Pages:
588
Original
date of publication: 1853
My
edition: 2001 (Modern Library)
Why
I decided to read:
How
I acquired my copy: Border, 2001
I
tried reading Villette once, a number of years ago. I got about halfway through
and stopped; maybe I wasn’t old enough to appreciate it very much. About a year
and a half ago, when I moved into my apartment, I came across my copy and threw
it on TBR Mountain, “to read sometime in the future.”
Villette,
as is Jane Eyre, is based on personal experience: Charlotte Bronte famously
spent a year teaching English in Brussels. The novel is set in the fictional
country of Labassecours, based on Belgium (at first I thought the setting of
the book was some extension of Angria, the kingdom she and her siblings created
when they were children). Lucy Snowe comes to Villette from England in search
of a job and almost accidentally ends up at the door of Madame Beck’s pensione,
or school for young ladies, where she initially gets a job as nursemaid and
then teacher.
Lucy
is an introverted, isolated, sarcastic heroine; she is extremely practical but
not good at showing emotion. In fact, I think she’d rather just pretend she
doesn’t have them. In addition, she mocks her “friends” mercilessly. All told,
I found her completely relatable, even though she’s not the classical example
of a perfect heroine. The back of the book promises two relationships: one with
a doctor who frequents the pensione and the other with an irascible, emotional
teacher. The relationship with Dr. Bretton fizzles out; Lucy’s feelings for him
mellow with time and fade out with loss of contact. Her relationship with M.
Paul Emmanuel is far more interesting because Lucy herself doesn’t realize her
feelings. But Bronte is good at showing the reader how Lucy feels, which means
that Lucy is perhaps not the most reliable of narrators. But I like her flaws;
they make her much for relatable, especially since I see a lot of myself in
Lucy. I liked, or appreciated, her struggle to be independent.
Some
of the plot elements fall flat (the ghost story is disappointing), and Bronte has
an annoying habit of introducing her characters without actually referring to
them by name for a couple of sentences. But overall I loved this book. Considering
how much I love Jane Eyre, it’s amazing that I couldn’t get into Villette the
first time I tried it. JE is a good introduction to Charlotte Bronte’s novels,
but Villette is well worth a read.
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