Hannah Katagi Katagi itibaren Dehari, Madhya Pradesh 455440, Hindistan itibaren Dehari, Madhya Pradesh 455440, Hindistan

I want to say so much about this book but don't know how to. If you have read, and enjoyed, Jane Eyre, don't for one minute think you will get a second helping of it in Villette! Lucy Snowe is a much more complex narrator than our beloved Jane Eyre - we shouldn't even compare the two. Through Lucy Snowe, Charlotte Bronte has managed to highlight all that was wrong with a society focused on position and wealth. As Lucy Snowe has neither she is always very aware that her lot in life very much depends on herself and no other. She is a steadfast character, rarely happy, often melancholy, and she seems to see what no other does; she speaks her mind and quite often acts contrary to what would have been expected in those times. Lucy talks us through scenes, commenting on the behaviours of the girls in her charge, her fellow teachers and her few friends whilst seemingly having very little input in those scenes, just like the shadow she describes herself as. Hers is the mind of a depressive, but highly sensitive soul who can see and feel more deeply than most and she dares to comment on religion, behaviour and love like no other heroine; yet, Lucy give almost nothing away about herself. She is truly an enigma. As has been commented in other reviews, Lucy torments and teases the reader in a way she would find abhorrent if it had been a female pracrising her wiles on a man! She leads us this way, she leads us that way, we make our mind up to one thing only to have our hopes dashed and come the end.....never have I read such a tormenting ending. She refuses to tell us the ending even though, really, it's quite clear what that ending is, almost like saying, 'I'm not going to put it into words, you can make up your own mind but you know what happened really, if you admit it to yourself.' A tease to the end! It's truly a brilliant piece of work, Charlotte Bronte has gone where no other author of that time, dared go; she's questioned, and made some deeply disturbing observations of, the role of male and female, of religion, of society and postion therein with an insight years before its time. It is absolutely worth reading, but be prepared to be disturbed and shaken.

Interesting. I thought this book was a little gross at times and a little sad at times and a little "What the heck is going ON?" at times. But it was good. It was definitely an intelligent read, and I enjoyed it. Overuse of the c-word, and though I guess a happy ending was too much to ask for I still wanted one. A good read. One issue I had was that I couldn't for the life of me figure out how Glen Duncan really feels about women. That bothers me.