(Source)

“Lucy, I wonder if anybody will ever comprehend you altogether?” asks Paulina in Volume III of Villette.  Indeed, for most of her acquaintances, Lucy is content to remain an enigma.  But even an enigma needs some lovin’ – and that’s the lesson of Volume III.

The Story

By now, Lucy has realized what she probably knew all along: she and Dr. John are not meant to be.  While he has shed his first, less fortunate infatuation, Dr. John has found a new angel to idolize, and Lucy finds it within herself to approve of his choice.  Meanwhile, Lucy is undergoing a love metamorphosis of her own, finding herself more and more attracted to M. Paul.  Where he once put her off with his appearance, now she finds him pleasant to look at.  Where she once was irritated, dismayed, or upset by his irritable mood swings, now she finds him ready to be soothed and consoled.  She grows to appreciate his intellect and to overlook his possessive, imperious side.  But alas – forces outside the two of them see that Lucy and M. Paul are growing closer, and deem any kind of match completely unsuitable, because Lucy is a Protestant (and vocal about it, too).  M. Paul, guided by his teacher, Pere Silas, first attempts to convert Lucy to Catholicism.  When she refuses to go along with him, M. Paul must decide whether to accept Lucy as she is – reforms and all.  And even if he so decides, what of the “three-headed Basilisk” that wants to keep them apart?

Concluding Thoughts

Lucy never gives us a peek into her past; there is no explanation given for how she came to develop the character that stands before the reader, coolly setting forth events, throughout Villette.  Nor, irascible as she is, will she humor us with any kind of closure about the future.  Lucy demands that the reader fill in the blanks about both her past and her future.  While most of the sub-plots are neatly wrapped up for the reader, Lucy makes us work for resolution to the main story.

I liked Volume III the best out of the three volumes.  Perhaps it was because I had fallen back into a rhythm with Charlotte Bronte’s prose – Jane Eyre is my favorite book, it’s true, but it’d been awhile since I’d last read it – and found Lucy’s voice more readable.  Then, it was in Volume III that I recognized more Bronte style in the prose and in the plot: a heroine determined to be independent but to welcome love should it come her way; a leading man who grows on the reader as slowly as he grows on the protagonist; lots of weather, too.  No one does the old-grouch-with-a-heart-of-gold bit as well as Charlotte.

Overall Impressions

Obviously, I was going to compare Villette to Jane Eyre and… I’ve got to say… while I enjoyed Villette immensely, Jane Eyre still holds the prime place in my bookworm’s heart.  I think, however, that Jane and Lucy would have gotten along famously.  Both forced to make their own ways in the world, both not much to look at but with deep wells of emotion beneath their calm exteriors.  And both would agree on what, I think, is the central concern of each of their stories, articulated so beautifully by Lucy:

The love born of beauty was not mine: I had nothing in common with it: I could not dare to meddle with it, but another love, venturing diffidently into life after long acquaintance, furnace-tried by pain, stamped by constancy, consolidated by affection’s pure and durable alloy, submitted by intellect to intellect’s own tests, and finally wrought up, by his own process, to his own unflawed completeness, this Love that laughed at Passion, his fast frenzies and his hot and hurried extinction, in this Love I had a vested interest; and for whatever tended either to its culture or its destruction I could not view impassibly.

Thank you, Beth, for hosting this read-along and giving me the excuse to finally pick up a book I’ve long meant to read.   Everybody else: if my spoilery posts didn’t completely give things away and put you off (a thousand sorries), you can buy the book here (not an affiliate link) or from your local indie bookstore.