Villette
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Charlotte Brontë
(4,229 Sterne; 133 Bewertungen)
After a tragedy in her family, Lucy Snow leaves her home to become a teacher at a French boarding school. Lucy soon begins to fight against an overwhelming sense of desolation. Meeting a charming doctor and a strict, peculiar schoolmaster changes her life forever-- and threatens to break her spirit. (summary by heatherausten) (20 hr 25 min)
Chapters
Bewertungen
fine readers, a novel by one of the greats but
dahszil
(5 Sterne)
for those of us for various reasons--my excuse being speech/hearing defect, and chronic neurosis--don't "parlay the French" it becomes difficult. My rule of thumb is that an author's most popular novel is not their best. And i apply it here. Villette is a great novel, better than Jane Eyre. I always tell people English is my second and ONLY language :)or my first language is Americanese :) ..... I suppose it is a soft spot in me but its worth listening just to hear the British female and most of the non british female voices. Chip, who read the first chapter, has that classic American male voice over, radio and tv voice of the late 1950's to perhaps early 70's was also nice to hear, nostalgia i suppose. again, thank you so much Librivox, IA, volunteers and staff. update: happy and thankful for free online bot translators for the French passages :) just have to open text while listening and copy and paste. i know online bot translators make mistakes but its better than nothing. Chapter 14 – The Fête read by Ophelia Darcy. Ophelia did an amazing job in all her sections but this one was perfection. Her voice which is very pretty but she was also fierce in this chapter's emotional dialogue, and going from pleasant narrator to complex emotional dialogue so seamlessly. chapter 21: one can apply Freud's basic paradigm of id, ego, and superego. early in the chapter when our protagonist meaning of "reason" can be interpreted that part of our personality, when it is out of control, is giving the horse whip to us, we feel quilty when we should not, we are not living up to those ideals put into our heads by others in the formative years and still later by those who prey on our vulnerabilities(ironically called the "other directed" who "pull our strings" to make us feel bad). luckily the good angel = the id and ego give her serenity enough to finally sleep. But in total our protagonist Lucy Snow is nothing less than a Heroine because her life was mostly alone conquering a mountain of deprivation even if the ending is tragic(not finished with book yet) . I love her acerbic rejoinders and wit and essential goodness. chapter 22(?), the spooky nun: a trick by the school matron carried out by lower level operative or by an operative of the priest and the church? or in conspiracy with the school and catholic church together ?, or hallucination due to emotional exhaustion ? chapter 23: what a superb description by Bronte via Lucy of the great aging singer. and then a pedestrian fire breaks out, and seemingly the whole audience is seemingly "awoken", ironic. This is one my favorite collaboratives. great group of readers dahszil male american dissident
Villette: Teaching and Learning
katknit
(4 Sterne)
The heroine of this lesser known of Charlotte Bronte's novels is called Lucy Snowe, which means "light" and "cold". Thrown upon her own resources at the tender age of 14, Lucy sets out for France and, by the skin of her teeth, lands a job at a girls' school in Villete. As her name suggests, Lucy holds herself aloof from all the usual interests of young women. Coincidence and improbability plays major roles in the plot of this novel, and if the reader is intolerant of such, the book will not satisfy. Rich in symbolism, Villette serves as a metaphor for the lives of women in Victorian Europe. Particularly striking is the mystery of the spectral nun who appears in garret and garden cloister. For the modern reader, Villette suffers from too much "sermonizing." It's possible, however, to balance the religiosity with the humor invested in relatively minor characters, such as the proto-feminist Ginevra Fanshawe, who "has suffered less than any" other woman in Lucy's world. Ginevra is refreshingly, sometimes comedically, unrestricted by the conventions of her society. It requires but little imagination to hear the voice of Charlotte herself, who indeed lived much of her life in similar circumstances, in the thoughts and soliloquies of Lucy. In the end, Lucy's defensive remoteness is breached, but the reader is left to decide exactly how her story plays out.
Villette
(4 Sterne)
I really enjoyed reading this book. It is well written and she uses a lot of discriptions. Sometimes it was hard to understand what was going on in a conversation because Lucy Snow, the main character and narrator, is an English woman in France and most of the conversations are in French even though the book is written in English. I had to guess what they were saying from her reaction and response. Lucy calls several people by different names, for example Dr. John Graham Breton is Graham, Dr. John, Dr. Breton, called by his full name, etc. It took me half the book to figure out that M. Paul and M. Emanuel were the same person. I wanted to know Lucy better. I didn't really like that there was little information about her childhood, what made her the person she was, or even what kind of person she was. I had to figure that out as I went along. I had read reviews that said the ending was shocking so I got ready for any shocking way the story could end, hoping that something I didn't think was shocking was what
Amazed ....I loved it
Monica Evans
(5 Sterne)
well where do I start ?? I did not know this book ... one of the few Brontë novels I'd not read !!! I think I love it... at times I hated it the characters annoyed and frustrated me ....at times I thought it to slow or the plot weak but then I couldn't stop listening ..... so it now sits as a favourite & one I will read again soon. Thank you . readers were good...some very ... thanks again.
Great novel I discovered here on LibriVox!
Robert Cruthirds
(5 Sterne)
I had never known previously about this novel by Charlotte Bronte, but in some ways it exceeds the more widely acclaimed Jane Eyre. The heroine's name is Lucy Snowe, a complex woman of great intelligence and empathy, yet also somewhat timid and aloof by nature. She prefers to observe rather than participate, satisfied with whatever "fate" awaits her. A fascinating study of the female psyche, quite possibly based on Eyre's own life.
(2 Sterne)
Oh dear, lucy does torture herself in the most long drawn out way possible, making snarky comments about the catholics while using absolute pagan imagery herself. Her spirituality seems all about remaining ram rod straight , spurning offered human love and friendship while boiling herself past her endurance like a human cauldron. Doesn't she know God well enough to know self torture doesn't impress? Read if you don't mind being a bit depressed and a lot frustrated
(3 Sterne)
A well developed set of characters, but the main character does tend to frustrate a reader. She can be preachy, self-deprecating, and woefully happy being unhappy. Not as easy to like or care about the outcomes of each character's path as in Bronte ' s Jane Eyre.
kmtchico
(3 Sterne)
First of all, there is a LOT of French spoken in this book with no translation provided. You will miss a lot of dialogue if you don’t understand French. Most of the readers were very good, but a few had distracting background sounds.