Villette

4.5 stars. I loved this much more then Jane Eyre, it was atmospheric, moody and beautiful written. Sad that it's not as popular, it's really worth a read!

This is not a perfect book: it is often slow and largely plotless, which are not insignificant criticisms. However, those are easily outweighed by the brilliance of Brontë's characterization of Lucy in this a moving, often heartbreaking portrait of an independent, principled, opinionated, lonely and sometimes harsh woman trying to find happiness and a place in life.

The most upvoted review of

Villette on Goodreads currently begins:

"Lucy Snowe hates you.", and I could not disagree more. Of course she's bitter towards life, and that bleeds through, but she is honest and open and unchecked with the reader, and those are not the attitudes that characterize hatred. Even in the end, she is protective of the reader,

leaving those who chose the option of hope

.

Perhaps, though,

Villette is ultimately unable to make readers empathize with Lucy if they don't already see part of themselves in her: in her anxiety, in her fear of emotional intimacy (and even greater fear of heartbreak), in how those qualities manifest into standoffishness and solitude. To those readers, perhaps they can only see that standoffishness and assume it is aimed at them as a weapon, rather than merely being part of the defensive walls that Lucy has spent her life building and spent her novel trying to make readers understand.

Favorite quotes:

These feelings, however, were well kept in check by the secret but ceaseless consciousness of anxiety lying in wait on enjoyment, like a tiger crouched in a jungle. The breathing of that beast of prey was in my ear always; his fierce heart panted close against mine; he never stirred in his lair but I felt him: I knew he waited only for sun-down to bound ravenous from his ambush.

I had feelings: passive as I lived, little as I spoke, cold as I looked, when I thought of past days, I could feel.

Loverless and inexpectant of love, I was as safe from spies in my heart-poverty, as the beggar from thieves in his destitution of purse.

The lamp above was lit; it rained a November drizzle, as it had rained all day: the lamplight gleamed on the wet pavement.

swallowing tears as if they had been wine

‘I shall share no man’s or woman’s life in this world, as you understand sharing. I think I have one friend of my own, but am not sure; and till I am sure, I live solitary.’ ‘But solitude is sadness.’ ‘Yes; it is sadness. Life, however, has worse than that. Deeper than melancholy, lies heartbreak.’

That night passed: all nights—even the starless night before dissolution—must wear away.

There seems, to my memory, an entire darkness and distraction in some certain minutes I then passed alone—a grief inexpressible over a loss unendurable. What should I do; oh! what should I do; when all my life’s hope was thus torn by the roots out of my riven, outraged heart?

But what bodily illness was ever like this pain?

I was full of faults; he took them and me all home.

‘Lucy, take my love. One day share my life. Be my dearest, first on earth.’

M. Emanuel was away three years. Reader, they were the three happiest years of my life. Do you scout the paradox? Listen.

That storm roared frenzied for seven days. It did not cease till the Atlantic was strewn with wrecks: it did not lull till the deeps had gorged their full sustenance. Not till the destroying angel of tempest had achieved his perfect work, would he fold the wings whose waft was thunder—the tremor of whose plumes was storm.

Here pause: pause at once. There is enough said. Trouble no quiet, kind heart; leave sunny imaginations hope. Let it be theirs to conceive the delight of joy born again fresh out of great terror, the rapture of rescue from peril, the wondrous reprieve from dread, the fruition of return. Let them picture union and a happy succeeding life.