The Blue Hour: A Portrait of Jean Rhys [Hardcover]

I was ready to put this down as early as page two, where we are already treated to the flighty suppositions and clunky prose that are the hallmarks of this book. "The Blue Hour" sets its stall out early at least, so allow me to do the same. Don't buy this book. This is not a serious work; it features no serious critical appraisals of her work, no credible fresh insight into her life, and very little original research. Disturbingly, in her attempt to show us "what it was like to have lived such a life," Pizzichini writes Jean Rhys like a character and attributes feelings and thoughts to her that are very dubiously sourced to say the least. Worst of all, anyone who wants to know "what it was like to have lived such a life," need only read any of Rhys' incomparable novels, which lay bare not only her thoughts and emotions, but many of the biographical details of her life. I am at a loss to explain the motivations behind this publication.

Now, from a couple of notes I made.

"Well into the summer of 1926 Jean was writing in her miserable little room overlooking the station, or maybe Ford had found her another one. It doesn't really matter..." Doesn't it? This slapdash approach to the truth extends to Rhys' personal life - p.226 "in June 1940, a month after Hitler's invasion of Holland, she had a breakdown, or was in some other way an embarrassment to her husband, and had to be removed.." Did she have a breakdown? Was she depressed? Sectioned? Or did she tuck her skirt into her pants? Please don't mess around with things like this, if you don't know then just leave it out. Or research it.

Of the writing, there are examples of its quality every second page, I'll choose one at random - p.248 "Cats were like her writing. She stalked in the dark for long periods. She seemed to be doing nothing and then the pages appeared all of a sudden, self-possessed and complete. Cats are pure wildness too, and like Jean they love to sleep."

The book is strewn with factual and editorial errors. To name a couple - the author thinks on p.145 that the Lapin Agile, one of the most famous clubs in the history of the city of Paris, is in the Latin Quarter. Still, by p.174 she has at least consulted a map and it is now "carved into the hill of Montmartre." On p.210 the novelist Rosamond Lehmann becomes Rosamund Lehmann for two whole paragraphs before reverting back to Rosamond on the following page. "Triple sec" - an orange liqueur - is listed as a reference to Absinthe. If it is, it's an obscure one that needs some explaining. If the author cannot make right cheap errors such as these, errors which could be rectified with a five minute session on Google and a copy of Microsoft Word, I have grave doubts as to her ability to handle a subject as sensitive and convoluted as the life of Jean Rhys.

There are no notes and there appear to have been few or no original interviews conducted for this publication. The author confirms her lack of real original research in a toe-curling "Author's Note" at the rear of the book where she makes a ham-fisted explanation of her attempt to "show us something about ourselves." Her methods seem to have extended to reading a few newspaper reviews of Rhys' early performances, a trip to the British Library Manuscript Archive and the once-over of a couple of biographies of figures in her life. She boasts she has read every book in the London Library on Vienna, interwar Paris and Edwardian Theatre. I refuse to believe none of those books on interwar Paris contained the address of the Lapin Agile.

The book is a tale (admittedly an engrossing one) in which someone resembling Rhys is puppeteered through her entire life under the watchful eye of Lilian Pizzichini. Of one aspect of her husband's character Pizzichini writes "Jean would have liked this.." (p244) The book is littered with this type of guesswork throughout. Two original sources (other people's memoirs) are quoted at length, but beyond that the author's main sources are Rhys' books, Rhys' unfinished autobiography and Carol Angier's groundbreaking biography of Rhys released in 1991. All these books are in the public domain, most available on Amazon.

I could go on at length about the deficiencies of this book but to illustrate the quality of its aspirations I need only point out that the last *24* years of Rhys' life, including the writing and eventual publication of Wide Sargasso Sea - one of the masterpieces of 20th century British literature - as well as her death, are covered in 40-odd pages.

There is an hilarious, incredible quote from Diana Melly on the back of the jacket - "this..is as near as we are likely to get to how Jean saw it herself." Diana Melly knew Jean Rhys - has she somehow forgotten that Rhys was a woman who wrote some of the most revealing and truthful autobiographical works of fiction the 20th century has seen? Why do we need this shoddy piece of tat to tell us how Jean "saw it herself" when her works can tell us themselves?

Avoid this trash like the plague. If you want a biography of Rhys then look elsewhere. If you want to see Jean's life through her own eyes then I urge you to go out and buy any or all of her seminal novels.

I can only echo the sentiments of the previous reviewer, and congratulate him on having pinpointed what many of those who reviewed the book in the media somehow -- maddeningly -- failed to notice: the book is full of errors, sloppy thinking, presumptuous cod psychology, and the most graceless prose imaginable. Above all, I agree with his point that one should read Rhys's own brilliant books if one wants to know what it felt like to lead/endure her life: she conveys that in some of the most vivid and beautiful writing we have. Amen.

Having read Carole Angier's big book on Jean Rhys, I was interested to see another writer's view. In fact, this is a rather unsatisfactory read, that just covers the surface of Jean Rhys's life, borrowing heavily from Angier while at the same time criticizing Angier for having 'the wrong viewpoint' on Rhys. There is a total lack of humour, which makes the book very heavy going (one needs just the tiniest bit of irony at times just to make the grimmer aspects of Rhys's life bearable to read about) and a tendency to sympathise with Rhys even when she was clearly behaving appallingly. Pizzichini also doesn't have that much of interest to say on the books - I get the feeling Pizzichini may have chosen to write on Rhys more because she had a very dramatic life than because she particularly enjoyed her novels. While the book is certainly readable (hence the three stars) and has some interesting sections, the Angier is so much better. Read it instead if you can get a copy.