(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.

Well, here we are two-thirds of the way through the Villette read-along, and the story is certainly heating up.  Last week, I posted before I was quite done with Volume I – I had a chapter and a half to go, but didn’t want to be late to the link-up – and those last fifteen pages were eventful.  Lucy discovers the object of Dr. John’s admiration, and let’s just say it does him no credit.  Nor does his attribution to Lucy of “motherly” feelings toward the insipid girl (what 22-year-old wants to hear that about a younger potential rival? ouch).  Personally, I’d have slapped him, but Lucy is quicker-thinking, and she lays some well-deserved, blistering sarcasm on the doctor.  After this high note, the school breaks up for summer vacation.  With nowhere to go, Lucy stays at the school, virtually alone, and suffers a nervous breakdown.  And that brings us to Volume II.

The Story

Volume II begins with a major revelation: Lucy has been rescued while insensible from her nervous breakdown, and is recovering in the home of Dr. John, who turns out to be a figure from her past.  (Lucy claims to have known Dr. John’s true identity for months, but I’m not entirely sure that’s not just face-saving.)  Eventually, Lucy recovers and returns to Madame Beck’s, and she enjoys a few letters from her old friend, the doctor.  When the letters abruptly stop coming, Lucy struggles with her feelings of abandonment, loneliness and jealousy.  Eventually, Dr. John’s mother reaches out and draws Lucy back into the fold, and she re-kindles her friendship with the doctor.  While on an outing together, they encounter another old friend and, once again, Lucy discovers the old friend’s identity before the rather opaque Dr. John.  As their groups converge, Lucy speculates on the difference between her friends’ personalities, and seems to be forming some definite opinions about the doctor’s prospects for happiness.  Meanwhile, Lucy has several bizarre encounters with another teacher, M. Paul Emmanuel, whose strange manners make it impossible for her to decide whether she has feelings of friendliness or antipathy for him.

Thoughts Thus Far

Toward the end of Volume II, Ginevra Fanshawe asks, “Who are you, Lucy Snowe?” and I must confess, I’m wondering the same thing.  We still know next to nothing of Lucy’s backstory.  She is obviously an educated person, and someone who knows how to behave in the highest circles.  Yet she’s forced to work for a living at a time when gentlewomen didn’t do so, and she never mentions her family.  Lucy is just as much an enigma in Volume II as she was in Volume I; perhaps she’s even more so.  She has reservoirs of deep feeling and I want to smack Dr. John for considering her nothing more than “quiet Lucy Snowe . . . an inoffensive shadow.”  To my mind, Lucy is obviously worth ten of the prissy dolls Dr. John is attracted to, yet he doesn’t seem to see this.  Meanwhile, I’m also wondering about M. Paul, and what his story is, and what his true feelings toward Lucy might turn out to be.  I suppose this will all become clear in Volume III…

Overall Impressions

Volume II moved along at a much faster clip than Volume I.  We’re done with backstory and into the meat of the novel.  Some things are clear, and some things are still mysterious.  I’m growing very attached to Lucy and frustrated with those who don’t seem to see her merits as clearly.  (Of course, Bronte treats the reader to a view inside Lucy’s head, so it’s easier for us to comprehend how wonderful she is than for the other characters, since Lucy is very reserved with them and only displays her wild, passionate nature in her internal monologues.  Her struggle between Reason and Hope was particularly wrenching.)

I started the book off hoping that Dr. John would fall for Lucy, but I’m beginning to care less if he does or not, since he doesn’t strike me as worthy of her.  He’s a nice enough character, pleasant and good-natured, but he doesn’t recognize Lucy for the ardent spirit that she is, so I think she could do better and probably will.  I expect Bronte is setting the reader up to care less about Dr. John’s prospects so as to introduce a stronger depth of feeling between Lucy and another character – M. Paul being the other contender – and I’m interested to see how she’ll go about doing that, since for the first half of the novel, M. Paul has been nothing short of obnoxious.  Still, I’m already rooting for him a little bit, given how frustrated I am with Dr. John.  Although as a matter of fact – and romantic that I am, I almost never feel this way – I’m rooting even more for Lucy to end up single and independent.  We’ll see.  Onward to Volume III.

Well, this Sunday ended the first part of the Villette readalong, hosted by Beth over at Too Fond.  We were to read Volume I of the novel, which introduces the characters and spends a little time placing them into their setting.  (My edition of the book – part of a volume collecting the complete novels of Charlotte and Emily Bronte – inexplicably doesn’t break the story down into volumes, so I looked up the table of contents on the Internets, and the Internets told me that Volume I corresponded to chapters 1 through 15.  I hope I didn’t get fed a line.)  I had a tough time making time to read this week, between three nights of working late during the week and hosting the grandparents, two aunts, and two godparents for Peanut’s Baptism over the weekend.  So I didn’t quite get through the end; I’m up to about midway through chapter 14.  But I promised you a Villette post today and I don’t want to be late for the link-up, so I’ll give you the story and my thoughts as far as I’ve gotten.

The Story

In the first part of Villette, we meet most of the important characters, including the main protagonist, Lucy Snowe.  Lucy is something of a mysterious character.  She seems to be in reduced circumstances, although just how reduced isn’t clear.  (She seems to be better off than Jane Eyre – she’s not quite as destitute as Jane, and her childhood is rather friendlier.)  The story opens with the young (age 12 or 13, most likely) Lucy staying at her godmother’s pleasant home in quiet Bretton.  Lucy’s godmother, Mrs Bretton, has a son slightly older than Lucy, and she soon takes on another houseguest: the precocious child Polly Home.  Polly’s mother has recently died and her father, to whom she is devoted, is traveling.  Polly at first is bereft, but soon comes to idolize Graham Bretton, the son of the house.  Graham, for his part, enjoys the attention little Polly lavishes on him, but doesn’t seem to realize the depth of the sensitive child’s feelings.

The party at Bretton breaks up, we jump about eight years forward in time and Lucy has moved on, eventually spending one chapter tending to a sick old woman, Miss Marchmont, and it is here that we learn that Lucy is more or less penniless and friendless – although she still doesn’t seem to have been as cruelly handled as Jane Eyre was.  Lucy and Miss Marchmont develop a tentative bond, and Miss Marchmont shares her tragic love story.  When Miss Marchmont dies, Lucy takes her remaining salary and strikes off for parts unknown – first London, where she shows herself around, and then to the continent, to try to land herself work as an English governess (or anything else).  On the ship to the continent, Lucy meets a spoiled young woman named Ginevra Fanshawe, who babbles on about her uncle and godfather, M. de Bassompiere, and her destination: Madame Beck’s, a school for young ladies in the posh city of Villette.  After dawdling in the port city, Lucy decides to head for Villette herself.

Lucy arrives at Villette in the dark and the rain, only to find that her luggage has been left behind.  A young Englishman gives her directions to an inn, but through an accident of luck, she finds herself at Madame Beck’s door instead.  In the dark and the rain of the late night, Lucy knocks on the door and talks herself into a job as governess to Madame Beck’s three children.  Madame Beck is a formidable character, who hires and fires at will, snoops in her employees’ possessions, and rules the school with her whims.  It is through one of these whims that Lucy finds her comfortable governess job snatched from her, and a terrifying post as the school’s English teacher thrust upon her.  After a rocky start, she finds herself at least respected by her students.  She also re-makes the acquaintance of the helpful Englishman who directed her (unintentionally) toward Madame Beck’s: he turns out to be a doctor who attends to Madame Beck’s children in the absence of their regular physician.  Lucy is shy around “Dr. John,” and he doesn’t seem to notice her at all – but she thinks he might have feelings for someone at the school.

The school is an odd garden for Lucy to bloom.  She doesn’t share the other students’ or teachers’ Catholic faith and she’s naturally more reserved and serious than most of her pupils – including the spoiled Ginevra Fanshaw – and colleagues.  This point is brought home when a little box is flung from the window of a neighboring building into Madame Beck’s garden and Lucy picks it up.  It contains a love note, clearly meant for someone at the school, and referring to the “dragon” of an English teacher  Dr. John arrives moments later and takes the box from Lucy, promising to hand it over to Madame Beck.  Does Dr. John know who the letter-writer is, or who the intended recipient is?  Is he himself the letter-writer?  Lucy ponders these mysteries while Madame Beck snoops around and listens in on her conversations.  Meanwhile, the school prepares for its annual fete of Madame Beck and Lucy finds herself swept up into a more central role in the preparations than she had hoped for.

Thoughts Thus Far

After Volume I (or, at least, most of it) there’s still a great deal that we don’t know about Lucy.  How did she come to be so alone in the world?  Her childhood, while not exactly grim – I keep comparing her to Jane Eyre, who did seem to have it worse – was not exactly idyllic, and in her adulthood, she finds herself in the position of having to earn her own living by constantly proving her worth to strangers.  I expect Bronte is withholding the details of Lucy’s early life – while giving us just enough so that we know who we’re dealing with – because she wants the reader to take Lucy as she is, at least for now.

On Twitter, I mused that Lucy is quite brave when she has nothing to lose – departing for London, and then Villette, on a whim when she knows no one in either city – but timid when she is asked to give up a comfortable position.  Left to her own devices, it’s possible that Lucy would have happily spent years tending to Madame Beck’s children.  Instead, she finds herself an English teacher, interceptor of love notes, and play-actress.  Lucy rises to these challenges reluctantly, but rise to them she does.

Madame Beck is another interesting character.  My twenty-first century American sensibilities were offended by her spying and her snooping through Lucy’s personal effects.  Indeed, Lucy shrugged off Madame’s multiple violations of her privacy far more easily than I did.  Perhaps it’s a personality quirk of Lucy’s – that she’s able to forgive and forget (well, forgive) Madame’s spying – or perhaps it’s the times, and employees expected their employers to take liberties with their possessions, or perhaps it’s just that Lucy can’t afford to irritate Madame because if she does, she’ll be “out on her ear” with no money, no reference and nowhere to go.  At the moment, Lucy and Madame are working together a bit uneasily.  I could see the relationship developing into that of great allies or great rivals.

Then there’s Dr. John.  The household staff is convinced that Madame is in love with him and Lucy believes that, if he has feelings for anyone at the school, Madame would be the recipient of his affections.  But Madame is older, likely older than Dr. John, and rather formidable.  I’m not so sure that Dr. John comes to the school so frequently out of some feeling for Madame.  Lucy also speculates about the household staff.  Rosine, the portresse, seems a likely possible recipient of the love note Lucy intercepted.  And Dr. John was on the scene promptly when Lucy picked up the note.  He had a simple explanation – he was attending a patient in another house, saw a handkerchief wave from the school and a box drop from a window – but Lucy doesn’t seem to be completely convinced by his story.  There’s another one to watch.

Overall Impressions

Villette is a more complicated novel than Jane Eyre.  There are more characters to keep straight and more mystery; in Jane’s sphere, things are relatively black and white, but Lucy’s world is populated by ambivalent characters with unclear motives.  Lucy herself is an enigma.  Clearly, she’s got a past, but she’s not telling.  Reading Villette is something of an exercise in filing away clues and anecdotes because I’m convinced they’ll become important later.  It’s almost like solving a fun mystery.

It’s been a tough week for reading.  I have another huge library stack to contend with – more on that later – a big, stressful project at work, and family in town.  There were times over the weekend when Peanut was napping and I wanted nothing more than to curl up with Lucy and friends – but I couldn’t, because I was “hostessing.”  I’m looking forward to life getting back to my nice normal, quiet pace this week, and I expect to make up ground on Villette as soon as it does.