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Tarfumes.com - Wide Sargasso Sea: A Novel
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List Price: $13.95
Our Price: $9.86
Your Save: $ 4.09 ( 29% )
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
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Average Customer Rating:   
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780393310481
ISBN: 0393308804
Label: W. W. Norton
Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: 1992-08-19
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Studio: W. W. Norton
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Editorial Reviews:
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The fortieth anniversary reissue of the best-selling "tour de force" (Walter Allen, New York Times Book Review).
Jean Rhys's reputation was made upon the publication of this passionate and heartbreaking novel, in which she brings into the light one of fiction's most mysterious characters: the madwoman in the attic from Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
A sensual and protected young woman, Antoinette Cosway grows upin the lush natural world of the Caribbean. She is sold intomarriage to the coldhearted and prideful Rochester, who succumbsto his need for money and his lust. Yet he will make her pay forher ancestors' sins of slaveholding, excessive drinking, and nihilistic despair by enslaving her as a prisoner in his bleak English home.
In this best-selling novel Rhys portrays a society so driven by hatred, so skewed in its sexual relations, that it can literally drive a woman out of her mind.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Interesting and Exciting Read
Comment: I read this book because it's on the Modern Library's Top 100 list, so unfortunately I haven't read Emily Bronte's Jane Eyre. I think once I read that book, I'll be able to come back to Wide Sargasso Sea, and understand it on a deeper level. Even so, I enjoyed reading this book, and was intrigued by the mysterious portrayal of the characters. The main character Antoinetta's tragic life, turbulent relationships and eventual madness is all beautifully portrayed. I can't wait to follow up by reading Jane Eyre, the source of Rhys inspiration for this novel.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rich, sensual take on a classic character
Comment: I'm a big fan of the Brontes', and I'd always heard academics animatedly discussing Wide Sargasso Sea. Here's the skinny: In Jane Eyre, we discover near the end of the novel that Jane's intended (Edward Rochester, her former employer) is actually already a married man. We learn that he'd been duped into marriage to a crazy, wealthy woman from the West Indies (she's called Bertha in Charlotte Bronte's novel) by not only her family, but by his own. (The arrangement was a financial boon for his money-grubbing family, and her family was just glad to get her out of the way). At any rate, this mad woman has been sequestered in the drafty attic of Rochester's mansion for YEARS, and she conveniently dies at the end of Bronte's novel so that Jane and Edward can live happily ever after.
Wide Sargasso Sea, by Jean Rhys, tells "Bertha's" side of the story. I found this to be a beautiful, wonderfully atmospheric novella. Bertha is re-christened Antoinette in the slim volume, and though her family does have its share of mental illness, Rhys also explains the history and relationships that have led to such outcomes. The language describing the landscape of the West Indies is rich and thick with scent, color and flavor. Racial tensions are starkly drawn, and the sinister nature of all the tropical unknowns (jungle, ruins, black magic) are lurking on every page.
This one I can recommend, particularly if you are a fan of Jane Eyre. It will make you think of that classic in a new way, and it will also have you digging out your bikini and wondering if you can keep on orchid alive in your kitchen window.
Customer Rating:
Summary: prequel to Jane Eyre intriques...
Comment: 'Wide Sargasso Sea' is certainly an interesting read. Although a prequel to 'Jane Eyre', it can be read on its own merit. The story is about a rather disturbed young woman in the West Indies and her husband who both tries to understand and escape from her. The author captures the time period (1830s) perfectly and has obviously researched the lifestyle and the language of the local people. She is also a brilliant writer; her prose and characterizations are of a high caliber. Yet since much of the book is written in the first person of a stressed, emotionally unstable woman, I found it sometimes difficult to catch all the subtle nuances. Thankfully there are appendices in the back of the book which proved most helpful.
Bottom line: a very different, at times difficult, but very remarkable piece of literature.
Customer Rating:
Summary: moods as varied as the skies over the West Indies
Comment: With her vivid imaginative skills, Jean Rhys offers us the tale of "Bertha" Rochester, the madwoman in the attic of "Jane Eyre." The skies of the West Indies are an ever-changing backdrop in this moody novel of fear, memory, and desire. Rhys' style challenges the reader to "fill in the blanks" many times throughout, making necessary intuitive connections to amplify her sometimes sparse prose. What could have been merely a lightweight story of "love and greed in the tropics" turns into an engaging, beautifully unfolding narrative laden with mystery and sadness.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Greatest tragedy in the world: loss of three trees in North Carolina for the purpose of the novel
Comment: I bought this novel with anticipation of a thrilling story and a dramatic yet suspenseful story. What I got was a boring love story followed by an atrocious climb to a lackluster climax. The story is narrator from opposing views, mainly the Creole protagonist, Antionnette, yet also from a Colonialist whose name is never mentioned. Why the name was never mentioned is unclear, obviously to try and give a sense of imagination and creativity to the story (EPIC FAIL). Characters are introduced randomly and seemingly without a purpose in the novel. The racism towards English is evident in Rhys obsession towards depicting them as soulless colonial butchers when this is obviously not the case. The novel is simply a silly novel, not bad, but silly. The love story seemingly falls apart out of nowhere, there is no cohesion to the story and the characters seemingly were created out of a Jamacain woman's desire for a popular story. The climax of the novel is pointless and silly, the story translating to England out of nowhere. There is no point to the novel, as it should never have been written. This is the most racist and atrociously silly novel I have ever read. Couldn't stop laughing after I read it.
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