Good Morning, Midnight: Jean Rhys (Penguin Modern Classics)

Good Morning, Midnight: Jean Rhys (Penguin Modern Classics)

by A. L. Kennedy (Introduction), Jean Rhys (Author)

Synopsis

An unforgettable portrait of a woman bravely confronting loneliness and despair in her quest for self-determination, Jean Rhys' "Good Morning Midnight" includes an introduction by A.L. Kennedy in "Penguin Modern Classics". In 1930s Paris, where one cheap hotel room is very like another, a young woman is teaching herself indifference. She has escaped personal tragedy and has come to France to find courage and seek independence. She tells herself to expect nothing, especially not kindness, least of all from men. Tomorrow, she resolves, she will dye her hair blonde. 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 twentieth century, Jean Rhys wrote about women with perception and sensitivity in an innovative and often controversial way. Jean Rhys (1894-1979) was born in Dominica. Coming to England aged 16, she drifted into various jobs before moving to Paris, where she began writing and was 'discovered' by Ford Madox Ford. 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 her account of Jane Eyre's Bertha Rochester, "Wide Sargasso Sea", in 1966. If you enjoyed "Good Morning Midnight", you might like Rhys' "Voyage in the Dark", also available in "Penguin Modern Classics". "Her eloquence in the language of human sexual transactions is chilling, cynical, and surprisingly moving". (A.L. Kennedy).

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More Information

Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Edition: 1
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 03 Aug 2000

ISBN 10: 0141183934
ISBN 13: 9780141183930

Author Bio
Jean Rhys was born in Dominica in 1894. After arriving in England aged sixteen, she became a chorus girl and drifted between different jobs before moving to Paris, where she started to write in the late 1920s. She published a story collection and four novels, after which she disappeared from view and lived reclusively for many years. In 1966 she made a sensational comeback with her masterpiece, Wide Sargasso Sea, written in difficult circumstances over a long period. Rhys died in 1979.