Villette by Charlotte BrontëMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Man, this woman could write! I’ve loved Jane Eyre for years, but now there is another Charlotte Bronte masterpiece to recommend. Let me explain…no there is too much. Let me sum up: *SPOILER ALERT* Villette is the story of a young woman named Lucy Snowe. It is written autobiographically form her perspective. After losing most of her family, she moves to France from England and becomes a school teacher in a small village (Villette). At first she is in love with a young Englishman. He befriends her but marries another. Ultimately she falls in love with a professor who befriends her, cares for her, and falls in love with her as well. Throughout the story she analyzes everyone that she meets, especially the women. She is generally very reserved, but occasionally explodes in a rage of passion. The professor, Paul, is a truly wonderful character (very comparable to a younger Uncle Iroh from the Avatar series actually). In the end, literally on the last page, Lucy fails to say precisely whether or not the love of her life dies in a shipwreck right before they were going to get married. The end. (AAAAHH!!)
1. The Sentence Structure. Oh, I could geek out about this on every single page! Charlotte Brontë was an unequivocal master of the English sentence. Her writing makes my inner grammarian squeal and dance with pure delight. "Who has words at the right moment?" you wonder, dearest Miss Brontë; you do! (pg. 299) This was especially appreciated after reading the entire Maze Runner series by James Dashner this spring. Short sentences (aka incomplete thoughts, phrases, and clauses) are clearly in vogue. In fact, in most modern literature the popular opinion seems to be “the shorter the better”. Brevity can be powerful. Striking, even. Bold. But it can also be painfully overused and misused (please read the last two installments of the Maze Runner for an example). This is not to say that Bronte only composes lengthy, poly-clausal constructions. She masterfully fears no sentence length. In fact, her characters’ dialogue has the most modern feel of any other Victorian author I’ve ever read.
2. The protagonist’s loneliness and depression. Going into the novel, I knew it was acclaimed for its “insightful study of a woman’s consciousness” (From the back cover of my copy). It certainly was that, but it was neither prosaic nor unrealistic. Rather it was truly remarkable and eye-opening to experience how others perceived Lucy. She suffered from intense bouts of depression, triggered by isolation. The handful of people who even knew about her pain were unable to help or understand due to their misconceptions. This excerpt is probably my favorite conversation in the entire novel. Lucy has confided in her friend about her recent “illness”, and though her best friend so far and a doctor, he is incapable of understanding her situation:
"I think it a case… following on and resulting from long-continued mental conflict” he said.
"Oh, Doctor John--I shudder at the thought…Is there no cure?--no preventive?" I asked.
"Happiness is the cure--a cheerful mind the preventive: cultivate both."
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.
"Cultivate happiness!" I said briefly to the doctor: "do you cultivate happiness? How do you manage?"
"I am a cheerful fellow by nature: and then ill-luck has never dogged me. Adversity gave me and my mother one passing scowl and brush, but we defied her, or rather laughed at her, and she went by.".
"There is no cultivation in all this." I remarked.
"I do not give way to melancholy." (240)
Clearly at this time depression was unfathomable to those who had never experienced it. The doctor has no concept of what Lucy is going through. This seems like a highly valuable lesson to anyone in today's society where depression is only just beginning to be more widely understood. Also, I just love that "happiness is not a potato!"
3. Lucy hates her readers. Or at least she seems to for most of the book. She may be writing her life story, but she feels no need to actually tell you anything. I have never in my life experienced such a thing. It was insanely infuriating yet so beautifully done that I had to keep reading despite my resentment. There was zero concept of the increasingly popular “gotta keep the fans happy” approach many modern authors take. In the moment, this would make me want to punch Lucy in the face, but later I marveled at the novelty of finally not knowing what the author was going to do next. There was no trust between reader and author. It was kinda invigorating. It felt like reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein; despite disliking the plot, my emotions were masterfully manipulated by the author. I cannot deny the skill behind it. The best example of what I mean would be that Lucy neglects to explain her suspicions about one of the other characters. For the first 400 pages or so we are told that Mme Beck is a friend, or at least an ally/“good” character. However, she is the primary antagonist to Lucy’s true love story, which Lucy confesses she knew all along but didn’t feel like mentioning it to us until she confronts her:
"I forbid it. Let me alone. Keep your hand off me, and my life, and my troubles. Oh, Madame! in your hand there is both chill and poison. You envenom and you paralyze." I said
"What have I done, Meess? You must not marry Paul. He cannot marry."
"Dog in the manger!" I said: for I knew she secretly wanted him, and had always wanted him. She called him "insupportable:" she railed at him for a "dévot:" she did not love, but she wanted to marry, that she might bind him to her interest. Deep into some of Madame's secrets I had entered--I know not how: by an intuition or an inspiration which came to me--I know not whence. In the course of living with her too, I had slowly learned, that, unless with an inferior, she must ever be a rival. She was my rival, heart and soul, though secretly, under the smoothest bearing, and utterly unknown to all save her and myself.” (429)
Oooooh, how's that for a scolding? And that last line is more true than you'd normally think; it was truely unknown to all except her and Lucy, because didn't tell us readers till after the fact!
I should probably cut this short before I go on forever. There is also a fabulous commentary of Protestant/Catholic relations throughout the book, as well as countless discussions on intellect vs beauty, love vs selfishness, and fate vs luck. Everyone should read this, though I know many never will, especially after my spoilers.
Other fabulous quotations from the secret sass-master:
“To a feather-brained school-girl nothing is sacred.” (pg. 208)
"I had great pleasure in reading a few books, but not many: preferring always those on whose style or sentiment the writer's individual nature was plainly stamped; flagging inevitably over characterless books, however clever and meritorious:"
"Do you doubt yourself? Do you consider yourself the inferior of Colonel de Hamal?" I said.
"I love Miss Fanshawe far more than de Hamal loves any human being, and would care for and guard her better than he. Respecting de Hamal, I fear she is under an illusion; the man's character is known to me, all his antecedents, all his scrapes. He is not worthy of your beautiful young friend." said Dr. John.
"My 'beautiful young friend' ought to know that, and to know or feel who is worthy of her," said I. "If her beauty or her brains will not serve her so far, she merits the sharp lesson of experience."
"Are you not a little severe?" he asked.
"I am excessively severe--more severe than I choose to show you. You should hear the strictures with which I favour my 'beautiful young friend,' only that you would be unutterably shocked at my want of tender considerateness for her delicate nature." (pg. 143)
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