I finished Villette, and it was a worthwhile read. A bit slow, but it was my evening reading in bed, and that's actually how I like to read stuff at night. And as I mentioned earlier, it also helps if you know some French. The story is of a young English woman who falls into a teaching position in a French town, and the various social relationships she has in the course of her young career. Charlotte Bronte herself had done something similar in Brussels, and was clearly fluent in French, and made much use of it in this novel. But the characters throughout are complex, vivid, and very well portrayed, without cliché or stereotype, and the narrative style solid and readable throughout. Happy I read it.
caw