The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini | Biography | DONNE TEMPO
The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys by Lilian Pizzichini
April/15/09 09:57 PM Filed in: Biography
By Cecie O’Bryon England
Jean Rhys’ biography, The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys (Norton, Isbn: 978-0-393-05803-1), written by the British biographer Lillian Pizzichini, torments the reader with its rawness. Jean Rhys was an impoverished alcoholic who lived from moment to moment for her entire adult life. Supported by various friends, lovers, husbands, brothers, she survived and she had just enough means and room in which to write.
Rhys,
born Ella Gwendolen Rees Williams in 1890, on the
Windward Isle of Dominica grew up on the island.
She was a third generation white Creole. As an
older teenager Rhys was sent to England to be
educated. She suffered a scant two years at a
girl’s school where her shyness, accent, and
overall otherness alienated her from her peers.
Jean left school to study acting and experienced a few years as a chorus girl before turning to writing. Rhys lived in London, Paris, and Vienna during the 1920’s and 30’s. She moved in the artistic circles of James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. Her relationship with the writer, Ford Maddox Ford, led her to become a novelist. She is best known as the author of Wide Sargasso Sea, the story of Bertha Rochester, before she became “the madwoman in the attic,” which was published to acclaim in the 1960’s.
Rhys explored the themes of dominance and dependence through self-assured men and powerless women. She felt strongly that her position as a woman was precarious and it seemed to be. Rhys married three times and lost two children.
Pizzichini’s prose brings the angst and anger of Rhys to the page, explores her self-destructive habits, and allows for her brilliance to shine through. It is in some ways a classic story of an emotionally unstable, but exceptionally gifted, artist.
The Blue Hour also plays into the themes of feminism. Rhys’ own focus on the failings of Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre as well as her awareness of the collective struggle of women writers concentrated her personal frustrations and pushed her to write.
While not a happy story it is a fascinating portrait of a gifted writer whose inner struggles became illuminating novels, whose personal life shocked and informed a generation.
Jean Rhys’ biography, The Blue Hour: A Life of Jean Rhys (Norton, Isbn: 978-0-393-05803-1), written by the British biographer Lillian Pizzichini, torments the reader with its rawness. Jean Rhys was an impoverished alcoholic who lived from moment to moment for her entire adult life. Supported by various friends, lovers, husbands, brothers, she survived and she had just enough means and room in which to write.
Jean left school to study acting and experienced a few years as a chorus girl before turning to writing. Rhys lived in London, Paris, and Vienna during the 1920’s and 30’s. She moved in the artistic circles of James Joyce and Ernest Hemingway. Her relationship with the writer, Ford Maddox Ford, led her to become a novelist. She is best known as the author of Wide Sargasso Sea, the story of Bertha Rochester, before she became “the madwoman in the attic,” which was published to acclaim in the 1960’s.
Rhys explored the themes of dominance and dependence through self-assured men and powerless women. She felt strongly that her position as a woman was precarious and it seemed to be. Rhys married three times and lost two children.
Pizzichini’s prose brings the angst and anger of Rhys to the page, explores her self-destructive habits, and allows for her brilliance to shine through. It is in some ways a classic story of an emotionally unstable, but exceptionally gifted, artist.
The Blue Hour also plays into the themes of feminism. Rhys’ own focus on the failings of Charlotte Bronte in Jane Eyre as well as her awareness of the collective struggle of women writers concentrated her personal frustrations and pushed her to write.
While not a happy story it is a fascinating portrait of a gifted writer whose inner struggles became illuminating novels, whose personal life shocked and informed a generation.