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squid_vicious 's review for:
Villette
by Charlotte Brontë
”Happiness is not a potato”. No, indeed, Charlotte, it isn’t. One has to work at it a little.
I wondered, when I picked up “Villette”, if I would love it as much as I love “Jane Eyre” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/226427208). It has, after all, quite a reputation as a more accomplished novel and while I can see the reasons behind that, my heart will forever belong to Jane. But I must say that as heroines go, Miss Bronte threw me a bit of a curve ball with Lucy Snowe. In many ways, Lucy is more realistic than Jane: she is a lot more human and much less romantic, but she is also much more layered and complicated.
Not that she is always pleasant, our Lucy: her story is one of disappointed hopes and abandonment issues. The people she cared for almost universally let her down, to the point where she simply has to assume no one cares. Every time she has let her guard down, she has regretted it bitterly. She is not traditionally attractive, has no fortune or prospects, is independent and proud… but pretty much left to fend for herself because she is surrounded by idiots. This is not an enviable position in that day and age, when having the effervescence of a Lizzie Bennett did more for you than having brains and a love of hard work. But there is a resilience to Lucy that commands respect: she puts one foot in front of the other, and she is genuinely happy when those she care for thrive.
With no relations or money, Lucy packs her bag and leaves jolly old England for Villette (a thinly disguised Brussells), where she manages to get a job as an English teacher in an girls' school. Over a period of about a year, she will fall in love twice, be reunited with old relations and make unlikely friends. But mostly, she'll learn that she can't really let life be something that happens to her.
I certainly related to Lucy more than I ever related to Jane, but she often rubbed me the wrong way. She doesn’t make things easy for herself, both out of a exaggerated sense of honesty, but also because she doesn’t seem to be bothered. Sometimes, I wanted to yell at her to just make a freaking effort already, but no, Miss Snowe is too smart to lower herself to play social games. Sigh!
Bronte's prose is always fantastic, and if you are a fan of Jane looking for something similar, while the story is completely different, the writing is just as rich, the emotions just as strong and the characters just as unique.
I wondered, when I picked up “Villette”, if I would love it as much as I love “Jane Eyre” (https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/226427208). It has, after all, quite a reputation as a more accomplished novel and while I can see the reasons behind that, my heart will forever belong to Jane. But I must say that as heroines go, Miss Bronte threw me a bit of a curve ball with Lucy Snowe. In many ways, Lucy is more realistic than Jane: she is a lot more human and much less romantic, but she is also much more layered and complicated.
Not that she is always pleasant, our Lucy: her story is one of disappointed hopes and abandonment issues. The people she cared for almost universally let her down, to the point where she simply has to assume no one cares. Every time she has let her guard down, she has regretted it bitterly. She is not traditionally attractive, has no fortune or prospects, is independent and proud… but pretty much left to fend for herself because she is surrounded by idiots. This is not an enviable position in that day and age, when having the effervescence of a Lizzie Bennett did more for you than having brains and a love of hard work. But there is a resilience to Lucy that commands respect: she puts one foot in front of the other, and she is genuinely happy when those she care for thrive.
With no relations or money, Lucy packs her bag and leaves jolly old England for Villette (a thinly disguised Brussells), where she manages to get a job as an English teacher in an girls' school. Over a period of about a year, she will fall in love twice, be reunited with old relations and make unlikely friends. But mostly, she'll learn that she can't really let life be something that happens to her.
I certainly related to Lucy more than I ever related to Jane, but she often rubbed me the wrong way. She doesn’t make things easy for herself, both out of a exaggerated sense of honesty, but also because she doesn’t seem to be bothered. Sometimes, I wanted to yell at her to just make a freaking effort already, but no, Miss Snowe is too smart to lower herself to play social games. Sigh!
Bronte's prose is always fantastic, and if you are a fan of Jane looking for something similar, while the story is completely different, the writing is just as rich, the emotions just as strong and the characters just as unique.