Published: 1928
Genre: Modern Fiction Format: Paperback
Pages: 210
Cover Art
This particular cover evokes the 1920's mood and atmosphere that this novel depicts brilliantly. Scotch drinking and chain smoking in Paris is what Jean Rhys knew best!
Plot Synopsis
Living in Paris with her reckless, vagabond husband Stephan, Marya is very near to being happy. She enjoys their haphazard existence, never questioning how he lives, never wanting to know the truth. When Stephan is suddenly imprisoned she is left penniless and alone. Taken up by a sophisticated English couple, the Heidlers, who gradually overwhelm her with their own desires, Marya finds her sense of reality slipping further and further away.
My Rating:
First Line:
'
I love Jean Rhys and this book captures the 1920's so perfectly and makes you wish you could experience Paris in that time period!Pocket-Size Review
Highs: The feminist undertones, the thought provoking events and the setting and time period.
Lows: Nothing much happens. The characters are quite obtuse and confusing at times and the message isn't always clear.
Review
This book manages to be so many things at once. It has a classy, sophisticated surface and style that seems to mask the desperation and helplessness of the main character, Marya. Set in bohemian Paris in the 1920's, it is filled with images of smoking chorus girls, endless glasses of brandy in seedy bars, eating in restaurants every night and people living decadently in hotels. I loved that aspect of the text as it really evokes the time perfectly and subtly.
However, what is even more striking about this text is the depiction of this world as a dangerous and dark time to be a woman without money or family. You are isolated from the community if you do anything considered to be improper, yet how can you behave properly and make any money? Marya's husband is an enigma from the start, and seems to be untrustworthy and ruthless judging by an early story he tells about how he came to possess a particular antique. When he is imprisoned, Marya is left absolutely destitute and at the mercy of a couple who take her in and impose upon her what they believe is an acceptable way to act, revealing the cruelty that underpinned the 1920's French society.
It is also a feminist novel, showing the helplessness, and perceived helplessness, of women in Marya's situation, of whom there were thousands. Poor and without connections, they could be used by the wealthy for their own pleasure, or by men for certain other pleasures, without any way to protect themselves. Then, if they did act in a way deemed 'unseemly' they were extradited from society and snubbed by anyone who might be able to help them. So what can they do? Become prostitutes? Marya, who finds herself in a similar situation, feels desperately unhappy and depressed, yet can tell no-one of her troubles due to societal convention. It has been argued many times that there is an element of autobiography in this book, as Jean Rhys and Ford Maddox Ford were said to have had an...unconventional arrangement that Rhys grew to be unhappy with, but who knows where art ends and reality begins? It is just a great novel and leaves you with a lot to think about.
Other Thoughts This Book has Inspired me to Read: Re-Read 'Wide Sargasso Sea' by Jean Rhys Three Words to Describe this Book: Classy, Feminist, Uneventful
