Good Morning, Midnight

I agree with the NY Times review that you can't forget this book once you read it. It haunts you. No other book haunts me. That's why this is my favorite book. You will never forget how Rhys describes Paris, London, Amsterdam. You will never forget Sasha as she searches for SOMETHING to help her survive, something that will keep her from crying in public, something that will bring her clarity and maybe redemption. You will go through it with her as you read this book. You will feel every word because you know how she feels. We have all felt those tears welling up behind our eyes and we have all fought to keep them from falling. But sometimes they fall. We fall. This book will help you pick yourself up.

I read the present work and then followed up by reading Rhys's big hit, the novel Wide Sargasso Sea. As a general reader I still preferred this present novel to Sargasso Sea. Here she lets her imagination run wild as she describes the partially alcohol soaked life of a young woman living in post WWI era Paris. The feel and structure of the book is original and the prose and structure has a bit of the feel of Joyce's classic A portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. It was written by Rhys in her younger days, decades before her big hit. As noted by others, it describes the pessimistic thoughts of a woman living near the bottom of society. She lives in a state of depression and loneliness, alone in her own in a world. She has not lost her looks and she is able to attract the odd man into the story. This adds to the complexity of the plot. Rhys follows the present novel a few decades later with her big hit novel, Wide Sargasso Sea. It was a commercial and literary hit. It is based on the less original idea of extending some elements of the story of Jane Eyre. That limits or forces her story to converge with the plot elements of Jane Eyre. The present work is just Rhys on her own with no limits. Personally, I like the present story for that reason. It is fresh and original. This is a great but short read, which I found fascinating and entertaining. The Penguin version has a good introduction to the life and work of Jean Rhys which is very useful to read after reading the novel.

Just about every night is a catastrophe for Sasha Jansen, the heroine of Jean Rhys's excellent novel. In less than two hundred pages, Rhys has effectively captured not only the bitter sentiments of the "lost generation" but also the huge scope of thoughts and experiences of a lonely brand of humans alienated by a cruel, hyprocritical society. The theme of the book comes straight from Sasha's mouth:". . . And I'm very much afraid of the whole bloody human race. . . Who wouldn't be afraid of a pack of damned hyenas? . . . And when I say afraid -- that's just a word I use. What I really mean is that I hate them. I hate their voices, I hate their eyes, I hate the way they laugh . . . I hate the whole bloody business. It's cruel, it's idiotic, it's unspeakably horrible . . . Everything spoiled, all spoiled."The frightening thing about this book is that Rhys successfully cuts through human illusions and comes out with a stark, brutal view of society as a "pack of hyenas." She suggests society is this way because people are insecure and must appease their egos through cruelty to others, but she does not entirely believe or accept this as a valid excuse for cruel behavior. This is a common theme in Rhys's books -- society committing spritual murder through cruelty -- and it is never shown better than here.Sasha's bitter plight is quite realistic (it's obvious Rhys has had these experiences herself) and the social commentary biting, told through lean and somewhat dream-like stream-of-consciousness prose. The long dialogues and battles of wills between Sasha and the gigolo culminate in a tense, unforgettable ending -- an excellent book by one of the most underrated authors of the Twentieth Century.

This is one of several of Jean Rhys' novels of postwar existence in Europe. It focuses on her time in Paris living an existential lifestyle after she returns from London. It along with her other novels Quartet, After Leaving Mr. Mackenzie, and Voyage in the Dark weave a intricate tale of the postmodern experience in all its bleak and nihilistic beauty. This along with her other novels are semi-autobiographical accounts of Ms. Rhys life in post world war I Europe. They are, in my opinion, some of the best novels that examine the 20th century human condition, with the exception of Henry Miller's works. This novel along with her others, surpass her later novel, Wide Sargasso Sea in all respects.

This book is one of my favorite books of all time. I've read all of Jean Rhys's books and this and Voyage of the Dark are the two I really fell in love with. The language was clear and beautiful. The story was bittersweet (okay, more bitter than sweet)without getting heavy and dramatic like Wide Sargasso Sea. I didn't like Wide Sargasso Sea that much. This is the books Rhys should be famous for.