Charlotte Bronte Changed My Life

My favorite book is Villette by Charlotte Bronte. It's one of the few novels of hers that was not adapted to a BBC miniseries. To be honest, I read a lot of the classics so I could guiltlessly watch their adaptations. It started with Wuthering Heights when I was 13 or so. At that age, I couldn't completely grasp the nuance, but its story impacted me (even after I realized how convoluted and hateable the characters were. Literally all of them.) Yeah, the book is pretty cheesy and outlandish.

But it's beautiful.

Back to Villette. It's a lesser-known Bronte work, and I picked it up on somewhat of a whim. Typically when I read a book, I need to imagine myself as one of the characters (once I read an Agatha Christie that had a character named Audrey so that was an easy choice.) It might sound selfish, but it's my way of immersing myself in the story. (Also, I'm a writer, so since I leave bits of myself in my writing, I need to re-find those bits in someone else's. That's kind of how it works. It's give and take.)

When reading Villette, I became Lucy Snowe. Compared to today's bold, brash heroines with cropped hair and world-weary eyes, Lucy is like her winter namesake. But she's certainly not weak. She's called "as inoffensive as a shadow," and a shadow she is. But she is not blind. She is certainly not stupid.

I didn't only become Lucy Snowe every time I picked up the book. She became me in all aspects of my life. I read it and I became her and she became me. That's what good writing does.

Now, if you're a fan of the minimalist, postmodern writing of the 21st Century, you won't like Bronte. She's far beyond minimalist. By the end of the book, you know almost every crevice of Lucy's soul. And although Lucy plays the unreliable narrator for a part of the book, you know a good deal about the other characters as well. I don't think a gross amount of detail is always a bad thing. Certain kinds of minimalism are immersive, but so is full-on, unadulterated prose.

I read Villette and I became Lucy Snowe. I became a governess to a Frenchwoman's daughters. I fell in love with the rakish Dr. John, until he fell in love with someone else. I fought against the voracious Mssr. Emmanuel, until I realized the kindness of his heart, and realized I could only love him.

"If you only read what everyone else is reading, you can only think what everyone else is thinking." - Haruki Murakami

I attribute a lot of who I am because I read the classics. When my friends read Harry Potter, I was reading Narnia. They moved on to Twilight and I moved on to Bronte. As they read The Hunger Games, I picked up some Fitzgerald.

I'll warn you right now, reading classics will soften you. It will force you to feel. But the world needs people who feel. There is a deep wisdom in the classics for those who seek it out. And I'm not even talking about the obvious classics — the Aristotle and the Augustine, the Dickens or even the Brontes. Not only the classics that "everyone else is reading." Everyone's read A Christmas Carol, but how does it measure up to Hard Times? Wuthering Heights is an instant classic, but why not read Villette instead? Sometimes the not-so-mainstream classics are the ones that hold the most wisdom.

I can promise you this, too: If you pick up a classic, your life will change. You'll see the world the way people saw it a hundred years ago. You'll have a perspective that they never had. Your heart will deepen. Your wisdom will grow. And it might just save your life.

"I'm not an angel, and I won't be one til I die. I will be myself."

a. w.