Villette, Week 2. Charlotte Bronte is a weirdo and does not give a fuuuck if you know it.

You guys, you guys, when you were reading about Lucy, Ginevra and Dr John, did you...maybe...possibly....think of EXACTLY THIS SONG?



 
Slam dunk song choice, Alice. 

Lucy Snowe circa 2009

I am liking this book. Charlotte Bronte's grown up a bit.  I feel like Jane Eyre's romance is stripped away and CB's saying "You wanna know how life is? I'll fucking tell you how life is." You know what it isn't? Brooding gentlemen in isolated mansions who fall for the silent but fiery governess. Instead it's teaching at a boarding school and locking children in closets because they suck. Omg I love this Charlotte so much. She's SO MEAN AND JUDGEY. Jane was how she saw herself early on; Lucy Snowe is how she really was. That is my uninformed opinion. And I LOVE Lucy Snowe.

I could, in English, have rolled out readily phrases stigmatizing their proceedings as such proceedings deserved to be stigmatized; and then with some sarcasm, flavoured with contemptuous bitterness for the ringleaders, and relieved with easy banter for the weaker but less knavish followers.

YOU THROW SO MUCH SHADE, LUCY SNOWE. Oh man. She was so quiet at the beginning and just watched and now she's just judgin' up on everyone and ripping up snotty girls' essays like a badass.
 
What happened in this section? 

Lucy arrives in Villette. Through  DIVINE PROVIDENCE ITSELF, she ends up at this boarding school and immediately gets a job there. Because she's got moxie, damnit. Then she becomes a teacher and basically falls in love with Dr John, because "his chin was full, cleft, Grecian, and perfect." I mean, there're other reasons, but that's the best one. But he's in love with Ginevra Fanshawe (who has a great name) because he's an idiot.

We knew this was going to happen, because when Lucy and Dr John first meet and she doesn't know who he is, she "would have followed that frank tread, through continual night, to the world's end."

I mean, look at that. The CB that I fell in love with at age 16 is clearly still here. Because she's writing shit like that. And right after saying "Independently of romantic rubbish," she talks about staying outdoors "to keep tryst with the rising moon, or taste one kiss of evening." Ahahahahahaha.

She's also SO WEIRD. I just....Charlotte Bronte, I want to kiss your face in a just-friends way. Look at your Wuthering Heights tribute, girl:

I could not go in: too resistless was the delight of staying with the wild hour, black and full of thunder, pealing out such an ode as language never delivered to man— too terribly glorious, the spectacle of clouds, split and pierced by white and blinding bolts.

I mean, whattttttt. This is the Victorian era! Victorian, Charlotte! I am OVERWHELMED by how great this is. Look at her writing a tooootal asshole of a character who loves standing in thunderstorms and telling people they're dickheads (paraphrasing). 

Then she goes on to make a Jael/Sisera analogy regarding her brainthoughts and talks about "driving a nail through their temples" but "they were but transiently stunned, and at intervals would turn on the nail with a rebellious wrench: then did the temples bleed, and the brain thrill to its core."

This is a woman who gives NO fucks. If one of my friends wrote that today I'd be like "Girl, do we need to talk," so you know someone like Elizabeth Gaskell was like "Hey Ceeb, what's...um....how's it going?" But did she delete that passage? NOPE. Kept it. Woman is a baller. 

I'm so ridiculously excited to see what's going to happen in this weirdo book. Next week is Chapters 16-20 as an apology for assigning way too much this week.