Good
Morning,
Midnight
By
“Jean Rhys”
Genres:
Classic, Fiction, Novella
Blurb at the back: Set in
1930s Paris of shabby hotel rooms, seedy bars and drunken encounters, Jean
Rhys’s semi-autobiographical portrayal of a woman adrift is a searingly honest
exploration of loneliness and yearning.
How sad yet how delightful, how
honestly heartbreaking yet how starkly captured, Good Morning, Midnight is
a stunning prose of literary fluency and nuanced-filled tale of a lonely,
bothered, and wantful lady. If Virginia’s The Waves was my last year’s
favorite classic novella, this, so far, is my favorite novella of 2020. It
resonated with me on many levels throughout its melancholy tale.
Its first-person narration of the
single, lonely yet intrinsically busy and alive tale of our lady protagonist
was something new and intimate for me. In her thoughts and in dictation of
those thoughts, from day in and day out, from one loosely told event to another
distant one, this tale is continuously and consistently engaging and intimate.
Whether it is her metaphorical way of personifying the walls late in nights,
her anxious battles within and with herself as she lives on the world outside,
her bitterness and her satisfying violent thoughts about wanting to hurt
people, or whether it is her description of unending loneliness, routine
break-downs at bars, meeting strange yet dependable men, and her almost
careless retelling of their encounters (which she ends with etcetera etcetera)
– all of it resonated enormously with my own consciousness, and thus made this
reading experience an almost wanted one.
However foreign our protagonist’s
life was that to my own experiences of domestic life, her loneliness and her
mental conversations in background, which mostly was the foreground in this
novella, was but almost that of my own. In an almost telepathic experience, I
was reading my own, otherwise, tangled thoughts being so effortlessly told and
made sensible. Rhys’s writing here, which would appear to be rather fragmented
and disjointed, moving from one unfinished tale to another, following nothing
but a trail of unending thoughts, all inside our lonely lady’s head, is
nevertheless a masterful accomplishment. To starkly capture and put in words,
so effortlessly, one’s trails of never stopping thoughts in such an organized
and heart-warming, sympathy-bearing way is no common writing – it is one of the
finest.
Looking back at this review, I
know I would find myself submissively pretentious and extravagantly applauding,
but whether it was the multiple recommendations (by Eric over at YouTube), the
lovely title (which is from an Emily Dickinson poem), or the pocketable edition
of the book – I am only being justifyingly fair to my emotions about this book;
besides, what is more there to a book like this other than emotions? It was,
although sad and even miserable at times (especially the ending), a lovely,
lovely read for me.
It was my second encounter with
the famous stream of consciousness writing style, (first being The
Waves by Virginia), but still, I had to take pauses in between to recheck
just what was, or is, about this way of writing that so familiarly and closely
resides with my reading persona? I believe, it has to be the ever so relatable
normality and the marvelous description of one’s thoughts and self-talked
conversations. This whole tale follows the protagonist’s continuous and
therefore enormous amount of thoughts and her inner conversations that she has
with herself inside her head. But it is done so delicately and casually, that
while reading, it hardly seems an effort at all; rather a smooth and calmly
put-together transcription of the protagonist’s, or magically one’s own,
thoughts and feelings.
Even though both these novellas
were robbed from the profundities of having interestingly long and thrilling plots
and stories, which helps us readers in recalling the novels, they nevertheless
provided a reading experience so intimate and joyful to utmost level that to
them will always remain attached the sweet and darling feelings. These novellas
are written to be read and taken pleasure of rather than read to be remembered;
however, remembered they will be as the darlings of all.
An excerpt:
My life, which seems so simple
and monotonous, is really a complicated affair of cafés where they like me and
cafes where they don't, streets that are friendly, streets that aren't, rooms
where I might be happy, rooms where I shall be, looking-glasses I look nice in,
looking-glasses I don't, dresses that will be lucky, dresses that won't, and so
on.
Short, beautifully sad, and
intimately honest, this short novella is my recommendation all the lovers of
classic literature, 1930s Paris and its streets and bars, and especially to the
melancholic loners like me. I hugely cherished this novella (all thanks to Eric
for his recommendation).
My praise for the
novella:
Sadly
delightful, beautifully sad – desirably well written!
An
honest, luscious tale of a melancholic loner.
Ratings:
5/5 *****
A review
by: Ejaz Hussain
January 28,
2020