Brief Summary: Lucy Snowe is a governess turned school teacher in this semi-gothic tale. As events take Lucy from her childhood home to France she must navigate classism and societal expectations.

Thoughts: This is my third Bronte book and one thing that the sisters do exceptionally well is vividly describing the life of middle-class women in the mid-nineteenth century. 

While the story was captivating in that you wondered what misfortune was likely to occur to Lucy next, it was a bit difficult to follow all of the characters in the plot. Not least because Dr. Bretton has two different names at one point in the book and Pauline goes by her nickname and given name. 

Also, it feels like Bronte was trying to have an enemies-to-lovers storyline with Lucy and M. Emmanuel, but I was nearly finished with the book before I realized that. For much of the book M. Emmanuel seemed like a 70-year-old man, perhaps a priest, who truly didn't like Lucy at all. Also, the ending of this subplot was both ambiguous and depressing. 

I'm also not entirely sure why there was such a strong Catholic subplot throughout the book. I understand that in England, where Bronte was writing there was both a strong anti-Catholic and anti-French sentiment, but overall it seemed unnecessary to the overall plot of the book. 
 
If you like to read about characters experiencing real issues both mentally and interpersonally you may enjoy this book, but I do think it is an acquired taste.   

The two main characters badly needed therapy.

Lucy especially tended to self-sabatoge, which drove me nuts.

I feel guilty rating this worse, but can't bring myself to rate it better so I'll settle for 3.75. The writing was lovely, the story a struggle to finish. This would be a terrible introduction to classic literature for someone who hasn't veered into that murky genre. In general classic lit can be challenging just because the way the world has changed both good and bad can make objectivity difficult. 
Some challenges with this book:
-French if you don't speak it then there will be a struggle because whole conversations will be confusing.
-Classism
-Sexism (a woman's place or behavior is discussed many times, and apparently pink is the color of degeneracy)
-Catholicism vs Protestantism 
-Ages of couples (I understand this was a different time, doesn't make grown men with careers sneaking into a school to visit teenaged girls any more comfortable. Even the more acceptable Twenty-three year old with a forty something still didn't sit right in how it came about.)

Side note: I am not particularly fond of 1st person narrative which didn't help. Lucy Snowe is an unreliable narrator who is struggling mentally and physically, and will address the reader through out the story. Though  I thoroughly enjoyed the moments when she spoke her mind and stood for herself, it never lasts. I also wish my book came with translations for all the French parts because I'd probably understand this book so much better and have enjoyed it more. Sadly the bits I did  somewhat understand from my meager skills seemed less than flattering to the characters. But it seems like this books is filled with a quite a few terrible people so maybe my understanding was better than I thought.

I finished this feeling like I went on an incredibly long journey without a proper destination, and am a bit lost upon completion.  What did I just read? Why are any of the couples together? How did anyone tolerate the head of that school? Also why was that ending so vague? 

Yet again Charlotte Bronte delivers a wonderful leading lady surrounded by (and impacted by) horrible people... Horrible people who are supposed to be liked, I assume.... But I just can't. 

It's complicated. Much like in Jane Eyre, I'm quite fond of Lucy. That said, I find almost everyone else unbearable. (There are a couple redeemable characters & several grey characters I find amusing at best, but that's it). 

There's so much French I struggled to read & understand parts and my focus was constantly breaking. I love a good classic but my ADHD had a difficult time with this one. Not only did the French muddle me a bit, I found the pacing was hard to follow at times. Some parts of the book were so slow, others confusing (it took me half the book to figure out a certain character was not two different monsieurs but one and the same, just addressed at times by first name and others by last). Not to mention some scenes made me quite angry... We can expect some of that in certain old books, but I felt Villette had so many more instances that disturbed me and made it hard to continue. (Emotional and verbal abuse was a big one; prejudices a second).  

Lucy is so dry and sassy I found her amusing and fun to read. And yet the toxicity of everyone else in her life stunts what *could* be her story. She is praised for her sense but then makes choices that really don't make sense and instead reflect the impact of unfortunate gaslighting and manipulation from those around her. It's painful to read and depressing to wade through such abuse the whole story without it ever being addressed.

I couldn't finish, so I skimmed the last little bit and did some research on the book instead. Maybe I'll return to it someday to finish the more in depth look but for now I could only stomach a quick read through towards the end. 

Reader, eight weeks and 425 pages later, I DNF'd this baby. I just could not read one more page. Villette is just a sad and depressing book. Lucy Snowe lacks Jane Eyre's fire in the belly. It wasn't until page 200 that I understood that Lucy was a deeply lonely person who most probably suffered from depression. Unfortunately, by then it was too late. The Lucy Snow that I had gotten to know was judgmental AF, anti-Catholic, and xenophobic. We get it Charlotte, you hate the French. You showed us in JE that you don't care for the French but boy did your colors really fly in this novel. The quality of the writing in the novel was head and shoulders above Shirley, but unlike Shirley, I just could not care what happened to any of the characters. I did what I never do, I looked up a summary of the novel with spoilers because I just had to get to the point and know what happened. Then I promptly proceeded to throw the book at the wall and yell "Charlotte Bronte, Are you effin' kidding me?!!!" The end.

Review of Villette

By Charlotte Bronte

            This was Charlotte’s last book writing it when she had loss two of her siblings and she was in bad place. One of Lucy’s love interests was based on a romantic relationship she had.  Lucy Snowe lost her parents and siblings when she was a girl and had to live with her Godmother, Mrs. Bretton.  As a young woman she moves to the town of Villette in France and gets a job as teacher for Madame Beck’s school for girls. She strives for independence and finds herself developing feelings for two very different men.

            The bookends to Charlotte’s career, Jane Eyre and Villette, are very different from each other.  Jane is kind and nurturing while Lucy is blunt and opinionated, but both are lonely desiring companionship.  Unfortunately, Lucy’s loneliness is taken one step further.  She experiences depression and struggles with anxiety.  She is reunited with her Godmother Mrs. Bretton, and realizes Dr. John is her son, and forms a friendship with them.  Dr. John takes care of her when he finds her passed out lying in the streets and restoring her health, he promises to write to her.  When his correspondence is put on hold for 7 weeks, she panics and fears something has happened to one of them. Her most interesting relationship for me was the complicated one she has with M. Paul.  He is the literature professor and a passionate Catholic.  He tries to convert her as she is Protestant.  He is arrogant and condescending, lecturing constantly, but at times she shows affection towards Lucy that is kind and less controlling.  They challenge each other constantly and slowly develop feelings for each other.  He comes off as a mixture Rochester and St. John.  Her relationship is far less complicated.  It is sweet and you know how Dr. John feels about Lucy.  Lucy other two relationship are with cousins Ginerva and Paulina.  Paulina is kind and respectful towards Lucy and sees her as true friend, someone to look up to.  Ginerva takes Lucy for granted and belittles her, but Lucy isn’t afraid to speak her mind on what she things of Ginerva.  She is rival in her affections for Dr. John, who falls for Ginerva, and doesn’t understand his rose-colored view of her.  Ginerva is spoiled and assumes that Lucy would be the many people jealous of her, but Lucy is content with her life.  She doesn’t care about Ginerva unless she is hurting Dr. John.  Being my first time reading this the novel read slow and I didn’t know where things would go with Lucy’s story.  Her personality makes her unlikable in the sense she isn’t as nice as Jane, but makes her interesting and compelling to her about.   She is full of delight snark, but her opinionated nature can be frustrating.  She feels alone despite being surrounded by people.  They don’t always understand her and there is divide between herself and them.  My favorite scenes are when Dr. John takes her first to the opera and then the theater.  The two scenes are funny and serious too.  They highlight the blooming friendship of the pair.  Minor complaint is that there is quite a bit of dialogue written in French, so if you haven’t studied the language you need to make sure your copy has notes that are translations of the French.

This novel was a true character study and an internal reflection on unrequited love. The narrator, Lucy Snowe, struggles with her self-image and seems to be an observer of her own life. Melancholy and reflective, she watches others around her live their lives in selfish, spontaneous, secretive, fantastic ways, while she leads a solitary, introspective life. In this quiet manner, she longs for those out of her reach or those whose attention is captured by another. In this way, she lives, loves, and loses in solitude.

There is a wide range of characters in this novel, such as the dashing Dr. John, the fairy-like Paulina, the giddy Ginevra, and the brooding M. Paul. However, these descriptions come from Lucy's point of view. The first person narration allows for much internal reflection, but also allows for unreliable narration from Lucy. She tends to omit details or revelations until later in the novel, which would have made characters or events seen differently by the reader. For example,

M. Paul is painted in an almost bipolar and abusive light at the beginning of the novel, with his brooding and yelling at students and Lucy herself. However, the reader learns later that he has an affinity for gardening and takes care of a small spaniel that follows him around the grounds. If Lucy would have divulged these details earlier, M. Paul might have been more likeable and a much more sympathetic character.

 

What surprised me most about this novel was how little I liked Lucy. Usually the reader is meant to like or at least relate to the narrator, but not in Villette. Lucy is unreliable and so melancholy that often I was frustrated with her moods or lack of decisions. After a while, though, I came to appreciate that move by Charlotte Bronte. By creating an unlikeable narrator, the reader is distanced from the novel and takes Lucy's place as an outside observer. Instead of relating to Lucy and being put in her shoes that way, the reader is made to feel like she feels, looking at others' actions in an objective way, unable to give any input.

The pace of this book is fairly slow, but it does make you feel. The last five chapters were really a roller coaster of emotions. This isn't a happy book. It's about the pain of feeling like an outsider, and the pain of someone you love not loving you back. It took me a while to get through, but it is definitely worth the read if you're in the mood for something a little painful, but that makes you appreciate the value of life.