Book Review

[kenjari]

Wide Sargasso Sea
by Jean Rhys

This short novel is the story of Antoinette Cosway, daughter of a degenerate plantation family in the West Indies, and how she becomes Bertha Rochester, the mad wife of Mr. Rochester in Jane Eyre. The novel's real subject (or one of them, at least), however, is the destructive and distorting nature of colonialism. Antoinette is symbolic of the West Indies and Rochester stands for imperialist Britain. Their relationship is a metaphor for the way European colonialists viewed and treated their colonies.
Jean Rhys is a top-notch writer, and there's nothing academic or pretentious about this, though. Wide Sargasso Sea is vivid and striking, at times strange and even exotic. It made quite an impression on me. And upon further reflection, I think it is the model for The Book of Colour by Julia Blackburn, but Rhys is a much better writer.

Comments

[kenjari.livejournal.com]

It's certainly not a big time committment: when I said short, I meant it. You could read it in less than two hours, easily. Jean Rhys pack quite a lot in there, though.