better than her best known work Jane Eyre. This bold declaration alone put Villette in my reading list because Jane Eyre really is one of the best books I ever had the pleasure of reading. Having just read Villette I have to disagree with the Telegraph’s columnist, I should have known better, goddam hyperboles. Villette is a fictional city in France, the novel is somewhat autobiographical in that it is partly based on Brontë’s experience as a teacher in Brussels.

Villette’s protagonist is one Lucy Snowe, a plain, quiet and often rather timid lady who generally avoids speaking her mind unless completely provoked. For the first half of the book Lucy seems like a secondary character in her own story while she narrates her experiences in the home of her godmother Mrs. Bretton. This early section of the book is very charming but Lucy is more of an observer than a central character that drives the story.

After leaving the Bretton’s house Lucy works for a while as a caregiver for an old lady who dies after teaching Lucy some life lessons. Lucy's next move is to try her luck in France in a city called Villette where she is informed that the prospects are good for someone in her position. Her arrival in France starts with an initial adventure of a “fish out of water” variety. Her initial troubles in France are mostly due to her inability to speak French. She eventually finds an occupation as an English teacher in a school where she develops a crush on a nice doctor, quickly retreats when he falls in love with somebody else, then starts a sort of “will they / won’t they” relationship with an eccentric professor of French literature.

For most of the book there seems to be no clear plot trajectory as the storyline seems to become aimlessly episodic. It was not too much of a hardship to read through though as Ms. Brontë wrote with considerable grace and charms, as with Jane Eyre her prose is a thing of beauty. My main complaint with Villette is the inclusion of many French dialogues, the meaning of which I can not infer from the context. It is ironic that Lucy initially complains of a “storm of French” when she is addressed in that language which she does not have a command of. Later on as she picks up the language she seems to speak it like a pro and leave this hapless reader behind with the storms of French from several characters as well as herself.

The story itself is not nearly as exciting or dramatic as Jane Eyre. There is no mad woman in the attic to speak of, though there is a touch of gothic spookiness in the story. The writing is of course exquisite and the characters are all vivid and believable. While the tone of the novel is mostly cheerful or hopeful, there is always an underlying feeling of sadness and loneliness in Lucy’s narrative. There is also some surprisingly profound examination of the differences between Protestantism and Catholicism, the latter of which Ms. Brontë was definitely not a fan. The ending can be described as WTF and it made me feel kind of exasperated, but I have since read several articles concerning this “controversial” ending and I have to concede that it is quite clever and original. I am still not terribly keen on it though.

I guess you could say I am somewhat disappointed in Villete as I have been led by the goddam Telegraph to expect something awe inspiring like Jane Eyre. Having said that, it is still a good book; beautifully written, funny and sad in places. I can certainly recommend it if you are looking for a nice Victorian novel to read and you like Brontë’s style of writing (which you should). If, like me, your command of French begins and ends with “bonjour” you may want to have a French - English dictionary within reach, or make use of Google Translation which is very useful but occasionally comes up with some hilariously nonsensical results. ...more

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Mar 03, 2016 Cphe rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: angst, classic, gothic, historical, 2016

This is one of those those classics that I've always felt that I should read at some stage. The time never appeared to be the "right" time to meet the fiercely independent Lucy Snowe.

I loved the tone, the characters the setting, the prose. At first I was a bit miffed as the ending was quite ambiguous and that may not appeal to some readers. It's left up to the reader to make up their own mind as to the outcome. On reflection I felt that the ending suited the story and it really couldn't have bee ...more

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Jan 12, 2016 Anne rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, romance, classics, goosebumps, asdfg, reviewed, female-narrator, fave-classics, close-to-my-heart, interesting-character, english-lit, read-in-2016

Actual rating: 4.5 stars.

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.

Villette revolves around the lonely and orphaned Lucy Snowe, ...more

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topics	posts	views	last activity
grimandgothly Boo...: July's read	3	5	Jul 20, 2016 05:25PM
Ladies & Literature: * Official Winter Classics 2015 Discussion: Vilette	31	50	Jun 14, 2016 02:44PM
Who Doesn't Love ...: Villette - Charlotte Bronte - 4 stars	1	8	May 03, 2016 08:25AM
The Readers Revie...: C. Bronte-Villette: Chapters 37-end	23	34	Apr 14, 2016 04:51AM
The Readers Revie...: C. Bronte-Villette: Chapters 29-36	28	26	Apr 04, 2016 10:41PM
The Readers Revie...: C Bronte-Villette: Chapters 16-22	24	29	Apr 03, 2016 06:11AM

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About Charlotte Brontë

Charlotte Brontë was a British novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.

Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the fam Charlotte Brontë was a British novelist, the eldest out of the three famous Brontë sisters whose novels have become standards of English literature. See also Emily Brontë and Anne Brontë.

Charlotte Brontë was born in Thornton, Yorkshire, England, the third of six children, to Patrick Brontë (formerly "Patrick Brunty"), an Irish Anglican clergyman, and his wife, Maria Branwell. In April 1820 the family moved a few miles to Haworth, a remote town on the Yorkshire moors, where Patrick had been appointed Perpetual Curate. This is where the Brontë children would spend most of their lives. Maria Branwell Brontë died from what was thought to be cancer on 15 September 1821, leaving five daughters and a son to the care of her spinster sister Elizabeth Branwell, who moved to Yorkshire to help the family.

In August 1824 Charlotte, along with her sisters Emily, Maria, and Elizabeth, was sent to the Clergy Daughters' School at Cowan Bridge in Lancashire, a new school for the daughters of poor clergyman (which she would describe as Lowood School in Jane Eyre). The school was a horrific experience for the girls and conditions were appalling. They were regularly deprived of food, beaten by teachers and humiliated for the slightest error. The school was unheated and the pupils slept two to a bed for warmth. Seven pupils died in a typhus epidemic that swept the school and all four of the Brontë girls became very ill - Maria and Elizabeth dying of tuberculosis in 1825. Her experiences at the school deeply affected Brontë - her health never recovered and she immortalised the cruel and brutal treatment in her novel, Jane Eyre. Following the tragedy, their father withdrew his daughters from the school.

At home in Haworth Parsonage, Charlotte and the other surviving children — Branwell, Emily, and Anne — continued their ad-hoc education. In 1826 her father returned home with a box of toy soldiers for Branwell. They would prove the catalyst for the sisters' extraordinary creative development as they immediately set to creating lives and characters for the soldiers, inventing a world for them which the siblings called 'Angria'. The siblings became addicted to writing, creating stories, poetry and plays. Brontë later said that the reason for this burst of creativity was that:

'We were wholly dependent on ourselves and each other, on books and study, for the enjoyments and occupations of life. The highest stimulus, as well as the liveliest pleasure we had known from childhood upwards, lay in attempts at literary composition.'

After her father began to suffer from a lung disorder, Charlotte was again sent to school to complete her education at Roe Head school in Mirfield from 1831 to 1832, where she met her lifelong friends and correspondents, Ellen Nussey and Mary Taylor. During this period (1833), she wrote her novella The Green Dwarf under the name of Wellesley. The school was extremely small with only ten pupils meaning the top floor was completely unused and believed to be supposedly haunted by the ghost of a young lady dressed in silk. This story fascinated Brontë and inspired the figure of Mrs Rochester in Jane Eyre.

Brontë left the school after a few years, however she swiftly returned in 1835 to take up a position as a teacher, and used her wages to pay for Emily and Anne to be taught at the school. However, teaching did not appeal to Brontë and in 1838 she left Roe Head to become a governess to the Sidgewick family - this was partly from a sense of adventure and a desire to see the world, and partly from financial necessity.

Charlotte became pregnant soon after her wedding, but her health declined rapidly and, according to Gaskell, she was attacked by "sensations of perpetual nausea and ever-recurring faintness." She died, with her unborn child, on 31 March 1855, aged 38. . ...more

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Quotes from Villette

“I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep.” — 200 likes

“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.” — 174 likes

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