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Villette

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Villette

By: Charlotte Brontë
Narrated by: Mandy Weston
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About this listen

Long overshadowed by Jane Eyre, Villette is widely admired as one of Charlotte Bronte's finest works. This story of a young teacher at a girlâ¿¿s school in the city of Villette is a particular challenge for the young reader, for it requires maturity of vision, a fine narrative sense - and a command of French! Mandy Weston, a newcomer to Naxos AudioBooks, tells the story magnificently.©2007 Naxos Rights International (P)2007 Naxos Rights International Classics Coming of Age Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction
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My impulse purchase of Vileltte on a £3.99 deal was a stroke of genius. I loved the story of Lucy Snowe - a mature masterpiece by Charlotte Bronte - I can believe it is not more well known. I am utterly taken in and want to start listening to it again. Today!

Completely compelling

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This is a beautifully written novel whose heroine is wonderfully understated and her character unfolds gently as the novel progresses to its climax. The ending had me crying buckets (with sadness or happiness I won’t say as I don’t want to spoil the ending for those who haven’t read it).
My only criticism is there is a lot of French but I managed to find a free version of the text and used google translate so as not to miss out on the meaning.
Overall I really enjoyed this novel. It has a lot of depth to it and Charlotte Brontë is a great writer. The narrator is wonderful.

Wonderful narrator

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This is my favourite audiobook! Of course because of Charlotte Bronte's novel, but the reading of Mandy Weston makes it so much more felt. Lucy Snow's musings, restraints are thouroughly full of sense. Other characters are given their own personality. The chemistry between the personages are sparkling. I am hearing this one over and over again.

Excellent reading

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I do not understand why CB, a British woman writing about another Brit, includes so much dialogue only a French speaker would understand. I wonder if foreign language versions have retained two languages.

I don't speak French

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The performance is good in many ways, but really let down by the reader's accent in French and incomprehension of the language. There's too much French in the novel to make it okay to have such poor French.

a slow burn

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