Category: Reviews

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

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Wide Sargasso Sea After finishing a re-read of Jane Eyre recently, I decided that my next read would have to be Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys, a book inspired by Charlotte Brontë’s classic novel and which I’ve seen described both as a prequel and a reimagining. I don’t read this type of book very often as I prefer to keep my feelings for the originals intact, but this one, published in 1966, is now considered a classic in itself and I wanted to find out why.

As I started writing this review it occurred to me that it would be impossible to discuss Wide Sargasso Sea in any meaningful way without giving away some of the secrets revealed in Jane Eyre and spoiling the Brontë novel for anyone who hasn’t read it yet. I will assume that if you’re reading this post you’re already familiar with Jane Eyre, so consider this your spoiler warning!

Wide Sargasso Sea is the story of Mr Rochester’s first wife, Bertha, the ‘madwoman in the attic’. In Jane Eyre, we learn that Rochester was sent by his father to Jamaica where he met the Mason family and married Bertha, a beautiful Creole heiress. Rochester explains that he was unaware of the madness running in Bertha’s family and the fact that her mother was not dead, as he had first believed, but had actually been locked away in an asylum. When Bertha’s own behaviour begins to worry Rochester, he brings her home to England and Thornfield Hall, where he has her imprisoned in an attic room under the care of a servant, Grace Poole.

Jane Eyre only shows us one side of the story: Rochester’s. In Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys gives a voice to Bertha (or Antoinette Cosway, as she is known here). The first part of the novel, narrated by Antoinette herself, describes her childhood in 1830s Jamaica, just after the Emancipation Act has ended slavery across the British Empire. Antoinette’s own father made his fortune through slavery and since his death the family have remained on their crumbling plantation, Coulibri, where as white Creoles they are isolated and shunned by the freed black slaves and their rich white neighbours alike. As the years go by and Antoinette’s mother descends into mental illness, her stepfather, Mr Mason, announces that friends from England are coming to visit…

In the middle section of the book, we switch to Rochester’s point of view (although he is not actually named in the novel, it’s clear who he is supposed to be) and he relates in his own words the story of his marriage to Antoinette, whom he renames Bertha, and his views on the deteoriation of her mental health. The final, shortest section is set at Thornfield Hall and takes us through the familiar events of Jane Eyre.

I was quite disappointed with this book, if I’m going to be completely honest. Yes, it’s beautifully written but I found the dreamlike, disjointed narrative slightly difficult to follow and while I could sympathise with Antoinette’s situation, I never felt fully engaged with her on an emotional level. I realise that the writing style was probably intended to unsettle and disorientate the reader, but I just didn’t like it. Luckily, my lack of love for this novel has not affected my memories of Jane Eyre or its characters – not even Mr Rochester, despite the negative portrayal, mainly because the character in this novel just doesn’t feel at all like Brontë’s Rochester (not even his ‘voice’ sounds the same).

Wide Sargasso Sea is a short novel (I was surprised when I discovered just how short it was) but it’s also a complex one with lots of layers, symbolism and important themes – including slavery, colonialism, mental illness, race and gender – and I can see why it’s a book that has come to be widely studied in schools and universities. I can recommend the Penguin Modern Classics ‘Annotated Edition’ as an excellent choice for students or anyone who wants to study the story and its background in more depth. There’s an introduction, notes at the end, suggestions for further reading and background information on some of the topics alluded to in the story, such as the Jamaican folk magic known as Obeah.

I did love the concept of giving Bertha/Antoinette a chance to tell her story and I wouldn’t want to put anyone else off reading this book – even though I didn’t find it very satisfying, I know there are many, many other people who have enjoyed it, so if it does sound appealing to you then I would certainly recommend giving it a try.

Lionheart by Martha Rofheart

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Lionheart Martha Rofheart (1917-1990) was an American author of historical fiction who wrote several novels on subjects as diverse as Cleopatra (The Alexandrian), Henry V (Fortune Made His Sword) and the Greek poet, Sappho (Burning Sappho). Lionheart, her 1981 novel on England’s King Richard I, is the first of her books that I’ve read and although I had one or two problems with it, I did enjoy it and am looking forward to trying her others.

The story of Richard I, known as the Lionheart, is told from the perspectives of not only Richard himself, but five other people who each played a significant role in his life: his mistress, Blondelza; his mercenary captain, Mercadier; his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine; his wife, Berengaria of Navarre; and his foster-brother and scribe, Alexander. All of these people really existed, apart from Blondelza, who is fictitious, and each of them is given their own section of the book in which to relate their own version of events and to share with us their personal opinion of Richard as a man and as a king.

With six different characters each telling their side of the story, I would have liked their narrative voices to have sounded more distinctive, but they did all seem to blend together, the exceptions being Richard (a child during most of the first section of the novel), and his mother, Eleanor. I have read about Eleanor and Richard recently, in Elizabeth Chadwick’s The Winter Crown, and it was good to read another author’s interpretation of the same characters. The portrayal of Richard here is balanced and well-developed, with each narrator throwing more light on a different aspect of his personality. He is shown to be a complex man, capable of being selfish and inconsiderate, but also courageous, kind-hearted and down to earth.

I’m not sure how I feel about the character of Blondelza, Richard’s mistress. As most of the other characters are real historical figures and the plot of the novel closely follows historical fact, it doesn’t seem quite right for an entirely fictional character to be given such a prominent role in the story. On the other hand, Richard did have an illegitimate son (Philip of Cognac) by an unidentified woman, so there’s plenty of scope there for an author to fill in the gaps, which is just what Martha Rofheart has done. And Blondelza, being a glee-maiden (a female poet or minstrel), is an interesting character to read about, fictional or not!

All of the major events of Richard’s life and reign are covered in the novel, from his childhood and his rebellion (with his brothers) against his father, Henry II, to his meeting with and marriage to Berengaria and, of course, his time on crusade. Obviously the crusades were of huge importance to Richard and it’s understandable that Rofheart goes into a lot of detail in describing them, but I did find that this section of the book (narrated by the monk Alexander) really started to drag, and it didn’t help that it was twice the length of any of the other sections.

Still, this was an enjoyable novel overall and I feel that I learned a lot about not only the life of Richard the Lionheart, but also medieval life in general. I was particularly intrigued by the descriptions of the Courts of Love in Poitiers and the tasks which must be carried out by a knight who wished to prove his love for his lady. Now that I’ve had my first introduction to Martha Rofheart’s writing I’m definitely planning to read her other books, all of which sound interesting.

Thanks to Endeavour Press for providing a review copy via NetGalley.

Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë (re-read)

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Jane Eyre was the book chosen for me in the Classics Spin in December. When I discovered that this was the one I’d be reading, I was delighted – it’s a book I love and which I hadn’t read for a long time. I immediately pulled my copy off the shelf to start my re-read and from the familiar opening line – “There was no possibility of taking a walk that day” – I was drawn into the story once more. The gothic atmosphere of the novel made it a perfect read for dark December nights and I finished it just before Christmas.

Jane Eyre I think I was probably eleven or twelve years old when I had my first encounter with Jane but on that first read I didn’t get past the Lowood School section at the beginning and more than ten years passed before I decided to try again. My second attempt was much more successful; being older and better able to appreciate the story and the quality of the writing, I read the whole book and loved it. This most recent read was my third. I was curious to see whether I would feel differently about it now, after another long gap, but although I did notice things this time that I don’t think I picked up on last time, my overall opinion of the book is unchanged.

Jane Eyre, for those who don’t know the story, is an orphan raised in the home of an aunt and three cousins who make it obvious that they don’t like her and don’t want her there. At the age of ten, Jane is sent to a charity-run boarding school for girls, another harsh and unwelcoming environment. However, Jane is able to take two positive things away from her time at school – a brief but much-valued friendship with Helen Burns, and the education which later enables her to find a position as governess to Adele, the young ward of Mr Rochester of Thornfield Hall. Jane soon begins to fall in love with her employer but when she discovers that he is hiding a dark secret, it seems that her chance of happiness has been destroyed.

*Spoiler warning: I will find it difficult to discuss the book any further without spoilers, so if you haven’t read Jane Eyre yet, I would advise skipping to the end of this post.*

I loved the experience of reading Jane Eyre again. Although much of the story was familiar to me from my previous reads and many of the scenes had stayed in my mind – including Jane’s imprisonment in the red room at Gateshead Hall, the tragic death of Helen Burns, Rochester disguising himself as a gypsy woman and the revelation of Bertha’s existence – there were other parts that I had forgotten and that I enjoyed discovering again.

I also loved being reacquainted with the characters. I know there are a lot of people who have problems with Mr Rochester and I can understand why – apart from his treatment of Bertha, there’s the fact that he lies to Jane and that he’s prepared to enter into a bigamous marriage with her, but despite this I have always liked him as a character. Jane is not my favourite literary heroine (although I do admire her for her honesty, integrity, inner strength and sense of right and wrong) and Mr Rochester is not my favourite hero but they both feel so real and I can believe in their relationship and their love for one another – a love that I think they both desperately needed.

Of course, there’s much more to Jane Eyre than just the romance. There’s also some social commentary, with the descriptions of conditions at Lowood School and with the exploration of class, gender and religion. It’s an interesting read from a feminist perspective, portraying Jane’s search for independence and depicting the options open to a woman faced with making her own way in life in the early Victorian period. Having read about the lives of Charlotte and the rest of the Brontë family (something I hadn’t done when I first read this book) I can see how autobiographical some parts of the story are.

My least favourite section of the book is still the part where Jane leaves Thornfield Hall during the night and is taken in by St. John Rivers and his sisters. I remembered intensely disliking St. John on my last read, but I wasn’t sure whether that was because of the character himself or just because I was impatient for Jane and Rochester to be reunited. However, I didn’t like St. John any better this time round. I find him cold and controlling – Jane herself describes his nature as “austere and despotic” – and he doesn’t seem to care at all about Jane’s own opinions and wishes. Even though I had read the book before, I was still relieved when Jane rejects him!

*End of spoilers*

I thoroughly enjoyed my re-read of Jane Eyre, if I haven’t already made that clear! I’ve heard it said that people can either love Jane Eyre or Wuthering Heights, but not both – well, I do love both, but I have always preferred Wuthering Heights. I’m planning to re-read it soon too and it will be interesting to see if I still do like it more.

Since finishing Jane Eyre a couple of weeks ago, I have now read the prequel Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys for the first time and will be posting my thoughts on that one soon. Then I have a copy of Lyndsay Faye’s new Jane Eyre-inspired novel, Jane Steele, which I’m looking forward to reading – and I also still need to read my only remaining unread Brontë novel, Shirley. It seems I’m having a very Brontë themed start to the new year!

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas by Agatha Christie

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Hercule Poirots Christmas I hope you’ve all had a good Christmas! Mine hasn’t been great, unfortunately. My grandfather, who is eighty-five, fell and broke his shoulder last week and has been in hospital over Christmas. Because of his age and poor general health, the doctors haven’t been able to say whether he will make a full recovery or when he might be able to go home. My grandmother, who also has health problems, can’t be left on her own so we are all helping out with taking care of her until we know what long-term arrangements will need to be made. As you can probably imagine, it’s been quite a stressful time and not conducive to writing good book reviews, so this is just a short post to record some thoughts on a recent Christmas-themed read.

Hercule Poirot’s Christmas is a classic locked-room murder mystery which begins with an elderly millionaire, Simeon Lee, inviting various members of his family to spend Christmas with him at his home, Gorston Hall. The family are surprised and suspicious – they are not all on speaking terms and as they begin to gather at Simeon’s house tensions are running high. When the old man is found dead in a pool of blood in his locked bedroom on Christmas Eve, there is no shortage of suspects.

Who could the killer be? Could it be one of Simeon’s sons – the money-obsessed George, maybe, or Harry, who has been estranged from the rest of the family for many years – or one of their wives? What about Pilar Estravados, Simeon’s granddaughter, newly arrived from Spain? Or Stephen Farr, son of Simeon’s former business partner, who has come unexpectedly from South Africa? Hercule Poirot is called in to investigate and as he begins to piece together what happened on the night of the murder, some family secrets are brought to light.

This is not very high on my list of favourite Agatha Christie novels, but I did enjoy it. As usual, I failed to solve the mystery before Poirot did and although there were a few times when I thought I’d figured it out, I never even came close to being correct! Despite the title, it’s not a particularly Christmassy book (Christmas Day passes almost without mention) but I found it fun, entertaining and quick to read, which is just what I was in the mood for. I was reminded of Envious Casca by Georgette Heyer, which is also set at Christmas and has a similar storyline.

With plenty of other unread Christie novels still to look forward to, I’m sure I’ll be reading more Poirot in 2016.

The Winter Crown by Elizabeth Chadwick

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The Winter Crown This will be my last post this week, so I’m going to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I’ll be back before New Year to tell you about a Christmas-themed read and to share my list of favourite books of 2015, but first here are my thoughts on another recent read – no connection with Christmas, but at least it does have ‘winter’ in the title.

The Winter Crown is the second of Elizabeth Chadwick’s trilogy of novels following the story of Eleanor of Aquitaine. Chadwick uses the alternate spelling Alienor, as she says this is how the name would have been spelled at the time, so I have done the same throughout the rest of this post. The first book in the trilogy, The Summer Queen, covered Alienor’s early years and her marriage to King Louis VII of France. Now, in The Winter Crown, we move on to the next stage in Alienor’s life.

The novel opens in December 1154 when, having had her first marriage annulled, Alienor is crowned Queen of England alongside her second husband, Henry II. As Duchess of Aquitaine in her own right, Alienor has brought Henry wealth, lands and influence – but he has made it clear that he has no plans to allow her to govern her own lands. What Henry wants is a wife who will concentrate on providing and raising children, who will turn a blind eye to his many mistresses and who will keep her opinions to herself. Alienor, though, has other ideas and a marriage that began with so much promise and a certain amount of chemistry, if not love, descends into a series of disappointments and disagreements.

The deterioration of Alienor’s relationship with the king forms a large part of the novel, but so do her relationships with her sons – Henry the ‘Young King’, Geoffrey, Duke of Britanny, and John, the youngest – and her daughters, Matilda, Alie (Alienor) and Joanna. The other son who I haven’t mentioned, of course, is Richard (the future Richard the Lionheart). Alienor makes no secret of the fact that Richard, the heir to her own lands of Aquitaine, is her favourite child, and he is the one whose character is developed most fully in this novel.

For the first half of the novel, Alienor seems to be involved in a constant cycle of pregnancies and births, but that doesn’t mean the story was boring at all. As well as the tensions that are building in Alienor and Henry’s marriage (which get worse when she learns of his new mistress, Rosamund de Clifford), a lot of time is also devoted to Henry’s feud with his chancellor, Thomas Becket. When Henry – against Alienor’s advice – makes Becket Archbishop of Canterbury, he finds that Becket now possesses power which could be used against him instead of for him. The second half of the novel is equally full of conflict, as Henry discovers that his sons are prepared to rise against him in rebellion – and Alienor is forced to take sides.

I have read a few different fictional portrayals of Alienor/Eleanor and I really like the way Elizabeth Chadwick has chosen to portray the character. The Alienor of The Winter Crown is a strong, intelligent woman, keen to play a role in the governance of Aquitaine and England, but restricted due to her gender and the reluctance of her husband to involve her in his decision-making. I was interested to read Chadwick’s author’s note at the end in which she explains why she disagrees with the popular description of Alienor as a powerful medieval woman.

There are plenty of other characters worth mentioning too. Chadwick’s novels often feature a strong female friendship and in this book we meet Isabel de Warenne, wife of William of Blois (son of the late King Stephen of England), who becomes a trusted friend of Alienor’s after being taken into her household. Isabel, and Henry II’s half-brother Hamelin, were two of my favourite characters in the novel: two people who are close to the King and Queen but who don’t always agree with their actions. And readers of Chadwick’s The Greatest Knight will be pleased to know that William Marshal also appears in this novel, as a young man who is brought into Alienor’s service to train her sons in fighting and swordplay. I’m sure we’ll be seeing more of William in the next book.

I am thoroughly enjoying this trilogy so far and am looking forward to reading the final Alienor novel, The Autumn Throne, which should be available next year.

Thanks to Sourcebooks for providing a review copy via NetGalley.

A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson

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A God in Ruins It’s been nearly three years since I read my first Kate Atkinson novel, Life After Life, in which Ursula Todd lives her life over and over again, each new life giving her a chance to alter decisions and mistakes made in the one before. Since then I’ve been catching up with Atkinson’s Jackson Brodie mystery series (I only have one of those left to read) but last week I decided it was time to pick up her latest novel, A God in Ruins, and reacquaint myself with the Todd family.

A God in Ruins is not exactly a sequel to Life After Life – it can be better described as a ‘companion novel’ – and both do stand alone. There are some similarities between the two novels, but there’s also a big difference. While Life After Life follows several different versions of the same person’s life, A God in Ruins concentrates on someone who lives just one life: his name is Teddy Todd and he is Ursula’s younger brother.

Teddy’s story is told in non-chronological order, so that a chapter about his childhood is followed by one set towards the end of his life and then another describing his time as a World War II bomber pilot (there are several wartime chapters interspersed throughout the novel). We also get to know Teddy’s wife, Nancy (who was literally the ‘girl next door’), their daughter, Viola, and grandchildren, Sunny and Bertie. The stories of each of these people unfold gradually, chapter by chapter, and the non-linear timeline means that we are sometimes given hints of something that has happened in the past or will happen in the future but have to wait until later in the book for a revelation. Flashbacks and ‘flashforwards’ often happen in the middle of a paragraph or even a sentence, which I found intriguing rather than confusing.

I enjoyed A God in Ruins but didn’t love it as much as I loved Life After Life, maybe because it felt less innovative without the device of one person living many different lives. Still, many of the same themes are here: life and death, fate and the ways in which our actions in the present can have big consequences in the future, and, of course, the effects of war. I mentioned that there are several chapters on Teddy’s experiences piloting a Halifax bomber during the war. I didn’t initially find these sections very engaging (in the words of Nancy, Teddy’s wife, “Let’s talk about something more interesting than the mechanics of bombing”), but eventually I was drawn in and started to enjoy those chapters as much as the others.

My favourite thing about Kate Atkinson’s writing is the way she creates characters who feel so real and believable – even if some of them are not easy to like, they are still interesting and fully developed. Viola, for example, is a cold and bitter person, unable to offer her children any love and affection, and as her father grows older, resenting every minute of the time she has to spend caring for him. At first it seems that there is no reason for Viola’s selfish behaviour, but later in the novel we learn of something that happened in her childhood that could provide an explanation.

I also liked all the little literary references Atkinson slipped into the story. I was particularly pleased to see that Teddy was an Anthony Trollope reader! As for the ending of the book, I think it’s probably best if I say nothing at all – other than that it’s one of those endings people will either love or hate. Personally, I thought it was perfect; it changed the way I felt about the entire book and left me with a lot to think about, which is what all good novels should do.

The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

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The Good Soldier I seem to have been under a bit of a misconception with this book; based on the title and the fact that it was published in 1915 I thought it would be a book about war. It isn’t, of course. I expect everyone else already knows that and I’ve just made myself sound stupid, but it’s really not a book I’ve ever considered reading or paid any attention to until recently. That’s my excuse! What is The Good Soldier actually about, then? Well, it’s a tale of marriage and adultery, of love and betrayal, and it reminded me of something F. Scott Fitzgerald might write (although Fitzgerald’s books would come several years later).

The Good Soldier is a deceptively simple story of two seemingly respectable couples who meet and get to know each other at a spa town in Germany in 1904. John Dowell, our narrator, is an American who has come to Bad Nauheim with his wife, Florence, whom he tells us has a weak heart. The other couple – Edward Ashburnham, another heart patient, and his wife Leonora – are British. Seen through John Dowell’s eyes, the story of these four people and the relationships between them slowly unfolds and we gradually discover that there is more to each of them than meets the eye.

I don’t think I really need to say much more about the plot – and to do so would run the risk of spoiling the book for future readers. This is a story built around lies, deceptions and secrets, things which are only revealed when John Dowell decides to reveal them. It’s an interesting structure, consisting of a series of memories and flashbacks told in non-chronological order, moving backwards and forwards in time. Interesting, but not very easy to follow, at least on a first read! This is the sort of book you would really need to read more than once to be able to fully appreciate it, but I don’t think I’ll be reading it again – at least not in the near future – because, although I did like the book, I didn’t like it enough for a re-read.

It’s a clever and intriguing novel, though, with a narrator who is certainly not a reliable one. We can never be sure how much of what Dowell says is true, as he often makes a statement or describes a sequence of events only to contradict himself later in the book. I was constantly having to change my mind about the characters and reassess what I thought I knew about them. The question is whether Dowell is deliberately trying to mislead us or whether he himself is deluded or confused. Even the opening line is curious: “This is the saddest story I have ever heard”. Why does he say it’s a story he’s ‘heard’ when he is one of the main participants in the story? This is a book that left me with many more questions than answers!

Have you read anything by Ford Madox Ford? I think I would like to try Parade’s End at some point.