Villette

Yesterday, I finished reading Charlotte Brontë's Villette. This morning, I woke up still quite moved by it. A brilliantly told tale. You only realize the genius of a writer after finishing a tale like this one. When you boil it down, the plot is about an impoverished former rich girl who, on a whim and almost penniless, ventures overseas in search of a new life. She becomes a teacher and later hooks up with former acquaintances. After a budding romance peters out, she finds herself attracted to a man that is not suited to her, but as there are no other prospects, she finds herself falling for him. Only a brilliant writer could take such a humdrum situation and give it the gravitas and pathos that turn it into a classic. Of course, there is much more to this book than just the story. Charlotte Brontë introduces many thought-provoking themes: the religious conflicts that blighted Europe for so many years, social class, unrequited love and shattered dreams. She asks questions of the world. Why do some people just breeze their way through life without a hitch while others are subjected to seemingly endless difficulties? Why do horrible people prosper? Lucy Snow, the heroine, tells the story in the first person with great skill. We follow her through more than a decade of her life as she analyzes the people who come and go. Lucy has been described to me as feisty, which she certainly is. However, what struck me most about her is that she is a realist. She accepts the world as it is, despite questioning it. She realizes that "bliss" is not her lot in life. She has an ability to accept that certain things are not for her and she can (literally) bury the past, as she does in one moving scene with a collection of letters. Storms are used throughout the story to signify a coming tragedy. But there is also some light comedy from the nosy Madame Beck and the giggly, whimsical Miss Ginevra Fanshawe. The two men that Lucy falls in love with, Graham Barrett and Professor Paul Emanuel, are very interesting and poles apart. Many people think Villette is better than Jane Eyre. It's not for me to judge that, but this book, almost 500 pages long, was well worth reading.