Wide Sargasso Sea

This was a book by Jean Rhys I wanted to read for a long time. I saw the 1993 movie version of it many years ago. The floating seaweeds were an image that kind of got stuck in my head.

I resently also bought the new movie version.

(Narated trailers always seem so corny)
Yes it's a sort of prequel to Jane Eyre. (Another one of my favorite books) "There is always another side to every story." Rebekka Hall does a beautiful job, but Rafe Spall is dissapointingly stiff and woody Mr. Rochester.

I finally ordered the book. It was short but very poetic and touching. Or is it just that for me Antoinette is a character I find scarily easy to relate to. Having been bullied for my exotic looks and just often been made to feel like a foreigner in the land I was born in having never known any other. Just like Antoinette is looked down upon for being Creole and suffering from confusion of identity having been rejected by others all her life. And having inherited  a trait that some call madness or maybe just over sensitivity and sadness from my mother. Jane Eyre is a story if what if secretly she was loved this is a story of what if she was not.

“‘Rose elle a vecu,’ I said and laughed. ‘Is that poem true? Have all beautiful things sad destinies?’
‘No, of course not.’”

It's not a Brontë, but it is very beautiful

The idol of lolies

I resently read a biography of Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser.

Fraser Writes in a way very sympathetic to the woman in question. The book is certainly not lacking of interesting details. Did you know that the woman accused of parting that ruined France was actually a teetotaller? (I'm always tempted to write that teatotaller...) And of course to our delight there are some pictures too. It paints a picture of a kind hearted woman, who certainly didn't have the inclination for politics expected of her by demanding mother, and later feared by the people of France. While she did escape the pressure put on her to produce an heir in an unconsumated marriage for years to material pleasures of pretty gowns and gambling, she eventually grew into a woman who kept her cool admirably in the face of the brutal revolution and a trial where she had no way to win and keep her head.

In the words from a another book, that was one of the favorites from my childhood:
"Whatever comes,” she said, “cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it. There was Marie Antoinette when she was in prison and her throne was gone and she had only a black gown on, and her hair was white, and they insulted her and called her Widow Capet. She was a great deal more like a queen then than when she was so gay and everything was so grand. I like her best then. Those howling mobs of people did not frighten her. She was stronger than they were, even when they cut her head off.” “A Little Princess” - Frances Hodgson Burnett

Movie inspiration

Is this

ever coming to Finland? I love the book and really enjoyed the BBC-series and this version. I wasn't terribly fond of Mia Wasikowska in Alice, but I've heard she has improved. And mmm, bonnet lust. I just re-read Wuthering Heights and am definitely feeling Bronte inspired.

"It's a rough journey, and a sad heart to travel it; and we must pass by Gimmerton Kirk to go that journey! We've braved its ghosts often together, and dared each other to stand among the graves and ask them to come. But, Heathcliff, if I dare you now, will you venture? If you do, I'll keep you. I'll not lie there by myself: they may bury me twelve feet deep, and throw the church down over me, but I won't rest till you are with me. I never will!' She paused, and resumed with a strange smile. 'He's considering - he'd rather I'd come to him! Find a way, then! not through that kirkyard. You are slow! Be content, you always followed me!'

And autumn has made me want to rewatch Coraline