Welcome to Litsy!

#SundaySentence from 'In the Rue de l‘Arrivée'

from ‘Mixing Cocktails‘

#bookspinbingo board laid out with my TBR (options/themes) game results and my location and miscellaneous prompt jar pulls. #bookspin and #doublespin picks are categories: non-fiction library loan & owned vintage/retro self-help (90s and before). Rolls landed on 3, 13 & 15: Kate Elliott or 500+ pages/philosophy or critical theory/owned romance. #roll100 - Witch's Boy (repeat+CR)/Opal&Nev/Bhagavad Gita or Hindu spiritual text.

@TheAromaofBooks

Wondering if I should add all of these to the wishlist (from the TLS' end of year "Books authors recommend" feature.

#AlphabetGame
Title that begins with the letter Q
I'm going to mention only one book today: Jean Rhys' Quartet. This is the only Rhys novel I have read (so far) yet the seedy Parisian atmosphere was memorable & Rhys is one of the best at delivering bon mots. “Have you got any books? It's horrible outside“ from a Rhys fan acct has been my pinned tweet since the beginning of the year & I don't plan on changing it anytime soon.

I first picked up Jane Eyre for a uni course, and I wish we had to read this book as part of it too.

It gave me so much to think about, and while it is a different style and tone to Brontë, I think it helps make the story and the characters of Rochester and “Bertha” that much more interesting.

Finished in a day too, so that‘s a bonus!

#bookstagram #bookstagrammer #penguin #widesargassosea #brontë #jeanrhys #janeeyre #readinaday

I‘d read a review of this in the press and it sounded fascinating but I found it quite a struggle to get through.

Rhys seems a very troubled, rather unlikeable character. Much of her work is semi-autobiographical and, having only read Wide Sargasso Sea the constant references and comparisons to Rhys‘ work and the characters within were confusing rather than enlightening.

In 1924 a young Jean Rhys (then Ella Williams) was in Paris, in some need of rescuing as her husband was in jail. Ford Madox Ford (the famous novelist) and his partner (and mother of his child) Stella Bowen took her in. Quartet is the fictionalised retelling of what happened next.
Rhys wrote this just a few years after and it is remarkable to feel her helplessness and then her rage. Memorable for its imagery and sheer emotion ⬇️

Marya was content in Paris even with her husband‘s uncertain income. When he is jailed, she is thrown upon her own resources – there is no help from family in England. Marya is taken in by the Heidlers, a prominent couple in the ex-pat community and her life becomes one of quiet desperation; she is coerced to pretend respectability while being seduced by Mr. Heidler. When Stephen is released from prison, an untenable situation becomes even worse.

Not that she objected to solitude. Quite the contrary. She had books, thank Heaven, quantities of books. All sorts of books.

#LakeReading