for those of us for various reasons--my excuse being speech/hearing defect, and chronic neurosis--don't "parlay the French" it becomes difficult. My rule of thumb is that an author's most popular novel is not their best. And i apply it here. Villette is a great novel, better than Jane Eyre. I always tell people English is my second and ONLY language :)or my first language is Americanese :) ..... I suppose it is a soft spot in me but its worth listening just to hear the British female and most of the non british female voices. Chip, who read the first chapter, has that classic American male voice over, radio and tv voice of the late 1950's to perhaps early 70's was also nice to hear, nostalgia i suppose. again, thank you so much Librivox, IA, volunteers and staff.

update: happy and thankful for free online bot translators for the French passages :) just have to open text while listening and copy and paste. i know online bot translators make mistakes but its better than nothing.

Chapter 14 – The Fête read by Ophelia Darcy. Ophelia did an amazing job in all her sections but this one was perfection. Her voice which is very pretty but she was also fierce in this chapter's emotional dialogue, and going from pleasant narrator to complex emotional dialogue so seamlessly.

chapter 21: one can apply Freud's basic paradigm of id, ego, and superego. early in the chapter when our protagonist meaning of "reason" can be interpreted that part of our personality, when it is out of control, is giving the horse whip to us, we feel quilty when we should not, we are not living up to those ideals put into our heads by others in the formative years and still later by those who prey on our vulnerabilities(ironically called the "other directed" who "pull our strings" to make us feel bad). luckily the good angel = the id and ego give her serenity enough to finally sleep. But in total our protagonist Lucy Snow is nothing less than a Heroine because her life was mostly alone conquering a mountain of deprivation even if the ending is tragic(not finished with book yet) . I love her acerbic rejoinders and wit and essential goodness.

chapter 22(?), the spooky nun: a trick by the school matron carried out by lower level operative or by an operative of the priest and the church? or in conspiracy with the school and catholic church together ?, or hallucination due to emotional exhaustion ?

chapter 23: what a superb description by Bronte via Lucy of the great aging singer. and then a pedestrian fire breaks out, and seemingly the whole audience is seemingly "awoken", ironic.

This is one my favorite collaboratives. great group of readers

dahszil
male
american dissident

The heroine of this lesser known of Charlotte Bronte's novels is called Lucy Snowe, which means "light" and "cold". Thrown upon her own resources at the tender age of 14, Lucy sets out for France and, by the skin of her teeth, lands a job at a girls' school in Villete. As her name suggests, Lucy holds herself aloof from all the usual interests of young women. Coincidence and improbability plays major roles in the plot of this novel, and if the reader is intolerant of such, the book will not satisfy. Rich in symbolism, Villette serves as a metaphor for the lives of women in Victorian Europe. Particularly striking is the mystery of the spectral nun who appears in garret and garden cloister. For the modern reader, Villette suffers from too much "sermonizing." It's possible, however, to balance the religiosity with the humor invested in relatively minor characters, such as the proto-feminist Ginevra Fanshawe, who "has suffered less than any" other woman in Lucy's world. Ginevra is refreshingly, sometimes comedically, unrestricted by the conventions of her society. It requires but little imagination to hear the voice of Charlotte herself, who indeed lived much of her life in similar circumstances, in the thoughts and soliloquies of Lucy. In the end, Lucy's defensive remoteness is breached, but the reader is left to decide exactly how her story plays out.