279 Jean Rhys

The History of Literature

Jacke Wilson

History, Books, Arts

4.6 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 2 November 2020

⏱️ 46 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Jacke takes a look at the life and works of Jean Rhys (1890-1979), whose masterpiece Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), reimagined Jane Eyre from the point of view of "the madwoman in the attic," and still stands as one of the seminal works of feminist and postcolonial studies. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. (We appreciate it!) Find out more at historyofliterature.com, jackewilson.com, or by following Jacke and Mike on Twitter at @thejackewilson and @literatureSC. Or send an email to [email protected]. New!!! Looking for an easy to way to buy Jacke a coffee? Now you can at paypal.me/jackewilson. Your generosity is much appreciated! The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. *** This show is a part of the Podglomerate network, a company that produces, distributes, and monetizes podcasts. We encourage you to visit the website and sign up for our newsletter for more information about our shows, launches, and events. For more information on how The Podglomerate treats data, please see our Privacy Policy. Since you're listening to The History of Literature, we'd like to suggest you also try other Podglomerate shows surrounding literature, history, and storytelling like Storybound, Micheaux Mission, and The History of Standup. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History of Literature Podcast is a member of the Podglamorate Network and LIT Hub Radio.
0:07.0	When I was excited about life, I didn't want to write at all. I've never written about being happy, never. I didn't want to.
0:20.1	I don't think you can describe being happy. I've never had a long period of being happy.
0:27.0	Do you think anybody has? I think you can be peaceful for quite a long time but to be happy is different in it.
0:41.9	And that's a bit rare, I can't have feeling. But then altogether,
0:51.1	I think, well I think if I had to choose I'd rather be happy than right. If I had my life
0:59.5	all over again and could choose. I'd rather be happy than right. Hello as a child she was
1:07.0	haunted with the cruel nickname White Cockroach. Her father was a Welsh
1:11.2	doctor her mother was a Creole woman, she grew up in the Caribbean and died in England and did not feel at home in either place.
1:19.5	An outsider, always someone who defined happiness as something like the absence of pain.
1:26.5	She sought peacefulness more than happiness.
1:28.9	She sought rest.
1:30.0	She sought solitude and yet for an outsider she had surprising experiences.
1:35.6	She was a chorus girl in London for a while and as a young writer she was encouraged
1:40.0	by Ford Maddox Ford.
1:42.2	Practically the embodiment of the word insider.
1:45.0	She was a successful novelist but not a famous one.
1:48.0	Then she didn't write or publish for 27 years.
1:51.0	And when she finally wrote again again publishing her masterpiece of a short
1:54.8	novel, Widesargasso C, she was hailed by the New York Times Book Review as the
1:59.9	greatest novelist working in English. We know her, of course, as Jean-Rise, and her life continues to fascinate even as her work continues
2:09.2	to dazzle.
	...

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