Charlotte Bronte's Villette

[Claire Copeland]

Villette is truly a great novel. Although underestimated like the author herself, Villette is one of the greatest portraits of love, loss and longing in all of English literature. What is more poignant than Lucy saying, "Good night, Dr. John. You are good, you are beautiful but you are not mine. Good night and God bless you." And what is more touching in its simple sweetness to watch as Lucy finds her true match in love, the crusty professor, whom we have known loved her all along. Villette is a masterpiece of emotion and Charlotte Bronte was a true master of emotion. Unlike Jane Austen, who always so unfairly overshadows Charlotte, Charlotte Bronte was not afraid of her feelings. Too often Charlotte is overlooked as her characters were overlooked because they were too plain, too poor and perhaps too wise for society. Too often even today far too much emphasis is placed on beauty and carefully manufactured charm. Anyone who has ever felt heartbreak, anyone who has ever felt out of place and overlooked and especially, anyone unafraid of emotion can identify with Lucy. Knowing something of Charlotte Bronte's tragically sad life gives anyone reading Villette the idea that Charlotte's heart was very close to Lucy's. Villette is a book that is no doubt too long and too depressing for the emotionally and mentally immature. But for anyone who has ever shed a tear for things that can never be and things that must be endured whatever they may be, Villette will always be treasured. Villette is certainly a treasure on my book shelves as Charlotte Bronte's words are a treasure in my heart.

[angelgate]

I have just spent many sleepness nights & weary days (in bed with a most wretched Bronchitis!) hour upon hour following line after line of my poor Lucy Snowe, to arrive finally at the end of the tale, and oh poor miserable thing she was, indeed it is not fair!!! I had every hope of their lovely life together, he in his little library, and she with a heart finally filled with fruition of dreams and hopes seated lovely at near distance, perhaps with a tiny baby in her lap... One could hope the most for this couple after all they had been through,,, everyone else had happiness, even wretched Ginevra! It is too unfair, toooo cruel, and how can one argue with those long gone? The ending is the ending, whether I like it or not!!! I loved the book nonetheless, it brought me to tears, and I loved it... Life seems a little odd & empty,on putting it down with such sadness... Must be my fever returning.
PS Oh, on a much happier note, has anyone had the pleasure of viewing Masterpiece Theatures' new "Jane Eyre", indeed a wonderful thing! Jane was simply perfect & Mr. Rochester!!!!

[crookshanks]

I couldn't agree more that it is unfair how Charlotte Bronte is often overshadowed by Austen. Villette is a wonderfully written book showing you don't need to be beautifull to find love for as plain as Lucy was M. Paul still loved her and vice versa.

[laddiebuck]

I couldn't agree with all you said more, Claire. Villette has recently become my favourite book for that reason, dubious honour as that may be.

Angelgate: I rather felt that the ending was... irrelevant. I think Bronte understood it would be a shame if the novel were remembered superficially and pre-judged by a shallow plotline. How could a few lines of conclusion ever change anything about the preceding hundreds of pages of pure masterpiece? I am quite certain she left it purposely ambiguous, just to avoid this tendency to pre-judge.

And can you imagine what Villette would be as a motion picture? Thankfully nobody has attempted the project, it would be so easy to ruin, and so difficult to do justice to, if it were at all possible.

[Oblomov]

I'm having the pleasure of reading "Villette" for the first time. When I got to the following passage not too long after starting, I was reminded of that beautiful sense of chez soi:

"Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of practical ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching infants the hornbook, turning silk dresses, and making children’s frocks. Not that true contentment dignified this infatuated resignation: my work had neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my interest; but it seemed to me a great thing to be without heavy anxiety, and relieved from intimate trial: 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; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter."

Time is transcended. What could be better?

[Quark]

I'm having the pleasure of reading "Villette" for the first time. When I got to the following passage not too long after starting, I was reminded of that beautiful sense of chez soi:

"Inadventurous, unstirred by impulses of practical ambition, I was capable of sitting twenty years teaching infants the hornbook, turning silk dresses, and making children’s frocks. Not that true contentment dignified this infatuated resignation: my work had neither charm for my taste, nor hold on my interest; but it seemed to me a great thing to be without heavy anxiety, and relieved from intimate trial: 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; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter."

Time is transcended. What could be better?

You feel chez soi about her stifling environment. Hopefully, you're just referring to her contentment and can-do attitude, or else I'll start to feel sorry for you.

I have to admit that I kind of liked Villette, too. I was sort of partial to Victorian prose before even reading it, so paragraphs like the one you quoted with the long, over-punctuated sentences are what I like to read. When I first got the book I was hoping for a warm, Victorian novel with lots of characters, but it was actually quite dark with few people or locales. Somehow it actually made a positive impression on me outside of just the style of writing. Maybe I liked the characters or the plot pulled me in--I'm really not sure. The best I can say is that I vaguely enjoyed it. It's sounds like you had a bigger reaction to it than I did.

[dystom]

I didn't like Villette, at all!, for the first several chapters, but now I find it one of the greatest novels ever. It's a sad, fun house. Do you realize that Justine Marie S. is M. Paul's daughter--a bit of a DaVinci Code but ten times better!? I'ld say more but you're better off discovering how so on your own.

[sttudy]

hi, i didn't pick up on this fact..... but really loved the book, i cant stop going on about it to everyone. Does anyone know where i can get a copy in french please.

[Judy0802]

sttudy, one of my friends is also looking for the French version of Villette but in vain. Isn't it odd that there isn't any translations of this brilliant novel? I prefer Villette than Jane Eyre.

[Lucy Snowe]

I loved Villette, even though loving such a book involves a bit of emotional self harm, what with all the suffering endured by the protagonist. I felt it transcended time too; especially what you said about her little lament to Doctor John. I said pretty much the same about an individual I knew a few months back (but without the 'God bless you' part) and then picked the book up months later and felt Charlotte had taken the words right out of my mouth. And it does raise the timeless question-is there bliss in beautiful, asethetic ignorance?

[cricketsong]

The lament concerning Dr. John is one that I have felt, too.

The lament always touches those deeply have already felt it. One does not say a lament like that without much pain, thought, suffering, observation, and pain! That is why we are touched by it so much.

I feel the reason we love Villette is because Bronte manages to take the underprivileged, the untalented, and the unnoticed from their supposedly deserved place as wallflowers, and placed them in a seat of quiet honor where one can love them and respect them and joy with them.

[mona amon]

I love Vilette! It's one of my most favourite books, and I've now re-read it more times than I can count.

Does anyone other than me feel that Lucy never quite gets over her infatuation with Dr. John, even after she falls in love with Paul?

Dystom, how is Justine Marie S. the daughter of M. Paul?

[sinskeep]

Charlotte Bronte is amazing, and I too despise the fact that Jane Austen is considered superior

[ksotikoula]

I have grown to love Villette very much. The first time I read it I was half-way through the book and I was suffering from the agonizing lack of plot so much, that although I like Charlotte Bronte's writing, I stopped to ask myself "Why am I reading this?". And then it was, as if I had felt a tip in my shoulder from Charlotte herself and I knew the answer. She seemed to say to me "If you who are just a reader can't bear Lucy Snowe's life, how is she to bear it that has to live it?". And I hastened to read what became of her. It is a very clever and deep book and I like it's heroine no matter how secretive she becomes sometimes. It is her story to tell and I will listen to it as she wants to tell it.

About the ending Charlotte had decided to be a sad one (and how else should it be if Lucy is a heroine that is born to the wrong side of the moon and destined never to share the happiness other people have?- "I never meant to appoint her happy lines" Charlotte writes to her "Graham" and editor, George Smith), but her father requested that it should have a happy ending. But she could not lie. Her hero was drawn, so she decided to leave it ambiguous.

I was fascinated to learn the parallel story behind Villette and between Charlotte herself and George Smith. Yes she never really overcomes that but I will come back and relate it tomorrow.

I believe too that although Austen is considered a realist, Charlotte was more so. In Austen's books almost everybody gets happily married to the person they love, but this is not so in true life. Charlotte had the courage to look deep into the darkest and brightest regions of the heart and was brave enough to make her introspection and bring to life certain aspects of her personal life. So superficially, Austen's novels are realistic in their occurrences, but not so in their depth, while Charlotte's imaginative one's have far more depth and psychological truth.

[Peripatetics]

'Truth lies in the eye of the beholder' is very applicable to Villette, especially if 'eye' is replaced by 'memory'. But as you said on a previous occasion – You have your facts and I have mine – not implying that the discussion is at an end, rather just at the very beginning, I hope.

The fact that Charlotte did not just gave an intellectual exercise with Villette can be proved by its reception: Miss Martineau said it was “unbearably painful”, Thackeray termed it a plaguy book but very clever and Arnold Mathews termed it disagreeable, convulsive, oppressive and said that her mind is full of hunger, rebellion, rage. These may be thought negative reviews but they prove that they brought out strong feelings.

My reaction to Villette was as Janice Carlisle in Villette and the Conventions of Autbiography stated: “and here I speak for myself and my students – wonder if its power is not the result of emotions profoundly confused and confusing.” If we take into concideration that ”though Jane Eyrte had been called upon to recount her past experiences, only in Villette and one sketch that preceded it does Bronte treat memory as a problematic function. Henry Esmond, a novel that Bronte read in manuscript as she was writing Villette, testifies to the predominance of the same concerns: for the first time in Thackeray's career, memory itself becomes the subject of analysis and description.”, then the subject matter – memory, the description and analysis – reasonably suggest that in Villette, Charlotte's composition process was intellectual and influenced by Thackeray's manuscript and Charlotte's stated desire for a broader intellectual canvas than of Jane Eyre.