Alisha’s Reviews > Villette > Status Update

Loving taking my time over this re-read

Amazon makes it so difficult to find the kindle version of the Oxford World’s Classic edition, but find it I did. Annotations and French translations at my fingertips. The novel starts 8% in, after introductory material.
Already loving the note about Lucy Snow’s name: externally cold but internally heated.
And yeah, I always feel she’s a wee bit psychopathic in these early days of her distant observation of Polly.

Villette is such a murky maze of narration, but I'm reminded again of how brilliant it is! Sometimes I just want to shake Lucy Snowe out of her nothingness... she's difficult! She's emotionally repulsive. And she's doing her darnedest to convince you that she's nobody. But deep, deep, deep in her persona, there are cracks--and there's an individual beneath.
I feel like Charlotte Bronte's whole heart is in this story

My second choice for Victober… time to get lost in some Charlotte Bronte thorny characters and stormy moods…

Lucy Snowe is an enigma. Do I like her, do I not? I can't remember the last time I was so puzzled by a character. She certainly keeps herself hedged in, and I believed I didn't like her, until she made me laugh...