Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys.

'So between you I often wonder who I am and where is my country and where do I belong and why was I ever born at all.'

'Now they have taken everything away. What am I doing in this place and who am I?'

How could I resist this book? Despite earlier in this series of posts realising that I actually do like the novel 'Jane Eyre', my dislike for the characters in it remains. And here an opportunity for further derision and reasons to dislike Mr Rochester, or at least a character that I and must readers of this book have assumed is Mr Rochester as it is meant to be a re-imagining of 'Jane Eyre', however, the character is never actually named. The sense of self and the development of self is something that this novel explores and does very well. I identified with all the characters, they felt real. I could see their motivations, their underlying insecurities, and despite sporadic information that is often placed out time you come to see the characters as being truly multi faceted.

The novel is mostly set in Jamaica and follows the early life of Antoinette, or Bertha as we later come to know her, and the events leading up to her marriage to the nameless character that I am going to continue calling Mr Rochester. The novel explores the psychological damage of growing up isolated, hated by the local population, and without a strong parental figure. We see Antoinette's mother slowly be driven in to madness and her reaction when she eventually finds out about her mother's state. We see Antoinette and Mr Rochester's start of marriage, a marriage for money that Antoinette's family as well as Mr Rochester's push her into. In Mr. Rochester we see a young man, scared of the local population, unable to understand their motivations and eventually scared of his wife. We see Antoinette fall in love and we see the tragedy that come after. This novel is moving in a way that I didn't think I would find it. I expected to be angry at Mr. Rochester, I expected to be indignant for Antoinette, I did not expect to pity both of them so thoroughly. 

The true tragedy of this novel is that we know what is going to happen, very few people who will go into reading this book with our some foreknowledge of the inevitable result, and yet we see a glimmer of happiness, they look like they are in love. Rhys gives us the smallest amount of hope, enough to keep us emotionally invested in the outcome and then destroys any hope of happiness through increasingly complicated tangles made worse by both the mains characters as well as those further out. The worst part of the misery that follows it the lack of one person the blame it on, all contribute to furthering the mess. If Jane and Mr. Rochester were destined to be together then Antoinette and Mr. Rochester were destiny's collateral.

This novel's chilling ending left me bereft, I genuinely felt like I lost something when reading this novel, an ability to completely believe in happy endings without a victim somewhere in the process perhaps. I would definitely read this again but it left me mournful.

I will have to see how heavily this has affected my dearly held positive opinion of 'Jane Eyre'.

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce.

'His soul had arisen from the grave of boyhood, spurning her grave-clothes. Yes! Yes! Yes! He would create proudly out of the freedom and power of his soul, as the great artificer whose name he bore, a living thing, new and soaring and beautiful, impalpable, imperishable'

I started reading this book ready, anticipating even, disliking it. Having previously read enough Joyce to realise that the was no way (absolutely no way) I could ever enjoy any of his books it was quite a surprise when I enjoyed this one. Stephen Dedalus, a moniker Joyce himself adopted early on in his writing career, fascinated me. I had been told next to nothing about the style and plot of this book before I started reading so I was surprised when it developed into a reasonably familiar 'bildungsroman' (or coming of age story) where we follow the development of a boy growing up in Ireland. Through childish eyes we see Irish politics, which I will not pretend to know anything about, the dynamics of a family and the development of religious thought in a child. 

Religion is a key theme throughout the novel, coming from a Catholic background the Church is a major institution in his live providing the centre from which he draws all his experience. If the novel is limited in any way it in the inability Stephen has to draw away from the Church, it is what defines him throughout, even when he decides on atheism he still defines himself in opposition the his previous self. It consumes his every thought, he is fascinated with his interaction with God and actually atheism would be an incorrect label for his condition by the end of the text. God always exists to him but he eventually decides he can't follow him and turns away, his belief in God is firm throughout but how well he follows him is sporadic and varies massively from going out of his way at the age of sixteen to sin (Lust mainly) to swinging back to a life of piety where he punishes himself heavily for imagined slights and sins and actually considers becoming a priest. 

The truly interesting thing about this novel, that I found baffling throughout, is why I found it so compelling. Stephen is not a likeable character, in fact I think he is deliberately presented as obnoxious. He is aloof and steadily derides the intellect of those around him, placing himself above his family, his friends and his teachers. He considers himself destined for great things but does not seem to expend effort towards anything external to his thoughts. He is so inwardly focused that he forgets to actually live. He spends time thinking about the moral implications rather than ever acting upon his own feelings. The linguistic theme of the novel is detachment and he repeatedly distances himself from himself, not allowing him to ever truly be an empathetic character. And yet, despite all this I became emotionally involved in his outcomes, despairing of his often seemingly idiotic choices and lack of any likeable personality traits or even really a personality at all.

Despite very little happening, despite a large proportion of the book being devoted to religious philosophy, I really enjoyed this book and will probably read it again. If I can work out why exactly this is I will be happy.