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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44597.Wide_Sargasso_Sea?utm_medium=api&amp;utm_source=blog_review" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px"><img alt="Wide Sargasso Sea " border="0" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170266061m/44597.jpg" /></a> <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/44597.Wide_Sargasso_Sea?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">Wide Sargasso Sea</a> by <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/25022.Jean_Rhys">Jean Rhys</a> 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/26147283?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review"><h3>My review</h3></a>
 rating: 2 of 5 stars It is always a risky thing to create a narrative voice far below your own intelligence level. I find that authors less skillful than, say, Faulkner, end up producing poor quality, simple prose without managing to evoke youthfulness or naivety. The first portion of "Wide Sargasso Sea", suffers from the young teenage voice of Antoinette. I find it easy to scoff at passages like, "I woke next morning knowing that nothing would be the same. It would change and go on changing" or "I prayed for a long time to be dead. Then remembered that this was a sin. It's presumption or despair, I forget which, but a mortal sin. So I prayed for a long time about that too, but the thought came, so many things are sins, why? Another sin, to think that." What's wrong with those passages (aside from their over-convenient simplifications)? They are sandwiched between passages like, "if we were never envious, they never seemed vain. Helene and Germain, a little disdainful, aloof perhaps, but Louise, not even that." and "This remark is made in a casual and perfunctory voice and she slides on to order and chastity, that flawless crystal that, once broken, can never be mended." It's unreasonable to expect readers to receive these four utterances as if they all occurred naturally to the same teenage girl. Narrative consistency matters.
 
 The second part of the book is stronger and almost convinced me to forgive the first part of the novel (which had altogether lost my sympathy) on the basis of the strong contrast set up between them. We are all prepared to notice the shortcomings of Mr. Rochester's perspective. Rhys does not have to be terribly overt about his jealousy, his pride, his fear and his ignorance; these are clear to the reader because of how Mr. Rochester narrates and what he chooses to focus on. The second part is strong and entertaining and the show-down between Christophine (the book's most memorable character) and Mr. Rochester is very well done. While the Iago-like, lurking half-brother of Antoinette with his obnoxious letters, bribery and intrigue was a bit tedious and overdone, the second part of "Wide Sargasso Sea" still commands and rewards attention.
 
 For better or for worse, I have not read "Jane Eyre"; so, the interplay between "Wide Sargasso Sea" and Bronte's novel is completely lost on me. As a result, I have no reason to forgive or accept the disappointing and forced third and final "part" of the novel. To make a novel so dependent on its relationship to another novel is also, somewhat of a risky decision. If I ever get around to "Jane Eyre", I may come back and give this review a second look. But, for now, I wouldn't recommend this particular take on wealthy-white-person-undone-by-tropics to anyone who is not a junky of this particular sub-genre.
 
 
 
 
 
 <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/review/list/266462?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_review">View all my reviews.</a>

Nathaniel's review
rating:

It is always a risky thing to create a narrative voice far below your own intelligence level. I find that authors less skillful than, say, Faulkner, end up producing poor quality, simple prose without managing to evoke youthfulness or naivety. The first portion of "Wide Sargasso Sea", suffers from the young teenage voice of Antoinette. I find it easy to scoff at passages like, "I woke next morning knowing that nothing would be the same. It would change and go on changing" or "I prayed for a long time to be dead. Then remembered that this was a sin. It's presumption or despair, I forget which, but a mortal sin. So I prayed for a long time about that too, but the thought came, so many things are sins, why? Another sin, to think that." What's wrong with those passages (aside from their over-convenient simplifications)? They are sandwiched between passages like, "if we were never envious, they never seemed vain. Helene and Germain, a little disdainful, al...more It is always a risky thing to create a narrative voice far below your own intelligence level. I find that authors less skillful than, say, Faulkner, end up producing poor quality, simple prose without managing to evoke youthfulness or naivety. The first portion of "Wide Sargasso Sea", suffers from the young teenage voice of Antoinette. I find it easy to scoff at passages like, "I woke next morning knowing that nothing would be the same. It would change and go on changing" or "I prayed for a long time to be dead. Then remembered that this was a sin. It's presumption or despair, I forget which, but a mortal sin. So I prayed for a long time about that too, but the thought came, so many things are sins, why? Another sin, to think that." What's wrong with those passages (aside from their over-convenient simplifications)? They are sandwiched between passages like, "if we were never envious, they never seemed vain. Helene and Germain, a little disdainful, aloof perhaps, but Louise, not even that." and "This remark is made in a casual and perfunctory voice and she slides on to order and chastity, that flawless crystal that, once broken, can never be mended." It's unreasonable to expect readers to receive these four utterances as if they all occurred naturally to the same teenage girl. Narrative consistency matters.

The second part of the book is stronger and almost convinced me to forgive the first part of the novel (which had altogether lost my sympathy) on the basis of the strong contrast set up between them. We are all prepared to notice the shortcomings of Mr. Rochester's perspective. Rhys does not have to be terribly overt about his jealousy, his pride, his fear and his ignorance; these are clear to the reader because of how Mr. Rochester narrates and what he chooses to focus on. The second part is strong and entertaining and the show-down between Christophine (the book's most memorable character) and Mr. Rochester is very well done. While the Iago-like, lurking half-brother of Antoinette with his obnoxious letters, bribery and intrigue was a bit tedious and overdone, the second part of "Wide Sargasso Sea" still commands and rewards attention.

For better or for worse, I have not read "Jane Eyre"; so, the interplay between "Wide Sargasso Sea" and Bronte's novel is completely lost on me. As a result, I have no reason to forgive or accept the disappointing and forced third and final "part" of the novel. To make a novel so dependent on its relationship to another novel is also, somewhat of a risky decision. If I ever get around to "Jane Eyre", I may come back and give this review a second look. But, for now, I wouldn't recommend this particular take on wealthy-white-person-undone-by-tropics to anyone who is not a junky of this particular sub-genre.

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