Villette (Penguin Clothbound Classics)
In time for the 200th anniversary of her birth, a Penguin Hardcover Classics edition of the book many believe to be Charlotte Brontë's crowning achievement 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, an initially suspicious headmaster, 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 governess in Brussels, Charlotte Brontë's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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Community Reviews
What a weird book. This was my first real experience of a classic, so I was really iffy at first - the language was tough to slog through at times and Lucy's fondness for rambling, almost stream-of-consciousness monologues made for difficult reading. Getting through a chapter in one sitting felt like an achievement. Once I became acclimatised to Brontë's writing though, I found interesting characters (no plot, but interesting characters nonetheless). I found analysing them entertaining, as most every interaction with Paul, Graham, and Madame Beck brought some new aspect of their character into sharp relief. Lucy herself was unlike any narrator I've read before - so cripplingly self-critical, so consistently hapless, so agonisingly at war with herself. Her mental state was intriguing to follow throughout the novel and to be honest I'm frustrated that she doesn't (seem to) get the happy ending she deserved.
However, I found this really difficult to read due to the dense word vomit that spills from Lucy's brain. The sometimes endless description and the aforementioned rambling turmoil of her mind made some chapters an absolute chore, and the book could stand to lose a solid hundred pages or so of this filler. The twists, while passably surprising, were at times somewhat unfair (read: Graham) and unbelievably coincidental. Graham, again? Okay... Polly, again? Right... The priest, again? Ehhhhhh... The two guys examining her being the two guys that frightened her when she first got to Villette? Now you're just taking the piss, Brontë. The plot in general wasn't up to much.
That being said, this was a fascinating character study and I think I'm going to enjoy delving deeper into it in lectures over the next few weeks. A pretty solid first classic novel overall.
However, I found this really difficult to read due to the dense word vomit that spills from Lucy's brain. The sometimes endless description and the aforementioned rambling turmoil of her mind made some chapters an absolute chore, and the book could stand to lose a solid hundred pages or so of this filler. The twists, while passably surprising, were at times somewhat unfair (read: Graham) and unbelievably coincidental. Graham, again? Okay... Polly, again? Right... The priest, again? Ehhhhhh... The two guys examining her being the two guys that frightened her when she first got to Villette? Now you're just taking the piss, Brontë. The plot in general wasn't up to much.
That being said, this was a fascinating character study and I think I'm going to enjoy delving deeper into it in lectures over the next few weeks. A pretty solid first classic novel overall.
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