Wide Sargasso Sea in The Roundtable

Aug 18, 2012 Camelia Rose rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-fiction, feminism, location-latin-american

Several years ago I was given a small second hand paperback, a novel called Wild Sargasso Sea, written by Jean Rhys, an author I never heard of. My friend gave it to me because it was a prequel to Jane Eyre, a book she knew I loved.

I read Jane Eyre in my teens. It was my favorite at the time. I loved Jane Eyre for her strong personality and determined independence. Mr. Rochester never moved me as much as Jane. Perhaps my younger self saw a figure like him too overpowering. I tried my best to lik ...more

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Oct 24, 2020 Irene rated it really liked it

This is a brilliant re-imagining of the story of the hidden, crazy first wife from Jane Eyre. The language, character development, psychological depth are all stunning.

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Jan 21, 2008 Rosana rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008, chick-bookclub

Wide Sargasso Sea was such a pleasant surprise. It was a bookclub choice from an internet forum I enjoy, and I picked it up without much knowledge of what it was about, other than the notorious Jane Eyre connection. Fan fiction is a much older concept than many of us had previously considered. But, calling it fanfiction is too narrow a definition.
Jean Rhys novella – it is quite a short book – wrestles with the human necessity of belonging, and the dire cost of not belonging. The luxuriant veget Wide Sargasso Sea was such a pleasant surprise. It was a bookclub choice from an internet forum I enjoy, and I picked it up without much knowledge of what it was about, other than the notorious Jane Eyre connection. Fan fiction is a much older concept than many of us had previously considered. But, calling it fanfiction is too narrow a definition.
Jean Rhys novella – it is quite a short book – wrestles with the human necessity of belonging, and the dire cost of not belonging. The luxuriant vegetation and climate of the Caribbean, the economic turmoil brought up by the abolition of slavery, and the distrust between European and Creole, white and black in a time ripe with revenge from past wrongs is all brought together as we follow “Antoinette/Bertha” from childhood to marriage, madness and death.
In a strange coincidence, I read “Bury the Chains”, by Adam Hochschild just a few weeks ago. In this account of the civil movement to abolish slavery in the British Empire, a few chapters are devoted to the atrocities perpetrated by slave owners in the Caribbean. And so, I read with even more interest about the relationship between former slave owners and the newly freed population.
Jean Rhys was born in the island of Dominica 60 years after the time when the events in the book take place, but her descriptions carry such depth and understanding that I can only wonder that distress must have permeated all interaction between the two communities for many generations to follow – how could it be any different after all?
But, this book is not only about the relationship dynamics within the islanders. It makes us question madness, cultural crash, colonization, machismo, sexuality and fear of sexuality, superstitions…
I did feel torn between 4 or 5 stars, because as beautiful as the prose is, the sequence of events left me feeling lost a couple of times. I had to turn back a few pages, wondering that I must had skipped a page or two, just to find out that the narration had “jumped”. But, I wonder, in a book where the characters are going mad, could the narrative be simple and linear? Also, the third part of the book – Bertha locked in an attic in England – seemed a bit contrived. It makes me speculate how the book would be like without the Jane Eyre connection. Would it had been a stronger book if we followed this character without the knowledge of where she was heading? At the end I decided on the 5 stars because its small shortcomings - if I can call them that - were greatly overshadowed by its strengths, and because it is a book that will remain with me for a long time…
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Feb 02, 2008 Sera rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: own, literary-fiction, 1001-books

This review is a difficult one for me, because I thought that the book was "ok", but once I realized when it had been written, I gained more appreciation for it. The book reads as contemporary literature and reminds me of books that have been published more recently.

The story itself moved a little slowly for me, even though the overall book was short. For those of you who aren't familiar, the story is about how Mr. Rochester and Bertha from Jane Eyre met and became married. The story provides B ...more

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