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3.71 AVERAGE
3.71 AVERAGE
I haven't read a classic book in so long, I've forgotten how to read them. It seems like the only classic books I can read anymore are the ones I've already read. Picked up this book- looking for a good romance. Twenty pages in, and I decided to just look for a summary of the book, and now I no longer want to read it. Maybe I'll come back back to it one day.
emotional
hopeful
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
MIXED FEELINGS, YA’LL.
Lucy Snowe is the best protagonist I’ve ever seen in a Victorian novel, just because she’s so god damned savage and brutal, it’s a delight. What’s not a delight though? M. Paul Emanuel. He’s the worst. He’s the absolute worst. He is absolute 100% trash. My friends said that he’s nice, that he’s sympathetic, but I beg to differ. He is literally the devil in disguise. Every time he speaks, I feel disgusted to the core of my being. What Lucy ever saw in him I will never understand. To get a proper grasp of why M. Paul Emanuel is the worst man to have ever existed in a Victorian novel, I will have to summarise it for you, so here it is! Warning: It’s really long. The novel itself is stupidly long, and the plot at points makes no sense. Why? Why not, I guess.
Lucy Snowe is a conflicted misanthrope who has a shitty life and becomes an English teacher in France, and through a series of unlikely coincidences, is reunited with old acquaintances and has to deal with the love of the worst man in the world. There is no privacy because the lady in charge of the school and her stalker boyfriend are always going through her stuff, so she lives under constant watch and tbh she doesn’t care. She ends up living a lonely life, and she’s perfectly content about it, because you don’t need superficial friends to find happiness. All these people didn’t change her, because Lucy’s a constant in all their lives, and she remains the independent enigma that she is proud to be.
The Novel begins in Bretton when Lucy was young and would stay with her godmother, Mrs Bretton, and the son, Graham. One fine day this fella rocks up, named Mr Home, and drops off his porcelain doll– I mean his daughter Polly before diddling off on a holiday to deal with his grief. Polly is literally a doll, she’s described constantly as like the tiniest thing, like a freakin’ teapot kitten. Oh, did I mention they also refer to her as a kitten? Talk about literally objectifying a young girl and turning her into an object for the pleasure of men– oh, but we’ll get to that theme later.
Blissful childhood is nice, right? It focuses on Graham and Polly’s growing relationship, and sometimes you forget that Lucy’s writing this. And then it ends, because all good things must come to an end. Shit happens to Lucy and she ends up penniless and working for Miss Marchmont, an ageing old lady with what seems to be Alzheimers. And then old lady tells Lucy about LOVE and then she dies. So Lucy decides to TURN A NEW LEAF and gets money, travels to London, then gets on a boat and meets an annoying young lady called Ginevra Fanshawe.
Ginevra Fanshawe is like that annoying friend that you put up with even though they’re a pain in the arse mostly because you know, deep down, they really do care about you. Ginevra is all like, “Yo you should come to Madame Becks, it’d be nice!” and Lucy’s like, “ok.” So she gets hired as a bit of a caretaker for Madame Beck’s children, because if I were a headmistress I would hire some foreign lass off the streets who didn’t speak my language, it’s perfect. So then she gets turned into a teacher and because this is the Kingdom of Labassecour and the town of Villette, students are very very rude, and so to prove herself Lucy literally shoves a student into a book closet and locks her in. Savage. You see why Lucy’s the best? She don’t take shit from nobody.
Then Ginevra starts telling Lucy about how she has so many admirers, especially some dude called Isidore. The conversations always go a bit like this “People love me!!” “Whatever Ginny” “You’re such a crab!!!!!!” “yes.” Gems include:
“How do I look- how do I look to-night?” she demanded.
“As usual,” said I- “preposterously vain”
Lucy Snowe knows no chill.
ANYWAY, kids fall sick, the usual doctor is out of town, so new handsome Dr John turns up an Madame Beck is like “This is fine, you know, this is fine” (because he’s handsome). So, new character: handsome man? Love interest? WHO KNOWS?
Lucy goes out for a nice walk in this nice secluded area, only to be assaulted by a box that falls by her feet. She’s like, wtf is this? And when she opens the box she finds a letter ( on pink paper ) and it basically is from some dude to someone else, only it INSULTS Lucy and calls her a dragon, and she’s pretty hurt by it (though she doesn’t admit it.)
And then it’s The Fête, a big party with a play. And then the asshole shows up, M. Paul Emanuel. Oh dear lord. Okay, so here it begins. He forces her to play the role of a main guy because the actress is too ill to play. So she agrees, and he locks her up in a grimey attic for hours while people are enjoying their festivities. And then she refuses to act in a suit because she appreciates her femininity, and she finds out she can act! And she does what everyone does when they find a new talent: she decides she will never act again lest she indulge herself with something she enjoys for she believes she must live a life of suffering…… Dude, why? But yes, M. Paul is a bit of a dick. Ginevra talks about her love life with two guys, and Lucy confronts Dr John, poking at his fragile male ego to make him realise that Ginevra’s not just a coquette, she’s a total player.
Lucy’s left alone during the holidays, and she gets ill. And during a night filled of hysteria, she runs out and goes to the Catholic church and makes a confession, even though she’s a Protestant. She doesn’t tell us anything she says, but hey, that’s Lucy for ya. And then she passes out. She wakes up in a MYSTERIOUS place that looks almost EXACTLY like a place she used to know: Bretton. An old lady comes to help her out and she’s like, oh, this must be Mrs Bretton. Her thoughts are only solidified when Graham enters. Who’s Graham, you ask? It’s none other than Dr John. Lucy just goes “I’m not surprised tbh I knew a while.”
Then, ugh. Lucy goes to an art gallery and sees The Cleopatra and she’s calling her ‘very much butcher’s meat’, aka, being really cruel because she’s not skinny. You’ll see a lot that Lucy hates people who are fat, finding people small and petite like Polly a lot more attractive (maybe that’s why she likes Paul? Because he’s small and a pest?). So she is giving off all this judgement, hating this idea of exoticism, thinking it’s disgusting, ironic because she’s the foreigner here. And then this guy randomly drags her away from the painting saying it’s inappropriate for a woman, and that guy is none other than M. Paul Emanuel. He’s all like “LOOK AT THESE PAINTINGS OF MONASTIC LIFE, AREN’T THEY GREAT?” and she’s like “dw I don’t even like the Cleopatra lol” and he’s like “YOU SHOULDN”T EVEN LOOK AT IT WOMAN!!!” and so they part.
Then there’s a concert that Dr John and Mrs Bretton force Lucy to go to, and it is there she sees Ginevra chilling with some high class ladies. Ginevra from across the way makes side glances at Mrs Bretton and laughs, and Graham is infuriated, because Graham is a mummy’s boy, and he decides that THIS IS ENOUGH and thus very quickly he decides he cannot be in love with someone who would even DARE be mean to his mother. And then friendship grows with himself and Lucy, aw. And then Lucy sees a nun in the attic– wait what? yes. A demon nun. God this book gets weirder every moment.
And then Lucy goes to another concert, where she watched some person called Vashti, and she’s really racist too. There’s a lot of imperialist language going on that makes me uncomfortable, and I think it’s meant to be a critique of how people eroticise these ‘exotic’ bodies, especially of women. THEN THERE’S A FIRE!!! OH SHIT!!! and John’s like “babe, sit tight” and she submissively goes “of course bb.” And then some small girl falls over, and John RUSHES over to pick her up, and they rush out and save her!! Who’s this? The de Bassompierre family, aka Ginevra’s uncle that funds her schooling, aka Paulina Mary de Bassompierre and Mr Home. Yes, the coincidences never end. They talk and have fun and they reminisce on the good times. Polly’s a little doll. She acts like she’s 5, she seems to look like she’s 5, and yet she’s 17 or 18. She is nothing but a little doll that bends to the whims of the people she’s around, Lucy even saying ‘She had different moods for different people’. ‘The child of seven was in the girl of seventeen’ it’s said, and it’s too often that she acts so much younger than she is. Why? Because Polly’s the perfect young lady, beautiful, petite, mouldable, perfect for any men. She’s sickly sweet and absolutely insufferable. At least Ginevra has a personality. And it only gets worse.
There’s a bit where she buries some letters of Grahams, saying that she’d receive no more, but doesn’t elaborate. And then she sees the nun again in her time of madness. Yeah, and then she and Polly hatch a plot to undermine Ginevra, wow.
They host a tiny little party type dinner thing, and Ginevra and Polly are basically subtly fighting each other over who’s the best lady. I think they’re both hella superficial. Lucy is there having a nice chat with Graham, just having a good time like old childhood friends do, and then this asshole suddenly just slides up right behind Lucy and starts hissing (literally hissing), “Wow you’re such a coquette, you’re such a whore! You are the worst! A faker!!!!” and that person is none other than M. Paul Emanuel. Yes, he got so jealous he basically bullied her into tears. And THEN when they see each other again, you know what he says? ‘”But what did I say?” he pursued; “tell me. I was angry. I have forgotten my words. What were they?”YEAH. talk about not taking responsibility for his actions, he just acts like he never said those things, because he’s a little shit. And then he all but forces her to call him her friend and forgive him. Lucy, why?! He’s so mean to you!
And then later all the ladies are chilling doing their work, and Lucy is working away at something, and when Paul gets up close and personal and asks her who it’s for, “For a gentleman - one of my friends” she replies, and he gets MAD and literally says “OH YES I KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO BE A FRIEND.” LOL!!!! #friendzoned And then he’s calling her a detestable woman, and someone he found ‘consummately unpleasant’ and basically goes on a RAMPAGE. What a dick. He basically gets so fucking jealous that he takes it out on Lucy. What a Nice Guy™, thinking he’s entitled to her attention. UGH.
IT GETS WORSE. What? Yes! On his birthday, everyone’s giving him flowers, except Lucy. And he asks “Est-ce là tout?” several times, basically waiting for Lucy. Why? Because he’s an entitled little shit who expects presents from her and thinks that he’s in the right to demand it. Lucy gives him nothing, and then he gets SO MAD that he starts badmouthing the English, basically saying how they were all useless and ugly and disgusting, and it pisses Lucy off so she finally gets angry and leaves. Yes girl, stand up for yourself. This guy doesn’t DESERVE your attention, seeing as all he cares about is himself and he thinks the best way to win a girl’s affection is to insult her.
IT GETS WORSE. She heads off and goes to her office after a nap, only to find the door ajar. Someone broke in? Was it Madame Beck? Nope, it’s M. Paul Emanuel caught red handed with his hands rifling through her papers. Yes, he’s been breaking into her office area and going through all her stuff because he doesn’t believe in privacy, and Lucy said she’s known it all this time, but why? Why Paul? Why are you going through a lady’s stuff? And he leaves the office in a tip afterwards to show that he’s been there! Yeah! What an asshole, and he BREATHES his cigar smoke everywhere, knowing full well that Lucy HATES the smell. Why? Because he wants to spite her. It’s like pigtail pulling, but worse, because it’s a grown man on a young lady. And he’s all like “Why can’t we be friends?” and just… kill me, just kill me I hate this guy so much he is the worst. He’s a misogynist, despotic, raging, cruel, angry little man. WHY?
And then for some reason it’s All Good. You know? Who cares if he’s stalking me and going through my stuff and shouting at me and bullying me, he’s my friend! That’s some first rate abuse psychology right here. He starts trying to teach Lucy, and she’s like cool, but then when she gets a lil too smart, he starts bullying her again, because women shouldn’t be too smart, just smart enough, and he just wants to embarrass her and humiliate her. Lucy stands her ground, though. She’s a smart girl. Then something happens, she’s chatting about how she wants to live her future, and they talk about the spooky nun. So it’s not madness, she realises, it’s real?!
Polly, sickly sweet Polly, receives a love letter from John, who’d’ve thought!!!!!?! and Lucy’s just like, *eyeroll emoji*
There’s a cute picnic, and then Madame Beck is like, Lucy run this errand, go into this spooky gothic side of town to deliver this, yes, Red Riding Hood Style. And then she learns this sad sob story about two lovers who could never be together because of class, and how this guy comes along and still takes care of the family. Who’s that guy? It’s M. Paul Emanuel. God DAMMIT Brontë, you had to freaking make his backstory tragic. I refuse to accept him as a good person just because of his stupid tragic backstory. He’s a psychopath.
And then she’s forced to sit a god damned trivia test, because M. Paul forces her to and probably wants to humiliate her and make her feel inadequate. Why? He’s has a superiority complex. And then, with so much coincidence (SO MANY COINCIDENCES), the two men testing her are the men who stalked her at the beginning of the novel. She writes an epic little allegory on Human Justice, and then walks out, Deal With It style. And then she chats with Paul about his past, and it’s like, welp, whatever.
Then Paul’s like, dude, Lucy, convert to Catholicism. She’s like no way, all you Catholics are assholes, expecting me to bend to your will, forcing me to be who you wanna be. I’m an independent Protestant! And so they can never be together, thank the lord.
Then it’s back to the god damned subplot of Polly and John. Lucy tries to break it to M. de Bassompierre, who’s all needy and absolutely pathetic. He’s all like, “No!!! Not my baby girl!! She’s 12!!!! I can’t give her away she’s mine mine mine!” because Polly, in all reality, is just an object. That’s what she is, an object, a doll for these men to play around with and give about. She has no personality except what is ascribed to her. She is an allegory of how the patriarchal society moulds women to try and be all these different things with no personality. She is the perfect girl, but as a result she has nothing to truly call her own. She is just the subject of whichever man owns her. John and Polly get married, and yay, off they go! Yuck!
Then Lucy finds out M. Paul Emanuel is leaving for Guadalupe, thank gosh, goodbye! But she’s sad and conflicted, because much like a Korean Drama, it’s only when one of the characters is forced to leave that the other has to truly and deeply consider their own feelings. Ugh, this entire novel just disintegrates into the world’s worst rom com and I hate it. It was SO GOOD, but the ending is a let down. What do you mean, Pretentious Eng Lit student, how is it a let down? WELL…
Lucy goes on a drugged up escapade through the town when she’s distraught, and she sees a fun fête that she wasn’t really invited to, and then she finds the ‘nun’ on her bed, and then she finds out Ginevra has eloped off with de Hamal, another of her suitors who’s really just a rich Count with a gambling problem. Ginevra sends a cheeky letter to Lucy detailing her plot, stating how Hamal was the nun the entire time and that she doesn’t care if she’s underage but she’s marrying this dude. Talk about a bad life decision. Paul heads off to wherever, and they have a nice touching goodbye, but it doesn’t discount the fact that he basically got Lucy to like him by forcing himself onto her and by watching and keeping her under close surveillance, insulting her constantly to make his nicer moments seem nicer than they really are. And then everyone lives happily ever after, Lucy opens up her school, gets a sudden random amount of money that lets her expand it, and then it’s heavily implied M. Paul Emanuel dies in a shipwreck. Good.
Lucy Snowe is the best protagonist I’ve ever seen in a Victorian novel, just because she’s so god damned savage and brutal, it’s a delight. What’s not a delight though? M. Paul Emanuel. He’s the worst. He’s the absolute worst. He is absolute 100% trash. My friends said that he’s nice, that he’s sympathetic, but I beg to differ. He is literally the devil in disguise. Every time he speaks, I feel disgusted to the core of my being. What Lucy ever saw in him I will never understand. To get a proper grasp of why M. Paul Emanuel is the worst man to have ever existed in a Victorian novel, I will have to summarise it for you, so here it is! Warning: It’s really long. The novel itself is stupidly long, and the plot at points makes no sense. Why? Why not, I guess.
Lucy Snowe is a conflicted misanthrope who has a shitty life and becomes an English teacher in France, and through a series of unlikely coincidences, is reunited with old acquaintances and has to deal with the love of the worst man in the world. There is no privacy because the lady in charge of the school and her stalker boyfriend are always going through her stuff, so she lives under constant watch and tbh she doesn’t care. She ends up living a lonely life, and she’s perfectly content about it, because you don’t need superficial friends to find happiness. All these people didn’t change her, because Lucy’s a constant in all their lives, and she remains the independent enigma that she is proud to be.
The Novel begins in Bretton when Lucy was young and would stay with her godmother, Mrs Bretton, and the son, Graham. One fine day this fella rocks up, named Mr Home, and drops off his porcelain doll– I mean his daughter Polly before diddling off on a holiday to deal with his grief. Polly is literally a doll, she’s described constantly as like the tiniest thing, like a freakin’ teapot kitten. Oh, did I mention they also refer to her as a kitten? Talk about literally objectifying a young girl and turning her into an object for the pleasure of men– oh, but we’ll get to that theme later.
Blissful childhood is nice, right? It focuses on Graham and Polly’s growing relationship, and sometimes you forget that Lucy’s writing this. And then it ends, because all good things must come to an end. Shit happens to Lucy and she ends up penniless and working for Miss Marchmont, an ageing old lady with what seems to be Alzheimers. And then old lady tells Lucy about LOVE and then she dies. So Lucy decides to TURN A NEW LEAF and gets money, travels to London, then gets on a boat and meets an annoying young lady called Ginevra Fanshawe.
Ginevra Fanshawe is like that annoying friend that you put up with even though they’re a pain in the arse mostly because you know, deep down, they really do care about you. Ginevra is all like, “Yo you should come to Madame Becks, it’d be nice!” and Lucy’s like, “ok.” So she gets hired as a bit of a caretaker for Madame Beck’s children, because if I were a headmistress I would hire some foreign lass off the streets who didn’t speak my language, it’s perfect. So then she gets turned into a teacher and because this is the Kingdom of Labassecour and the town of Villette, students are very very rude, and so to prove herself Lucy literally shoves a student into a book closet and locks her in. Savage. You see why Lucy’s the best? She don’t take shit from nobody.
Then Ginevra starts telling Lucy about how she has so many admirers, especially some dude called Isidore. The conversations always go a bit like this “People love me!!” “Whatever Ginny” “You’re such a crab!!!!!!” “yes.” Gems include:
“How do I look- how do I look to-night?” she demanded.
“As usual,” said I- “preposterously vain”
Lucy Snowe knows no chill.
ANYWAY, kids fall sick, the usual doctor is out of town, so new handsome Dr John turns up an Madame Beck is like “This is fine, you know, this is fine” (because he’s handsome). So, new character: handsome man? Love interest? WHO KNOWS?
Lucy goes out for a nice walk in this nice secluded area, only to be assaulted by a box that falls by her feet. She’s like, wtf is this? And when she opens the box she finds a letter ( on pink paper ) and it basically is from some dude to someone else, only it INSULTS Lucy and calls her a dragon, and she’s pretty hurt by it (though she doesn’t admit it.)
And then it’s The Fête, a big party with a play. And then the asshole shows up, M. Paul Emanuel. Oh dear lord. Okay, so here it begins. He forces her to play the role of a main guy because the actress is too ill to play. So she agrees, and he locks her up in a grimey attic for hours while people are enjoying their festivities. And then she refuses to act in a suit because she appreciates her femininity, and she finds out she can act! And she does what everyone does when they find a new talent: she decides she will never act again lest she indulge herself with something she enjoys for she believes she must live a life of suffering…… Dude, why? But yes, M. Paul is a bit of a dick. Ginevra talks about her love life with two guys, and Lucy confronts Dr John, poking at his fragile male ego to make him realise that Ginevra’s not just a coquette, she’s a total player.
Lucy’s left alone during the holidays, and she gets ill. And during a night filled of hysteria, she runs out and goes to the Catholic church and makes a confession, even though she’s a Protestant. She doesn’t tell us anything she says, but hey, that’s Lucy for ya. And then she passes out. She wakes up in a MYSTERIOUS place that looks almost EXACTLY like a place she used to know: Bretton. An old lady comes to help her out and she’s like, oh, this must be Mrs Bretton. Her thoughts are only solidified when Graham enters. Who’s Graham, you ask? It’s none other than Dr John. Lucy just goes “I’m not surprised tbh I knew a while.”
Then, ugh. Lucy goes to an art gallery and sees The Cleopatra and she’s calling her ‘very much butcher’s meat’, aka, being really cruel because she’s not skinny. You’ll see a lot that Lucy hates people who are fat, finding people small and petite like Polly a lot more attractive (maybe that’s why she likes Paul? Because he’s small and a pest?). So she is giving off all this judgement, hating this idea of exoticism, thinking it’s disgusting, ironic because she’s the foreigner here. And then this guy randomly drags her away from the painting saying it’s inappropriate for a woman, and that guy is none other than M. Paul Emanuel. He’s all like “LOOK AT THESE PAINTINGS OF MONASTIC LIFE, AREN’T THEY GREAT?” and she’s like “dw I don’t even like the Cleopatra lol” and he’s like “YOU SHOULDN”T EVEN LOOK AT IT WOMAN!!!” and so they part.
Then there’s a concert that Dr John and Mrs Bretton force Lucy to go to, and it is there she sees Ginevra chilling with some high class ladies. Ginevra from across the way makes side glances at Mrs Bretton and laughs, and Graham is infuriated, because Graham is a mummy’s boy, and he decides that THIS IS ENOUGH and thus very quickly he decides he cannot be in love with someone who would even DARE be mean to his mother. And then friendship grows with himself and Lucy, aw. And then Lucy sees a nun in the attic– wait what? yes. A demon nun. God this book gets weirder every moment.
And then Lucy goes to another concert, where she watched some person called Vashti, and she’s really racist too. There’s a lot of imperialist language going on that makes me uncomfortable, and I think it’s meant to be a critique of how people eroticise these ‘exotic’ bodies, especially of women. THEN THERE’S A FIRE!!! OH SHIT!!! and John’s like “babe, sit tight” and she submissively goes “of course bb.” And then some small girl falls over, and John RUSHES over to pick her up, and they rush out and save her!! Who’s this? The de Bassompierre family, aka Ginevra’s uncle that funds her schooling, aka Paulina Mary de Bassompierre and Mr Home. Yes, the coincidences never end. They talk and have fun and they reminisce on the good times. Polly’s a little doll. She acts like she’s 5, she seems to look like she’s 5, and yet she’s 17 or 18. She is nothing but a little doll that bends to the whims of the people she’s around, Lucy even saying ‘She had different moods for different people’. ‘The child of seven was in the girl of seventeen’ it’s said, and it’s too often that she acts so much younger than she is. Why? Because Polly’s the perfect young lady, beautiful, petite, mouldable, perfect for any men. She’s sickly sweet and absolutely insufferable. At least Ginevra has a personality. And it only gets worse.
There’s a bit where she buries some letters of Grahams, saying that she’d receive no more, but doesn’t elaborate. And then she sees the nun again in her time of madness. Yeah, and then she and Polly hatch a plot to undermine Ginevra, wow.
They host a tiny little party type dinner thing, and Ginevra and Polly are basically subtly fighting each other over who’s the best lady. I think they’re both hella superficial. Lucy is there having a nice chat with Graham, just having a good time like old childhood friends do, and then this asshole suddenly just slides up right behind Lucy and starts hissing (literally hissing), “Wow you’re such a coquette, you’re such a whore! You are the worst! A faker!!!!” and that person is none other than M. Paul Emanuel. Yes, he got so jealous he basically bullied her into tears. And THEN when they see each other again, you know what he says? ‘”But what did I say?” he pursued; “tell me. I was angry. I have forgotten my words. What were they?”YEAH. talk about not taking responsibility for his actions, he just acts like he never said those things, because he’s a little shit. And then he all but forces her to call him her friend and forgive him. Lucy, why?! He’s so mean to you!
And then later all the ladies are chilling doing their work, and Lucy is working away at something, and when Paul gets up close and personal and asks her who it’s for, “For a gentleman - one of my friends” she replies, and he gets MAD and literally says “OH YES I KNOW HOW IT FEELS TO BE A FRIEND.” LOL!!!! #friendzoned And then he’s calling her a detestable woman, and someone he found ‘consummately unpleasant’ and basically goes on a RAMPAGE. What a dick. He basically gets so fucking jealous that he takes it out on Lucy. What a Nice Guy™, thinking he’s entitled to her attention. UGH.
IT GETS WORSE. What? Yes! On his birthday, everyone’s giving him flowers, except Lucy. And he asks “Est-ce là tout?” several times, basically waiting for Lucy. Why? Because he’s an entitled little shit who expects presents from her and thinks that he’s in the right to demand it. Lucy gives him nothing, and then he gets SO MAD that he starts badmouthing the English, basically saying how they were all useless and ugly and disgusting, and it pisses Lucy off so she finally gets angry and leaves. Yes girl, stand up for yourself. This guy doesn’t DESERVE your attention, seeing as all he cares about is himself and he thinks the best way to win a girl’s affection is to insult her.
IT GETS WORSE. She heads off and goes to her office after a nap, only to find the door ajar. Someone broke in? Was it Madame Beck? Nope, it’s M. Paul Emanuel caught red handed with his hands rifling through her papers. Yes, he’s been breaking into her office area and going through all her stuff because he doesn’t believe in privacy, and Lucy said she’s known it all this time, but why? Why Paul? Why are you going through a lady’s stuff? And he leaves the office in a tip afterwards to show that he’s been there! Yeah! What an asshole, and he BREATHES his cigar smoke everywhere, knowing full well that Lucy HATES the smell. Why? Because he wants to spite her. It’s like pigtail pulling, but worse, because it’s a grown man on a young lady. And he’s all like “Why can’t we be friends?” and just… kill me, just kill me I hate this guy so much he is the worst. He’s a misogynist, despotic, raging, cruel, angry little man. WHY?
And then for some reason it’s All Good. You know? Who cares if he’s stalking me and going through my stuff and shouting at me and bullying me, he’s my friend! That’s some first rate abuse psychology right here. He starts trying to teach Lucy, and she’s like cool, but then when she gets a lil too smart, he starts bullying her again, because women shouldn’t be too smart, just smart enough, and he just wants to embarrass her and humiliate her. Lucy stands her ground, though. She’s a smart girl. Then something happens, she’s chatting about how she wants to live her future, and they talk about the spooky nun. So it’s not madness, she realises, it’s real?!
Polly, sickly sweet Polly, receives a love letter from John, who’d’ve thought!!!!!?! and Lucy’s just like, *eyeroll emoji*
There’s a cute picnic, and then Madame Beck is like, Lucy run this errand, go into this spooky gothic side of town to deliver this, yes, Red Riding Hood Style. And then she learns this sad sob story about two lovers who could never be together because of class, and how this guy comes along and still takes care of the family. Who’s that guy? It’s M. Paul Emanuel. God DAMMIT Brontë, you had to freaking make his backstory tragic. I refuse to accept him as a good person just because of his stupid tragic backstory. He’s a psychopath.
And then she’s forced to sit a god damned trivia test, because M. Paul forces her to and probably wants to humiliate her and make her feel inadequate. Why? He’s has a superiority complex. And then, with so much coincidence (SO MANY COINCIDENCES), the two men testing her are the men who stalked her at the beginning of the novel. She writes an epic little allegory on Human Justice, and then walks out, Deal With It style. And then she chats with Paul about his past, and it’s like, welp, whatever.
Then Paul’s like, dude, Lucy, convert to Catholicism. She’s like no way, all you Catholics are assholes, expecting me to bend to your will, forcing me to be who you wanna be. I’m an independent Protestant! And so they can never be together, thank the lord.
Then it’s back to the god damned subplot of Polly and John. Lucy tries to break it to M. de Bassompierre, who’s all needy and absolutely pathetic. He’s all like, “No!!! Not my baby girl!! She’s 12!!!! I can’t give her away she’s mine mine mine!” because Polly, in all reality, is just an object. That’s what she is, an object, a doll for these men to play around with and give about. She has no personality except what is ascribed to her. She is an allegory of how the patriarchal society moulds women to try and be all these different things with no personality. She is the perfect girl, but as a result she has nothing to truly call her own. She is just the subject of whichever man owns her. John and Polly get married, and yay, off they go! Yuck!
Then Lucy finds out M. Paul Emanuel is leaving for Guadalupe, thank gosh, goodbye! But she’s sad and conflicted, because much like a Korean Drama, it’s only when one of the characters is forced to leave that the other has to truly and deeply consider their own feelings. Ugh, this entire novel just disintegrates into the world’s worst rom com and I hate it. It was SO GOOD, but the ending is a let down. What do you mean, Pretentious Eng Lit student, how is it a let down? WELL…
Lucy goes on a drugged up escapade through the town when she’s distraught, and she sees a fun fête that she wasn’t really invited to, and then she finds the ‘nun’ on her bed, and then she finds out Ginevra has eloped off with de Hamal, another of her suitors who’s really just a rich Count with a gambling problem. Ginevra sends a cheeky letter to Lucy detailing her plot, stating how Hamal was the nun the entire time and that she doesn’t care if she’s underage but she’s marrying this dude. Talk about a bad life decision. Paul heads off to wherever, and they have a nice touching goodbye, but it doesn’t discount the fact that he basically got Lucy to like him by forcing himself onto her and by watching and keeping her under close surveillance, insulting her constantly to make his nicer moments seem nicer than they really are. And then everyone lives happily ever after, Lucy opens up her school, gets a sudden random amount of money that lets her expand it, and then it’s heavily implied M. Paul Emanuel dies in a shipwreck. Good.
The most vapid story ever, told by the most obnoxious character ever, pretty much sums it up. The writing alternates between clumsy - friends and near-relatives who don't recognise each other; the protagonist falling for an abusive, conceited bully, and countless more implausible examples - and lethally boring - honestly, Charlotte, decide if you want to write a novel or a drunken diary. The second part of the book is an uninterrupted rant against Catholicism, by the way.
What I also found disturbing was the constant judgemental attitude of the main character, who considers herself utterly blameless, and everyone else thoroughly flawed. Imagine this - you do exactly the same thing as she is doing - let's say, by way of an example, bemoan the departure of a certain teacher - and she'll be thinking that, while *hers* are real tears, yours are but a silly whim. This relentless self-righteousness and cynicism throughout the book constantly made me wonder whether the author really intended to create such an unbearable narrator, or if it wasn't a reflection of herself. It probably shouldn't matter at all, but it did add to the general unpleasantness.
Oh, yes, and the untranslated show-off French. Yes, I did get it, but please remind me to sprinkle some Welsh in my next review, Charlotte darling.
What I also found disturbing was the constant judgemental attitude of the main character, who considers herself utterly blameless, and everyone else thoroughly flawed. Imagine this - you do exactly the same thing as she is doing - let's say, by way of an example, bemoan the departure of a certain teacher - and she'll be thinking that, while *hers* are real tears, yours are but a silly whim. This relentless self-righteousness and cynicism throughout the book constantly made me wonder whether the author really intended to create such an unbearable narrator, or if it wasn't a reflection of herself. It probably shouldn't matter at all, but it did add to the general unpleasantness.
Oh, yes, and the untranslated show-off French. Yes, I did get it, but please remind me to sprinkle some Welsh in my next review, Charlotte darling.
challenging
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Critics rightly give Lucy Snowe, Villette's protagonist, a hard time for the sneakiness that makes her an "unreliable narrator," as well as her many other character flaws -- e.g., her neurotic passivity or, to phrase it more accurately, the self-avowed "perversity" that often makes her unable to defend herself or stand up for her own interests. Yet I'm inclined to look leniently on these shortcomings, largely thanks to Lucy's hilarious sense of humor. When Lucy dresses in male clothing for the school play and gets sneered at by her snooty Parisian co-worker Zelie St. Pierre, it's hard not to laugh at how Lucy shuts down Zelie with the unexpected retort, "If you were not a lady and I a gentleman, I should feel disposed to call you out [i.e., challenge you to a duel]." It's impossible not to grin when Lucy responds to Monsieur Paul's saying she deserves to be hanged by straight-facedly presenting him with the world's tiniest noose made out of embroidery thread. And her wit is irresistible when she complains that Paul's schoolroom is too hot by saying, "I know nothing of the natural history of salamanders. For my own part, sitting in an oven does not agree with me...." Even as she criticizes Ginevra for being a conniving flirt, Lucy acknowledges that she herself enjoys winding up Paul on purpose, and the dialogues that result can be outrageously amusing. Rereading this book for the umpteenth time, I can easily see how Paul, aided by his jealousy of John Bretton, comes to be fascinated by Lucy: she is funny, she has a talent for theater (although, once the school play is over, she suppresses it), she is crafty (she gifts him a bodacious handmade watch-chain on his fete day, whereas others merely give him flowers), and her impromptu essay on the theme of "Human Justice" gives a hint of the powerfully imaginative author she might have become under other circumstances (she is, after all, a stand-in for Charlotte Bronte). Conversely, I can see why, despite her clear-eyed awareness of his chauvinism and innumerable other flaws, Lucy falls for Paul: for one thing, his capacity for love is so great that he remains self-sacrificingly devoted to the memory of a dead woman for many years (in this, he might be seen as a clear antecedent of a professor character in the Harry Potter series). Also, he is the only person who sees the passionate side of Lucy's nature that she so arduously represses, and no experience is more rattling than being really, truly seen. Penetrative seeing, whether through a window or a spyglass, is the most repeated motif in this book, and at one point, Lucy says of Paul: "A veil would be no veil for him." When a character is described this way, it's inevitable that the protagonist is going to fall for him, like a rock.
Although Villette winks at the gothic tradition, it would be a mistake to pigeonhole it as a "gothic novel." It is not subservient to any literary genre: neither a bildungsroman like Jane Eyre, nor a "social novel" like Shirley, nor a "local color" novel (although it nods knowingly at the conventions of all these genres). It is an admixture of so many diverse tropes, including a number of my favorites (e.g., the trope where the protagonist is accused of not being a good-enough writer to have written the piece she purports to have written and must stand trial on charges of plagiarism, but is ultimately vindicated). I know some readers complain about Bronte's liberal sprinkling-in of French phrases, but on rereading, this stylistic choice makes sense to me: Lucy is proud of her skill at written French, which will always exceed her skill at spoken French, and in the end she cherishes French as the language of the man she has come to love. Overall, Villette's dialogues are spikily alive: the offhand remarks of even a minor character like crotchety old Mr. Home are more lifelike and funny to me than the more intentionally comic speeches of, say, Jane Austen's Mr. Woodhouse, the banter between John Bretton and his mother more delightfully natural-sounding than its counterpart in any other novel. Other comic novels' dialogue can read like listening to a cleverly staged comedy, but reading Villette's dialogues is like overhearing real flesh-and-blood people chatting ever so interestingly. I first read this book as an teen, and what I loved most about it then was its painfully realistic portrayal of how an unbeautiful woman with an imperfect soul falls in love: it's no smooth sail, especially when compared to the tamer romantic journey of Jane Eyre (a woman who, for all the privations she suffers, has a whole and healthy soul) or Elizabeth Bennet (a woman whose character flaws, such as they are, are superficial and not impossible to overcome). There is something so nourishing about seeing a hot mess of a character like Lucy Snowe centered the way this book centers her. After all these years, I still absolutely love it.
Although Villette winks at the gothic tradition, it would be a mistake to pigeonhole it as a "gothic novel." It is not subservient to any literary genre: neither a bildungsroman like Jane Eyre, nor a "social novel" like Shirley, nor a "local color" novel (although it nods knowingly at the conventions of all these genres). It is an admixture of so many diverse tropes, including a number of my favorites (e.g., the trope where the protagonist is accused of not being a good-enough writer to have written the piece she purports to have written and must stand trial on charges of plagiarism, but is ultimately vindicated). I know some readers complain about Bronte's liberal sprinkling-in of French phrases, but on rereading, this stylistic choice makes sense to me: Lucy is proud of her skill at written French, which will always exceed her skill at spoken French, and in the end she cherishes French as the language of the man she has come to love. Overall, Villette's dialogues are spikily alive: the offhand remarks of even a minor character like crotchety old Mr. Home are more lifelike and funny to me than the more intentionally comic speeches of, say, Jane Austen's Mr. Woodhouse, the banter between John Bretton and his mother more delightfully natural-sounding than its counterpart in any other novel. Other comic novels' dialogue can read like listening to a cleverly staged comedy, but reading Villette's dialogues is like overhearing real flesh-and-blood people chatting ever so interestingly. I first read this book as an teen, and what I loved most about it then was its painfully realistic portrayal of how an unbeautiful woman with an imperfect soul falls in love: it's no smooth sail, especially when compared to the tamer romantic journey of Jane Eyre (a woman who, for all the privations she suffers, has a whole and healthy soul) or Elizabeth Bennet (a woman whose character flaws, such as they are, are superficial and not impossible to overcome). There is something so nourishing about seeing a hot mess of a character like Lucy Snowe centered the way this book centers her. After all these years, I still absolutely love it.
reflective
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Content Warnings
Minor: Death
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated