Grab the Lapels

Villette by Charlotte Bronte

Semi-autobiographical, Villette is one of those lengthy novels about men and women brushing against each other in society, leaving us wondering who will marry whom, and why. Yes, it is full of descriptions about willowy, lily-white necks and brusque men whom we should be convinced are loveable underneath it all, but Charlotte Bronte is also a master of humor. Her female characters can be just as curt as her men, and I found strength in that portrayal of women at a time when being seventeen and beautiful (air-headed never hurt) was the height of desirability.

The novel opens with Lucy Snowe, age fourteen, living with her godmother. We meet a small cast of characters and shortly thereafter, Lucy, telling her tale from far in the future, reveals some calamity happened and she became without family. She tried to make a living but randomly ended up in a village in France called Villette — despite not speaking French and having only one connection, a teen girl who, on the boat to France, basically said, “Hey, you should come to my boarding school, the lady who runs it always needs a nanny for her kids.”

Lucy made quick work of learning French and soon became the English teacher because her credentials were “From England.” She fell in love the village doctor, and we’re all biting our nails to see what happened because he seems smitten with the French boat girl. I’m always sad when I read a story in which a man of almost thirty gets the hots for a a teenager. Perhaps it is my 21st-century sensibility, but have you met a teenager? This one is just as much of a selfish dink as the ones you meet today. The fact that Lucy recognizes a narcissistic teen when she sees one is what made me love her. French boat girl came tromping into Lucy’s room:

“What in the world is the matter?” I dryly said.
“How do I look — how do I look tonight?” she demanded.
“As usual,” said I, “preposterously vain.”

Thus, Bronte’s novel has a modern, relatable feel. She’s not just picking on teenage girls, though. At one point, Lucy left the boarding school to visit the doctor and his mother, and here the mother entered into an indignant state, much like my own mom (hi, Biscuit!):

“See, Dr. John, your mother wakes. You ought to ring for tea.” [said Lucy]

Which he did. And as [his mother] sat up, astonished and indignant at herself for the indulgence to which she had succumbed, and fully prepared to deny that she had slept at all, her son came gaily to the attack–

“Hushaby, mamma! Sleep again. You look the picture of innocence in your slumbers.”

“My slumbers, John Graham! What are you talking about? You know I never do sleep by day. It was the slightest doze possible.”

However, Lucy is not a mean narrator, given to picking on others and leaving herself the perfect angel. At one point, she became so lonely that her mental faculties diminished, leaving her a bit “raving mad,” though how this would happen, I do not know. Don’t most people just cry out their loneliness, or get on Tinder? Instead, Lucy wound up in a Catholic church, which is weird because she is staunchly Protestant, and she’ll argue that point, too (she actually writes, “Did I, do you suppose, reader, contemplate venturing again within that worthy priest’s reach? As soon should I have thought of walking into a Babylonish furnace.” [emphasis mine]). The priest felt for Lucy and took her to the town doctor (her crush!) and deposited her there. Lucy asks about the condition in which the doctor found her. The doctor cleared it up:

“[The priest] communicated a curious account — that you had been to him that evening at confessional; that your exhausted and suffering appearance, coupled with some things you had said –“

“Things I had said? I wonder what things!”

“Awful crimes, no doubt . . .”

Lucy leads readers carefully through her story, intentionally creating tension and mystery. In fact, she asks us focus on what she has said, a trick that I enjoyed and made me feel as though I were sitting there, talking to Lucy, about her life. She asks, “Does the reader, remembering what was said some pages back, care to ask how I answered these letters — weather under the dry, stinting cheek of Reason, or according to the full, liberal impulse of Feeling?” And I was curious! Bronte cleverly uses her narrator to make the story less boy-meets-girl and more an exercise in storytelling. Lucy is called an unreliable narrator on various websites, but I think she is a craftsman.

The ending, I’m sure, will leave some frustrated, as it does two things at once, but after you’ve read hundreds of pages, does it really matter? The journey is over, and you can leave Lucy Snowe in your imagination however you like her.

36 comments

  1. What a great review Melanie! I haven’t read Villette for ages, now I’m really keen to read it again. I love the points you make about teenagers. I think lots of readers of older works overlook just how teenagerish some young heroines are. Especially Sense and Sensibility.

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  3. Enjoyed reading this. I’ve not read Villette, but you have me greatly interested! Also, “happiness is not a potato” made me laugh because I really like potatoes and sometimes happiness is indeed a potato 😀

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  4. You’ve definitely made me want to read this again! I found Lucy to be such a brilliant, layered character. Last time I read it was before I started teaching, so I would be interested to see what I make of it now!

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    • Little focuses on her classroom demeanor, except the first day when she scares the students and drags one out of a secret cupboard where she was avoiding her lesson. I do think she’s one of the best Victorian women I’ve read, so I think you should give it another go.

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    • I wonder why C. Bronte left out what exactly happened to Lucy’s family, though. It’s really a Seinfeld sort of leap through time: Lucy left her godmother’s house, yadda, yadda, yadda, she was caring for an invalid who died during a storm.

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  7. One of my absolute favourite classic novels, definitely my favourite Bronte. Lucy Snowe is a masterpiece. I very much agree with your comment about the modernity of the narration.

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    • It makes me wonder if C. Bronte was just a more honest writer who captured Lucy as women are and always have been, or if I’m reading into it too much. There were moments when Paulina’s neck was described as so delicate, like she wasn’t even human, and then we’d get back to brooding Lucy and her crushes and her denials, etc., and I found her realistic.

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  9. ‘less boy-meets-girl and more an exercise in storytelling’- sounds perfect to me! If the writing is engrossing and the characters are well-developed, sign me up. Some classics I feel like I *should* read even if they’re a bit of a chore, just to understand the references, but this is one I think I’ll genuinely enjoy. Definitely need to pick this one up. Great review!

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    • Some of the classic novels drive me bananas because they have basically five novels crammed into one ginormous novel. Vanity Fair is a good example. So is Middlemarch. Dickens is pretty good about not doing that, though he may have a side chapter that is totally relevant to his contemporary time and seems to add little to the plot that I’m reading in the 21st century.

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      • I think that’s because some of those ginormous classics were initially released serially. I recently came across something about Vanity Fair specifically, stating that the author had claimed he didn’t even want the book to be so long but was getting paid for all the individual releases so did what he had to with the story to make it work. Can’t blame a writer getting paid for their craft, but I’d much rather read a book how it was originally intended than how it ended up being printed for a marketing scheme, personally!

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          • Stephen King did something similar with The Stand, originally cut down in editing but reprinted later at over 1k pages once it had that “cult classic” status… but both Gaiman and King have that hugely loyal fanbase excited to read a little extra from their faves just for fun, while classics seem like a totally different situation with no call for any extra padding lol! There’s definitely something to be said for any writer who can say the most with the fewest words.

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            • Although he’s not as big as Gaiman or King, I think Stephen Graham Jones would benefit from a more forceful editor. He has the most amazing ideas and set up, and then the book just goes off the rails and becomes incomprehensible. I know some people just love his work, but that moment when I swear an editor could have kept this thing on track always bums me out.

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  11. As someone who has never read the Bronte sisters, where would you recommend that I start? I always have the intentions of picking up classics but with some authors, I just don’t know where to begin so I don’t. 🙂

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  12. Now I was sure I had read (but not enjoyed Villette) but your review has me wondering if I dreamt that because I don’t recognise any of it. The one I read (I thought) was partly set in Brussels and had a very boring older man with whom our leading lady forms a close attachment.

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