Status
Available
Call number
Genres
Collection
Publication
Penguin Putnam~trade (1990), Paperback, 160 pages
Description
Rhys's voice is starkly simple, yet sharp as nails.
User reviews
LibraryThing member wandering_star
Voyage In The Dark is the story of a young woman, Anna Morgan - she says she's 18, and that may be true - born and brought up in the West Indies, and brought to the UK by her (English) stepmother after her father's death. As the story begins, Anna is a chorus girl, tramping the streets of an
You can guess what happens after that. This is an often-told story - and even the opening scene (a "nice" girl looking for a room to rent, with a female companion who's tougher and more worldly-wise) seems to be familiar from any number of other books. Jean Rhys plays up the predictability of these stories - describing the town, Anna thinks "There was always a little grey street leading to the stage-door of the theater and another little grey street where your lodgings were, and rows of little houses with chimneys like the funnels of dummy steamers and smoke the same colour as the sky; and a grey stone promenade running hard, naked and straight by the side of the grey-brown or grey-green sea".
Everything is told as Anna experiences it - what she sees, hears, feels and thinks. Rather like The Curious Adventure Of The Dog In The Night-Time, sometimes you have to work out how the other characters are reacting from the way that Anna quotes their words and describes their facial expressions. And Anna is an outsider. Throughout the book, events and statements constantly trigger memories of her childhood in Dominica, which are much more vividly described than what happens in the present. Anna often seems to connect more with her memories than with the people around her - which contributes to her downfall (other women in the book, who are in similar situations, constantly urge her to take more control of her life). Equally, Anna rarely describes how she's feeling directly - but the details that she notes about her surroundings leave you in no doubt about her emotional state ("this [landlady] had bulging eyes, dark blobs in a long pink face, like a prawn"). The book is also full of gaps and ellipses - all the things that Anna can't bring herself to think ("Don't think of it, don't think of it. Because thinking of it makes it happen"). This seems to highlight the hypocrisy and euphemism surrounding sex at the time. You feel that Anna is out of her depth not just because of her passivity, but because she is used to a world where things are more direct.
The quality of the writing more than makes up for the predictability of the story - but this is still a phenomenally depressing book. The other women may be more savvy than Anna, but that doesn't make them any happier. And the portrayal of the way that men see these women is pretty bleak: "Have you ever thought that a girl's clothes cost more than the girl inside them?", one asks.
Ultimately, then, very worth reading - but I'm not sure I will be hurrying to take it off the shelf again.
Show More
English seaside town, looking for a boarding-house. A couple of days later, she meets a man - well-off, and older than her. They begin a relationship - but although he is fond of her, she is not the sort of woman that he would seriously consider settling down with. You can guess what happens after that. This is an often-told story - and even the opening scene (a "nice" girl looking for a room to rent, with a female companion who's tougher and more worldly-wise) seems to be familiar from any number of other books. Jean Rhys plays up the predictability of these stories - describing the town, Anna thinks "There was always a little grey street leading to the stage-door of the theater and another little grey street where your lodgings were, and rows of little houses with chimneys like the funnels of dummy steamers and smoke the same colour as the sky; and a grey stone promenade running hard, naked and straight by the side of the grey-brown or grey-green sea".
Everything is told as Anna experiences it - what she sees, hears, feels and thinks. Rather like The Curious Adventure Of The Dog In The Night-Time, sometimes you have to work out how the other characters are reacting from the way that Anna quotes their words and describes their facial expressions. And Anna is an outsider. Throughout the book, events and statements constantly trigger memories of her childhood in Dominica, which are much more vividly described than what happens in the present. Anna often seems to connect more with her memories than with the people around her - which contributes to her downfall (other women in the book, who are in similar situations, constantly urge her to take more control of her life). Equally, Anna rarely describes how she's feeling directly - but the details that she notes about her surroundings leave you in no doubt about her emotional state ("this [landlady] had bulging eyes, dark blobs in a long pink face, like a prawn"). The book is also full of gaps and ellipses - all the things that Anna can't bring herself to think ("Don't think of it, don't think of it. Because thinking of it makes it happen"). This seems to highlight the hypocrisy and euphemism surrounding sex at the time. You feel that Anna is out of her depth not just because of her passivity, but because she is used to a world where things are more direct.
The quality of the writing more than makes up for the predictability of the story - but this is still a phenomenally depressing book. The other women may be more savvy than Anna, but that doesn't make them any happier. And the portrayal of the way that men see these women is pretty bleak: "Have you ever thought that a girl's clothes cost more than the girl inside them?", one asks.
Ultimately, then, very worth reading - but I'm not sure I will be hurrying to take it off the shelf again.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Ganeshaka
"I don't wannabe in Eng-a-lund babee, no,no,no." It would be so cool if Amy Winehouse could write like Jean Rhys. There's not much new under the sun. The long, smoke-trailing, downward spiral is a story that dates back to ... the sun, and Icarus. A young woman has a bit of bad luck and never quite
Show More
gets back on her game. A nick here, a chunk there - a pregnancy, a lover's pregnant pause - and her panache is an aching panic. Rhys tells the story masterfully. Anna's frequent island flashbacks are colorful and poetic - Faulkneresque, in fact. But the narrative never falters in its beat. And Rhys's ear for dialogue makes each minor character distinct and memorable. And to think I picked this novel up at a garage sale years ago, and never got around to reading it until April 2008. I tell ya, it's like not discovering Nick Drake until the Pink Moon VW commercial. Show Less
LibraryThing member kayclifton
Another haunting work by Rhys. Her characters are memorable
LibraryThing member Lukerik
At first I didn't like Anna. I thought she was weird and a bit creepy. I held her in some contempt (I know that sounds a bit extreme, but the character is perfectly portrayed and very real) but then I started to pity her. I noticed that whenever I broke off reading to think along those lines, the
The quality of the writing's just an order of magnitude above what you usually get. That opening passage with all its antitheses packed in, some in tricolons. Good heavens! I'm going to read all her other books.
It's funny too. Uncle Bo's letter to Hester had me bent double and jerking around.
Show More
very next scene would be another character reacting to her in just that way. Now that is very clever. I don't know how Rhys did it. I've never seen it done in a novel before but she played me perfectly. By the end I sympathised with Anna.The quality of the writing's just an order of magnitude above what you usually get. That opening passage with all its antitheses packed in, some in tricolons. Good heavens! I'm going to read all her other books.
It's funny too. Uncle Bo's letter to Hester had me bent double and jerking around.
Show Less
LibraryThing member edwinbcn
This was a very bleak story.
LibraryThing member burritapal
A young english woman from the West Indians is cast adrift by the death of her father and the indifference of her stepmother. She is in a theater touring company in England, but she despises the poverty of her life and she can never get warm. Taking up with married men and being "kept" by them
Show More
slowly transforms her life for the worse. Show Less
Language
Original publication date
1934
Physical description
160 p.; 7.56 inches
ISBN
0140183477 / 9780140183474