Villette is such a frustrating book. It’s a book that makes you work hard, and it’s a book that refuses to reward either the reader or the character with a happy ending. It took me two weeks to read through Villette, and I was irritated for every minute of it. However, by the end of the book I felt a weird compulsion to immediately read it again. Villette is a puzzle. An annoying and sometimes infuriating puzzle.
Villette was written by Charlotte Bronte. It was her last novel and it was published before her very short marriage and subsequent death, but after the deaths of her siblings. It’s her most autobiographical novel. Like Jane Eyre (a book which I have read approximately once every one or two years for the last 34 years), Villette tells the story of an unassuming teacher who falls in love with an older, grumpy man. But alas, where Jane Eyre represents what Bronte may have wanted, Villette more closely resembles what actually did happen, albeit still in a very fictionalized form, which means that neither the protagonist nor the reader can have nice things.
Villette is about a young woman named Lucy Snowe, who narrates the novel. Lucy falls upon hard times when an unspecified disaster leaves her without family or means. Lucy becomes a lady’s companion and then a teacher at a boarding school in the fictional town of Villette, a stand-in for the school at which the real Charlotte Bronte taught in Brussels.
Lucy falls in love with two men. The first, Dr. John, is handsome and charming and refers to Lucy as, I shit you not, “an inoffensive shadow.” We (the readers) hate him. This guy is allegedly based on one of Charlotte’s publishers on whom she had a crush. The second guy, M. Paul Emmanuel, is weird looking, cranky, sexist, and demanding. He’s a teacher at the same school as Lucy. He is a stand-in for Bronte’s real-life unrequited love, the teacher M. Heger, who was married. There’s a lot of repressed female rage here.
Villette is a difficult book to read because:
- Lucy, the narrator, habitually lies to herself, to the people she talks to, and to the reader (usually these are lies of omission). The reader has to read between the lines to figure out what Lucy is really thinking, and to figure out what is really true.
- Lucy’s mental health is pretty shaky plus one time she gets high on opium, so we’re often not sure what she sees and what she imagines.
- Much of the dialogue is conducted in French. If you have a version with translations, you’re golden, but mine did not (I had a 1993 paperback edition published by Wordsworth Classics).
- Lucy often wanders off into stream-of-consciousness monologue and she never uses a short word where a long one, or twenty, will do.
Here’s an example of the prose style. I selected it by opening the book at random, secure in the expectation that whatever page I turned to would feature brooding and long words. This passage is written much more clearly than most of the passages yet it still manages to contain the phrase “win from her stone eyeballs” which is, admittedly, pretty metal.
And here Mrs. Bretton broke in with many, many questions about past times; and for her satisfaction I had to recur to gone-by troubles, to explain causes of seeming estrangement, to touch on single-handed conflict with Life, with Death, with Grief, with Fate. Dr. John listened, saying little. He and she then told me of changes they had known: even with them all had not gone smoothly, and fortune had retrenched her once abundant gifts. But so courageous a mother, with such a champion in her son, was well fitted to fight a good fight with the world, and to prevail ultimately. Dr. John himself was one of those on whose birth benign planets have certainly smiled. Adversity might set against him her most sullen front: he was the man to beat her down with smiles. Strong and cheerful, and firm and courteous; not rash, yet valiant; he was the aspirant to woo Destiny herself, and to win from her stone eyeballs a beam almost loving.
So there you go.
It’s also a frustrating book to read for those, especially romance fans, who may be expecting a happy ending. Lucy is lonely and isolated, but the reader will surely note that she brings a great deal of this condition upon herself by rebuffing anyone who tries to talk to her. Indeed, her only friend is the flighty Ginerva, who is unrebuffable. The more Lucy tries to rebuff Ginerva, the more Ginerva likes her. It’s weird yet adorable. On a similar note, Lucy complains about not being seen, but she’s violently opposed to seeking out or even accepting any kind of attention.
Lucy also firmly believes that any hope can only lead to disappointment, and any effort only lead to humiliation. There are Victorian rules at play here – for instance, she can’t just take initiative and start writing Dr. John letters on her own. But I can’t begin to tell you how frustrating Lucy’s passivity is, especially because we know from the beginning of the book that she is capable of great acts of courage.
It took a lot of Internet reading for me to get any kind of grip on this book. I learned that one of the important things about the book is the timing. It was one of the first books to use stream-of-consciousness narration and intense psychological insight. It’s a novel that is much more about the inside of Lucy’s head than anything happening outside it. Since Lucy doesn’t want to give anyone full access to her head (not even herself – she’s the denial queen) this makes the book a puzzle.
I have a real love/hate relationship with Lucy but one thing I do like is that she never bothers with being “likeable.” She’s actually pretty horrible, and it’s surprising that Villette just goes for it. On her first day as a teacher she rips up a student’s essay and tosses another student into a closet. She hates having to take care of a child with disabilities when all the other teachers are on vacation (the attitudes expressed towards this child are BY FAR the most odious and dated part of the book). She hates foreigners (despite moving to Belgium) and she hates Catholicism (despite moving to Belgium) and when Ginerva gets too cuddly Lucy stabs her with a pin. When it comes to the xenophobia and the anti-Catholicism, Victorian readers would perhaps have seen these traits as being positive, but for modern audiences they are yet more indicators that Lucy is kind of a horrible person, and that she’s not shy about being a horrible person.
Lucy is presented with two ideal female types. Ginerva, Lucy’s frenemy at the school, is pretty, flirtatious, and mercenary. Polly, a girl who shows up as a child at the start of the novel and as an adult later on, is “pure,” childlike, and submissive. Torn between the Whore and Virgin archetypes, Lucy wants to choose a third option, but she doesn’t want to end up being the Ghost Nun. Lucy is also torn between “Imagination” and “Reason.” She’s a pragmatic character in a gothic novel, and a romantic person struggling to repress all of her romantic feelings and tendencies (I mean “Romantic” as in the sense of the literary movement as opposed to romantic love). I also learned that there’s a lot of stuff in the story about gender, identity, and sexuality.
On the one hand I’m so happy that I finally finished this damn book and will never have to slog through it again, because it was tedious and annoying and kind of like eating broccoli – maybe it’s good for you, but it’s not fun. On the other hand now that it’s over I suddenly feel a wave of fondness towards the Lucy/Ginerva dynamic – which I learned is basically like the relationship between Wednesday Addams and Amanda Buckman (the Girl Scout from Addams Family), or maybe Liz Lemon and Jenna from 30 Rock (many thanks to the bloggers who participated in Reading Rambo’s Read-A-Long for this insight).
I also feel a sense of nostalgia for those happy days before page 513 when Lucy wore a pink dress instead of her habitual grey and a jealous M. Paul calls the dress “scarlet” and gets all huffy about it. So maybe someday I’ll get some Cliff Notes and tackle this book again chapter by chapter and try to understand what the hell is going on with the florid prose and the heroine who is fine with shoving a noisy student into a closet but who is self-effacing around adults to the point of self-abuse.
Now for the romance. This is already a long post, so I’m not going to analyze the romance except to say that every interaction between Lucy and M. Paul is pure romantic comedy gold.
Then, Dear Reader, we get to the last page.
Suffice to say that you should not read this on or near anything breakable.
SPOILER! I AM SPOILING THE END!
What the Hell, Charlotte? I made it through 513 pages of tiny tiny type for this?
I have no idea how to grade Villette. I know a lot of people love it and I can see how it’s an insightful psychological novel, but Sweet Jesus it’s tedious and frustrating and utterly unrewarding in the end. This is why we can’t have nice things! Because Charlotte was super depressed and decided to screw over her readers on page 513!
I’m giving this book a C even though, yes, it’s a classic and after I stop foaming at the mouth maybe I’ll realize that it’s a masterful piece of wonderfulness and I’ll be super embarrassed and give it an A+.
In the meantime, here’s Lucy:
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Thanks!
I tried to read this for a book report in english lit when i was seventeen. I took half a notebook full of notes trying to figure out what happened in the FIRST THREE CHAPTERS and then swallowed my pride and begged my teacher to let me read something else. It was the french convos that really did me in back in 1996 before i could have googled anything about it.
You’re a brave woman.
Commiserations, Carrie. Like Lara, I also made the attempt in my teens. I don’t think I even made it halfway through. I suspect reading about Villette is better than reading Villette. 🙂
Thank you.
Early in the book there is one of the most insightful, observant and eloquent descriptions of depression I have ever read. I read Villette when I was going through a really hard time with that, and that chapter meant a lot to me.
I was reading this review thinking, ‘My God, she sounds just like me,’ or rather, she sounds just like a xenophobic anti-Catholic version of me who would shove children into closets and who hasn’t had the benefit of over a decade of psychotherapy… maybe it would be more accurate to say that she sounds like I feel. It is not clear to me whether this means that I should read this or that I should stay the hell away from it. Definitely it means one of these things.
I don’t think I can stress enough not to attempt Villette in audiobook form. I must’ve listened to each chapter a few times before moving on and I still was completely confused. I wanted to like it so much, even knowing I wouldn’t be pleased with the ending, but I think I only made it about halfway there. Maybe one day I’ll pick up the print book, if I’m in the mood. Probably not.
I read Villette in my 20s and loved it, even though I don’t reread it as often as Jane Eyre or Shirley. I think it deserves much better than a C, but I really like broccoli.
Villette is so much better than Jane Eyre, oh my god, tell me I’m not the only one to feel this way! Villette’s ending is *awesome* and makes me far happier than Jane Eyre’s (which I do not buy for a second).
I don’t read any of the Brontes over and over for fun, but they’re all fascinating in their own way, and (one woman’s opinion) Villette is the best written of the bunch.
As a romance in the current romance novel sense, Villette is way too honest to give good HEA coziness, definitely. But that’s not what it’s for! (Nor for pity’s sake is Jane Eyre; that is not what romance looks like.) It’s so honest even while lying to you at every turn. Totally groundbreaking stuff.
And as for the prose, oh hells yeah, it’s prosy, but just standard Victorian. The sentence structure is surely no denser than Jane Eyre?
Villette is life-changing. For the reason Althea Claire Duffy mentioned, for one.
Personally, having to rope a parent and their schoolkid French into the project made me very determined to learn French to a high standard, and being Frenchified changed my life. (So that xenophobia in Villette? Epic fail backfire in this case.)
But technically brilliant? I think runt of the litter Anne usually gets thrown that bone. Perfect structure in Agnes Grey. Dramatic, direct, even earthy writing in Wildfell Hall.
I hope people are still of that mind. Anne deserves something after Charlotte tried to bury Wildfell Hall when she inherited the rights. The critics’ award would be nice.
I liked Vilette, but I identify with cranky people 🙂
Loved the review. Gold star for slogging through the whole thing. I finally read Jane Eyre in my 20s after avoiding it for years with the thought that such a “worthy” book couldn’t be any fun at all. Then I couldn’t put it down. After being so profoundly wrong about Jane, I settled in to attempt Vilette, but I didn’t really like any of the characters, and kept falling asleep, so I set it quietly aside about a third of the way through. I remember it with a vague sense of shame that I gave up, but your review makes me feel much better. The victorians are so hit or miss for me- I loved Woman in White by Wilkie Collins, but couldn’t get into Middlemarch by George Elliot. Maybe I’ll try Middlemarch again now that a couple decades have passed, and in honor of your great Villete sacrifice. Taking one for the team- thanks!
I haven’t re-read this book in a long time, but the ending is the first book that made me really truly angry. I don’t know if I’ve ever been as upset about an ending as in Villette. I can take a tragic ending, but even wuthering heights ending was more satisfying.
I’ve been thinking about going back and re-reading it, because it’s been years, but I don’t know if time would make it better or worse. And that ending. HMM
I read Villete when I was in my 20s and really loved it. BUT I was depressed for like two weeks after I finished it and have never been able to make myself read it again.
First of all, did you go into it expecting it to be a romance? It sounds like you did but I would never dream of classifying it as a romance, so whoever lead you to believe it was is wrong. The mismatch of expectations and reality may have contributed to your feelings.
The summer before my senior year of college I read Villette for fun and enjoyed it. I can’t remember if it had French translations or not but I was a French minor and was less than a year back from study abroad in Paris so it didn’t really matter as I knew enough French. (Side note: literature from the long 19th century, especially A Little Princess and Little Women, plus the Lord Peter short stories, are what made me decide on French to study. I wanted to be able to read all the words in the books I liked.) I started my Victorian novel class for my English degree that fall and on the first day the professor said we were doing Villette. She didn’t like it but thought it was an overlooked piece of literature and didn’t want to do Jane Eyre since so many students had done it in high school. I blew her mind when I went up to her after class and told her I had enjoyed it and had just read it voluntarily that summer.
Thank you so much for this review. This is the reason I love SBTB! I read Jane Eyre when I was fourteen and was basically bowled over by it. Of course I HAD to immediately read VILLETTE–and whoa what I shock I was in for. It was so like Jane Eyre, but also its opposite. All the angst/ pining never comes to fruition… and instead of being able to feel like Jane is character you can relate to, you feel terrified that you might one day relate more to poor Lucy. Jane Eyre can be interpreted as Charlotte’s autobiographical fantasy, and Villette, as as feverish recollection of life’s disappointments.
I do think it’s important to note how powerful and innovative Charlotte was in her time. Thank you for pointing out her early forays into stream of consciousness writing. We studied Steam of Consciousness in AP English, and it was completely attributed to James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, who weren’t writing until 50 years later. A recent bio points out that Jane Eyre, is the first novel to have a child narrator and how powerful that was at the time.
Villette reminds me of the modern novels THE WOMAN UPSTAIRS by Claire Messud, or SPINSTER by Sylvia Ashton Warner.
I think the response of C is fair in some ways, after all it is a novel that wants to intentionally upset and frustrate readers. How can anyone feel anything else by its end? However, I do think there is a mastery in this work though, which makes it deserving of a higher grade.
Thanks again!
It’s really amazin
I read Villette for fun (not under duress of a class assignment) and remember thinking “glad I don’t have to do that again,’ and I never have.
I think you should read and review ‘Tenant of Wildfell Hall’. It’s so much more satisfying, even if you do have to deal with old Gilbert.
There’s something about your description of Lucy that reminds me of what drove me crazy about the heroine of Rebecca. About the 10millionth time she lamented about how dowdy and frumpy she was I wanted to scream, for Literary god’s sake, you married a rich man, go shopping and buy non-dowdy clothes!!!
Kudos to you for reading Villette in two weeks. It took me three tries over the course of a decade. I discovered Jane Eyre when I was thirteen, loved it, and requested a copy of Villette for my fourteenth birthday. I abandoned it at the end of chapter 16–I still have my original paperback, marked with a business card from a long-gone gift shop in my hometown. I tried to read it again my junior year in college, where I was an English major. I got a little further then, but not much. I finally succeeded in finishing the book the summer after my first year of graduate school. The French dialogue wasn’t as much of an issue for me by that time; I studied French from eighth grade through my freshman year in college, so I was able to figure most of it out.
@kkw – you are not alone. I did a lot of googling in my efforts to understand this book and many people feel it is more challenging, in a giid way, than Jane eyre in technical and in emotional ways.
@Tam – done!
http://smartbitchestrashybooks.com/reviews/tenant-wildfell-hall-anne-bronte/
I couldn’t stand this book. The MC’s xenophobia and anti-Catholicism was so pronounced I could not appreciate much of anything else.
@Melanie – I love that you remember the chapter where you DNFed and what you marked the book with.
@Tam Seconding the request for a Tenant of Wildfell Hall review! Now that is a Bronte book that I reread regularly.
@ Carrie S
Many thanks for the link to your fine review of Tenant, which also includes an important key to Jane Eyre: that it’s really a series of tests of Jane’s will to do what she regards as right. Her self respect enables her to reject Rochester’s effort to make her his mistress, and particularly to pass the last and hardest test: turning StJohn down because, although she regards what he does as right, she knows it isn’t right for her. An extraordinary statement for a Victorian woman to make. Shirley has a similarly great moment, when she rejects her uncle’s conventional judgement of her by announcing that she is better than a young lady: she’s a woman who respects herself.
Thank you Carrie for such a well written review 🙂 I simultaneously want to read and don’t want to read it now.
Lucy Snowe, the ultimate unreliable narrator. Once you figure that out the book makes all kinds of sense. This is a woman in extremis. I second Liz’s remark about Bronte being innovative & also the influence on books such as Messud’s The Woman Upstairs. Henry James couldn’t have written Turn of the Screw without the invention of Ms Snowe. Villette is all kinds of important in the history of the novel. Bravo, Charlotte.
I actually liked Lucy (despite being Catholic myself) and thought she was supposed to likable. I don’t Bronte knew she was a prick if anything I think Bronte saw Lucy as a victim of unrewarded virtue. I think it’s a modern interpretation to say she’s unlikable. If anything when it came to her job, Lucy seemed able to do almost anything. Given the time period this was written it’s pretty awesome she doesn’t beat her students. (My memory is the student she stuffs in the closet was trying to bully her and deserved a come-uppeance.) Some of Lucy’s undisputable good qualities are ability to find a living for herself and survive. For example when she arrives in Vilette, she’s almost starving and yet is able to find a job, lodging and food.)
This book is much harder to read as a single woman (kind of a spinster). The idea that are two men and every woman between sixteen and sixty is vying for their attention is terrifying. (Eventually there’s a third man, who’s barely seen and marries someone in the story). That women are taught to be passive in relationships and not go after what they want! That Lucy carries with her all kinds of societal and social dictums about being a burden and not expressing emotion!
Despite my defense of Lucy, I didn’t enjoy or particularly like this book, because it was so dense and took so long and I wanted something good for Lucy.(I do like brocoli though). I was disappointed with the endings of Polly’s and Ginevra’s stories.
Her name is not Ginerva, it’s Ginevra. The r in the review is in the wrong place.
My favorite part of the book was at the end where Lucy uses the word literally to mean figuratively. I loved that as I sick of listening to people complain about how other people use the word literally. Now I can say to people “See even Bronte did it.”
I read Villette earlier this year as a group read with a Goodreads Classics group. It took me the whole month of April to get through it. I agree with the review, in part, but disagree with part.
It is not an all-is-sweetness-and-light book by any means. I had to reread some passages several times to figure out what was going on – and that doesn’t count all the ones in French! I dug out my old French dictionary, plus my translator app and Google translate got a good workout.
I didn’t expect a happy ending going in, but I read a lot of books outside the romance genre, so the ending wasn’t a big deal for me. Lucy is a very complex, interesting character, and the world we see through her eyes is often dark, or at least murky – and she doesn’t expect any different. This is a summary of her life philosophy: “I find no reason why I should be of the few favoured. I believe in some blending of hope and sunshine sweetening the worst lots. I believe that this life is not all; neither the beginning nor the end. I believe while I tremble; I trust while I weep.”
The prose – that was my favorite part of the book, I think. It’s just lovely. For example, this description of the moon: “Where, indeed, does the moon not look well? What is the scene, confined or expansive, which her orb does not hallow? Rosy or fiery, she mounted now above a not distant bank; even while we watched her flushed ascent, she cleared to gold, and in very brief space, floated up stainless into a now calm sky.”
But maybe I’m a glutton for punishment – I also read Middlemarch this year.
I have to confess that by the time I reached the end I no longer gave a rat’s ass about Lucy. She was such a judgey bitch over Ginevra and any other female xters who fell short of her expectations but was then meek as a mouse in the face of the rampant hypocrisy of the male xters she crushed on. Pffft, whatever Lucy!
I also read “Vilette” for fun. I had read “Jane Eyre” multiple times and “Wuthering Heights” because I was forced to, and both of Anne’s Novels for fun (they are the best of the lot – in fact, if you think you might like to be a teacher read “Agnes Grey”. That’s what it’s like. You’re welcome.)
I really liked it. But I like 19th Century literature AND unreliable narrators. Lucy is just like Esther Summerson from “Bleak House”. They are lying to themselves for a PURPOSE. Their lies try to make their world ok, when its strictures are basically designed to choke the life out of any thinking person. Which Lucy, like her or not, is.
I really found both Lucy and Jane in “Jane Eyre” to be of that self-effacing Victorian archetype. They were what women were TOLD to be, to the point that they were continually depressed and had to lie to themselves constantly just to keep going because nobody is really a selfless “angel of the house”. In Lucy, you see the cracks even more because “Vilette” lacks the gothic “romance” mystery of “Jane Eyre”. I find it an incredibly interesting psychological profile of the era. THESE are the knots Charlotte Bronte and the other women of her time had to twist themselves into to try to fit in to what was being demanded of them by men. It’s fascinating.
The ending does not signify. The story is the journey in this one, and being inside Lucy’s mind. It gives you great insight into what our middle class foremothers endured. If your family was working class assume they were all dying of rickets and you’ll be closer.
I read Villette in my early 20s when I was studying abroad, homesick, depressed, and convinced (in that emo early 20s way) that No One Would Ever Love Me And I Would Die Alone (…as you do, before you realize that it’s better to be alone and happy than in a bad relationship!). I identified so strongly with the book, but I think if I read it now I wouldn’t enjoy it half as much. I’ve never gone back to it.
I think the Penguin Classics version (at least the one I picked up abroad) translates all the French — this was in the 90s, so I didn’t have access to online translators.
I go back to Jane almost every winter — she’s a touchstone! (I also spent my 20s with A Room with View in my backpack at all times, so I may be suspect, heh.)
Ha! Wonderful! I’m hacking my way thru Villette as we speak. You know how I found this review? I Googled, “Does anyone else hate Villette as much as I do?” I might as well have asked the iChing, I’m in such a state of loathing, and wondering why he reviews are so glowing. Even Georg Eliot for crickets sake.
I’ve read Jane Eyre countless times. I love this book in spite of its few flaws, like it’s moralizing, Christian tone, its crass class comments, I know I know all acceptable for its times. I was shocked at how nasty and judgmental Lucy is. I just can’t care for her. It’s also so derivative of Jane Eyre in its plot points, settings, etc.. The rescues, the dilemmas, the school, the travel, the relationships, the misunderstandings. …ech.
I feel as if CB had a burning urge to write but the well was empty and she cooked up this mess. I feel bad for CB but this is a stinker. I’ll continue with the book, but I’m skipping through it, vainly hoping for a change of heart.
Dear Reader, wish me well.
I am a 75 yo male, probably not the usual Brontë fan. My wife and I do love Hallmark films if one needs a further cultural identifier.
Anyway, I read Villette this week because I read in a recent review of a book about the Brontes that Villette is magnificent.
I quite agree. I love happy endings (as in Hallmark movies) but Villette is one of the best books I have read in my long reading life. Definitely worth the 500 pages.
I got through Middlemarch recently, not really worth the time, as well as War and Peace, beautifully descriptive in the most recent translation. At 75, if not now,when?
Love the internet.
I’m a life-long Jane Eyre fan and just returned from a pilgrimage to the Brontë parsonage in Haworth. I finished reading Villette about 10 minutes ago and turned to the internet for help processing what I just read. What a crazy book!
This blog post of yours is dead on. Thank you for confirming my experience of reading this book. I’m pretending Lucy got her happy ending (even though she is sometimes annoying).
I did not like ‘Villette’ but persisted to the end. (I prefer ‘Jane Eyre’.) The heroine is anti-Belgian, anti-Catholic and does not know French, but she moves to Brussels anyway! The book goes on and on, repetitively. M Paul is a highly obnoxious character. What does Lucy see in him?? The only merit is in her gaining some independence (albeit in Brussels!) at the end.
I love Villette.
Her early trials show her strength to overcome being left without family or means to support herself.
Her travelling to Villette to find employment while not even speaking the language shows her strong character. Like Jane Eyre Lucy keeps her strong values and her never loses her faith i like her character interpretations of her employer and fellow teachers and students. I like how she keeps secrets from the reader i feel this is to encourage looking into her mind and understanding her inner thoughts. Lucy’s enjoyment in annoying Paul and standing up to his petty behavour and tantrums but recognising his strong values and kindness is the developing love story which is the thread of this fascinating story. Lucy shows no jealousy only recognition that for some life is a smooth pathway. That others have what they deserve. While the reader decides the ultimate fate of Lucy and Paul.
My interpretation is how the whole consuming love between these two unglamourous ill fated lovers is sufficient to take her through the rest of her life feeling blessed.
Where have you been all my life? Please keep talking about Villette. This is brilliant! It’s one of my favorite novels. I have no excuse for myself. It just got into my head and never left!
Where have you been all my life? Please keep talking about Villette. This is brilliant! It’s one of my favorite novels. I have no excuse for myself. It just got into my head and never left
Where have you been all my life? Please keep talking about Villette. This is brilliant! It’s one of my favorite novels. I have no excuse for myself. It just got into my head and I could not stop thinking about it after reading it. I still reread it every couple of years and do a post-reading Google search, which is how I found your blog. Love it.
Also, I did not mean to comment thrice, the submission kept timing out so I would write it again. I look super crazy. I’m slightly less crazy than I look.
I must admit that I’m a bit annoyed with this reviewer and some of the comments for judging Lucy through modern eyes. Claiming that Lucy is “pretty horrible” and that her attitude to the disabled child is “odious” is a rather superficial interpretation of this complex Victorian character, in my opinion. I think the portrayal of Lucy is very true to life as she is totally human. It’s human to feel negatively towards others as Lucy did, what makes people horrible is acting on the negativity. Her discipline methods would have been standard back then, it just shows Lucy that is taking control of her class as needs must which doesn’t make her a bad person. Her attitude to the disabled child is understandable. She was forced against her will to look after the child and many would struggle with such a task, you really have to be willing and able to take it on. So the character of Lucy is honestly expressing how many would feel. We must also bear in mind that Lucy had it tough in life which makes the negative feelings all the more understandable. But she is very much a survivor, a woman in a man’s world and for that I admire her. I did like and identify with this character.
Where I agree with this review is that I too found the book hard going. I’m not a fan of long florid prose and not really into stream of consciousness narration, so I struggled to get through to the end but I’m glad I did. I’ve just visited the parsonage at Haworth for the first time and though a long time fan of the Brontës, I now have renewed passion to read their works. I also lived in Brussels for many years in another lifetime, so am fascinated to read more about the real pensionnat and the quartier Isabelle, the Rue Fossette of the novel. So the setting and the authentic use of French were among my favourite aspects of this book, you really felt you were transported to this world. Overall I can see how this work is universally deemed a masterpiece.