APS TOGETHER
Day 13
Villette by Charlotte BrontëChapters XVIII–XIX
November 27, 2022 by Yiyun Li
It may be that my mood is wrong for today’s reading, but I find this chapter with Dr. John and Lucy, both blinded by love, rather giggle-worthy.
He often talked nonsense; but I strove to be unfailingly patient with him.
All the male players of the narrative converging in front of the Cleopatra! I know there can be some profound analysis of seeing versus being seen, but am I wrong also to think that it’s one of the funniest chapters so far?
Setting a chapter in an art gallery—instead of during a hunt, or on a nature walk, or in a ballroom—with Cleopatra in the painting as the main audience of all the characters: this must have been a change of air for novels written around this time.
