I had so much fun reading along with the #Villettealong. I’ve never belonged to a book club, or participated in a readalong before, because the timing has just never worked out for me. I’ve been busy with other things, buried under a pile of my own reading, or unavailable at the times a book club I might join meets. So I was so excited to have the opportunity to read in a sort of community – a community extending, quite literally, over international borders.
Because I write and schedule my posts ahead of time (it’s the only way I can manage this blog, what with a baby and a demanding job), I posted all three of my #Villettealong updates without linking back to my reading companions. That’s a shame, because I had two of the best: Beth of Too Fond, and Amal of The Misfortune of Knowing. These two women are intelligent and insightful. Reading their impressions of Villette helped me to inform my own opinions. We shared laughs about the sly bits of humor Charlotte Bronte snuck into the text, debated points made vague by Bronte’s narrator’s dubious honesty, and enjoyed a reading experience made richer by the fact of sharing it with friends. (Note: there were other readers who followed along on Twitter, but it was Beth and Amal who posted updates on their blogs.)
I want you to see what they said about Villette because their posts were smart and thoughtful, and I truly enjoyed reading them.
So, here’s Beth:
Readalong: Villette by Charlotte Bronte
Villette Readalong: Week One
Villette Readalong: Week Two
Villette Readalong: Wrap-Up
And here’s Amal:
Our Shrinking World
Cats Are the Solution to Writer’s Block (Well, Sort Of)
VILLETTE & A Cup of Tea
Charlotte Bronte and I Can’t Agree on Everything (not a readalong post, but related)
Cold as Snow(e) (What’s in a Name?)
I highly recommend that you check out their posts. And, of course, that you read Villette, which was wonderful. Beth, by the way – the next time you decide to host a readalong, count me in.
P.S. If you missed them, here are my posts about Villette and the readalong:
So, Guess What I’m Doing?
#Villettealong: Volume I
#Villettealong: Volume II
#Villettealong: Volume III
covered in flour 
So glad you enjoyed it! I’m a bit of a readalong addict, and I particularly like doing it with classic books that I might not get the most out of on my own. Reading with other people inspires me to think more deeply about what I read, and of course I love sharing the inside jokes. 🙂 Thanks again for reading along with me–it was such a pleasure!
It was a pleasure! I can’t believe it took me so long to do one, and I can definitely see how it’s possible to become addicted. I really enjoyed the process of reflecting on the novel – and I agree, I definitely thought about VILLETTE more thoroughly and deeply than I would have if I was reading on my own – and now I can’t wait to do another readalong. The library stack has gone completely out of control though, so any future readalongs will have to wait while I rope it in. LOL.
It was very nice to be in this virtual book club with you! I enjoyed reading your thoughtful comments on “Villette.” Out of curiosity, were you an English literature major?
The same to you! I love that you, Beth and I all hit on different points of the text to emphasize. Made it so much more fun than just reading alone!
Also, no, I wasn’t an English literature major, although I’m flattered that you asked! (I do try hard to be thoughtful in my reading and writing.) My major was Industrial and Labor Relations with a concentration in Collective Bargaining, Labor Law and Labor History. So as a labor lawyer, I am one of those few-and-far-between people who uses my college major on a daily basis. I loved my ILR studies (and funnily enough, the volume of reading at ILR was such that the popular nickname for my school was “I Love Reading”) but reading literature has always been purely for fun. I do wish that I had taken some English classes at Cornell – I only took one, on the personal essay – but I was pretty single-minded in those days and was completely focused on labor studies. I did throw the occasional art history or religious studies class in, but for the most part, if Eugene Debs wasn’t involved I wasn’t interested, heh. If I could do college over again I’d tell myself to venture out of the ILR School a bit more and take advantage of the opportunity to learn things in disciplines outside the social sciences. What was your major?
That’s such an interesting major! I was a history major with an emphasis on the early to mid-20th Century. I took many classes that featured Eugene Debs. I also took only one English course at Yale. I read several novels in my history courses, but I didn’t really return to reading for fun until after law school. I never felt like I had much free time until I had a full-time job and a couple of kids. Ha!
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