Shirley (Villette Ending *Spoiler*)
Posted by The Mysterious H.C. on December 05, 1997 at 19:40:52:
In response to Bronte Blunder?, written by Nora on December 04, 1997 at 21:12:10
] I remember posting a while back requesting people who have read other Bronte books other than JE and WH to help me. I just got Shirley from the library, but I do not think I will like it. In the first paragraph CB tells us it is not a romance or anything close. Was it Vilette that people recommended to have a happy ending, the Professor or another? I cannot remember and it is most boggling.
I think you might like Shirley; it has a dry understated wit, and if you like the characters, you'll want to know what happens to them (though the book does fall apart a little bit towards the end). What "no romance" meant was that Charlottė Bronte wasn't going to include any "Gothic" elements like those in Jane Eyre, that some reviewers had criticized the book for, and that she herself had somewhat ambiguous feelings about.
By the way, as to Villette's so-called happy ending, the next-to-last chapter does resolve Miss Snowe's immediate situation in a fairly satisfactory way, but it's pretty clear that M. Paul gets it in the storm at sea in the last chapter...
"The Professor" is pretty much agreed to be the least satisfactory of her four novels; I would save it for last.
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