<![CDATA[Villette]]>

false <![CDATA[Villette]]> 31173 95 "Villette! Villette! Have you read it?" exclaimed George Eliot when Charlotte Brontë's final novel appeared in 1853. "It is still a more wonderful book than Jane Eyre. There is something almost preternatural in its power." Arguably Brontë's most refined and deeply felt work, Villette draws on her profound loneliness following the deaths of her three siblings. Lucy Snowe, the narrator of Villette, flees from an unhappy past in England to begin a new life as a teacher at a French boarding school in the great cosmopolitan capital of Villette. Soon Lucy's struggle for independence is overshadowed by both her friendship with a worldly English doctor and her feelings for an autocratic schoolmaster. Brontë's strikingly modern heroine must decide if there is any man in her society with whom she can live and still be free. "Villette is an amazing book," observed novelist Susan Fromberg Schaeffer. "Written before psychoanalysis came into being, Villette is nevertheless a psychoanalytic work: a psychosexual study of its heroine, Lucy Snowe. Written before the philosophy of existentialism was formulated, the novel's view of the world can only be described as existential.... Today it is read and discussed more intensely than Charlotte Brontë's other novels, and many critics now believe it to be a true master-piece, a work of genius that more than fulfilled the promise of Jane Eyre." Indeed, Virginia Woolf judged Villette to be Brontë's "finest novel." 2033945 book 1853 Villette total:3489|5:900|4:1227|3:986|2:293|1:83| 3489 13035 5559 464 3 21 false false Wed Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2004 Sat Jan 19 11:47:47 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 22 23:30:04 -0800 2008
Her older sister, Jane-- you remember her?-- she loved you. Most of you probably had to read her story in high...more...]]> 5 12 false false Thu Mar 12 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Apr 02 07:30:40 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 13 12:59:14 -0700 2009 1 more...]]> 5 8 false false Thu Jan 29 09:20:31 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 30 05:54:08 -0700 2009 Villette was like reading a huge epic that I was so emmersed in that I walked in Lucy Snowe's shoes, I felt what she felt. How many authors can do that to you?

Lucy Snowe is difficult to get to know at first. In fact, she is difficult to like. This is...more...]]> 4 11 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed May 23 13:25:00 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 23 11:09:33 -0700 2007 more...]]> 4 4 false false Wed Mar 18 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Wed Feb 18 06:01:09 -0800 2009 Sat Mar 21 07:02:15 -0700 2009 Vilette! I am proud of myself for this because I cannot remember the last time I could finish a classic book as thick as this. If you have read Jane Eyre, you will find things in Vilette that remind you of the previous novel. Lucy Snowe, the heroine, is also a woman dealing with ...more...]]> 4 5 false false Sun Mar 09 21:00:55 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 12 02:11:50 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 4 false false Sat Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Sun Apr 06 11:16:38 -0700 2008 Sun Apr 06 11:17:15 -0700 2008 Jane Eyre is one of my lifetime favorites. Every now and then, I take it off my bookshelf just to re-read my favorite scenes. So when I learned that Charlotte Bronte connoisseurs consider Villette her masterpiece, I was actually reluctant to try it. I didn’t want my favorite to get dethroned! But ...more...]]> 5 3 false false Wed May 28 14:12:34 -0700 2008 Tue Aug 21 11:36:47 -0700 2007 Wed May 28 14:12:34 -0700 2008
***UPDATED***: This book is totally not summer reading ... I just finished it last month. Although I prefer the story of Jane Eyre, ...more...]]> 5 4 false true Fri Mar 20 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Mar 02 08:55:12 -0800 2009 Fri Mar 20 09:38:51 -0700 2009 more...]]> 1 2 false false Tue Jan 20 18:57:03 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 09 19:02:41 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 3 false true Thu Jun 05 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Wed Apr 16 12:53:35 -0700 2008 Thu Jun 05 22:01:15 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 3 false false Fri Apr 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Tue Mar 18 09:04:24 -0700 2008 Tue Mar 18 09:18:07 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 1 true false Thu Dec 11 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 17 19:32:49 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 17 19:56:49 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 1 false false Tue Nov 17 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon May 18 14:04:55 -0700 2009 Thu Nov 19 18:29:05 -0800 2009 Villette explores the mind of Lucy Snowe as she embarks on an adventure well beyond the familiarity of England to teach at a school in Labassecour (modelled on Belgium) on the Continent. ...more...]]> 5 1 false false Sat Sep 13 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Fri Jun 13 19:57:15 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 13 16:01:13 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Thu Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 1988 Tue Apr 29 12:09:02 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 29 12:51:22 -0700 2008 Villette follows the story of Lucy Snow, perhaps one of the most self-contained heroines in all of nineteenth-century literature. Penniless and alone in the world, Lucy pursues her fortune abroad, teaching at a girls' school in the French c...more...]]> 5 1 false false Mon Feb 04 10:31:38 -0800 2008 Thu Feb 21 15:05:59 -0800 2008
"Villette"...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Jan 03 09:49:42 -0800 2008 Tue Jan 15 08:05:28 -0800 2008
Villette surprised me. I've read Jane Eyre (several times and never as an assignment) and I love it. But I've always felt Jane was a b...more...]]> 5 1 false false Thu Mar 09 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Wed Aug 01 21:11:52 -0700 2007 Mon Apr 07 20:58:45 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 3 false false Sun Jul 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Jul 24 06:59:09 -0700 2007 Thu Aug 02 12:09:32 -0700 2007 reality; and, provided the former was nourished with a sufficiency of the strange necromantic joys of fancy, the privileges of the latter might remain limited to daily bread, hourly work, and a roof of shelter."

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