Plath/Bronte

[Alex]

Has anyone notices the similarities between Villette and The Bell Jar's narrators? Esther as a modern Lucy Snow, discuss....

[dutchreader]

I don't know if the characters of Lucy Snow in Villette and Esther in the Bell Jar are similar (I have read the Bell Jar some years ago). But what I do know is that both books are among my all time favourites. Both books are at least half autobiographic which make them very personal and the description of the main characters very realistic and consistent. Strong emotions are expressed that have touched me deeply because they never became sentimental. The clever chosen metaphors and scenes prevented this. In many reviews the unlikely coincidences and other technical shortcomings of Villette, are criticized. When you watch a painting with your nose on the canvas you see how technical skilled the painter was, but you miss the meaning and the beauty of the work. Ok, I am annoyed as well when a book has technical shortcomings and I will discard it when the writer furthermore has not much to offer. But I won’t discard a book like Villette that is so rich in psychological insight and so moving like Villette. Like Lucy said in Villette "I had great pleasure in reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those on whose style or sentiment the writer's individual nature was plainly stamped; flagging inevitably over characterless books, however clever and meritorious" Readers that think likewise, may both like Villette and the Bell Jar, not saying that I can remember technical shortcomings in the Bell Jar.