I don't speak French

I do not understand why CB, a British woman writing about another Brit, includes so much dialogue only a French speaker would understand. I wonder if foreign language versions have retained two languages.

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A Lovely Story By The Beautiful Charlotte Bronte

This book was so well written, detailed and descriptive of the life of Lucy Snow. Very well narrated by Mandy Weston, the perfect voice for Lucy Snow and such a lovely voice. The Bronte books always brings a tear to my eye at the end. Their inspiration and imagination for writing was just beautiful!

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1 person found this helpful

Tellement Francaise pourquoi

Very well read but a little too long, the characters became a bit If a bother to invest in. The ridiculous French insertions. I stayed with it having read similar criticisms of the narration. Might just take them in board in future

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Deeply thoughtful, and a touching love story

Psychological character study, religious and philosophical meditation, and above all - a Romance with a touch of the Bronte Gothic, 'Villette' is all this and more. It is the story of Lucy Snowe, a young, orphaned English girl struggling to make her own way in life, who comes to live in the French town of Villette. It is a thoughtful, satisfying novel, with all the strength and beauty of Bronte's poetic language and vision. It is perhaps not as directly accessible as 'Jane Eyre' or even 'Shirley', it feels more mature in style, more thoughtful. It is a wonderful expression of the creative and spiritual mind of Charlotte Bronte, and a touching love story.

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5 people found this helpful

Wonderfully poetic character portraits

Don’t be put off by the bits a French in this. They do not detract from the narrative. There is wonderful poetic writing all through this story. The characters are so deeply observed. There are some deliciously creepy bits too. I don’t know why this is not a more famous work.
The narration is utterly superb.

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1 person found this helpful

French

I thoroughly enjoyed the reader's different English and Irish accents. I loved listening to her reading the book as long as it was in English. However, I'm very disappointed in the French, which is clearly not fluent nor natural. As a fluent speaker, I have been very annoyed at not even being able to understand what is being said at times because of the inaccurate pronunciation. Loved the story though!

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2 people found this helpful

Wonderful narrator

This is a beautifully written novel whose heroine is wonderfully understated and her character unfolds gently as the novel progresses to its climax. The ending had me crying buckets (with sadness or happiness I won’t say as I don’t want to spoil the ending for those who haven’t read it).
My only criticism is there is a lot of French but I managed to find a free version of the text and used google translate so as not to miss out on the meaning.
Overall I really enjoyed this novel. It has a lot of depth to it and Charlotte Brontë is a great writer. The narrator is wonderful.

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Wonderfully read

I grew impatient at times, but there are some lovely bits to this book and it really is fantastically well read. Mandy Weston somehow manages to make Lucy Snowe a warmer, fuller character yet without betraying the spirit of the text. I'm not sure about giving the characters French accents when their words are translated, but I suppose it was an easy way to distinguish characters.

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9 people found this helpful

Fascinating and Brilliant

I had started this book and was not enamoured or sympathetic to the heroine. I thought her self satisfied and precious. I lost the book and so downloaded this version. Thanks to Mandy Weston's brilliant rendition my sympathies about faced and I loved and empathised with Lucy Snow. Please can we have much much more of Mandy Weston's lovely and tallented voice. She is a very welcome edition to Audible Books. It makes such a difference to a book as to who is reading aloud.

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2 people found this helpful

Did I really just read that?

Beautifully bizarre. Critically correct
A trippy euro novel that says much. Love it. Well ahead of its time

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3 people found this helpful