Summer Reading Project, BookLikes Satellite

Charlotte Brontë's 1853 novel, Villette, is impossible to read as pure fiction. In 1842, Charlotte and Emily Brontë traveled to Brussels, to teach English and music at a boarding school. Charlotte returned a year later. While she was there, she had the misfortune to fall in love with a married man (see below). Many of the events in the school portrayed in Villette have the ring of bitter experience about them, much as the events of her sister Anne's novel Agnes Grey do. Of course, Charlotte adds her own Gothic touches (because I'm pretty sure she couldn't resist). Villette is not her best work. It's a muddle. But I think it's a muddle because there is so much of her own life in it, and who can be objective about one's own life?

Read the rest of my review at Summer Reading Project.