I don't know from Jane Eyre, but Wide Sargasso Sea is a gorgeous dream of a short novel. I was most impressed by Rhys' ability to evoke the sensual details of the island setting using concise language. Rhys manages to immerse the reader in the post-colonial Caribbean setting without resorting to wordy descriptions. Comparable to a David Lynch flick. ( )

This was a wonderful book, a deceptively simple narrative that holds a remarkable complexity within its few words. The book operates on many levels -- beginning, most obviously perhaps, with its transformation of characters from Jane Eyre. Essentially a prequel to Bronte's novel, Wide Sargasso Sea gives us Bronte's characters in an unflinching, postmodern light, stripped of sentimentality and endowed with all the depth and contradictoriness of realism.

The postcolonial world Rhys presents is powerfully reminiscent of Edward P. Jones's The Known World: in both novels, slavery is a complex phenomenon linked to both class and race. The relations between Antoinette and Mr. Rochester embody those of the colonialized and the colonizer, as Rochester's initial consuming passion for Antoinette subverts itself into a poisonous state of incomprehension, suspicion, and mental and physical domination. ( )

I have long admired Jean Rhys' novel, for the voice she gives to 'Bertha', the madwoman in the attic in Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre'. As Antoinette Cosway, a creole heiress from the Windward Islands, the literary device becomes a vibrant, beautiful character, adding a fresh perspective to the original story. How successful Rhys is probably depends on the reader's awareness of the original Rochester in 'Jane Eyre', although it is possible to read this brief narrative as a stand-alone piece.

The language, particularly in the first half of the book about Antoinette's childhood in a decaying paradise, is poetic and and sensual, based on Rhys' own heritage. The colours and aromas bring the exotic location to life, and create a world far apart from England and Thornfield. Antoinette's deceased father was a slave owner, and her troubled mother the daughter of a slave owner - old money on the islands, and mistrusted by the newly emancipated islanders. Both women are left behind in the faded glory of their station, with only a handful of 'faithful' servants as family. Rhys' description of the poverty, confusion and antagonism of this old world is very evocative, and the strongest part of the story.

Merging new characters with old once again proves unsatisfying, though. Rochester is allowed a say in the middle of what should be Antoinette's story, and although his voice is distinct from hers, his introspection is far from convincing or necessary. His role is to explain the marriage between a creole and an Englishman - her money - and why he brought his mad bride with him to England, but the abstract introspection he lapses into makes Rochester sound just as unbalanced as 'Bertha'. If Rhys had spent more time building Antoinette's character - her lack of identity, the fear that she might suffer a breakdown like her mother, her relationship with Christophine and the other servants - and less trying to work in Charlotte Bronte's creations, then there would be no need to make such comparisons at all. ( )

How many of us, when reading Jane Eyre, actually paid much mind to Bertha Rochester, nee Mason? Her role in the book is perfunctory, standing more as an obstacle to be overcome than a person in her own right. But Wide Sargasso Sea reclaims her identity; she is not Bertha (which Rochester re-christens her as without her input, simply because he likes the name better) but Antoinette, a spirited Creole girl whom Rochester marries on a vacation to the West Indies.

It's a story that's also a sharp criticism of colonialism and men's perceptions of women's roles in their lives. Antoinette's character and love for her island get crushed in her traditional Western marriage to Rochester. Soon into the marriage he begins to avoid her, on account of secondhand rumors that madness runs in her family - rumors that could have been explained with a discussion, but no, he trusts the word of men over his wife. Thus his fear of Antoinette's madness becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, as her feelings of oppression and domination by men literally drive her insane, at least in a "socially unacceptable" manner of speaking. Rochester speaks of Antoinette scornfully, likening her to a marionette, but he doesn't acknowledge that that's what he was hoping for in the relationship from the start. ( )

I wanted to read this book for years before I actually did, but the anticipation was better than the real thing. Gives Mrs. Rochester a definite hard-luck story. It may be a shining example of modern feminist classical literary retelling, but I liked my Mr. Rochester the way that he was, and won't give him up so easily. ( )