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Wide Sargasso Sea
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Manufacturer: Buccaneer Books
Author: Jean Rhys, Charlotte Bronte
Publisher: Buccaneer Books
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $19.77
You Save: $ 10.18 ( 34% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Buccaneer Books
Author: Jean Rhys, Charlotte Bronte
Publisher: Buccaneer Books
Average Customer Rating:
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Wide Sargasso Sea Description
Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9781568497297
ISBN: 1568497296
Label: Buccaneer Books
Manufacturer: Buccaneer Books
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 189
Publication Date: 1999-01
Publisher: Buccaneer Books
Studio: Buccaneer Books
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9781568497297
ISBN: 1568497296
Label: Buccaneer Books
Manufacturer: Buccaneer Books
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 189
Publication Date: 1999-01
Publisher: Buccaneer Books
Studio: Buccaneer Books
Editorial Review of Wide Sargasso Sea
Jean Rhys' novels and stories are powerful works with poignant and disturbing insights into women's lives. Born in the Windward Islands, Rhys spent WW I in England and the next decade wandering the Continent. She returned to England prior to WW II.
In WIDE SARGASSO SEA, set in Jamaica and Dominica during the 1830s, Rhys imaginatively constructs the girlhood and marriage of Antoinette Bertha Cosway, the mysterious mad woman in JANE EYRE. It is a romantic and tragic novel, intense and spellbinding.
"This is Charlotte Bronte reconstructed from the inside out. Rhys draws you into a childhood dream that turns nightmare...chilling and beautifully realized." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)
Customer Reviews of Wide Sargasso Sea
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: moods as varied as the skies over the West Indies
Review: With her vivid imaginative skills, Jean Rhys offers us the tale of "Bertha" Rochester, the madwoman in the attic of "Jane Eyre." The skies of the West Indies are an ever-changing backdrop in this moody novel of fear, memory, and desire. Rhys' style challenges the reader to "fill in the blanks" many times throughout, making necessary intuitive connections to amplify her sometimes sparse prose. What could have been merely a lightweight story of "love and greed in the tropics" turns into an engaging, beautifully unfolding narrative laden with mystery and sadness.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Greatest tragedy in the world: loss of three trees in North Carolina for the purpose of the novel
Review: I bought this novel with anticipation of a thrilling story and a dramatic yet suspenseful story. What I got was a boring love story followed by an atrocious climb to a lackluster climax. The story is narrator from opposing views, mainly the Creole protagonist, Antionnette, yet also from a Colonialist whose name is never mentioned. Why the name was never mentioned is unclear, obviously to try and give a sense of imagination and creativity to the story (EPIC FAIL). Characters are introduced randomly and seemingly without a purpose in the novel. The racism towards English is evident in Rhys obsession towards depicting them as soulless colonial butchers when this is obviously not the case. The novel is simply a silly novel, not bad, but silly. The love story seemingly falls apart out of nowhere, there is no cohesion to the story and the characters seemingly were created out of a Jamacain woman's desire for a popular story. The climax of the novel is pointless and silly, the story translating to England out of nowhere. There is no point to the novel, as it should never have been written. This is the most racist and atrociously silly novel I have ever read. Couldn't stop laughing after I read it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Mystery Woman
Review: Who is the mad woman in the attic of the house where Jane Eyre has gone to work; how does she come to live there; what drove her to madness? Anyone who has read "Jane Eyre" has, I'm sure, wondered these things as Bronte's story unfolded.
Jean Rhys has wondered also, but has tried to answer these questions. The back story which is contained in "Wide Sargasso Sea" fills in answers. Rhys explains the childhood of this woman and her strange home life as a child. The story is told of how she got to England and ended up captive in a dark cagelike attic.
It would have been better if Bronte had answered these questions herself. However, Rhys stands in for her and has written a marvelous mystery which keeps the reader as spellbound as the original story did.
Good reading - have a go at it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The horror... the horror... Wide Sargasso Sea is a searing indictment
Review: Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea is a dreamlike feverish novel awash in passion and trauma. Forget for a moment that it's a sequel to "Jane Eyre" or that it is a seminal text in Feminism and Colonialist studies. Simply as a story of trauma and madness executed in a modern stream of consciousness style it is brilliant. Disorienting, agonizing, nightmarish yet stunningly beautiful; I was forced to read it in dribs and drabs - as the knife edge of Rhys' vision would compel me to come up, panting for air. This book is powerful and unforgiving dark. But, of course, it is much more - it's a modernist masterpiece which brilliantly critiques the human costs of crimes of patriarchy, colonialism, slavery and subjugation. It is a searing indictment at the same time it is a haunting work of art.
Antoinette grows up poor and isolated at her family's plantation. Her companions are the black laborers and their children who simmer with resentment at the legacy of slavery. Slavery may have been abolished but has been replaced with economic and social subjugation and the resentment is palpable. Mr. Mason disregards his wife's warnings with sexist and colonialist arrogance - an act which destroys their lives. Her mother's anger at Mr. Mason leads to her imprisonment as a mad woman. Women are not permitted to express rage. Patriarchy is central because Antoinette/Bertha is chattel. Her marriage to Rochester is effected because she owns land - it's an economic arrangement to gain property for Rochester. Once married, Antoinette/Bertha is stripped of all her claim to property and is completely under her husband's authority. Their marriage is marked by passion but it becomes apparent how culturally Caribbean (black) she is, tainted with scandal. Their relationship flames out spectacularly with infidelity and rage. When he decides he can't deal with her and chooses to abandon her to be locked as "the madwoman in the attic" she is reduced to, essentially, a prisoner. A woman, in that society, can literally be the prisoner of her husband. Both Antoinette and her mother, Bertha are confined as mad - but their pathologies are the simple act of blaming their spouses and acting out their anger. Rebellion is seen as madness - both in the context of rebellion against slavery and rebellion against patriarchy.
As for the literary context - "Wide Sargasso Sea" as sequel to "Jane Eyre". By situating WSS's story within the classic Victorian novel "Jane Eyre", Rhys sets up a host of powerful resonances. Jane Eyre is a tale of redemption; of love's power to redeem. England's brutal social and economic inequities are hurdles to be overcome - but ultimately love overcomes them all in a healing and redemptive way. The fly in the ointment is Bertha, the mad woman in the attic. Her presence complicates the otherwise straightforward romantic narrative and gives it tension and fire. By inverting this tale to tell the story of Antoinette/Bertha, Rhys deepens the misery by shattering "Jane Eyre"s redemptive message. In "Wide Sargosso Sea" love is a tragic by-product of the economic abuses of patriarchy. Love has no redemptive power for Antoinette. It's just more salt in the wound. A lot of the negative reviews here center around resentment at Rhys for besmirching their beloved innocent "world of 'Jane Eyre'". They've missed the point. Inverting and besmirching the innocent world of 'Jane Eyre' is exactly the point. Colonialist England's apparent grace is built on the blood and toil of subjugated peoples. The subjugation extends to English women as well. You are meant to see that and the experience is not meant to be pleasant.
I can't say enough about this book's importance or the brilliant, polished skill with which it is written. Published in 1966 - at the height of the civil rights movement and free speech movement - WSS's issues were dead on the zeitgeist of the moment. You can imagine how the lush, dark, evil imagery of the jungle and colonialism must have resonated in with an America embroiled in Vietnam and a rising anti-war moment. It's not a pleasant read, however. The messages are hard, dark ones. There are no happy endings here and as the story unfolds the brutal details big and small are as oppressive as the tropical humidity. This is fine literature, indeed - but also a journey into pain, deprivation, madness and tragedy. It's not a journey to be taken lightly.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Since Long Time - Past in the Present
Review: The voice of Christophine, the former slave in the household in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, is able to talk in the voice of both colonial and post-colonial vernacular, "she could speak good English if she wanted to, and French as well as patois." (p 21, Norton 1982) What is far more compelling is that a former slave of indeterminate age becomes a life-giving force. In the beginning of the novel Antoinette's mother says, "we would have died if she'd turned against us." To answer the question of why two generations of Cosways would have perished without Christophine's help is to understand how Christophine and other islanders operate in the present, unhurt, unhurried, and unbowed by the colonialism that wracks most of the islanders in Rhys' novel.
Daniel Cosway, Rochester's erstwhile blackmailer knows that "the English and the French fight like cats and dogs since long time." (p 96) The use of the grammatically incorrect word since with a phrase that stands for extended time passages transmits the past into the present, showing that wars come and go but the island inhabitants remain to carve out their identities. Daniel uses the phrase to considerable effect when confronting Antoinette's husband to imply he has been cuckolded all along, "[Y]our wife know Sandi since long time. Ask her and she tell you. But not everything . . ." (p. 140)
From the first pages to the last, Rhys allows several characters to employ a somewhat innocuous phrase nearly twenty times throughout the novel. "Long time" establishes Christophine's prominence, entreats readers that much of the past is contained in the present as well as the reverse, and literally if not figuratively defines love, "[Y]ou only know a long time afterwards what it is, the life and death kiss." (p. 186)
Christophine chooses to speak in her patois, to practice her obeah, and, in her own unhurried way, to live a life with the Cosways, knowing that one of the cornerstones of story-telling, "A long time ago," means a long time now and forever but especially in the present.
Review Summary: moods as varied as the skies over the West Indies
Review: With her vivid imaginative skills, Jean Rhys offers us the tale of "Bertha" Rochester, the madwoman in the attic of "Jane Eyre." The skies of the West Indies are an ever-changing backdrop in this moody novel of fear, memory, and desire. Rhys' style challenges the reader to "fill in the blanks" many times throughout, making necessary intuitive connections to amplify her sometimes sparse prose. What could have been merely a lightweight story of "love and greed in the tropics" turns into an engaging, beautifully unfolding narrative laden with mystery and sadness.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Greatest tragedy in the world: loss of three trees in North Carolina for the purpose of the novel
Review: I bought this novel with anticipation of a thrilling story and a dramatic yet suspenseful story. What I got was a boring love story followed by an atrocious climb to a lackluster climax. The story is narrator from opposing views, mainly the Creole protagonist, Antionnette, yet also from a Colonialist whose name is never mentioned. Why the name was never mentioned is unclear, obviously to try and give a sense of imagination and creativity to the story (EPIC FAIL). Characters are introduced randomly and seemingly without a purpose in the novel. The racism towards English is evident in Rhys obsession towards depicting them as soulless colonial butchers when this is obviously not the case. The novel is simply a silly novel, not bad, but silly. The love story seemingly falls apart out of nowhere, there is no cohesion to the story and the characters seemingly were created out of a Jamacain woman's desire for a popular story. The climax of the novel is pointless and silly, the story translating to England out of nowhere. There is no point to the novel, as it should never have been written. This is the most racist and atrociously silly novel I have ever read. Couldn't stop laughing after I read it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The Mystery Woman
Review: Who is the mad woman in the attic of the house where Jane Eyre has gone to work; how does she come to live there; what drove her to madness? Anyone who has read "Jane Eyre" has, I'm sure, wondered these things as Bronte's story unfolded.
Jean Rhys has wondered also, but has tried to answer these questions. The back story which is contained in "Wide Sargasso Sea" fills in answers. Rhys explains the childhood of this woman and her strange home life as a child. The story is told of how she got to England and ended up captive in a dark cagelike attic.
It would have been better if Bronte had answered these questions herself. However, Rhys stands in for her and has written a marvelous mystery which keeps the reader as spellbound as the original story did.
Good reading - have a go at it.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: The horror... the horror... Wide Sargasso Sea is a searing indictment
Review: Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea is a dreamlike feverish novel awash in passion and trauma. Forget for a moment that it's a sequel to "Jane Eyre" or that it is a seminal text in Feminism and Colonialist studies. Simply as a story of trauma and madness executed in a modern stream of consciousness style it is brilliant. Disorienting, agonizing, nightmarish yet stunningly beautiful; I was forced to read it in dribs and drabs - as the knife edge of Rhys' vision would compel me to come up, panting for air. This book is powerful and unforgiving dark. But, of course, it is much more - it's a modernist masterpiece which brilliantly critiques the human costs of crimes of patriarchy, colonialism, slavery and subjugation. It is a searing indictment at the same time it is a haunting work of art.
Antoinette grows up poor and isolated at her family's plantation. Her companions are the black laborers and their children who simmer with resentment at the legacy of slavery. Slavery may have been abolished but has been replaced with economic and social subjugation and the resentment is palpable. Mr. Mason disregards his wife's warnings with sexist and colonialist arrogance - an act which destroys their lives. Her mother's anger at Mr. Mason leads to her imprisonment as a mad woman. Women are not permitted to express rage. Patriarchy is central because Antoinette/Bertha is chattel. Her marriage to Rochester is effected because she owns land - it's an economic arrangement to gain property for Rochester. Once married, Antoinette/Bertha is stripped of all her claim to property and is completely under her husband's authority. Their marriage is marked by passion but it becomes apparent how culturally Caribbean (black) she is, tainted with scandal. Their relationship flames out spectacularly with infidelity and rage. When he decides he can't deal with her and chooses to abandon her to be locked as "the madwoman in the attic" she is reduced to, essentially, a prisoner. A woman, in that society, can literally be the prisoner of her husband. Both Antoinette and her mother, Bertha are confined as mad - but their pathologies are the simple act of blaming their spouses and acting out their anger. Rebellion is seen as madness - both in the context of rebellion against slavery and rebellion against patriarchy.
As for the literary context - "Wide Sargasso Sea" as sequel to "Jane Eyre". By situating WSS's story within the classic Victorian novel "Jane Eyre", Rhys sets up a host of powerful resonances. Jane Eyre is a tale of redemption; of love's power to redeem. England's brutal social and economic inequities are hurdles to be overcome - but ultimately love overcomes them all in a healing and redemptive way. The fly in the ointment is Bertha, the mad woman in the attic. Her presence complicates the otherwise straightforward romantic narrative and gives it tension and fire. By inverting this tale to tell the story of Antoinette/Bertha, Rhys deepens the misery by shattering "Jane Eyre"s redemptive message. In "Wide Sargosso Sea" love is a tragic by-product of the economic abuses of patriarchy. Love has no redemptive power for Antoinette. It's just more salt in the wound. A lot of the negative reviews here center around resentment at Rhys for besmirching their beloved innocent "world of 'Jane Eyre'". They've missed the point. Inverting and besmirching the innocent world of 'Jane Eyre' is exactly the point. Colonialist England's apparent grace is built on the blood and toil of subjugated peoples. The subjugation extends to English women as well. You are meant to see that and the experience is not meant to be pleasant.
I can't say enough about this book's importance or the brilliant, polished skill with which it is written. Published in 1966 - at the height of the civil rights movement and free speech movement - WSS's issues were dead on the zeitgeist of the moment. You can imagine how the lush, dark, evil imagery of the jungle and colonialism must have resonated in with an America embroiled in Vietnam and a rising anti-war moment. It's not a pleasant read, however. The messages are hard, dark ones. There are no happy endings here and as the story unfolds the brutal details big and small are as oppressive as the tropical humidity. This is fine literature, indeed - but also a journey into pain, deprivation, madness and tragedy. It's not a journey to be taken lightly.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Since Long Time - Past in the Present
Review: The voice of Christophine, the former slave in the household in Jean Rhys' Wide Sargasso Sea, is able to talk in the voice of both colonial and post-colonial vernacular, "she could speak good English if she wanted to, and French as well as patois." (p 21, Norton 1982) What is far more compelling is that a former slave of indeterminate age becomes a life-giving force. In the beginning of the novel Antoinette's mother says, "we would have died if she'd turned against us." To answer the question of why two generations of Cosways would have perished without Christophine's help is to understand how Christophine and other islanders operate in the present, unhurt, unhurried, and unbowed by the colonialism that wracks most of the islanders in Rhys' novel.
Daniel Cosway, Rochester's erstwhile blackmailer knows that "the English and the French fight like cats and dogs since long time." (p 96) The use of the grammatically incorrect word since with a phrase that stands for extended time passages transmits the past into the present, showing that wars come and go but the island inhabitants remain to carve out their identities. Daniel uses the phrase to considerable effect when confronting Antoinette's husband to imply he has been cuckolded all along, "[Y]our wife know Sandi since long time. Ask her and she tell you. But not everything . . ." (p. 140)
From the first pages to the last, Rhys allows several characters to employ a somewhat innocuous phrase nearly twenty times throughout the novel. "Long time" establishes Christophine's prominence, entreats readers that much of the past is contained in the present as well as the reverse, and literally if not figuratively defines love, "[Y]ou only know a long time afterwards what it is, the life and death kiss." (p. 186)
Christophine chooses to speak in her patois, to practice her obeah, and, in her own unhurried way, to live a life with the Cosways, knowing that one of the cornerstones of story-telling, "A long time ago," means a long time now and forever but especially in the present.