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

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Mental illness? Depression? Alcoholism? What shelf should I put this under? Bleak? All in all, not a pretty story, but fascinating in its way, fast-paced, written in a stream-of-consciousness format. Its deep psychological insight kept my attention all the way through. I cry for a long time - for myself, for the old woman with the bald head, for all the sadness of this damned world, for all the fools and all the defeated ... It is not just the loneliness, it’s the inability to pull oneself out of it, of making nothing out of her youth, of pouring out her existence into the vapidness of the Parisian cafes, seedy hotel rooms. Of being the failed participant of her own life. Her life which is splattered on those forgetful streets, and bars where everyone is cruel, everyone disapproves. She is the witness of her dissolution. And how hard she tries to sink in her invisibility, the muteness of her self. But think how hard I try and how seldom I dare. Think and have a bit of pity. That is if you ever think you apes which I doubt.

There was another section in this book that I did a lot of thinking about. Sasha was only 25 years old - single - she saw herself too thin, dirty and haggard. Her clothes were shabby, her shoes were worn out, she had circles under her eyes and her hair was straight and lanky. She was so incredibly critical of herself. Sasha DID experience suffering from loss and tragedy ..... Sophia is a fallen woman returning to the scene of the crimes she committed in her youth. Paris being the venue. The details are too tedious to go into here, but suffice it to say that this dimwitted tree-sloth of a souse is almost, but not quite, as much fun to hang around with as a tranquilized heifer. But this is my attitude to life. Please, please, monsieur et madame, mister, missis and miss, I am trying so hard to be like you. I know I don’t succeed, but look how hard I try. Three hours to choose a hat; every morning an hour and a half trying to make myself look like everybody else. Every word I say has chains around its ankles; every thought I think is weighted with heavy weights. Since I was born, hasn’t every word I’ve said, every thought I’ve thought, everything I’ve done, been tied up, weighted, chained? And, mind you, I know that with all this I don’t succeed. Or I succeed in flashes only too damned well … But think how hard I try and how seldom I dare. Think – and have a bit of pity. That is, if you ever think, you apes, which I doubt.These are words spoken with truth and clarity. They’re simple and honest. And not for a single moment in the novel did I doubt them, not for a single moment did I conceive that there could be an alternative ending. I’m not going to sugar coat it for you: this isn’t a nice novel. There is very little in the way of redemptive themes, and the motif of freedom is only fully achieved through the ultimate rejection of human happiness and interpersonal relationships. The author (1890-1979) was born on the Caribbean island of Dominica but left to go to school in England when she was 16. She had three husbands and spent much of her life wandering in the European capitals. One husband was a con-man and ended up in prison. She wrote a half-dozen novels, most of which, Wikipedia tells us (like this one), portray a mistreated, dumped, rootless woman inhabiting cheap hotels.

Feeling very much like the main character, Sasha, at the moment, I related to this stream of consciousness enormously and marked many passages to think about later. It’s hard to believe, but it even made me laugh several times. It’s so surreal how people can live in different centuries, countries, live under different circumstances and still feel the same emotions. Or was she another victim of straddling two worlds, the inner and the outer, two cultures, two expectations, hers and the other that society nursed on her since her birth?

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She meets another man, at a decisive moment knows that she has fallen in love and will love him forever, and for a few weeks perhaps things go well ... he has a job she teaches English makes a few sous but then things change the money stops coming in and as usual it turns out that forever lasts only so long, then it’s over. Planning it all out. Eating. A movie. Eating again. One drink. A long walk to the hotel. Bed. Luminal. Sleep. Just sleep- no dreams. This is my 3rd book within a couple of months - by Jean Rhys - so one can assume correct that I think Rhys was a phenomenal writer. Sasha comes to Paris on holiday to reminisce about her traumatic youth, which was full of loss and pain. We don’t have the whole picture, only some fragments of her life, but it adds up nicely. She is spending all her time thinking about the past because there’s no future before her, she’s buried underneath her devastating experiences.