Product Description

Jean Rhys was a talent before her time with an impressive ability to express the anguish of young, single women. In GOOD MORNING, MIDNIGHT Rhys created the powerfully modern portrait of Sophia Jansen, whose emancipation is far more painful and complicated than she could expect, but whose confession is flecked with triumph and elation. One of the most honest and distinctive British novelists of the 20th Century, Jean Rhys wrote about women with perception and sensitivity in an innovative and often controversial way. In GOOD MORNING MIDNIGHT (1939) she creates an unforgettable portrait of a woman forced to confront her inevitable loneliness and despair.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #53672 in Books
• Published on: 2000-08-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 176 pages

About the Author
Jean Rhys was born in Dominica in 1894. Coming to England aged 16, she drifted into various jobs before starting to write in Paris in the late 1920's. Her novels, often portraying women as underdogs out to exploit their sexualities, were ahead of their time and only modestly successful. From 1939 (when GOOD MORNING MIDNIGHT was written) onwards she lived reclusively, and was largely forgotten when she made a sensational comeback with 'Wide Sargasso Sea' in 1966. She died in 1979.

Customer Reviews

Delicately Violent
It is no wonder that after the publication of this novel people assumed Jean Rhys had committed suicide. It is a dark, introverted, soul-searching novel. It's brilliance lies in the compassion with which Sasha is treated. This is a woman who is unquestionably at the end of her tether. Life occurs almost unconsciously to her. She drinks non-stop and thinks of fashion before eating. But these aren't superficial choices. They are the few soft whispers of a woman about to go over the brink. Throughout the novel you are given brief glimpses of her past as a shop assistant and the troubles in her marriage. In themselves the troubles which result from them are not ample enough to drive a normal woman to such desperation. You feel that the reason for her state of mind is more the result of a profound neglect of her individual spirit by men. She is led on to believe in a progression of being, but is abandoned to clutch at the ghosts of her old haunts in Paris. This is a sharp contrast to the ideas that we have about artistic scene of Paris in this time period. It is a more sincerely concentrated personal experience than most accounts. It is interesting to think of the end in contrast to the jubilant yeses of Molly Bloom in Ulysses. Sasha's yes is one of doom and resignation to a world that has flown past her.

Despite its depressing character, this novel is a fascinating look at a tendency to sink into a psychological state often ignored. It is also a subtle portrayal of an identity built on a knife's edge. Luckily, Ms Rhys did survive this novel (however unhappily). It is a miracle that she did considering the violent lack of self worth of Sasha; to have imagined such a person must have been terrifying indeed.

The modernist female voice - GOOD MORNING MIDNIGHT
Written at the height of the modernist movement, Rhy's 'Goodmorning Midnight' adopts the 'stream of consciousness' technique seen also in the work of Woolf and Lawrence. This style, which so successfully highlights the personal torments and lonliness of Sasha, Rhy's main protagonist also illustrates the rhythms and atmosphere of modern Paris. The book focuses on the thought process of Sasha, as she comes to terms with her life and faces up to her fears. Rhy's words tenderly and tentively illustrate the frustration, depression and isolation of a single foreign woman in a capital city. The deep concentration on the character of Sasha enables the reader to enter her mind and thus experience both her pain and her moments of joy. A rewarding and revitalising read.

so good it hurts
and it really hurts. this book is beautifully bleak. it is a journey through a lost womens mind and memory and self loathing. it builds up and breaks down so well, so poetically, so perfectly, that by the end you are affected deeply and longing to step back into this book and offer something to this perfectly dejected character. don't get me wrong, you won't come out of this suicidal, but you will come out of it very involved and moved