Villette

I made it one of my goals this year to update my blog at least once a week even if the most interesting things I have to say regard movies I've watched or books I'm reading. It's been over a week now, so I'm due.

I'm reading a book called Villette by Charlotte Bronte (of Jane Eyre fame.) As some of you may know, JE is my all-time favorite book, which is interesting considering my short attention span for the classics. Sacrilegious to most bibliophiles is my distaste for Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy and a handful of other overly verbose Victorian authors. But I absolutely love JE for reasons listed in an earlier blog post. I grew up watching Timothy Dalton smolder on screen as the formidable Mr. Rochester; I grew up watching, horrified, while Bertha Mason threw herself, screaming, from the battlements of Thornfield Hall as it burned to ground. Heady stuff.

Admittedly, I was probably able to get through the book all the way the first time only because it was required reading in Mr. Baldwin's sophomore English class. But it has remained my favorite ever since.

I have shied away from reading any other Charlotte Bronte novels mostly for one reason: the fear of disappointment. I feel as if JE is the pinnacle, or the summum bonum, of the Bronte sisters' work (having read Wuthering Heights and numerous synopses for other Bronte books.) Many of them all seem to run along the same themes: Loneliness, Discovery, Friendship, Love, Passion, Loss, Redemption. (And governesses. Lots of governesses.) All good themes. (Even the governessing.) But in my mind, I cannot fathom another book executing these themes as well as...you know what.

Well, the point I'm winding around to is that I have finally gotten up the nerve, or the motivation, to read my second Charlotte Bronte novel. This is a big step for me, especially considering that my best friend--a Dickens lover, mind you, and a voracious reader of all books Classic--soundly condemned Villette as "boring." Eek. But then there is my sister, who applauded Villette as romantic, well-written, etc.

I have a confession to make, however, that neither my best friend nor my sister tipped the scales in my decision to read or not to read. George Eliot did. Quoth Ms. Eliot on the back of the copy I'm reading, "I am only just returned to a sense of the real world about me, for I have been reading Villette, a still more wonderful book than Jane Eyre."

!!!

That was it. An endorsement from another famous Victorian authoress singing the praises of a book "still more wonderful" than my favorite book? Why yes, I will read that book. That, and statement by the Oxford University Press on the back that Villette was similar to JE, but more honest, more autobiographical, and less...gothic--that all appealed to me.

I am currently 68 pages into my book. Not much has happened. (Then again neither did anything in the first 90 pages of Les Miserables, which I read all of, and loved.) I will keep you posted on whether or not I a) finish Villette and b) like it.