Tag Archives: Jean Rhys

#BookReview ‘After Leaving Mr Mackenzie’ by Jean Rhys #historicalfiction

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A slim novel, After Leaving Mr Mackenzie is the second novel by Jean Rhys, published in 1931. Semi-autobiographical, it tells the story of a young woman [if a woman in her mid-thirties can be called young] who faces up to the realities of life after a love affair ends. The title is not strictly true because Julia did not leave Mr Mackenzie, he left her. Jean Rhys She moves to a cheap hotel room where the furnishings are faded and the only decoration is a poor painting which she assumes must have been left in lieu of debt by a previous tenant. Where Rhys excels is her description of the small details, drawing a picture of Julia’s surroundings and her moods. ‘She found pleasure in memories, as an old woman might have done. Her mind was a confusion of memory and imagination. It was always places that she thought of, not people. She would like thinking of the dark shadows of houses in a street white with sunshine; or of trees with slender black branches and young green leaves, like the trees of a London square in spring; or of a dark-purple sea, the sea of a chromo or of some tropical country that she had never seen.’ Like the title of the novel, it is not always clear what is true and what is imagination.
After the death of her baby and the breakdown of her marriage, which is not really explained, Julia survives in Paris thanks to the men she dates. They give her cash, buy her clothes, pay for her lodging; in this, Julia is similar to Marya in Rhys’ first novel Quartet. This novel takes a step further in that when her maintenance payments stop, Julia takes action to help her situation. After unsuccessfully asking Mr Mackenzie for cash, she is helped by a stranger, Mr Horsfield. Julia buys new clothes and a train ticket to London where she visits her sister who cares for their dying mother.
This is a study of one woman’s desperate situation and her dependency on others. Julia is a sad woman with a past, shabby, as if wearing a sign around her neck saying ‘trouble’. The delight in reading this book is how Rhys tells Julia’s story, as much as the story itself.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Here’s my review of another novel by Jean Rhys:-
QUARTET

If you like this, try:-
‘Orphans of the Carnival’ by Carol Birch
‘Birdcage Walk’ by Helen Dunmore
‘The Duchess’ by Wendy Holden

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview AFTER LEAVING MR MACKENZIE by Jean Rhys via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2d7 

#BookReview ‘Quartet’ by Jean Rhys #historicalfiction #Paris

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Quartet is the first, slim, novel by Wide Sargasso Sea author Jean Rhys. Published in 1928 it is its very different from its famous older sister which was not published until 1968. Semi-autobiographical, Quartet tells the story of Marya, marooned without money in Paris after her chancer husband Stephan is jailed for theft. It is a novel about loneliness and vulnerability and where that can lead. Jean RhysMarya is taken under the wing of the English couple, the Heidlers. They are spoken of as a unit, he is referred to as HJ, his wife is Lois. It is Lois who persuades Marya to move into the spare bedroom at their studio. HJ, she tells Marya, likes to ‘help people.’ But as days pass, Marya is drawn into their emotional and sexual influence. Not an accurate judge of character, Marya is let down but seems incapable of getting away. Visits to her husband in prison are fleeting and unsatisfactory, husband and wife face their own dilemmas and deal with them alone.
This is a melancholy story told beautifully. Marya is intelligent but weak, recognising she is trapped but unable, or unwilling, to extricate herself. ‘You see, I’m afraid the trouble with me is that I’m not hard enough. I’m a soft, thin-skinned sort of person and I’ve been frightened to death these last days.’ She tells her own story but there is often an observational feel almost as if she is standing to the side, commentating about someone playing herself. Some acute observations of other people are really just her transferring her own condition, her own sensibilities onto someone else.
I read the Penguin Modern Classics edition with an excellent introduction by Katie Owen, which sets this novel in the context of Rhys’ bibliography.
CLICK HERE TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS BOOK AT AMAZON

Here’s my review of another novel by Jean Rhys:-
AFTER LEAVING MR MACKENZIE

If you like this, try:-
‘A Wreath of Roses’ by Elizabeth Taylor
‘The French Lesson’ by Hallie Rubenhold
‘Islands of Mercy’ by Rose Tremain

And if you’d like to tweet a link to THIS post, here’s my suggested tweet:
#BookReview QUARTET by Jean Rhys via @SandraDanby http://wp.me/p5gEM4-2c1