Customer Reviews: Read 6 more reviews...
 Simply wonderful May 12, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Villette is a very accomplished book and a terrific novel whose heroin is as near perfect as any character will ever be.I do not mean by this that she is a perfect woman, far from it, but a very interesting one.Lucy Snowe, who is very nearly alone in the world, becomes a teacher in a Belgian boarding house.A very insignificant woman herself (physically speaking) she is a clever, passionate human being who finds it hard to accept that because she has no beauty , no money and no connections, society refuses to acknowledge her existence and thinks she should be content to grovel, discarded and forgotten. But Lucy has a soul, and what a big one it is; and an intellect, a very active intellect indeed and she will not submit. She knows she deserves love and kindness, a useful place in society, the right to communicate with her intellectual equals... and she is ready and determined to fight for it.Lucy's life is not a bed of roses and her struggles are more than arduous but so well worth reading.A timeless classic, a beautiful read, a treasure of a book... to be read times and times again...
Bronte's Best November 20, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is by far superior to Jane Eyre in every way, despite the fact that Jane Eyre is a brilliant book in its own right. This is better. The character of Lucy Snowe is more subtle, more mature and more emotionally complex than Jane, who remains curiously adolescent in her emotions throughout Jane Eyre. Lucy is tempered by the experiences her life has given her, she is shaped by forces stronger than herself, and the suffering that she endures makes her a real, three dimensional woman of passion and feeling.
The story centres around our heroine, Lucy Snowe, and her journey to Belgium to teach in a boarding school. She meets an older man, a teacher at the school and so one of the most complex and tragic love stories of nineteenth century literature begins to unfold.
In its own way, Villette is as shocking as Wuthering Heights. Bronte seems to take liberties with the text because she is writing about a foreign country, and often a foreign religion (Catholicism) which give her greater licence in her work.
As with Emily, the supernatural elements, the episode with Vashti, and the drug like hauntings that Lucy undergoes, are key to unlocking passion and exploiting a device in which raw emotion is allowed to the forefront of what would otherwise be uptight Victorian sensibilities.
This book is one of my enduring favourites and it is just a shame that it is so overlooked. A must read.
If you thought Jane Eyre was good... April 5, 2007
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
Then definitely read this!
I liked Jane Eyre very much, but it was Villette that really captured my imagination and heart. In my opinion (though I realise it is verging on this criminal to admit this) it is better than Jane Eyre - it certainly has more depth, the plot is far superior, and it's just... more enjoyable. I admit that JE has the irreplaceable Mr Rochester, but Villette has Mousieur Paul, a Rochesterian (?) character himself - idiosyncratic, harsh, domineering, austere, and yet simultaneously attractive. I preferrd him to Rochester as he, and his love for the protagonist Lucy Snowe, is more believable, and has more depth.
The only thing I would say is that unless your French is pretty good don't buy the Oxford edition - there is a lot of French dialogue, and OUP clearly didn't want to spend the money on paper and ink to translate it all - which I found extremely frustrating.
Overall - a fantastic book to curl up with and lose yourself in - it is one of my favourites!
 An important and effective exploration of emotion. February 11, 2007
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Villette is a fantasticly subtle exploration of human emotion.
The novel may seem slow to start, yet this careful pace and use
of backgrounding makes it difficult for the reader not to become
immersed in the relationships and consequent suppressed feelings of the
protagonist, Lucy Snowe. Villette can be enjoyed on various levels, it is,
at the very least, an exciting tale of relationships and un-fulfilled love.
On closer inspection the novel draws the reader into an exploration of character values and
a complex set of suppressed emotions, set in a vividly depicted and highly effective context.
An important read that also entertains. Highly reccomended.
 Worthy but dull October 28, 2006
1 out of 4 found this review helpful
Part of the attraction of this book for me is that Villette is Brussels, where I work, and the small largely Francophone kingdom of Labassecour (which still retains its impenetrable aboriginal dialect) is Belgium, where I live. There's not a lot of English-language fiction set in my adopted homeland. The only other bit that leaps to mind is the couple of glimpses in Heart of Darkness. So it was interesting to read the book and try and match description to location.
Having said all that, unfortunately Villette is not a very strong example of the sisters' genius. There are too many unlikely coincidences, and I was very uncomfortable with the way in which the narrator reacts to being emotionally abused by one of her acquaintances by falling in love with him. It was not at all clear to me why she did not end up with the nice doctor chap.
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