Bought for my Eng. lit class.

From the back:
"Jane Rhys's late literary masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, was inspired by Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre, and is set in the lush, beguiling landscape of Jamaica in the 1830s.

Born into an oppressive colonialist society, Creole heiress Antoinette Cosway meets a young Englishman who is drawn to her innocent sensuality and beauty. After their marriage disturbing rumours begin to circulate, poisoning her husband against her. Caught between his demand and her own precarious sense of belonging, Antoinette is driven towards madness."

It is amazing how much pain can come from two people misunderstanding each other. I really felt with Antoinette/Bertha when all she wanted was for Rochester to love her. But he couldn't. His arrogance and mistrust against the colored people and the Creoles made him believe everything that was said about the Cosways.
I didn't much like Rochester in this book, but then I didn't really in Jane Eyre either. He's a very arrogant person, and as Christophine says, he does what he has to for himself and don't care about others. That's why he wanted to marry Jane when he already has a wife. I think if Rochester had listened to Antoinette, their marriage would work out just fine. If he wasn't so proud , stubborn and unnaturally arrogant, their marriage could actually have grown to something really nice. Antoinette wasn't an upleasant person, she was just profoundly unhappy.
I like that Jean Rhys takes fragments out of Jane Eyre and creates her own alternate story out of them. It reminds me of how Gregory Maguire works, the only difference being that he actually takes whole fairy tales and writes them out of a minor character's perspective.
All in all, this is a very good story that at the same time is very credible.

Thanks, Yogie! This is nice, a book I’ve never even heard of. Should be interesting. I’m just wondering if I should read Jane Eyre first...

I've started to read this quite a while ago and liked it, too, but then something came up and I forgot the book. I guess I'll start it all over again. Soonish, I hole. Reserving this book for Silkki.

It took a long time, the book was lost some of the time. So I started it all over again this week. And truly enjoyed it. I actually did read Kotiopettajattaren romaani, Finnish translation of Jane Eyre, couple of years ago. Didn't like it a bit. But I did read it and am glad about it.
I liked the way Jean Rhys writes and the way she negotiates with Jane Eyre.Also, I liked the language. I, too, empathize with Antoinette. Since I'm participating in Amynita's Erilaiset kulttuurit (“different cultures”) Challenge in the Finnish Forum, I found the introduction to the first edition by Francis Wyndham and many of the notes to the text very useful. They explained the Caribbean cultures more clearly than Rhys alone. For instance, tension between Jamaica and Martinique had never occurred to me, yet there is the reason to it: Jamaica was a British colony but Martinique (and Dominica, the honeymoon island) are colonized by the French. It means different languages, different religions and different attitudes. It was also interesting to learn about the emancipation, Creole and obeah.
In my reading, the theme of power became the most important one. Of the three main characters, Rochester and Christophine both have power, the only powerless one is Antoinette. She's lost her money when getting married, she doesn't have anything any more. I was so touched by the scene where Rochester renames Antoinette and starts calling her Bertha. When you don't even have the name you think as your own, you've really lost everything.
Thank you so much, yogie, for introducing Jean Rhys and this magnificent little book to me! I enjoyed the story so much that I think I'd like to reread it someday. Not this copy, though. This one will travel to Silkki.

Jean Rhys (1890—1979) — pseudonym of Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams at Pegasos — A literature related site in Finland

Thank you for being so patient. Happy reading!

Thank you! I've read Jane Eyre years ago, and I'm going on a trip to the Caribbean in August, so I'm really looking forward to reading this!

I took the book with me on my honeymoon to the Caribbean. The book was at the same time both perfect and terrible reading for the trip. It was great reading about West Indies while visiting them (although I didn't have the chance to visit Dominica, Martinique or Jamaica, we did stop at St. Lucia and Barbados, among others). On the other hand this book tells a story of a honeymoon that starts happily but ends catastrophically. Luckily mine ended as happily as it started!

It has been years since I read Jane Eyre, and I don't remember what I thought of Mr. Rochester back then. I don't think he was likable, but somehow I felt that this book was even a bit too much anti-Rochester. However, I'm a bit sorry that I read the notes, because although some of them gave me useful info on the local customs (obeah, for example), many of them made it difficult for me to form my own understanding of the story and the characters. The notes included too much analysis and explanation, when I would have preferred to draw my own conclusions. I was especially mad when the notes included such explanations as "xxx takes up narration here", which is something I would have wanted to find out myself when reading! I felt like I was being fed something that has already been analysed and digested through, when I would have preferred to do my own digesting! And because I don't like to be fed analysis like this, I think I may have started to internally rebel against the ready-fed analysis, and the end result of that is that I don't see Mr. Rochester a badly as I should.

Anyway, I can see why this is a classic. I would think that it would work also on it's own, but the connection to Jane Eyre gives it additional depth and dimension.

It was interesting to realize that maybe Antoinette is not such a reliable narrator herself. Although she may not be insane, she is definitely very depressed before she meets Mr. Rochester. I would think that the truth of the story lies somewhere between what she tells and what Mr. Rochester tells. I would not say it all happened just because Mr. Rochester distrusts the locals. That plays a part, but then again, it's not like Antoinette was the most psychologically healthy person either. They misunderstand each other and then things just escalate quickly. Like yogie, I could easily see a different ending where they could have been happy.

I must admit I was totally lost when he started calling her Bertha. Why on earth did he do that? So that he could convince himself (and others) that his wife is not actually one of those locals at all, since she has such an English name? Or because he thought she was not the Antoinette he had come to know, so she must also have another name? Or some other reason?

I'll take the book with me to the Helsinki area bc meetup to see if it would find a new reader there.

The book didn't find a reader at the Helsinki area meetup, but luckily offering it in the Finnish bc forum was more successful.

Happy reading!

I received the book today. Thank you so much! :)

Disturbing, suffocating and mysterious. I decided to read the introduction, appendix and notes after finishing the book. I know they would have influenced my experience of reading though some of them might have helped to understand for example the structure. Honestly I didn't know what to expect but surely not that I'd like it so much. The athmosphere was so heavy that I bought the idea of Antoinette's "madness" without questioning it. It's all gloomy even before the ignorant etc husband is introduced. For what I felt is that all started going wrong for Antoinette very early on, maybe due to the circumstances and the life around her. I have read Jane Eyre but soooo long ago that I couldn't compare the two books. Phew, I just finished the book and I can still feel the suffocating feeling, I have to read something lighter next. Am I the only one experiencing the book this way?? I need to breath...

To Soozreader, hope you'll like it :)

Thank you very much for this book :)

I found it really difficult to get into this story at first but I blame it on the introduction and note on the text that were in the beginning. Before reading this, I would have appriciated more the introduction that is in the appendix. But the story itself is amazing though at times a little bit overwhelming. It is at the same time appalling and intriguing. Short in pages but huge in content. I have read Jane Eyre years ago but I think you can read this even if you haven’t read it.

This wishlist book is on its way to the May’s winner of the monthly sweepstake on the Finnish forum. Congratulations and Happy reading!

Thank you so much! I'm a big Charlotte Brontë -fan, so I'm sure this is going to be very interesting.

I had to read Jane Eyre first, because it was so long time ago I've read it previously.

The book has very fine and dense atmoshpere. What is the truth? Is there a truth? What is cause and what is effect? All good questions.

I think my mind has a tendency to seek a romantic story. So when I read Jane Eyre, where all the characters were not very likable or not at all likable for my taste, I still found the story romantic and wished happiness for Jane and Mr Rochester. Maybe it was partly because Jane had to put up with so much injustice as a child.

Also in this book I couldn't blame Rochester so much that maybe I should had.

With this book I participate in Delenna's Travelling around the world -challenge, because Annette and Mr Mason are having their honeymoon in Trinidad.

Book has 150 pages, so with it I can participate also to Sumako's challenge.

Thank you for the book!

I quite enjoyed this. Weird and dark, just my type.