Villette, 1-5

    Having read Jane Eyre before, I had some expectations coming into this book. Mostly I was concerned that I wouldn't enjoy it, since I thoroughly dislike Jane Eyre and refuse to put in the effort of reading Wuthering Heights because the story is so monumentally ridiculous. Nay, I say, nay! I have gotten into the habit of giving the Brontes the side-eye, except maybe Anne because The Tenant of Wildfell Hall doesn't glorify being in love with an abusive and brooding rich dude. So far, however, Villette suits me fine, and I'm ready to commit for the long run.

ready to read Bronte, oh yeah, better believe it

    Some thoughts while reading chapters one to five:

• "Wait, her name isn't  Villette? Then who is Villette!?"
• "Has Charlotte Bronte ever...met a child?"
• "Oooooh, Villette is a PLACE."
• "I forgot how long classics take to set the scene."
• "I feel like Lucy Snowe doesn't like me."
• "Why are you introducing so many characters just to dispose of them a chapter later, Charlotte? Why?"

   My impressions so far are basically that Lucy Snowe is deigning to condescend to me, Paulina is improbable as, and Miss Marchmont was an entirely extraneous character. It may not sound like it, but on the whole I am enjoying the book. Classics have a pace all their own which takes some getting used to, it starts out almost too slow and quickly becomes comfortable. Classics are good for curling up with in a way that other books aren't. I don't read Cormac McCarthy the same way I read Charlotte Bronte. If I were to compare books to bodies of water, the classics would be a wide, slow-moving, slightly muddy river; providing plenty of opportunity to just float along with the story while keeping some things hidden in subtext and cultural context that you have to delve a bit deeper for. 

   I wasn't feeling super thrilled about continuing this book until chapter five, when this happened:

"How difficult, how oppressive, how puzzling seemed my flight! In London for the first time; at an inn for the first time; tired with traveling; confused with darkness; palsied with cold; unfurnished with either experience or advice to tell me how to act, and yet - to act obliged. [...] What was I doing here along in great London? What should I do on the morrow? What prospects had I in life? What friends had I on earth? Whence did I come? Whither should I go? What should I do?"

   And suddenly I was identifying and sympathizing with Lucy, and didn't mind her somewhat over-bearing tone or her referring to herself by her full name or anything else, really.

this is what you sound like, Lucy Snowe.

   A couple of years ago I flew from Canada to New Zealand and Australia by myself for about five months. I spent some of that time with various friends who were in various parts of Australia, but I was largely alone on my trip. As soon as Lucy Snowe started talking about the feeling of being alone in London with no idea what to do, I remembered landing in Auckland and freaking the hell out because what was I thinking? What had I gotten myself into? It's not on the same scale as Lucy's predicament, but it's nice to know that being afraid of the unknown and of being alone/directionless or of making a horrible error in judgement by coming here (wherever "here" is) is a pretty universal experience and isn't limited to me or even to my century. And while I intellectually realize that these fears and feelings are pretty common, it's still nice to have palpable evidence that they're a part of the human experience. My trip to the Southern Hemisphere was awesome, by the way, and I don't even regret that first bit of crying and quadruple-guessing myself. Part of the experience, yo.

Mr T understands us

   Onward and upward.