With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, a headmistress who spies on her staff, and her own complex feelings--first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor, Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a teacher in Brussels, Charlotte Bronte's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully ...
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With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, a headmistress who spies on her staff, and her own complex feelings--first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor, Paul Emmanuel. Drawing on her own deeply unhappy experiences as a teacher in Brussels, Charlotte Bronte's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully moving look at isolation and the pain of unrequited love, narrated by a heroine determined to preserve an independent spirit in the face of adverse circumstances.
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Add this copy of Villette to cart. $66.68, good condition, Sold by Bonita rated 4.0 out of 5 stars, ships from Newport Coast, CA, UNITED STATES, published 2005 by Isis Audio Books.
Lucy Snowe isn't exactly a "lovable heroine" but a fascinating one... There's something about this book that keeps bringing me back to it. It could be that Lucy and Paul Emmanuel are two such idiosyncratic characters that it's hard to appreciate them at first glance. Hard sometimes even to like them. But that makes for a rewarding read, as we trace their relationship and the development of their back-stories. In the end Lucy is a strong, finely drawn character - somewhat prickly and strait-laced with fears and passions that sometimes peep through. She resists becoming an object of pity for the reader...even at the end, one has a feeling that Lucy will keep a stiff upper lip, so to speak, and survive.
