And I Begin my First Re-read
Books Left: 94
Current Book: Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys
This entry contains spoilers for the novel Jane Eyre.
Here’s the thing about Wide Sargasso Sea. I read it for school, for this odd class called “Fiction” in which our professor had us read four sets of two novels: one older novel, and one more recent work. Each pair related to each other in some way. One of the pairs was Jane Eyre and Wide Sargasso Sea.
I didn’t want to like Wide Sargasso Sea because I loved Jane Eyre and I knew what Wide Sargasso Sea was about before reading it. I wanted to believe that Rochester was truly tricked into marrying some certifiably crazy lady. When I read Wide Sargasso Sea I had to make myself believe that Antoinette was in no way actually the same person as the woman in the attic. I read it as though the two books were just coincidentally similar. I refused to let Jean Rhys’s more-politically-correct-than-thou post-colonial attitude destroy my enjoyment of the 19th century classic.
Approaching this book for the second time, I realized I didn’t remember anything about it except that the existence of it bothered me. It’s place in the literary canon bothered me, because it was based on something else and it’s not like all those Pride and Prejudice “sequels” are going to be taught in school anytime soon. I didn’t want to read it again. I just wanted to write it off the top 100 list and be done with it.
I’m reading it again, and I’ve discovered two things:
1. Antoinette/Bertha really is kind of crazy. She’s kind of hard to relate to in the book because the parts that are written from her perspective are very muddled. This could also be because she’s young, but I like to think that when I was her age I had a clearer head than that.
2. This book is incredibly well written.
Tags: jane eyre, Pride and Prejudice, re-read, Wide Sargasso Sea, writing style
I remember hating Jane Eyre. I can’t remember enough from Wide Sargasso Sea to have an opinion, but perhaps I should reread both.
Jane Eyre is such a good story! I can see how some people might not like it though. It’s really long, for one thing.
When I first read Wide Sargasso Sea, I remember resolving to hate it because I knew I’d probably have Jane Eyre in my coffin when I die, haha. And, well, I didn’t like it so much. I don’t know how much of the bias affected me. This was two years ago.
An anecdote: My mother [who introduced me to Jane Eyre] and I were weeding my bookshelves post-graduation, and she asked me about Jean Rhys’ novel, which I kept at a very shadowy corner. I told her, “It’s proposing that Rochester’s a douche. And Bertha’s name is Antoinette.” She threw the book back into aforementioned shadowy corner. We have our unshakable loyalties.
That said, I’ll definitely be coming back to see how it’s holding up to your scrutiny. Maybe I’ll be kinder to this when I next read it. Eventually. Someday? Yes.
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I read Wide Sargasso Sea for the first time a couple of years ago, and even as a non-Jane Eyre fan, I didn’t connect with this book much. I could see what Rhys was trying to do, but I don’t think her skills were quite up to it.