This month’s review is by Renee Kahl
Villette
by Charlotte Bronte
(rewritten for the SMPL)
Villette, the first-person tale of Lucy Snowe, a young Englishwoman with a devastating past who tries to make a fresh start in the French town of Villette as an instructor in a boarding school, was first published in 1853. It takes the right mindset to enjoy 19th century writing, to patiently absorb the long paragraphs full of multi-clause sentences. Charlotte Bronte’s ornate, convoluted prose in this novel makes Jane Eyre look terse.
But the turbid prose is never repetitious and provides one of the most intricate character studies I’ve ever read. It is a function of Lucy’s excessive introspection, a window into her introverted, complex personality.
Prone to depression and pessimistically convinced she is one of the unlucky ones in earthly life, Lucy does expect joy in heaven. Though compliant, submissive and self-effacing, she is proud with a rock-solid sense of herself and her values that she is fierce in defending. Inexperienced as a teacher, she instinctively knows how to grab control of her unruly class at the outset through the right mix of intimidation and entertainment. Deprived of education in her youth, she constantly and hungrily absorbs learning and is sharply perceptive about those around her; her self-assessment as not very bright is perhaps the only instance where she is an unreliable narrator. In each of her relationships — and they are unique and fascinating (those characters are well-drawn through Lucy’s introspection, too) — she enforces a bright line. With vain, silly Genevra she is a partially tolerant big sister, but shoos her away with a cutting reproof after enough nonsense. She doesn’t care at all that her employer, Madame, mistrusts her, or snoops through her things, but only so long as those are replaced respectfully exactly as they were. She is gratified when Madame figures out that the way to keep her a happy employee is not to bribe her with gifts but to leave her alone. With each of the men with whom she falls in love, she sees his faults clearly and refuses to change herself to suit him.
The book has a few minor flaws, although the prose isn’t one of them. As many have pointed out, the plot is weakened by too many coincidences. Everyone significant Lucy knows in England seems to transfer to France with her and turn up in multiple implausible ways. The character Polly, who Lucy describes as the only person who “really knows” her, is not nearly as developed as I would have liked. The portrait of this tough heroine more than makes up for these complaints.
Villette will be on the shelf when the Library reopens on June 6.