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Villette

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Villette

By: Charlotte Brontë
Narrated by: Davina Porter
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About this listen

Hailed as Charlotte Brontë’s “finest novel” by Virginia Woolf, Villette is the timeless semi-autobiographical tale of Lucy Snowe. Left with no family and no money, Lucy goes against her own timid nature and travels to the small city of Villette, France, where she becomes a school teacher in Madame Beck’s school for girls. During her stay, she falls in love—twice—and discovers an independent, inner strength rarely seen in women of her time.

Public Domain (P)2006 Recorded Books, LLC Classics Fiction Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Romance

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Editor reviews

Charlotte Brontë's Villette follows protagonist Lucy Snowe as she bounces from one career to another. First a servant, then a teacher, the hapless Snowe is besotted by family tragedy and doomed romance. Eloquent performer Davina Porter imbues the hard-working Snowe with solemnity tinged by optimism. Indeed, as an unwed, working woman in 19th-century Europe, Snowe must struggle to define herself against the prevailing gender codes of her day. Porter, known for her painstaking attention to historical detail, captures the mannerisms and conventions of Brontë's characters, lending context and veracity to this striking case study of a Victorian woman’s prospects for love, happiness, and independence.
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After Jane Eyre this was hard going for me. Started well, then I struggled through from middle to end. Although it did improve my French! Slower and less eventful. I hate to say it but too descriptive and truncated

Hard going

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A lovely gentle story which draws you in. Twists and turns. A great Brontë read

Relaxing comforting listen

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Villette is surely the greatest of Charlotte Bronte’s novels and Lucy Snowe the most fascinating and uncompromising of her heroines. Lucy rivals David Copperfield as the clear-eyed first-person narrator of her own life; she is so determinedly herself, so staunch in her quiet insistence on the validity of her own (often amusing) perceptions, so intelligently revealing of the narrowness of the life she has to live. She has, of course, most of the prejudices proper to a middle-class young English woman of her time, along with genuine humanity, understanding, and compassion. Her penetrating analysis of the characters of Madame Beck and Monsieur Paul Emmanuel is wonderfully convincing and surely drawn from life. The structure of the novel is brilliantly clever, especially given that Lucy Snowe is the first ever example in English fiction of the ‘unreliable narrator’. In short, this great work repays re-reading and this Audible edition could not be bettered; Davina Porter’s voiced interpretation of each and every character is superb.

Charlotte Bronte's greatest novel, superbly read

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I love this book, listening to it is great as it’s quite a wordy book to read, I read it 20 years ago and had forgotten a lot. It feels such a real tale (and it has parallels with Charlotte Brontë’s own experience), it describes her depression and need for love and friendship and paints picture of a young woman with few advantages and who wanted to taste a bit more of life. As the Rolling Stones said, you don’t always get what you want, but sometimes you get what you need.

Classic that is kind of obscure but really modern

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This book proves just how brilliant Charlotte Brontë was. The plot is intricate, twisty and eventful. The characters are vivid and complex. The narrator Lucy is a wonderful proxy for the reader, as she slowly realises her situation and develops her independence. It is easy to see why Jane Eyre is more popular–Villette is subtler and more French. But if you are a lover of nineteenth century fiction, you can’t let this one by.

David Porter is a great reader. Her voice is clear and supple. She captures several of the characters extremely well, especially Modeste Beck and Paul Emmanuel.

Masterful novel, beautifully read

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