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onetrooluff 's review for:
Villette
by Charlotte Brontë
Having read Jane Eyre, I was really looking forward to this book. It really kind of bowled me over in several ways, both bad and good:
- the prose. My goodness, it was so wordy that sometimes it felt like I was reading a passage in my head and then translating it to think about what she actually said. This got exhausting after a while and is probably the biggest reason it took me more than a year to finish.
- the emotion. This book was extremely painful to read, because Bronte very successfully conveyed her protagonist's pain of loneliness and depression and even the pain of hope - how painful it can be to hold on to hope for something good if it's not forthcoming.
- Madame Beck and Pere Silas. Ohhh, I wanted to throttle that woman - jump right in the book and punch her in the face. Pere Silas, I'm sure, thought he was doing right according to his creed, but he is a strong representation of Bronte's dislike of Catholicism. I did find it interesting how she chose to put M. Paul Emanuel in the middle of that - raised as a staunch Catholic but able to accept Lucy for herself and see that Protestantism was the best path for her.
- M. Paul himself. Man, he was really awful to Lucy. For most of the book I failed to feel the romance here but by the end he began to redeem himself with his actions. The whole scene in the art gallery, where he is not allowing Lucy to look at any paintings other than those of domestic scenes, cracked me up even though he was being a jerk through it.
I can't say that I loved this book because it was so emotionally painful (including the end I know she meant for it despite her allowance for the reader to imagine their own ending) and I will continue to live in my own little happy-land regarding the fates of Lucy and M. Paul. I can, however, greatly respect the emotional depth Bronte conveyed and be horrified to think how closely those aspects probably mirrored her own experiences.
- the prose. My goodness, it was so wordy that sometimes it felt like I was reading a passage in my head and then translating it to think about what she actually said. This got exhausting after a while and is probably the biggest reason it took me more than a year to finish.
- the emotion. This book was extremely painful to read, because Bronte very successfully conveyed her protagonist's pain of loneliness and depression and even the pain of hope - how painful it can be to hold on to hope for something good if it's not forthcoming.
- Madame Beck and Pere Silas. Ohhh, I wanted to throttle that woman - jump right in the book and punch her in the face. Pere Silas, I'm sure, thought he was doing right according to his creed, but he is a strong representation of Bronte's dislike of Catholicism. I did find it interesting how she chose to put M. Paul Emanuel in the middle of that - raised as a staunch Catholic but able to accept Lucy for herself and see that Protestantism was the best path for her.
- M. Paul himself. Man, he was really awful to Lucy. For most of the book I failed to feel the romance here but by the end he began to redeem himself with his actions. The whole scene in the art gallery, where he is not allowing Lucy to look at any paintings other than those of domestic scenes, cracked me up even though he was being a jerk through it.
I can't say that I loved this book because it was so emotionally painful (including the end I know she meant for it despite her allowance for the reader to imagine their own ending) and I will continue to live in my own little happy-land regarding the fates of Lucy and M. Paul. I can, however, greatly respect the emotional depth Bronte conveyed and be horrified to think how closely those aspects probably mirrored her own experiences.