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Villette (Signet Classics)
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Manufacturer: Signet Classics
Author: Charlotte Brontė
Publisher: Signet Classics
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $5.95
You Save: $ ( % )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
Author: Charlotte Brontė
Publisher: Signet Classics
Average Customer Rating:
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Villette (Signet Classics) Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780451529220
ISBN: 0451529227
Label: Signet Classics
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 496
Publication Date: 2004-02-03
Publisher: Signet Classics
Product Release Date: 2004-02-03
Studio: Signet Classics
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.8
EAN: 9780451529220
ISBN: 0451529227
Label: Signet Classics
Manufacturer: Signet Classics
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 496
Publication Date: 2004-02-03
Publisher: Signet Classics
Product Release Date: 2004-02-03
Studio: Signet Classics
Editorial Review of Villette (Signet Classics)
Brontė's romantic heroine Lucy Snowe, a penniless governess attempting to begin life anew in France, is an exceptional example of a great writer transforming her life into art.
Customer Reviews of Villette (Signet Classics)
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: French translations not included
Review: This is a very good story with compelling characters. However it is difficult to get the full effect of the story if you aren't familiar with French and your edition doesn't have translations provided in the footnotes.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: One of my favorite books - "a sense of real wonder" arises from the beauty, passion, tragedy, and joy of this haunting novel
Review: IMPRESSIONS:
I now completely understand George Eliot's statement about "Villette": "I am only just returned to a sense of real wonder about me, for I have been reading 'Villette' ... There is something preternatural about its power." I have just read this book for the first time and finished it a few days ago, yet I could not immediately write a review as I was still so submerged in the language, the story, and the characters, that I wanted to stay with them for a little while longer before I withdrew.
Virginia Woolf called "Villette" Brontė's finest novel, and though this is the first of hers that I have read, it was indeed a true masterpiece. The intricate character descriptions were vivid and priceless, gentle even in their thoroughness, which cannot but seem harsh at times. There was a quiet and restrained passion to this novel and to Lucy Snowe which I found powerful and compelling. Brontė's personifications were numerous - Death, Reason, Feeling, Hope, and her soul to name a few - and wonderfully imaginative and descriptive. Interesting to note were the comments and undertones disparaging Catholicism and the Catholic Church, and also the emphasis on the superiority of England, the English, and Englishwomen to their "continental" counterparts.
I must admit that though I was somewhat engaged at the beginning, I became subsequently less so. If this occurs with you also, please do not let it deter you, do not put the book away - I read the last 300 pages in one sitting. I found this novel very moving and in this last sitting experienced the range of human emotions - sorrow, as I despaired that Lucy would ever find happiness in her life; joy and anticipation for each interaction between M. Paul and Lucy (the scene in the evening when M. Paul sits at the table beside her and takes offense to her making room for him had me laughing out loud); surprise, despair, anger, and more - I do not want to give specifics on occurrences in the novel which I myself would not have wished to know before I read it.
At the beginning of her stay in Villette I found Lucy Snowe too placid and weak, but my opinion was reformed and though, as I said before, there is a quietness and restraint to her, there is also an underlying passion which is full and lively and which no one could possibly overlook. I loved Paul Emmanuel and even now, writing about him for this review, I cannot help but smile at my memory of him. He sees Lucy as others do not and I truly relished every clash - and increasing moments of accord - between them. Lucy says to herself on the subject of M. Paul: "You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in Life's sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray" (p. 371).
BOTTOM LINE:
READ THIS BOOK!! I borrowed it from the library and the day after finishing it I ordered a copy, as I already feel a need to reread it and immerse myself in Villette once more.
SUMMARY (from the Penguin Classics back cover):
"With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, a headmistress who spies on her staff, and her own complex feelings - first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a teacher in Brussels, Charlotte Brontė's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances."
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Compelling
Review: Villette was Charlotte Bronte's last novel, written after she'd achieved significant recognition for Jane Eyre (actually, both novels were written under the pseudonym Currer Bell, and it wasn't until after her death that her real identity was revealed). Villette is said to be her most autobiographical novel, and it does appear to be with the many parallels that can be drawn between her life and the fictional life of Villette's protagonist, Lucy Snowe.
It's not an eventful book per se. It's being told as a past memory, by a now very old Lucy, as she retells the story of her life, at least in pieces - working as a companion to an old woman, then as a teacher in a French school for girls, and the relationships she forms with two men in particular (this is an almost an exact mirror of a point Charlotte's life). It's not a happy book, but not a sad one, either. It's just....real, I guess. I finished it with a sense of sympathy for Lucy and a little sadness for Charlotte. You get a very stark impression of Charlotte through Lucy: dignified and maybe a little humorless, if only because she's very serious about her reputation (Lucy as a teacher/headmistress, Charlotte as a writer), and disappointed in love.
One passage really stood out to me. Lucy is having an internal debate, and it's the old one we all have at one point or another: what we dream of as possibilities and how 'reason' mocks us: "'But if I feel, may I never express?' 'Never!' declared Reason. I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never - never - oh, hard word! This hag, Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination."
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Unswallowable
Review: (*POSSIBLE spoiler alert, although I'm trying not to give away anymore than is necessary to explain what I didn't like about the book.)
I appreciate Victorian novels, among which Jane Eyre is one of my favorites. I am more than willing to make allowances for the conventions of Victorian novels, such as the plot turning on unreasonable coincidences. But Villette just has far too many coincidences to swallow. A poor, friendless English orphan crosses the Channel, and once on the other side she she meets any number of fellow Britons, every single one of whom she is closely related to in one way or another.
But worse, Charlotte Bronte is unfair to the reader in Villette -- she tells the reader that certain things are true, but which are completely implausible for any human being, and completely out of characters for the characters whom she has just sketched. I can't elaborate without giving away spoilers, but the loves, the hates, the jealousies, and the forgivenesses all ring false. This is just a trainwreck of a book, and can't hold a candle to Jane Eyre.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Beautiful use of description
Review: Villette has always been my favorite book. The use of language and description is superior to her other works. I wouldn't need to see a movie of this book, I already feel like I walked in the garden or sat in one of the classrooms. When I first read the ending, I actually loved it, and still do.
Review Summary: French translations not included
Review: This is a very good story with compelling characters. However it is difficult to get the full effect of the story if you aren't familiar with French and your edition doesn't have translations provided in the footnotes.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: One of my favorite books - "a sense of real wonder" arises from the beauty, passion, tragedy, and joy of this haunting novel
Review: IMPRESSIONS:
I now completely understand George Eliot's statement about "Villette": "I am only just returned to a sense of real wonder about me, for I have been reading 'Villette' ... There is something preternatural about its power." I have just read this book for the first time and finished it a few days ago, yet I could not immediately write a review as I was still so submerged in the language, the story, and the characters, that I wanted to stay with them for a little while longer before I withdrew.
Virginia Woolf called "Villette" Brontė's finest novel, and though this is the first of hers that I have read, it was indeed a true masterpiece. The intricate character descriptions were vivid and priceless, gentle even in their thoroughness, which cannot but seem harsh at times. There was a quiet and restrained passion to this novel and to Lucy Snowe which I found powerful and compelling. Brontė's personifications were numerous - Death, Reason, Feeling, Hope, and her soul to name a few - and wonderfully imaginative and descriptive. Interesting to note were the comments and undertones disparaging Catholicism and the Catholic Church, and also the emphasis on the superiority of England, the English, and Englishwomen to their "continental" counterparts.
I must admit that though I was somewhat engaged at the beginning, I became subsequently less so. If this occurs with you also, please do not let it deter you, do not put the book away - I read the last 300 pages in one sitting. I found this novel very moving and in this last sitting experienced the range of human emotions - sorrow, as I despaired that Lucy would ever find happiness in her life; joy and anticipation for each interaction between M. Paul and Lucy (the scene in the evening when M. Paul sits at the table beside her and takes offense to her making room for him had me laughing out loud); surprise, despair, anger, and more - I do not want to give specifics on occurrences in the novel which I myself would not have wished to know before I read it.
At the beginning of her stay in Villette I found Lucy Snowe too placid and weak, but my opinion was reformed and though, as I said before, there is a quietness and restraint to her, there is also an underlying passion which is full and lively and which no one could possibly overlook. I loved Paul Emmanuel and even now, writing about him for this review, I cannot help but smile at my memory of him. He sees Lucy as others do not and I truly relished every clash - and increasing moments of accord - between them. Lucy says to herself on the subject of M. Paul: "You are well habituated to be passed by as a shadow in Life's sunshine: it is a new thing to see one testily lifting his hand to screen his eyes, because you tease him with an obtrusive ray" (p. 371).
BOTTOM LINE:
READ THIS BOOK!! I borrowed it from the library and the day after finishing it I ordered a copy, as I already feel a need to reread it and immerse myself in Villette once more.
SUMMARY (from the Penguin Classics back cover):
"With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, a headmistress who spies on her staff, and her own complex feelings - first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a teacher in Brussels, Charlotte Brontė's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances."
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Compelling
Review: Villette was Charlotte Bronte's last novel, written after she'd achieved significant recognition for Jane Eyre (actually, both novels were written under the pseudonym Currer Bell, and it wasn't until after her death that her real identity was revealed). Villette is said to be her most autobiographical novel, and it does appear to be with the many parallels that can be drawn between her life and the fictional life of Villette's protagonist, Lucy Snowe.
It's not an eventful book per se. It's being told as a past memory, by a now very old Lucy, as she retells the story of her life, at least in pieces - working as a companion to an old woman, then as a teacher in a French school for girls, and the relationships she forms with two men in particular (this is an almost an exact mirror of a point Charlotte's life). It's not a happy book, but not a sad one, either. It's just....real, I guess. I finished it with a sense of sympathy for Lucy and a little sadness for Charlotte. You get a very stark impression of Charlotte through Lucy: dignified and maybe a little humorless, if only because she's very serious about her reputation (Lucy as a teacher/headmistress, Charlotte as a writer), and disappointed in love.
One passage really stood out to me. Lucy is having an internal debate, and it's the old one we all have at one point or another: what we dream of as possibilities and how 'reason' mocks us: "'But if I feel, may I never express?' 'Never!' declared Reason. I groaned under her bitter sternness. Never - never - oh, hard word! This hag, Reason, would not let me look up, or smile, or hope: she could not rest unless I were altogether crushed, cowed, broken-in, and broken-down. According to her, I was born only to work for a piece of bread, to await the pains of death, and steadily through all life to despond. Reason might be right; yet no wonder we are glad at times to defy her, to rush from under her rod and give a truant hour to Imagination."
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Unswallowable
Review: (*POSSIBLE spoiler alert, although I'm trying not to give away anymore than is necessary to explain what I didn't like about the book.)
I appreciate Victorian novels, among which Jane Eyre is one of my favorites. I am more than willing to make allowances for the conventions of Victorian novels, such as the plot turning on unreasonable coincidences. But Villette just has far too many coincidences to swallow. A poor, friendless English orphan crosses the Channel, and once on the other side she she meets any number of fellow Britons, every single one of whom she is closely related to in one way or another.
But worse, Charlotte Bronte is unfair to the reader in Villette -- she tells the reader that certain things are true, but which are completely implausible for any human being, and completely out of characters for the characters whom she has just sketched. I can't elaborate without giving away spoilers, but the loves, the hates, the jealousies, and the forgivenesses all ring false. This is just a trainwreck of a book, and can't hold a candle to Jane Eyre.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Beautiful use of description
Review: Villette has always been my favorite book. The use of language and description is superior to her other works. I wouldn't need to see a movie of this book, I already feel like I walked in the garden or sat in one of the classrooms. When I first read the ending, I actually loved it, and still do.