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 the novel that’s written when she’s decided that it’s better to just stop hoping. I had no idea what this novel was about, or any idea of the plot before starting, but I was immediately swept up in Lucy. She’s an amazing contrast of inner vibrancy, intellect, and imagination with a hard outer shell of suppression and containment. She doesn’t have much to hope for or to look forward to in this life, but she’s surviving. She’s stifling that part of herself that wants to hope and dream. She’s trying not to be young, even though she is.“Oh, my childhood! I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I could feel. About the present, it was better to be stoical; about the future – such a future as mine – to be dead. And in catalepsy and a dead trance, I studiously held the quick of my nature.”When she found that initial tentative friendship and dared to hope for more, my own imagination leapt to heights of romantic fancy. I dreamed impossible dreams for Lucy. When she prayed not to be too needy, when she waited in agony for any little attention, when she treasured her small store of unremarkable letters, I felt that desolation and anguish right along with her. And when she buried those letters, I felt the weight of her crushing Reason. There would be no soaring hopes for Lucy.There are really two novels here, much like Lucy Snowe’s two drafts of her letters to Graham. One is filled with ragged loneliness and need, yet bright with smothered vivacity, imagination, and desperate hope. The other professes to be content, mild, contained, and settled in its place. Whether this is intentional or not, it is ever-present. Lucy is, by her own narration, a dull-witted and simple sort of person: someone who’s content to sit in the shadows while other more blessed of her acquaintance are favored. And yet, she is quite obviously not content. It feels like this book has been censored by her own hand, but not completely: she can’t help but release her pen to do as it may on a few occasions. Her prose becomes full of sweeping metaphor, punctuation becomes fluid, and her feelings are loosed. These are the most interesting paragraphs in the novel.”This hag, this Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination - her soft, bright foe, our sweet Help, our divine Hope. We shall and must break bounds at intervals, despite the terrible revenge that awaits our return.”There’s so much that she doesn’t tell the reader. Not just the identity of a certain character which she fails to mention for a hundred pages, or the little attentions paid to her by a certain other character, which she fails to mention for several hundred pages. No, there’s her attitude toward both of these characters, which is so obviously much more than just friendship.Her constant repression of her feelings for Graham is tangible, especially once he’s been buried and set aside. She’s long-winded and poetic in her support for his match with Paulina, and yet I could feel the bitterness, the jealousy, and the anguish there. In many small ways does she evidence her discontent: in her desperate need not to be seen by Graham in public, in her complete refusal to ponder just how she feels about Graham’s character, and in her dislike of the position as Polly’s confidant and eventual advocate. Lucy, once a happy companion to an older woman, is adamant in her refusal of a similar position with Polly. She proclaims that she will never be a companion, even at three times her current salary. ”Rather than be a companion, I would have made shirts, and starved. I was no bright lady’s shadow – not Miss de Bassompierre’s.”She suffers through the reading and re-reading of Graham’s letters with Polly. She compares his attentions to Polly to the small attention that he once paid her. She even, at one point, compares Polly’s appearance to that of a small dog. These are not the actions of a satisfied woman.And really, for me, her attraction to Monsieur Paul feels like settling. M. Paul is a man who notices her more than most, but who I still don’t believe knows her. He is described as ”a little man of unreasonable moods” with “points of resemblance to Napoleon Bonaparte.” He’s a man in his late forties who loves cigars and seems more bent on censoring and controlling Lucy than anything else. Even when he professes to be her friend, she must contend with his erratic and mercurial behavior. I suppose by the end, I do believe that she loves him, but it’s an uncomfortable and ill-fitting sort of love.What’s most interesting to me about M. Paul is that he is supposedly largely based on a professor who Charlotte Bronte fell in love with at one time, but couldn’t be with because he was married (also, Graham is most likely modeled after her publisher, George Smith). I guess that simple fashioning of a character after a real life person isn’t what interests me; what interest me are the differences between M. Paul and the real life professor. (view spoiler)[In this novel, M. Paul is separated from Lucy by a blameless (on his part) devotion to his faith and his lost love. His relations scheme and plot to gain wealth by shipping him off, and so he and Lucy are separated, eventually forever by his death. He is given near saint-like status in his charity and sacrifice. All blame is placed on the shoulders of others and never on him. Whereas, I have to believe that in real life, the circumstances of her separation from her professor were very different. (hide spoiler)]
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.We of the thoughtful posing and quiet undertaking, the nondescript manner and stoic expression, pass you by. Our persona is mature and respectable, for if we claim ourselves any manner of actor, in those appearances we reign supreme. Our countenance keeps us from harm, trouble, the majority of unwelcome intrusions and unexpected disturbances.Our face once feared the cruel judgment of every eye, and we will never know how much we have lost in maintaining its proud coldness.We of the reticent life and withdrawn days, the slow solitude and meandering existence, pray you keep at a distance. Our existence is of much self and little other, for if we must cluster our many sensibilities under a single roof, we will choose a room of our own. Our self-appraisals keep us safe, secure, a well measured freedom in the functions of a perfectly plotted daily life.Our souls cry, and cry, and cry, for we have not yet found the permanent satisfaction that such an existence promises.We of the careful cravings and hesitant urges, the hard won realizations and fierce practices, present to you on rare occasions. Our passions are few and foremost, for if we believe ourselves the bearer of any kind of talent, we cling to it as a ballast of temporal assurance. Our works keep us a measure of the past, future, a present that without such doings would slip into the void of useless persistence.Our praxis heeds neither standard nor accreditation, and thus we are admired, and thus we are condemned.We of the observant eye and sardonic grin, the quickening wit and sober analysis, say to you, beware! Our modus operandi is an invisible seething, for if we name our most finely tuned instinct, it is the instantaneous measure of irony of any and all. Our entertainment keeps us amused in parts, and fully familiarized with the discordant pomposity of reality in others.Ignorance is bliss, a garden from which we were banished long ago, forevermore to discontentedly mock and claw ourselves bloody on our own eternal hypocrisies.We of the accumulated being and carved out philosophy, the chaotic incorporations and weathered discombobulations, forbid you the ease of category. Our mind is our own and ours alone, for if we hold ourselves to any creed, we demand it change with our every breath and drop of blood. Our sustenance keep us alive, and woe to any who choose only between spitting us out and swallowing us whole.It is lonely, here, but nowhere else will let us be.We of the experienced heart and cautious brain, the creeping desire and subtle attractions, set you at a distance. Our love knows itself very well, for if there is one thing it characterizes itself by, it is the painfully slow and all encompassing spread of loyalty incarnate. Our self very rarely finds another it can devote itself to, and knows itself too tightly reined to come to any foolish end.We bury our seeds too deeply, and their strangling growths are doomed to die without a trace of reciprocating sun.And so, we denizens of 'Villette' bid you adieu. We are a small, strange, and sad sort, and our weirdly warped self-censures are likely to accrue as life goes on. Much more likely to build up into an age old oubliette within which we quietly fade to our own ends, than to erode. However, if you are patient, and you do care, we may come out again. We take long in developing affection, and even longer in feeling confident to bestow such affections unlooked for, but if you seek us out and encourage from us the same, who knows. We will still be mindful of all the rest, but perhaps, yes. We will come out to play.
What do You think about Villette (2001)?
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...
—Tatiana
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.
—Kim
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)[She doesn't want to come right out and tell us M. Paul dies and only hints at it, as though on some level she can't bring herself to disappoint the reader or perhaps herself. (hide spoiler)]
—Katherine
