Book #40: The Wide Sargasso Sea

Title: The Wide Sargasso Sea
Author: Jean Rhys

I read The Wide Sargasso Sea for Segullah's annual retreat. But we got to talking so much about other things that we never had a chance to sit down and talk about it. That's sad because the book really deserves discussion. It's the story of Mr. Rochester of Jane Eyre fame (although he is never named in the book, weirdly enough-- in fact, unless you were an Eyre aficionado or read the introduction, you might never realize that it was the same character) and Bertha Mason, you know, the crazy first wife in the attic. While fiction related to great historical works of fiction is pretty much a genre of its own right now (think Ahab's Wife, Mr Darcy Takes a Wife, even the horrendous Scarlett, which I actually adored when I first read it as a teenager), Rhys's book was published years before filling out the backstory of a lesser-known literary character was a popular thing to do.

As far as the book itself goes, Rochester is a much less sympathetic character than he is in Jane Eyre. While his lot in life (second son, no inheritance) steered him forcefully toward marriage with a woman he hardly knew, his character basically gives up just weeks after the union, after discovering the skeletons in her closet. With the right climate and the right husband, could Bertha Mason have been more than a crazy woman in the attic? Rhys definitely seems to think so. I'm glad I read the book for several reasons-- the descriptive language is beautiful, it's short but somewhat challenging (so therefore good for a more adventurous sort of book club, especially of Eyre lovers), and it definitely establishes the conventions for a group of great books that have followed it.