This was good reading, liked Jane Eyre a lot more compared to this. ( )

I'm shaken with anger and amusement and joy and heartbreak at the ending, if you can call it that. All I can think is, "Lucy, you've got some 'splaining to do"!!! ( )

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. ( )

The story delves into Lucy's life from the moment she stays with her Godmother as well as further guests. Later in Lucy's journey, she crosses paths with these guests and while in Vilette starts various relationships, both platonic and love. This is a lengthy and heavy book, exploring love and heartache.


I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review. ( )

I'm gonna have to recalibrate my rating system. This is a five star work!! I forgot how Charlotte Bronte can rip you apart. The storms! ( )

The story delves into Lucy's life from the moment she stays with her Godmother as well as further guests. Later in Lucy's journey, she crosses paths with these guests and while in Vilette starts various relationships, both platonic and love. This is a lengthy and heavy book, exploring love and heartache.


I received a free copy of this book via Booksprout and am voluntarily leaving a review. ( )

While this was as well written as one would expect, I found this third Charlotte Bronte novel too slow and have given up on it around 70% of the way through. The main character Lucy Snowe is an English teacher at a girls' school in the fictional city of Villette in the fictional country of Labassecour (which feels rather like Belgium). I enjoyed some of her passive aggressive clashes with Mme Beck, the headmistress, who was probably the most interesting character in the novel, but was rather bored by the romantic manoeuvrings (and it's not that I never like romance as a plot element, it just didn't work for me here). This novel was a reworking of the first novel Charlotte wrote The Professor, but which was published posthumously; the theme and plot is similar, but characters and setting different. ( )

Jane Austen’s older, darker sister ( )

My love for Jane Eyre isn't enough to keep me reading this book. It draaags, and there's a big detail that Lucy keeps to herself that has given me pause. If this isn't an oversight by Brontë, Lucy is either very careless in her recounting (which doesn't feel like the case) or she really doesn't like the reader. But then, she seems not to like a lot of people, so why should the reader be any different? Still, not enjoyable, so I'm calling it quits.

Upon re-reading this, I grew even more attached to Lucy Snowe than before--and this in spite of the fact that she holds you off with an insistence on her nothingness for a full third of the book.
Villette is probably a polarizing read: I can see that some people don't like it. It is not a neat package. It's a book that plays tricks on you. And each of the two men Lucy falls in love with subvert expectations so much that some readers will be disappointed. So don't read this for the plot--don't read it for a love story--don't read it for your favorite tropes. If you're going to read it, read it for the puzzle box character of Lucy Snowe, the girl who seems to have no feelings. Read it patiently, even though you may not like her or understand her at first. She doesn't think she has a lot to say, but she does. And if you know something about Charlotte Bronte's life and loves, so much the better.

Perhaps my Kindle highlights demonstrate at least a little of how powerful a read it is.

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Original review follows:

I went through many different feelings about this story and its central character, and even yet, I can't fix on just one impression. Lucy Snowe repelled me at first; she relates what she observes about others, and in a slightly judgmental manner, but gives no hint about herself. She is not exactly alone in the world, but the people in her life are not her friends. This isn't totally their fault: she seems unknowable.
When she needs to become self-sufficient, she alights at a girls' school to be nursemaid and later teacher. She's scarcely less thorny there. But there's an occasional thaw, a growing vividness within her. And to describe any more of the plot would be to rob the reader of the journey.

As a narrator I found Lucy Snowe to be very difficult to pin down. She's not reliable. You come to realize that she's holding back items from you that she could have shared sooner. Her estimation of the people around her is also pretty suspect, from my point of view. Do I really believe that one man is shallow, while the other is a diamond in the rough? Those Brontes and their Byronic men! Intense, broody, and moody. But always somehow irresistible.

I don't know if I'll reread this...Lucy suffers from major melancholy and fatalism, and, oh that ending--good grief, why? :|
But, anyway, the book is totally atmospheric with that touch of Gothic shiver which one expects from a Bronte, and the fact that it can make you revise your opinion about Lucy and the other characters in each volume...now that's good writing. I unwillingly loved Lucy by the end. ( )

To quote Stephen Fry in one of my favorite Fry and Laurie sketches, that ending was ”balls" .

Lucy Snowe, the narrator and main character of Villette, would not be, in another author's hands, the main character. Polly and Graham would be the leads, and Lucy would be a supporting character, more as an advocate for the young lovers, an object of curiosity or pity, I imagine. Jane Austen probably would have given her a happy ending, perhaps dedicating a humorous paragraph or two to her marriage to M. Paul, comparing it to an ongoing battle or using a better metaphor than I can come up with, since I am not Jane Austen . Elizabeth Gaskell probably would have killed her off after she interceded for Polly and Graham. Come to think of it, killing off M. Paul on his way home to Lucy was sort of E. Gaskell's style too. In Charlotte Bronte's hands, Lucy is the main character, and the reader is in her head a lot, because Lucy is in her head a lot. It's an interesting place to be, Lucy's head, because there are many eloquently stated insights in there. I switched to a kindle version of the book once I started noticing all the phrases I wanted to save, so that I could highlight without any actual books being harmed. Lucy's head is also a rough place to inhabit. She's had a pretty sad life, and while vague on many of the details of her past, she's explicit when describing her struggles with depression. These parts weren't exactly fun to read, but they were still filled with insight. One that really stood out to me was when she was confronted with a bit of what I've always assumed was modern pop psychology—a friend (and love interest) advised her to "cultivate" happiness. Her commentary to the reader:

No mockery in the world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness.

Lucy Snowe is exceptional in the way she acts against social conventions—she doesn't keep her temper or her thoughts to herself when she thinks people are doing something wrong or being ridiculous. Even her love interest/crush is not exempt. There's a great scene where she mimics his effusiveness in describing the object of his affection (not Lucy), and I laughed out loud. It was like she was saying, "You're being a moron. Here's an example." I wonder if her behavior is a portrayal of the freedom from English societal expectations she would have, living and making her own way in France. Freedom and adoption of some of the culture of her new home maybe. I'm not sure about that, but it was a point that was interesting to ponder.

If I have one complaint, it's that there's a lot of untranslated French in here. With a little extra effort, I probably could have gotten my hands on a copy that had translation notes (I'm assuming one exists), but I did not make that extra effort and do not have WiFi at home so could not easily search translations every time I was confronted with a spot of French. So I was stuck trying to use what I know of Spanish to try to pull meaning out of similar-looking words. That and the context of the conversations in French usually gave me an idea of what was going on, but I know I missed nuances.

Despite my first sentence about the ending, I thought this was a fantastic book. Charlotte Bronte had such a way with words. And after all, in the end, she did give the reader permission to interpret things to suit his or her nature, and I think that's what I'm going to do. I have to admit, unless a sad ending is the only way the story works, I'm all for a happy ending. I love happy endings, and I think Lucy bloody well deserved one. So I'm going to try to forget that sentence about how the 3 years waiting for M. Paul to return were the happiest of her life, and I'm going to imagine a Hollywood-style reunion with a kiss to rival the most memorable of on-screen kisses. A kiss like the BBC gave us in North and South, which was so much better than what we got at the end of that book. Sorry Liz Gaskell, but it's true. I had earned smoochies by that point and got none. Anyway, yes. That's what I'll do. Happy ending happy ending happy ending. See? It's working. It is too! ( )

I love Jane Eyre, so I expected to love Villette too. I do; it's just that it was more depressing, without a clearly happy ending, and somehow an even more slow-moving plot. Wikipedia says it's really more about Lucy's psychological state than about the plot, which is accurate. I took a break in the middle of it and kind of forgot things that happened, because the narrator will just casually mention things that turn out to be important later, but by the time that happens you'll have forgotten it.

Bronte's heroines are simultaneously unnecessarily dramatic and irritatingly passive, and Lucy vacillates between contradictory extremes. She also hides away her feelings from everyone, including the reader.

Nearly all the French parts are untranslated, which is supremely unhelpful if you don't read/speak French. Why on earth would they make the decision to do that? Unless you read French somewhat fluently, I highly recommend not buying this edition and getting a different one that DOES have English translation footnotes instead.

Read my full review (WITH SPOILERS) at https://fileundermichellaneous.blogspot.com/2015/12/villette-by-charlotte-bronte... ( )

I wanted to love Villette, but I never managed to love the character of Lucy Snowe and thus did not care in that deep, integral way that I cared for Charlotte's Jane Eyre. There are large sections of the novel that plod or seem to stand completely still. There is a large discourse on the Papists vs. the Protestants, which brought me almost to tears before it was done. And, by way of its worst failure for me, Bronte lapses into French at the most crucial of times. How can one relate to M. Paul when most of what he says to Lucy at critical moments is presented in French?

There are moments when the power of Bronte's writing breaks through and the story begins to move. There are glimpses of the Bronte magic, but they are broken and sparse. Lucy is a disadvantaged but strong woman who strikes out fearlessly and grasps onto life to make her way and earn her keep. Conversely, she is timid and cowering toward the two men to whom she is attracted, and both of whom treat her with mixtures of disdain and patronization at times. There is little that is loveable in her and I found her cold and icy narrative moved me very little.

The ending is almost enough to redeem the short-comings of the book. It resonates in a way that much of the narrative does not, and it sets in motion more curiosity and thoughts about Lucy's future than I felt through the entire course of the previous 525 pages.

That this book is in many ways autobiographical gives it another layer of sadness. I wonder if Bronte was not too close to her subjects and too invested in her characters to portray them realistically. There is much of the preciousness or viciousness or courtliness or saintliness that simply fails to ring true. Graham, Polly, Genevra and M. Paul all seem more like types than actual people throughout much of the story.

While many have praised this novel and several have held it above Jane Eyre, I think there is a reason that Eyre is so universally loved and read and Villette is more obscure and unknown. The reason lies in the heroine...Jane cannot help but be loved and she loves us back; Lucy cannot be loved nor does she feel any affection for her audience. ( )

4/25/22

I enjoyed Villette, but not nearly as much as Jane Eyre: some of the story sparkled, but it was not nearly as intriguing. At times, to me, she was a tad too verbose and there were some significant sections of dialog that were written entirely in French. Not knowing the language this was a bit frustrating. I was also a bit disappointed in how the book ended. Still, I did enjoy the book overall, and could see Lucy Snowe as being a very good friend. ( )

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.” ( )

purchased at Pendragon

Charlotte Bronte, Villette, London : Zodiac Press, 1948, Hardback. This particular copy was once the property of Solihull public libraries. Library ephemera has been applied, i.e. 'Solihull Central Library' label with rules about issues, fines, warning about protecting books in wet weather, and issue label showing 18 loan dates from 11 May 1965 - 27 August 1966. Imagine someone reading this while England was winning the World Cup in July 1966. Earlier issue - date of return - labels have been removed. User or users have applied significant underlining.

I got about half way through and just couldn't take any more. The lengthy descriptions of people's character which add up to I'm not sure what, the minute descriptions of rooms which are so detailed I couldn't visualise them. Not for me. ( )

2.5 I found this book very slow. Lucy's life is like a soap opera but none of the exciting things seem to happen to her. It is like she is the camera through which we watch the show. I found her boring as a lead and I prefer Jane Eyre much more. ( )

I gave Jane Eyre 4 stars, but I definitely liked Villette better. Yet… I didn’t love Villette enough to give it 5 stars. So, do I lower the stars I gave Jane, or not? …And, so goes the very deep thought process I am having about Villette, and what review to give/write about it.

I never wrote anything for Jane, but that is because I read it long before Goodreads existed. What I do know is that years from now I am going to be mad at myself for not writing something - anything – about Villette. I will come back searching for the words that explain the said stars rating, and I will not find them.

Well, I did find Villette a great writing achievement. The restrain exercised by the main character, Lucy Snowe, that is mentioned in so many of the other reviews, requires that the reader engages completely into the story. (I probably should mention here that I listened to it in audio book format). But the truth is that I did not like Lucy much. I am tired of the English type. I am a Latina, and this self-imposed restrain drains me. I would not be a friend to someone like Lucy because of all that is left unsaid is, well, left unsaid, and I lack the sensibility and patience for relationships like that.

Something else, the ghost 2/3 into the story is off somewhat.

So, Villette gets 4 stars because is well written, but it does not get 5 stars because I didn’t care much for Lucy. This should be information enough for me in a couple of years. And Jane Eyre keeps the 4 stars I gave it one day, although I think today I would give it 3, just because..
( )

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. ( )

I liked this book. It was a little hard because Bronte does write a lot of converstation in French and I, of course, know no French. ( )

Yikes! I suppose that, if one is sequestered inside one's house for days on end, one might as well tackle ponderous Victorian tomes. So, that's what I did. It seems there were three Brönte sisters. The most famous of them wrote one book. The least famous wrote two books, and the other one wrote something like five. This is the second of Charlotte's books that I've read. I've previously read her Jane Eyre at least twice, and loved it. This one, Villette not so much. It's ok, but blathers on endlessly. It could easily have been cut in half. But, I suppose Victorian readers had nothing much else to do. After all, they didn't have Netflix and YouTube back in the day.

Anyway, this book concerns one Lucy Snowe. I don't have a good grasp on Lucy. She's reasonably bright, but I gather not much of a babe, and not particularly well off. So, she is pretty much doomed to be a single woman for life, which in the Victorian world, was like living in a pandemic quarantine for life.

When we begin, Lucy is something like 13 or 14. She spends about six months with her godmother, Louisa Bretton. Mrs. Bretton's son, 16-year-old Graham, keeps wandering in from school. But he's mostly concerned with another addition to the household, Missy or Polly (eventually Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre), a somewhat affected six-year old. Polly has been parked with Mrs. Bretton while her father goes off to Europe on business. Polly and Graham become playmates.

After about six months, Lucy heads home. We get no clues as to what transpires over the next eight or ten years. But, eventually, something happens, and Lucy needs to figure out how to fend for herself. She's taken in by a somewhat crabby old lady, Miss Marchmont, to be her companion. This works out better than one might have expected for a year or so. But then, Miss Marchmont passes away, just after she'd promised Lucy that she would receive a legacy, but before she adjusted her will. So, Lucy is again at loose ends.

Lucy has about £15, so she figures she'll spend a few days visiting London before she looks for a new post. Then, she decides to take a boat over to France, so as to view Paris. One of the passengers on the boat, Ginevra Fanshawe, takes a fancy to Lucy and chats her up all across the English Channel. She suggests Lucy should check out Mme. Beck's Pennsionat (boarding school for girls) in the city of Villette.

Lucy gets lost in the city of Villette, but eventually finds herself at the door of Mme. Beck's. Mme. Beck takes her in, first as a governess for her own children, but fairly soon as an English teacher. Well, it seems that there are ghost stories floating around the pennsionat, and Lucy has some visions of ghostly apparitions, which, of course, result in faints of the "vapors"...or something.

Well, I lost the thread of where I was going, because I got separated from my story for a month or two. Anyway, Lucy has to navigate the pennsionat with the imperious director, Madame Modeste Maria Beck; she has run-ins, but also rather a deep friendship with one of the instructors, M. Paul Emanuel; she becomes reunited with her godmother, Louisa Lucy Bretton, and her godmother's son, Graham, now known as Dr. John Graham Bretton; even "Polly" reappears in the form of Paulina Mary Home de Bassompierre; and, of course, Ginevra Fanshawe keeps weaving in and out of the narrative. Eventually, things come to a more-or-less happy conclusion and they all live happily ever after...or something.

I actually rather liked this book. Perhaps not quite so well as Charlotte Brönte's more famous work, Jane Eyre, but enough that I can see myself reading more Charlotte Brönte in the future.

[*** were that possible on GR] ( )

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. ( )