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    Villette
    Villette
    Villette
    Audiobook22 hours

    Villette

    Written by Charlotte Bronte

    Narrated by Davina Porter

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Hailed as Charlotte BrontE' s " finest novel" by Virginia Woolf, Villette is the timeless semi-autobiographical tale of Lucy Snowe. Left with no family and no money, Lucy goes against her own timid nature and travels to the small city of Villette, France, where she becomes a school teacher in Madame Beck' s school for girls. During her stay, she falls in love-- twice-- and discovers an independent, inner strength rarely seen in women of her time.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 27, 2011
    ISBN9781461809548
    Author

    Charlotte Bronte

    Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) was an English novelist and poet, the eldest of the three Brontë sister authors. Her novels are considered masterpieces of English literature – the most famous of which is Jane Eyre.

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    Reviews for Villette

    4/5

    1,618 ratings68 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I finally read Villette by Charlotte Bronte, and there was so much to love about it.There were so many sections I tabbed and quotes I loved. It’s an understated type of love though...with low currents and no euphoria!lolI still don’t see how this book has not been made into a proper movie or reproduction (there’s a 70s one if I remember correctly, but haven’t been able to find it), considering it even has gothic elements that could be explored. Jane Eyre will always have a place in my read shelves, but I’m very happy to finally add Lucy Snowe.Just four quotes to remember Lucy by:“While I loved, and while I was loved, what an existence I enjoyed! What a glorious year I can recall – how bright it comes back to me!...if few women have suffered as I did in his loss, few have enjoyed what I did in his love. It was a far better kind of love than common; I had no doubts about it or him: it was such a love as honored protected, and elevated, no less than it gladdened her to whom it was give.”“No mockery in this world ever sounds to me so hollow as that of being told to cultivate happiness. What does such advice mean? Happiness is not a potato, to be planted in mould, and tilled with manure. Happiness is a glory shining far down upon us out of Heaven. She is a divine dew which the soul, on certain of its summer mornings, feels dropping upon it from the amaranth bloom and golden fruitage of Paradise.”“But solitude is sadness” “Yes; it is sadness. Life, however, has worse than that. Deeper than melancholy lies heart-break.”“The negation of severe suffering was the nearest approach to happiness I expected to know. Besides, I seemed to hold two lives - the life of thought, and that of reality.”
    • 5/5
      Lucy Snowe is such a fascinating character. Brontë's ability to add so many layers to her narration is what makes the book. The withholding of self, of feelings, the tricks we play on ourselves to endure suffering -- the contrast of her with the other female characters -- the humor -- the intrigue ... The end still got me.
    • 2/5
      I put off reading this book for a long time, because I feared that no other Charlotte Bronte work could match my love for Jane Eyre -- and I was right. I really struggled through this. I read an interesting critical essay in the introduction that spelled out some reasons why I should like it, but the novel simply did not grab me. So next summer I'll try another, maybe Shirley or The Professor.
    • 5/5
      Well this is a weird one. Very interesting to read, for sure, but a profoundly strange book, and as powerful a fictional adaptation of loneliness as I can remember reading.
    • 3/5
      I found it a rather slow read. Parts were in untranslated French, which I couldn't understand. Other than going off to Vilette Lucy was very passive. She just watched what was going on around her. Because she held so much back it was hard to care about her. Her romance with M. Paul seemed jarring. Suddenly once he is leaving she loves him. Up till than it didn't seem like she even really liked him and he wasn't very likeable.
    • 5/5
      I can't express how wonderful this book is. Villette shows great insight into human nature, and the narrator's perspective of other characters was fascinating.
    • 4/5
      A very enjoyable read - though it is a bit of a 'typical' Charlotte Brontë it also held some surprises.Lucy, a young woman with no family who can take care of her, travels abroad and finds a position as English teacher at a girls' school. Though her situation is difficult at first, she encounters some old friends and begins to find her place in Villette, with old friends and new friends helping her through her troubles.The novel is in some ways typical, a story of a female teacher and her hardships, with some obligatory gothic elements and female hysteria, but at the same time Brontë gives the novel an original twist.The book focuses very much on the interpersonal relations in the school, where the headmistress spies on her pupils and employees, and where there are intrigues going on that influence Lucy's position and future. Brontë weaves an intricate web of relationships, in which new acquaintances of Lucy turn out to be intimately connected to old acquaintances. In the midst of the intrigues and manipulations at the school, Lucy has to find her way to stay true to herself, whilst simultaneously maintaining her position in the school. Apart from this, Brontë plays with the narration, turning Lucy at times into an unreliable narrator, giving an extra dimension to the novel.Definitely more rich than I had expected, and a novel I'd like to re-read in the future.
    • 3/5
      Interesting to read the author's semi-autobiographical novel. The main character, Lucy Snowe, was such a contrast with Jane Eyre, her more famous literary "sister"; the latter was more straightforward and open. Lucy was closed-in, emotionally stunted, and self-critical, introverted. In the days where women were appendages of their fathers and husbands, Lucy made her own way herself and a life for herself as a schoolteacher in the town of Villette [i.e., Brussels]. The story follows her life at Mme. Beck's school, where she teaches English, and follows her relationships with others and several romances. The novel tries to be a gothic, with the appearance of a spectral nun, who had connection with Mme. Beck's. The book is uneven; some parts drag and others fly by.
    • 4/5
      A few thoughts:- Villette didn’t capture my imagination as either [Shirley] or [Jane Eyre].- I never really warmed up to the heroine Lucy Snowe (no pun intended) - she fascinated me, but not enough.- Liked the gothic elements which created an eerie feeling throughout the novel - the appearence of a ghost - a white nun….- Liked also the descriptions of Lucy’s loneliness and despair and her deliberate attempts to be an independent free spirit.
    • 4/5
      Davina Porter does a fabulous narration of this classic. Persevere past the first few chapters as the story picks up after the first section of her somewhat priggish youth.
    • 3/5
      I was surprised that I liked this one.
    • 4/5
      I am not able to finish this book at this time and hope to get back to it in the fall.I read half and did enjoy the story and the writing...so far. I plan to go back.
    • 5/5
      Jane Eyre will forever surpass all Bronte novels, in my mind. But this, this, is a beautiful novel.
    • 4/5
      It was slow for a good majority of the book, but I sped through the last few chapters. I encourage those that take this on to consider the times this is written in and how singular Lucy is to be as strong and independent, self aware yet un-self conscious, brave yet not reckless. She is truly a heroine for the ages.
    • 5/5
      [Villette] by Charlotte BronteIt is hard to believe that Villette was published in 1853 and yet its style is so very reminiscent of its era. It reads like a Victorian novel but one with hardly any plot to speak of, there are ghosts, there are love stories, there are strict manners and men rule the world, but we see this through the eyes of Lucy Snowe a very unlikely hero. It is a psychological study first and foremost but one in which the protagonist thinks and acts according to the proscribed values of the world in which she lives. It is the psychological aspect and the unremarkable story line that seems to portend towards modernism, but Bronte’s writing locks it firmly in the world of the Victorian novel.Lucy Snowe as an unmarried women without any prospects must work for her living. She is not particularly attractive and so without good looks or money she has little to offer on the marriage market, especially at a time when there were far more young women than men in the world. She has just enough money to seek her fortune on the continent and has some luck in finding a place as an assistant in a girls school in the country of Labassecoeur. Labassecour to all intents and purposes is France and I would imagine that Bronte made it an imaginary country because of the anti-French feel of much of her novel. A major theme of the novel is how hard work, diligence and knowing ones place in society is essential for an unmarried woman to survive. Lucy is quiet and undemonstrative on the surface with an iron will that keeps her feelings in check, but inside her head which is where most of the story takes place she is both vulnerable and passionate. She does not allow herself to fall in love and yet her inner feelings are centred on two extraordinary men and we follow her hopes her desires and her confusion as she tries to come to terms with her feelings and her position in society. It is a novel where we have to rely on other peoples observations of Lucy Snowe to get a more balanced picture. Lucy herself is not so much unreliable as perplexed in her thoughts and as she is telling her story in the first person then the reader must sift the evidence. Bronte’s point in presenting such a character is to demonstrate how difficult it was for a woman to make her way in such a closed (to her) society. How should an intelligent woman come to terms with her situation? Paulina a childhood friend says of Lucy: “Lucy I wonder if anybody will comprehend you all together”and:M Paul to Lucy “You want so much checking, regulating, and keeping down” This idea of keeping down never left M Pauls head; the most habitual subjugation would, in my case, have failed to relieve him of it.Here is the rub because not only must Lucy keep her vulnerability and passions in check she must also keep her rebellious spirit from surfacing too often. Those people who know her best perceive this in her as do the readers who are privy to her thoughts and her occasional outspoken and prickly comments to others.Bronte was able to develop other themes through Lucy that were topical at her time of writing. I have already mentioned the anti French feeling, but this is also entwined with an inbuilt anti-catholicism. Lucy is fiercely protestant and finds herself living and working in a catholic school and falling in love with a catholic man. It is no accident that the school in which she works is run a little like a police state with Madame Beck keeping her pupils and teachers under constant surveillance. M Paul also boasts of how he spies on all the pupils and teachers and this is likened to the catholic religion that is seen as one of control and manipulation of peoples souls. Lucy must rebel against this, but she needs to use all her resources so as not to fall foul of the system. Bronte’s metaphor for a troubled mind is a storm, sometimes a storm at sea and these always precipitate a major event in Lucy’s life. M Paul’s character is perceived as stormy and at the end of the novel it is a storm that represents a slightly ambiguous ending. Bronte’s writing here and in the ghost scenes is most representative of what we have come to know as Victorian gothic. However it is the exploration of the thoughts and feelings of Lucy Snowe that takes this novel out of the general run of novels of it’s time. It is insightful, it is thought provoking, it is not perfect as one imagines a novel should be, but it is one of those books that I look forward to re-reading. 5 stars.
    • 5/5
      "A sorrowful indifference to existence often pressed on me.",, 21 July 2015This review is from: Villette (Penguin English Library) (Paperback)Other reviews have delineated the storyline; I'm just going to say that I was within five pages of the end (on tenterhooks as to whether our narrator, Lucy Snowe, ends up with a happy or unutterably wretched life) when I had to stop and go to work. I was yearning to come home and find out all the time I was there - must be the proof of a compelling work.Charlotte Bronte's descriptions of utter loneliness and inner, but hidden, torment make for a moving and unforgettable read. While her friends remark on "steady little Lucy...so quietly pleased, so little moved yet so content", she observes "little knew they the rack of pain which had driven Lucy almost into fever, and brought her out, guideless and reckless, urged and drugged to the brink of frenzy".Superb read.
    • 5/5
      Look, Virginia Woolf called it Bronte's "finest novel," and George Eliot wrote, "Villette! Villette! Have you read it? It is a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power." I couldn't agree more. I was fortunate enough to read this is the first English course to get me hooked on 19th century British lit. We read it over the course of three weeks, so it was the perfect way to digest the magic of Villette. A love story that is far more rewarding than that of Jane Eyre (which I also love), Villette is a treasure.

    • 4/5
      Very passionate and convincing, this work is rather powerful and sad. I could relate very well to the heroine.
    • 4/5
      I'm a big fan of Jane Eyre, so this had been on my to-read list for a while. I'm glad I finally picked it up! I liked that the novel dwells so much on friendships; ultimately the romantic elements feel a bit like an afterthought or obligation, which is fairly unique for a novel from this time period.
    • 4/5
      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 teacher in Brussels, Charlotte Brontë's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving study of isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances. Summary HPLLike her predecessor, Jane Eyre, Lucy is an intelligent young woman with a rich interior life whose innate superiority few are privileged to witness. Like Jane Eyre, Lucy's spirit, or soul as Miss Bronte might have called it, is already mature when we first meet her. The plot arc describes her travails as she secretly hopes for the partner who will discover and embrace the passionate creature raging beneath the armour of quiet, self-effacing manners. In the style of many Victorian novels, VILLETTE unspools its 611 pages slowly-- however if we think of a modern equivalent, say DOWNTON ABBEY, we will appreciate the 19th century reader's delight in every architectural detail, every social nuance. The passages in French, however, become onerous...Where JANE EYRE might be considered autobiographical fantasy--a life worthy of Charlotte Bronte--VILLETTE is closer to Miss Bronte's actual history. Dr. John has been linked to the Brontes' publisher George Smith; M. Emmanuel to Charlotte's Professor in Brussels, M. Heger. The loneliness, the isolation Lucy experiences in the fictional town of Villette is formidable; Miss Bronte remembered the feelings vividly as she wrote VILLETTE. She was also expressing the impact of the void created by the recent deaths of her 2 younger sisters (within six months of each other) as well as her brother. Charlotte Bronte was the sole survivor of 6 children: the care of her ailing--demanding--father devolved onto her. I enjoyed the novel as a memoir of Miss Bronte's youth, when love, equality and independence seemed to hover at the horizon.8 out of 10 Highly recommended to to devotes of JANE EYRE and to readers of historical fiction and Victorian literature.
    • 4/5
      Lucy Snowe, adrift in her life in England, travels abroad to French-speaking Villette, and becomes a teacher.On wiki it says that in Villette (apparently modelled on Brussels), Lucy is "drawn into adventure and romance." This is an exaggeration. For pretty much all of its 650 pages, basically nothing happens in this book. Lucy has some fairly minor ups and downs in her life, and is associated with people who are in much the same boat. It is a report on a mundane life among mundane lives. And yet it's excellent. It's incredibly well observed psychologically, and really creeps up on you. In a largely eventless, plotless book, with an entirely passive narrator, the little ups and downs become as all consuming for the reader as they do for the character. I'm not quite sure how Bronte pulls it off, but it's very good indeed. Loved the ending, too.One note - some of the dialogue is in French, so if (like me), you don't speak it, get an edition (unlike me) that translates it.
    • 2/5

      Overall a weaker effort than Jane Eyre, as Villette is dragged down by characters that aren't compelling and random asides about the superiority of British Protestantism that were annoying and out of place. Whereas Jane Eyre featured a unique protagonist and a series of atmospheric settings, Villette's protagonist is as bland as her namesake, and the setting of a fictional French city is rendered all but meaningless by the focus of the book.

      Lucy Snowe serves as the main character of Villette, a protagonist so passive for the first few chapters that it is hard to ascribe to her any characteristics. Contrast this with the opening chapters of Jane Eyre, where Jane's character is established swiftly and firmly. Eventually it emerges that Snowe is usually quiet and unassertive, except for instances where she harps on the superiority of her country and religion, or the rare instance where she is an outright jerk to people. Seriously, if I had a dollar for every time Snowe criticizes catholicism and French culture while expounding upon the virtues of the British and the Protestant faith I'd have at least $50. At one point after going to the opera Snowe laments that she preferred Scottish street musicians. Behold, ladies and gentlemen, a 1850s hipster! It's never clear why anyone else would pay any attention to Lucy Snowe, much less actively want to spend time with her, but over the course of the story various people befriend her (or try to) and in time she even attracts romantic attention. Because she oscillated between being a nonentity and being actively unlikable Snowe's journey never hooked me. Unfortunately almost none the rest of the characters in Villette proved engaging either.

      Dr. John Graham Bretton serves as the male lead character for the first half of the novel, as well as an apparent potential love interest. He's largely defined by two things: he's a doctor, and he really loves his mother. The former characteristic is given no depth, while the latter characteristic is perhaps given too much. Stories can have an abnormally strong attachment between parent and child and be entertaining, just look at Emma and her father's relationship in Austen's Emma, but in Villette Graham just comes off as a momma's boy. It does little to make him appealing. The second male lead, Paul, is substantially worse. Despite the fact that the book periodically described Paul as having good qualities and as being loved by his students, he comes off in the book as a grade-A jackass. Prudish, reducing the narrator to tears on multiple occasions, intolerant and controlling, he's an almost impressively unlikable character, yet Brontë believes that she has made him sympathetic by the close of the story. She really hasn't. Note that these two male leads never really both appear as fleshed out characters at the same time in this novel: the book starts out focusing on Graham, only to later shift to Paul and essentially abandons Graham for many chapters. When the book picks up on Graham's story again later on Paul is in turn abandoned, making it clear that Brontë can only give life to one male character at a time (also true in Jane Eyre, with Rochester and Rivers never appearing as developed characters together).

      The sole character that I liked was Ginevra, a shallow and foolish young woman to be sure, but she's passionate and active in stark contrast to the other characters' blandness. She reminded me of Daisy from The Great Gatsby- you know she'd be a terrible match, but you can see why characters would fall in love with her anyway. Brontë tries to cast Ginevra as a character with traits to avoid, not emulate, but her appearances were a breath of fresh air compared to the stuffy boredom brought on by the rest of the characters. You might think that because the story takes place in a city there would be other characters worth discussing, but you'd be wrong. The city of Villette, and indeed the entire world of this book, seems to be populated by only a handful of characters, most of which are familiar archetypes or lacking any depth. Jane Eyre did the same thing with its small cast, but with the isolated setting of that book the sparse population made more sense. Here the world feels strangely depopulated and empty.

      The setting isn't much better than the characters. Though set in France, the superiority of the British is brought up so frequently that it feels as though Brontë chose a foreign setting just so that she had more opportunities to glorify her homeland. France mainly serves as an excuse to throw in the occasional line or paragraph of French. It's easy enough French that I could muddle through it, but why Brontë chose to include these passages without a translation escapes me. As discussed above, the city feels rather empty as well. The school Snowe teaches at is atmospheric, but I've noticed that Brontë's settings tend to be atmospheric despite her writing and not because of it. Brontë sets up evocative scenes, like in the opening chapters of this books where rooms seem not inhabited, but haunted by a small child, or where Snowe's life is confined for years to two hot stuffy rooms, but once these scenes are set up Brontë goes back to writing in her usual style, doing very little to keep in the reader's mind the creepy surroundings that she originally introduced. Once she turns back to plot progression the atmosphere of Brontë's settings starts to slip away. For a great take on the atmosphere of a Brontë book I'd highly recommend the 2011 adaptation of Jane Eyre, which focuses on the settings with some great cinematography.

      So overall this book fell flat to me because of a largely uninteresting cast of characters and a setting that had most of its potential wasted. After I stopped caring about the unlikable Lucy Snowe there was little else for me to focus on in the story. Jane Eyre was well worth reading, while Villette is well worth skipping.
    • 4/5
      I was told before I started reading this book, that Charlotte Brontë only ever wrote one good book, that book being Jane Eyre. So I didn't have big expectations for it. It wasn't love romantic like Jane Eyre but it had family and friendship love. I enjoyed how the main character was more of a spectator throughout the whole book.
      I wouldn't agree with people saying it's a bad book, it's different and most enjoyable in it's own way.
    • 4/5
      1853 wird Charlotte Brontes Roman Villette veröffentlicht. Das Leben der Autorin ist selbst tragisch genug und würde wohl auch Stoff für einen Roman abgeben.In Vilette geht es um Lucy Snowe, eine alleinstehende junge Frau , die in einer Schule im französischen Villette als Lehrerin arbeitet. Das Buch wirft die Frage auf, wie man damals als Frau unabhängig leben kann - es werden mehrere Lebensentwürfe vorgestellt, die verwitwete Schulleiterin als selbständige Frau, die kokette Ginevra als eitle, oberflächliche Frau. Lucy selbst schafft es, unabhängig zu leben - trotz tiefer Gefühle geht sie keine Beziehung ein.Ich fand das Buch interessant, gerade auch aus der Zeit heraus, hatte aber schon manchmal Schwierigkeiten am Ball zu bleiben.Charlotte Bronte's novel Villette was published in the year 1853. The life of the author herself is tragic enough and would also give room for a novel."Villette" is about Lucy Snowe, a young woman who works in a school in the French Villette as a teacher. The book raises the question if it is possible to live independently as a woman at that time - several concepts of life are presented: the widowed headmistress as an independent woman, the coquettish Ginevra as vain, superficial woman. Lucy even manages to live independently - in spite of deeper feelings she does not take any relationship.I found the book interesting, especially as a document of that time.
    • 3/5
      While I enjoyed this book, it was a slow read. Unless you are fluent in French, I would recommend getting a version with translations in the footnotes. I read the first 150 pages without any and almost quit reading because I felt like I missed too much. Once I found a copy with translations, the book got vastly better.
    • 3/5
      I'm a huge Jane Eyre fan so was looking forward to reading Villette. Unfortunately I really detested all of the characters and was slightly bored by most of the plot. I know that this is considered to be largely autobiographical, so I'll give it the benefit of the doubt that if I knew more about Bronte's life this may have been a more satisfying read. I did like the contrast between Lucy's (the main character and narrator) inner dialogue, which was highly dramatic and flowery, and the way the outside world viewed her, which was as a calm and sedate, almost boring person.
    • 5/5
      Wow. Just - wow. Jane will always be my favorite, but this really was amazing. I'll have to take some time to digest before I write more.
    • 3/5
      I wasn't sure about this - there didn't seem to be much of a story although it was an abridged audio. The relationship between Lucy Snowe and the other professor seemed to come from nowhere and like other readers the end seemed odd. I love Jane Eyre but this was disappointing.
    • 5/5
      I understood Lucy and her plight, from her loneliness and aloneness to her irrational impulse to get up and flee from what she wants. If not out loud, I was mentally coaxing her to "Just DO such-and-such! Go for it! Who cares what those other folks think? Who are they, anyway?"--all the while understanding why she wouldn't do as I coaxed and realizing the probability that, if I was in her position, I might not do as I coaxed either. (Ha! Show us ourselves, Brontë, and we'll accordingly see where and how we can become something better.)I don't know if it was the author's intention to make anything "cute" about her characters, but her style of writing often breeds cuteness in the characters and their relations with one another. Lucy and M. Paul grow into such a cute pair, likely, I think, already stuck on each other long before they recognize it, or at least long before Lucy does.Toward the end of the novel, I began reading in a passionate rush, the climax goading me forward faster than I moved through the majority of the story, even drawing an audible groan or something akin to a vindictive growl from me at one point (though I had to check it, since I was reading in a public place at the time.) Earlier details which could easily have been arbitrary turned out not to be, as a purpose was ultimately brought out of these details. Throughout the book, I was pleased by Brontë's ability to surprise me, to handle the character development, the plot, and the execution in ways I would not have foreseen. Sometimes I thought her choices strange; but then, who wants to read a book for which you can accurately predetermine every turn the plot will take and exactly how the characters will be in every respect? That wouldn't leave much of a need for the author's work or imagination--you could have just written the book yourself and saved the trouble of procuring it from elsewhere. Hence, the "strange" choices served to strengthen the book as a whole, and while I would have assumed there'd be a need for me to rate this book below Jane Eyre, now a favorite novel of mine that would be hard to match, saying this book didn't amaze me wouldn't be an accurate statement. I appreciate it differently than Brontë's most popular novel, but not unequally. A wonderful read!
    • 4/5
      Villette is the semi autobiographical story of Lucy Snowe, a young woman of 23 who travels to Villette, a fictional town but modeled after Brussels, Belgium, where the author and her sister did travel for teaching positions. Ms Snowe does not know French, travels alone and is fortunate to find a position as a teacher in a boarding school because she speaks English. While traveling she befriends a young, shallow woman by the name of Ginevra Fanshawe, reunites with her Godmother and her son and becomes friends with M. Paul Carlos David Emanuel. She also runs into a former acquaintance named Polly, a serious young woman of high virtue. This is a Gothic romance and there are spectres of a nun and love that is met with adversity. Themes include the clash of protestantism and catholicism and gender roles and isolation.
      This is the author's third novel, the first being Jane Eyre. The first is probably a better story in scope but this novel is enjoyable, the protagonist has many admirable characteristics and the men in the book are generally of good qualities. This novel was criticized at the time for not being suitably feminine in portraying Lucy Snowe, therefore I think the author was successful in getting her social commentary on the life of single women in Victorian England heard.