Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

This was the next book from the Time magazine top 100 list I chose for the Orbis Terrarum challenge and what a choice it was.

The book is small and what a punch it packs. I finished it today and I am yet to find answers to many of the questions the book evoked in me. I am quite sure I will go back and read this book some other time maybe in a few years when I am older and hopefully wiser.

Set in the mid 1900’s in a beautiful and almost haunted Caribbean island, the book’s protagonist is lonely woman seeking safety. The book starts with the protagonist Antoinette Cosway – daughter of a former slave owner living in isolation with an emotionally distant mother, an invalid brother, a step father and nanny, Christophine – an obeah.

After losing their family home and brother in a fire set by the locals, Antoinette is set to a convent where the nuns teach her not to pray for happiness. She is married to an English fortune hunter – Mr.Rochester.

Part two of the book is narrated by Mr.Rochester is a wonderful narration of the paranoia that engulfs a penniless husband who does not love his wife and woman who longs for security and happiness from her husband – all while both of them are locked in a failing marriage.

Part three concludes with as Antoinette, now called Bertha living in the Great Rochester House with a servant guarding her. Bertha seeks her destiny and the book ends in a fire.

Haunting, disturbing and beautiful!