The View from the Attic

Graphic from publisher W.W. Norton

Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys

New York : Norton, [1992], c1966.
189 p. ; 21 cm

I added Wide Sargasso Sea to our collection because it was on a list of AP literature titles and many of our teachers require students to pick from AP titles.  It may sound silly, but I was attracted to the book initially by its beautiful and evocative title. When I saw it described as a book that explores the back story of crazy Bertha in the attic from Brontë's Jane Eyre, I knew I had to read it.

It is a finely written book, capturing the clashing worldviews of post-slavery Jamaica and the conflicts between impoverished locals, former elite locals, and new European interlopers. Of course the age-old conflict of men oppressing women is also at the heart of the story.

It's a great read, in that it is told convincingly from the two main characters points of view - Mr. Rochester and his rushed bride Antoinette, who will become the crazy woman in the attic of Brontë's Jane Eyre.

It's not an easy read right off; it's suggestive, dreamy and atmospheric and a little tricky to get situated into, but once you've oriented yourself as a reader, it is a delight.  It has not circulated much among students, but that doesn't surprise me too much as it would be a weighty read for any young person. However, I'll definitely be mentioning it to readers who want novels with strong literary qualities - or any readers who are fans of Jane Eyre.

Local Time (Traveling That Is)

Tempest by Julie Cross
New York : Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Griffin, 2012, c2011.
339 p. ; 22 cm.

When I heard that there was a new, future blockbuster (time will tell) YA book out there - and that the author was a local author, I knew I had to order it for our library and read it.

Tempest, as other reviewers have pointed out, is a potent read (sci-fi, thriller, romantic drama, and part fantasy) revolving around a 19-year old young man who only lately realizes he can time travel short distances and soon discovers that his Dad may not be his Dad and his time traveling is of great (and dangerous) interest to his Dad, the CIA, and a shadowy group called the Enemies of Time. As he tries to escape harm and figure out who is friend and foe - he discovers that he can travel further back in time than he thought - and becomes stuck (for quite a while) two years in his past.

This book should appeal to a wide range of readers, male and female - given it's dramatic action combined with its elements of science fiction and romance.  I found it readable and enjoyable, but it didn't grab me with the power that I thought it would.  Perhaps, like some of the negative reviewers on Goodreads, I found the plot to be a bit overstretched at times (several times I had to thumb back to the beginning of chapters to find out what year it was supposed to be). Like other negative critics I didn't find the main character Jackson, a somewhat egotistical user, to be all that likable. A few other things bugged me: the apparent inherent "goodness" of the CIA (that is sci-fi fantasy, indeed!) and the sudden transformation of Jackson into an almost superhuman action hero near the end of the book.  I also couldn't help but feeling that the jarring introduction of the little girl who takes Jackson on a rather confusing trip to a grim, distant future - and the clumsy way the "bad guy" gets away at the end - were dictated by the publisher's marketing desire to have the novel develop into a very lucrative trilogy - alas...

Problems aside, I think that Tempest will be a popular book and it does require levels of reader engagement that are positive.  I will certainly be recommending it and will be curious to see what students think of it.

I Weathered Wuthering Heights

Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë
London ; New York : Penguin Books, 2003.
liv, 353 p. : geneal. table ; 20 cm. 


Wuthering Heights is one of those classics of English literature that I probably should have read long ago, but somehow never did. It is a novel that continues to circulate and so I wanted to familiarize myself with it. 

It's surprising to me that the novel is as highly praised as it is. Introducing a collection of essays on Wuthering Heights, critic Harold Bloom calls it "authentically sublime" and easily links it "as unique and idiosyncratic a narrative as Moby Dick." I would agree that there is a powerful strangeness to Brontë's novel - characters behave in ways that break the bounds of social norms and are frequently drawn to one another as in proportion to how cruelly they treat each other.  In this sense, Wuthering Heights is truly modern, but with a plot that is exceedingly convoluted and filled with gaps - I would hesitate to hold it up to Moby Dick.  To me it is an impressive but deeply flawed work of art.

As examples of these "gaps" I would cite the strange affection for Heathcliff that his adopted father has for him, the utter transformation of young Catherine during her five week convalescence at the Hintons, and the completely inexplicable transformation of Heathcliff into a man of education and money after his mysterious years long absence.

I guess to over analyze the novel is to miss the appeal of its anti-love love story and its brooding, foreboding strangeness - a world of sullen, cruel, angry drunken and bitter people locked in a predatory universe of rural England lit by the dim prospect of redemptive love (at the very end).  It is a world into which the first narrator, a short term tenant, falls and then flees - but not before getting the bulk of the story from the second and most substantial narrator, Nelly Dean.