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Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography
Jean Rhys' unfinished posthumous autobiography. From the early days on Dominica to the bleak time in England, living in bedsits on gin and little else, to Paris with her first husband, this is a lasting memorial to a unique artist.
176 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1979
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About the author
Jean Rhys
67 books1,415 followersJean Rhys, CBE (born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams; 24 August 1890–14 May 1979) was a British novelist who was born and grew up in the Caribbean island of Dominica. From the age of 16, she mainly resided in England, where she was sent for her education. She is best known for her novel Wide Sargasso Sea (1966), written as a prequel to Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre.
She moved to England at the age of 16 years in 1906 and worked unsuccessfully as a chorus girl. In the 1920s, she relocated to Europe, travelled as a Bohemian artist, and took up residence sporadically in Paris. During this period, Rhys, familiar with modern art and literature, lived near poverty and acquired the alcoholism that persisted throughout the rest of her life. Her experience of a patriarchal society and displacement during this period formed some of the most important themes in her work.
She moved to England at the age of 16 years in 1906 and worked unsuccessfully as a chorus girl. In the 1920s, she relocated to Europe, travelled as a Bohemian artist, and took up residence sporadically in Paris. During this period, Rhys, familiar with modern art and literature, lived near poverty and acquired the alcoholism that persisted throughout the rest of her life. Her experience of a patriarchal society and displacement during this period formed some of the most important themes in her work.
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May 7, 2023
VIAGGIO NEL BUIO
In copertina, Franz Von Stuck: Innocenza.
Autobiografia incompiuta, racconta l’infanzia e si ferma ai primi anni della giovinezza, come ci avverte molto chiaramente il titolo completo originale (Smile please: An Unfinished Autobiography).
Alla prima età fa riferimento il titolo, quando la madre le ordinava in modo non proprio affettuoso, più che altro sbrigativo, di sorridere davanti al fotografo che le stava scattando il ritratto. Sorridi, cheese…
Nata nel 1890 nelle cosiddette Indie Occidentali inglesi, più precisamente a Roseau la capitale dell’isola di Dominica, inizia a scrivere per caso all’età di venti e rotti anni.
In queste pagine racconta che viveva a Londra, ballerina di fila (chorus girl), spiantata, passando da una stanza in affitto all’altra, tutte uguali nel loro essenziale squallore. L’aiutava economicamente un ex amante ben più vecchio di lei.
Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams, che assumerà il nome di penna più sintetico di Jean Rhys, per spezzare la deprimente e grigia routine compra quaderni e matite, comincia a scrivere, e inizia proprio dal diario:
Ma non era un diario. Ricordavo tutto ciò che mi era accaduto. Ricordavo quello che mi aveva detto e come m’ero sentita. Scrissi fino a tardi, fino a che fui così stanca da non poter più continuare e mi buttai sul letto a dormire.
Agostino Brunias: Dancing Scene in the West Indies (tra il 1764 e il 1799).
I primi tre quaderni sono scritti in una sola notte. Poi, rimangono in valigia e Jean se li porta dietro per qualche anno nelle sue peregrinazioni europee (Francia, Austria, Olanda, di nuovo Inghilterra). Diventeranno il fulcro del suo romanzo Viaggio nel buio.
Dove si leggerà di una ballerina di fila, emarginata, umiliata (a cominciare dal suo accento), mantenuta, in una grande città straniera e ostile, Londra negli anni Dieci del Novecento.
Personaggio, situazione e caratteristiche che ritorneranno, e resteranno centrali nella sua narrativa.
Franz Von Stuck: Il peccato (Die Sünde),1893.
L’ambiente dove visse nei suoi primi sedici anni di vita era duro, tutto meno che accogliente: gli europei, inglesi in testa, rimpiangevano la schiavitù – i locali si sentivano schiavi anche se ufficialmente non lo erano – nascere su quelle isole regalava l’appellativo ‘creolo’ a prescindere dalla provenienza dei genitori (nel caso della Rhys il padre era gallese e la madre di origini scozzesi era di terza generazione nata nelle isole). Le piantagioni prendevano fuoco non certo per i forti raggi del sole, come racconta nel suo capolavoro Wide Sargasso Sea da cui proviene questa citazione:
Tutto è eccessivo, pensai mentre cavalcavo stancamente dietro di lei. Troppo azzurro, troppo porpora, troppo verde. I fiori troppo rossi, i monti troppo alti, i colli troppo vicini. E questa donna è un’estranea.
È l’ambiente umano, le relazioni tra indigeni e occidentali che avvelenano la vita nelle isole.
Al contrario, del paesaggio Rhys scrive in queste pagine:
È strano crescere in un posto molto bello e rendersene conto. Era vivo, ne ero sicura. Dietro i colori brillanti la morbidezza: le isole come nuvole e le nuvole come colline immaginarie.
Il passaggio all’Inghilterra nel 1906 è brusco che più non potrebbe. La vita nel collegio a Cambridge, dove veniva derisa per il suo accento, spinge al rimpianto:
Era una giornata giallastra. Non così tremenda come quelle bianche e splendenti di gelo e di vento, ma brutta. Il cielo aveva il colore della disperazione; ma loro non se ne accorgono, pensai, ci sono abituate, si aspettano che mi ci abitui anch’io. […] Restai ferma accanto alla finestra, al freddo, e pensai: “Che cosa sarà di me? Che cosa ci faccio, io, qui?”
Franz Von Stuck: Medusa.
Jean lascia il collegio per tentare con una scuola di recitazione, ma abbandona anche questa. Diventa una chorus girl e comincia a girare in tour l’Inghilterra. Ma deve ricorrere all’aiuto economico di amici e amanti. E fin qui s’è detto.
Segue il matrimonio con il franco-olandese Jean Lenglet, giornalista, spia e autore di canzoni, il primo di tre matrimoni. La coppia si trasferisce a Parigi, nascono un figlio che morirà presto, e una bimba.
Il marito viene arrestato per una qualche truffa monetaria.
Tutto questo servirà di base per il suo romanzo Quartetto. E qui si ferma l’autobiografia.
Francisco Oller: La scuola del Maestro Rafael Cordero (circa 1890).
Dal 1939 al 1966, anno in cui uscì Wide Sargasso Sea Rhys smise di pubblicare, probabilmente di scrivere, e visse ritirata, via dalla “pazza folla”. Non credo che si sentisse meno straniera, meno emarginata, meno vinta di quando trent’anni prima era ancora attiva e creativa.
Tornò alla scrittura col suo romanzo più famoso e importante che era ormai quasi ottantenne.
Anche questa autobiografia è affrontata in quel periodo: la parte migliore è quella caraibica – quando Jean approda in Europa la scrittura non è alla stessa altezza, la stessa Rhys non la considerava definitiva.
E non riuscì mai a portarla a compimento, rimase per così dire inconclusa.
Franz Von Stuck: Tilla Durieux o Circe.
In copertina, Franz Von Stuck: Innocenza.
Autobiografia incompiuta, racconta l’infanzia e si ferma ai primi anni della giovinezza, come ci avverte molto chiaramente il titolo completo originale (Smile please: An Unfinished Autobiography).
Alla prima età fa riferimento il titolo, quando la madre le ordinava in modo non proprio affettuoso, più che altro sbrigativo, di sorridere davanti al fotografo che le stava scattando il ritratto. Sorridi, cheese…
Nata nel 1890 nelle cosiddette Indie Occidentali inglesi, più precisamente a Roseau la capitale dell’isola di Dominica, inizia a scrivere per caso all’età di venti e rotti anni.
In queste pagine racconta che viveva a Londra, ballerina di fila (chorus girl), spiantata, passando da una stanza in affitto all’altra, tutte uguali nel loro essenziale squallore. L’aiutava economicamente un ex amante ben più vecchio di lei.
Ella Gwendoline Rees Williams, che assumerà il nome di penna più sintetico di Jean Rhys, per spezzare la deprimente e grigia routine compra quaderni e matite, comincia a scrivere, e inizia proprio dal diario:
Ma non era un diario. Ricordavo tutto ciò che mi era accaduto. Ricordavo quello che mi aveva detto e come m’ero sentita. Scrissi fino a tardi, fino a che fui così stanca da non poter più continuare e mi buttai sul letto a dormire.
Agostino Brunias: Dancing Scene in the West Indies (tra il 1764 e il 1799).
I primi tre quaderni sono scritti in una sola notte. Poi, rimangono in valigia e Jean se li porta dietro per qualche anno nelle sue peregrinazioni europee (Francia, Austria, Olanda, di nuovo Inghilterra). Diventeranno il fulcro del suo romanzo Viaggio nel buio.
Dove si leggerà di una ballerina di fila, emarginata, umiliata (a cominciare dal suo accento), mantenuta, in una grande città straniera e ostile, Londra negli anni Dieci del Novecento.
Personaggio, situazione e caratteristiche che ritorneranno, e resteranno centrali nella sua narrativa.
Franz Von Stuck: Il peccato (Die Sünde),1893.
L’ambiente dove visse nei suoi primi sedici anni di vita era duro, tutto meno che accogliente: gli europei, inglesi in testa, rimpiangevano la schiavitù – i locali si sentivano schiavi anche se ufficialmente non lo erano – nascere su quelle isole regalava l’appellativo ‘creolo’ a prescindere dalla provenienza dei genitori (nel caso della Rhys il padre era gallese e la madre di origini scozzesi era di terza generazione nata nelle isole). Le piantagioni prendevano fuoco non certo per i forti raggi del sole, come racconta nel suo capolavoro Wide Sargasso Sea da cui proviene questa citazione:
Tutto è eccessivo, pensai mentre cavalcavo stancamente dietro di lei. Troppo azzurro, troppo porpora, troppo verde. I fiori troppo rossi, i monti troppo alti, i colli troppo vicini. E questa donna è un’estranea.
È l’ambiente umano, le relazioni tra indigeni e occidentali che avvelenano la vita nelle isole.
Al contrario, del paesaggio Rhys scrive in queste pagine:
È strano crescere in un posto molto bello e rendersene conto. Era vivo, ne ero sicura. Dietro i colori brillanti la morbidezza: le isole come nuvole e le nuvole come colline immaginarie.
Il passaggio all’Inghilterra nel 1906 è brusco che più non potrebbe. La vita nel collegio a Cambridge, dove veniva derisa per il suo accento, spinge al rimpianto:
Era una giornata giallastra. Non così tremenda come quelle bianche e splendenti di gelo e di vento, ma brutta. Il cielo aveva il colore della disperazione; ma loro non se ne accorgono, pensai, ci sono abituate, si aspettano che mi ci abitui anch’io. […] Restai ferma accanto alla finestra, al freddo, e pensai: “Che cosa sarà di me? Che cosa ci faccio, io, qui?”
Franz Von Stuck: Medusa.
Jean lascia il collegio per tentare con una scuola di recitazione, ma abbandona anche questa. Diventa una chorus girl e comincia a girare in tour l’Inghilterra. Ma deve ricorrere all’aiuto economico di amici e amanti. E fin qui s’è detto.
Segue il matrimonio con il franco-olandese Jean Lenglet, giornalista, spia e autore di canzoni, il primo di tre matrimoni. La coppia si trasferisce a Parigi, nascono un figlio che morirà presto, e una bimba.
Il marito viene arrestato per una qualche truffa monetaria.
Tutto questo servirà di base per il suo romanzo Quartetto. E qui si ferma l’autobiografia.
Francisco Oller: La scuola del Maestro Rafael Cordero (circa 1890).
Dal 1939 al 1966, anno in cui uscì Wide Sargasso Sea Rhys smise di pubblicare, probabilmente di scrivere, e visse ritirata, via dalla “pazza folla”. Non credo che si sentisse meno straniera, meno emarginata, meno vinta di quando trent’anni prima era ancora attiva e creativa.
Tornò alla scrittura col suo romanzo più famoso e importante che era ormai quasi ottantenne.
Anche questa autobiografia è affrontata in quel periodo: la parte migliore è quella caraibica – quando Jean approda in Europa la scrittura non è alla stessa altezza, la stessa Rhys non la considerava definitiva.
E non riuscì mai a portarla a compimento, rimase per così dire inconclusa.
Franz Von Stuck: Tilla Durieux o Circe.
September 18, 2012
There is something sadly fitting about Smile Please ’s being an unfinished autobiography. According to her publisher Diana Athill in the volume's foreword, Rhys was reluctant to revisit in an autobiography painful aspects of her past that she had already treated in her novels. At the same time, Rhys was frustrated by her readers' tendency to assume all scenes and characters in her novels were drawn directly from her own life.
This explanation of Rhys’s decision to reverse herself and begin work on her autobiography seems logical, but too pat. I suspect, although I could be wrong, that Rhys, at the end of her life, felt the need to reach back into the past and try to touch her former self, a lonely girl, and later woman, who always felt isolated and apart. Smile Please is a touching and heartbreaking representation of the deep loneliness and alienation at the core of Rhys’s identity. At the same time, there is a clear sense of Rhys’s strength, talent, and beauty emerging from these pages.
As I read Smile Please, I felt as though I was seeing scattered fragments of Rhys - glimpses of her life from childhood through young adulthood, creating a mosaic in which it often was difficult to capture more than a fleeting sense of Rhys’s innermost thoughts or sense of self. The work is composed of a series of short vignettes, with a first half, focusing on her childhood, that Rhys drafted completely herself, and a second half, composed of detailed notes about events during her adulthood, that Athill later shaped into their current format.
The scattered feeling at the heart of Smile Please comes not only from the book’s format, but also from Rhys’s style of approaching her life obliquely. From her very first paragraphs, as she describes a photograph of herself as a young child, she depicts the past as ephemeral, and herself in the past as irretrievably isolated from herself in her present:
"The chosen photograph in a silver frame stood on a small table under the sitting-room jalousies of our house in Roseau. It pleased me that it was by itself, not lost among the other photographs in the room, of which there were many. Then I forgot it.
"It was about three years afterwards that one early morning, dressed for school, I came downstairs before anyone else and for some reason looked at the photograph attentively, realising with dismay that I wasn’t like it any longer. I remembered the dress she was wearing, so much prettier than anything I had now, but the curls, the dimples surely belonged to somebody else. The eyes were a stranger’s eyes. The forefinger of her right hand was raised as if in warning. She had moved after all. Why I didn’t know; she wasn’t me any longer. It was the first time I was aware of time, change and the longing for the past. I was nine years of age." (13-14)
Throughout, Rhys continues to explore this strong sense of isolation and loss. She describes her inability to bridge the gap of race and status separating her from her family’s servants in the West Indies, a sense of separation that extended to her awareness of an unbridgeable chasm between herself and the West Indians living around her, particularly as she remembered an interaction between herself and an older black girl at her convent school, whom she was admiring and longing to befriend:
"Finally, without speaking, she turned and looked at me. I knew irritation, bad temper, the ‘Oh, go away’ look. This was hatred -- impersonal, implacable hatred. I recognized it at once and if you think that a child cannot recognise hatred and remember it for life you are most damnably mistaken.
"I never tried to be friendly with any of the coloured girls again. I was polite and that was all.
"They hate us. We are hated.
"Not possible.
"Yes it is possible and it is so." (39)
In her recollection of this event, Rhys does not reflect much on the politics of race relations in the West Indies. She captures her childhood understanding, as if caught in amber, and holds it up for us to examine.
Rhys’s sense of separation also extended to her relationship with family members. Of her mother after the birth of her younger sister, she writes, “Yes, she drifted away from me and when I tried to interest her, she was indifferent.” (33). Longing to find a way to compete successfully for her mother’s attention, Rhys writes, “Once I heard her say that black babies were prettier than white ones. Was this the reason why I prayed so ardently to be black and would run to the looking glass in the morning to see if the miracle had happened And though it never had, I tried again. Dear God, let me be black.” (33) Her father, although a kind man, was too preoccupied with politics and the adult world to pay much attention to Rhys. “I can only remember my father in little things. I can remember his walking with me arm in arm up and down the verandah, how pleased I was. He gave me a coral brooch and a silver bracelet.” (58) However, as she leaves the Dominican Republic for England at the conclusion of the first section of Smile Please, Rhys straightforwardly records the end of that stage of her life, “Down in the cabin which I shared with my aunt I saw that the little coral brooch which I was wearing had been crushed. I had been very fond of it; now I took it off and put it away without any particular feeling. Already all my childhood, the West Indies, my father and mother had been left behind; I was forgetting them. They were the past.” (76)
The second section of Smile Please, “It Began to Grow Cold,” focuses on Rhys’s life in England -- her struggles to feel at home in a cold, foreign England, her aunt’s frustrations over Rhys’s odd ways (for example, her taking hot baths in English boarding houses), Rhys’s attempts to feel a part of life at school in spite of her odd clothes. Her intermittent career as a chorus girl brought home to her the feeling of living precariously, with unpredictable lodging, constant worries over money, and the constant need to be on guard and aware of some men’s sexual predation on chorus girls. Throughout this section, Rhys shies from providing intimate details of her relationships with men. Describing her first affair, she writes only, “By now, my first real affair with a man had started. The pantomime didn’t run for long and I didn’t try for anything afterwards. I knew that however crudely Mr. Peterman had spoken when he asked what the hell I was doing on the stage, he had spoken the truth, but my lover imagined that I could get on in the theatre and insisted that I should have singing and dancing lessons. Dutifully I attended them. The rest of the time I spent looking out of the window for the messenger boy, because he always sent his letters by messenger.” (91) Throughout the rest of the book, Rhys continues to refer obliquely and glancingly to important relationships and events in her life. Her connection with lovers and former lovers often is played out via impersonal intermediaries. In some of the most heartbreaking writing in her autobiography, Rhys remembers her struggles to eke out a living for herself and maintain her dignity.
Smile Please is a heartbreaking autobiography, but there is beauty in the facets of Rhys’s story. Her writing is spare, direct, and often lovely. Her unflinching depiction of herself makes me ache for her, but also admire her. Her ability to rise above her pain, to turn it into art, provides us now with a means to connect with her after her death. I hope she feels us in some way. I hope she no longer feels alone.
December 13, 2022
I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all I didn't really care.
There's something very apposite in the fact that this 'autobiography' of Jean Rhys is fractured and unfinished: it reflects something elliptical and fragile that comes through in her fiction, that quality that she captures so well of life being not just precarious but eminently breakable.
This edition comprises three separate fragments of increasing brokenness: the first, 'Smile Please', is the most complete and contains Rhys' memories of her childhood in Dominica until she was sent to school in England at the age of sixteen. Readers of her Wide Sargasso Sea will be fascinated to find here some of the raw material from which her novel was forged.
The second section, 'It Began to Grow Cold', traces her life in England where she arrived from the Caribbean in the early years of the twentieth century. From gloomy boarding houses where hot water is rationed to the stage as a music-hall chorus girl and her first unsatisfactory love affairs, again we can find this material transmuted into her later novels.
The third abbreviated section, 'From a Diary: At the Ropemakers' Arms' is a patchy appendix of primarily notes.
What is most compelling is that in these autobiographical pieces, we can still hear the voice of Rhys' heroines: women who are crushed and dejected by life but who are never quite completely destroyed. Rhys herself writes 'there is something as unstable as water in me, and when things get tough I go away. I haven't got what the English call 'guts' '(p.98) - and it's that slippery evasiveness in the face of disappointment, disillusion and failure that gives her books such a uniquely brittle texture. There's a kind of thin-skinned shivery sensitivity about Rhys' writing that gives me goose-bumps.
September 18, 2012
Reviewing this might break my heart.
*****
It was a beautiful place - wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien, disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret. I'd find myself thinking, 'What I see is nothing - I want what it hides.’
That paragraph is taken from Wide Sargasso Sea, and doesn’t it beautifully express what we want from an autobiography? We want to know what is hidden. We want to know what we cannot glean from the books. Jean wrote, “I have not met other writers often... That does not matter at all, for all of a writer that matters is in the book[s].” I guess I have to be content with that, for Jean died and she kept her secrets. Her autobiography gives us only glimpses ... fragments...
*****
Smile please. When I was in 10th grade, my English teacher asked her students to bring in a song that best described our view of ourselves. I brought in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ea6Mo...
As I stood in front of the class, Morrissey’s sad story (my sad story) blaring from the speakers, I looked out at the faces of my classmates. They looked back at me blankly. Or worse, with pity. I don’t know what I had hoped I would accomplish with this admission: did I think they would understand me? Accept me? Know me better? No. All that I accomplished was exposing my feelings of shame, so I shrunk back into my shell and did what I learned to do best: I hid.
******
"What happened was that, as soon as I had the slightest chance of a place to hide in, I crept into it and hid. Well, sometimes it's a fine day, isn't it? Sometimes the skies are blue. Sometimes the air is light, easy to breathe. And then there is always tomorrow..."
Did you ever find someone whose writing sounded so much like your own inner voice that you found yourself shouting ‘yes! she gets it! yes! she knows me!’? I knew when I read Jean’s novels that there was no way the content was purely fictional. No one can write pain like that, write numbness like that, who hasn’t experienced it first hand.
I didn’t really need to read about Jean’s childhood, because she wrote it all so eloquently in the voice of Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea. I know what it’s like to be a little girl who feels invisible. And how quickly one can learn to endure solitude, even begin to prefer it (“Isn’t the sadness of being alone much stressed and the compensations left out?"). I know what it’s like to push your feelings down, escape, until it no longer even occurs to you that you have feelings. I know what it’s like to hide and how hiding becomes second nature. Jean says, “I can abstract myself from my body.” The man she said that to looked at her with horror, with pity. But is it really so horrible? We all have to figure out how to get along in life.
*****
Smile Please. In the beginning pages, Jean describes a story of looking at a picture of herself when she was a little girl, “...she wasn't me any longer. It was the first time I was aware of time, change and the longing for the past. I was nine years of age." Nine years of age and already longing for the past. She says that man had a look in his eye as he gazed upon her, “Not a pretty little girl.” “O God let me be pretty when I grow up! Let me be. Let me be. O God!” How I longed to be a boy. That math teacher who told me I didn’t need to worry about learning math: “You’re a pretty girl, you won’t need math.” Oh how we are judged by our looks. Jean understands. She felt how harshly girls are judged on their looks, “I was wearing an ugly brown Holland dress... and from my head to my black stockings, which fell untidily round my ankles, I hated myself.”
I wish I could go back in time and be a mother to young Jean. I would hug her and tell her always how much I love her. I would spend leisurely afternoons with her and I would make her know how important she is. I wouldn’t ignore her the way her mother and father did. The way my mother and father did. (Learn this lesson above all, parents-ignoring your children is just as abusive as anything else). Then maybe Jean wouldn’t have spent the rest of her life walking around with a gaping hole trying so hard to fill it with men or alcohol. Maybe she wouldn’t feel ashamed or broken or hollow. Maybe she wouldn’t have needed to push her feelings down so much that she then felt nothing at all, that she got used to being alone, that she preferred it. But then these books wouldn't exist. Then people like me wouldn’t find a little bit of relief by knowing we have a kindred spirit in Jean.
****
“Mortal Sins: Pride, anger, lust, drunkenness??, despair, presumption (hubris), sloth, selfishness, vanity, there’s no end to them, coolness of the heart. But I’m not guilty of the last. All the others.”
Above all things that I love about Jean Rhys, I love her humanity. I apologize for taking this review and making it more about me than Jean. Selfishness. Hubris. But it’s all very personal for me.
Jean wrote, “I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all, I didn’t really care.”
****
I wish I could thank Jean Rhys for the gift she has given me. We all wonder what our purpose is on this big ball of gas. Jean's writing was her purpose, for she gave so much of herself. Her truth. She wrote, “I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death... Sometimes, not often, a phrase will sound in my ear clearly, as if spoken aloud by someone else. That was one phrase. You must earn death.”
Dear Jean, You've earned so much more.
*****
It was a beautiful place - wild, untouched, above all untouched, with an alien, disturbing, secret loveliness. And it kept its secret. I'd find myself thinking, 'What I see is nothing - I want what it hides.’
That paragraph is taken from Wide Sargasso Sea, and doesn’t it beautifully express what we want from an autobiography? We want to know what is hidden. We want to know what we cannot glean from the books. Jean wrote, “I have not met other writers often... That does not matter at all, for all of a writer that matters is in the book[s].” I guess I have to be content with that, for Jean died and she kept her secrets. Her autobiography gives us only glimpses ... fragments...
*****
Smile please. When I was in 10th grade, my English teacher asked her students to bring in a song that best described our view of ourselves. I brought in this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ea6Mo...
As I stood in front of the class, Morrissey’s sad story (my sad story) blaring from the speakers, I looked out at the faces of my classmates. They looked back at me blankly. Or worse, with pity. I don’t know what I had hoped I would accomplish with this admission: did I think they would understand me? Accept me? Know me better? No. All that I accomplished was exposing my feelings of shame, so I shrunk back into my shell and did what I learned to do best: I hid.
******
"What happened was that, as soon as I had the slightest chance of a place to hide in, I crept into it and hid. Well, sometimes it's a fine day, isn't it? Sometimes the skies are blue. Sometimes the air is light, easy to breathe. And then there is always tomorrow..."
Did you ever find someone whose writing sounded so much like your own inner voice that you found yourself shouting ‘yes! she gets it! yes! she knows me!’? I knew when I read Jean’s novels that there was no way the content was purely fictional. No one can write pain like that, write numbness like that, who hasn’t experienced it first hand.
I didn’t really need to read about Jean’s childhood, because she wrote it all so eloquently in the voice of Antoinette in Wide Sargasso Sea. I know what it’s like to be a little girl who feels invisible. And how quickly one can learn to endure solitude, even begin to prefer it (“Isn’t the sadness of being alone much stressed and the compensations left out?"). I know what it’s like to push your feelings down, escape, until it no longer even occurs to you that you have feelings. I know what it’s like to hide and how hiding becomes second nature. Jean says, “I can abstract myself from my body.” The man she said that to looked at her with horror, with pity. But is it really so horrible? We all have to figure out how to get along in life.
*****
Smile Please. In the beginning pages, Jean describes a story of looking at a picture of herself when she was a little girl, “...she wasn't me any longer. It was the first time I was aware of time, change and the longing for the past. I was nine years of age." Nine years of age and already longing for the past. She says that man had a look in his eye as he gazed upon her, “Not a pretty little girl.” “O God let me be pretty when I grow up! Let me be. Let me be. O God!” How I longed to be a boy. That math teacher who told me I didn’t need to worry about learning math: “You’re a pretty girl, you won’t need math.” Oh how we are judged by our looks. Jean understands. She felt how harshly girls are judged on their looks, “I was wearing an ugly brown Holland dress... and from my head to my black stockings, which fell untidily round my ankles, I hated myself.”
I wish I could go back in time and be a mother to young Jean. I would hug her and tell her always how much I love her. I would spend leisurely afternoons with her and I would make her know how important she is. I wouldn’t ignore her the way her mother and father did. The way my mother and father did. (Learn this lesson above all, parents-ignoring your children is just as abusive as anything else). Then maybe Jean wouldn’t have spent the rest of her life walking around with a gaping hole trying so hard to fill it with men or alcohol. Maybe she wouldn’t feel ashamed or broken or hollow. Maybe she wouldn’t have needed to push her feelings down so much that she then felt nothing at all, that she got used to being alone, that she preferred it. But then these books wouldn't exist. Then people like me wouldn’t find a little bit of relief by knowing we have a kindred spirit in Jean.
****
“Mortal Sins: Pride, anger, lust, drunkenness??, despair, presumption (hubris), sloth, selfishness, vanity, there’s no end to them, coolness of the heart. But I’m not guilty of the last. All the others.”
Above all things that I love about Jean Rhys, I love her humanity. I apologize for taking this review and making it more about me than Jean. Selfishness. Hubris. But it’s all very personal for me.
Jean wrote, “I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing. Always something would go wrong. I am a stranger and I always will be, and after all, I didn’t really care.”
****
I wish I could thank Jean Rhys for the gift she has given me. We all wonder what our purpose is on this big ball of gas. Jean's writing was her purpose, for she gave so much of herself. Her truth. She wrote, “I must write. If I stop writing my life will have been an abject failure. It is that already to other people. But it could be an abject failure to myself. I will not have earned death... Sometimes, not often, a phrase will sound in my ear clearly, as if spoken aloud by someone else. That was one phrase. You must earn death.”
Dear Jean, You've earned so much more.
April 22, 2012
Night has a thousand eyes,
day but one
Jean Rhys novels were autobiographical. I didn't want to go around being an asshole reading her books assuming that everything within was autobiographical. Other people went around saying it a lot. I would shake them by their shoulders and ask if they didn't feel like mind readers as I did. That's how I feel when I read Jean Rhys novels. It is a large part of why I love her as much as I do. I had a feeling the outlook, at least, was autobiographical. If you have read her novels you will recognize her life in all of them. Her childhood in the Caribbean islands is reflected in Wide Sargasso Sea. The move from the heat to the cold of England is Voyage in the Dark, as well as the love affair she didn't know what it would be like when it ended. English men judging her with their devaluing eyes. This is not a pretty little girl. I had own moment like that Englishman when I was a little girl. This strange man went in for a handshake and saw that I had been licking the salt of nervousness off of my palms. I can remember the look he gave me still. Not a pretty little girl. I had the sensation again of reading Jean Rhys's mind. The part of her mind that feels as if it has been taken a hold of by someone else. They could have stuck their flags of Dominica or England or France in the dark parts and flap despite any new winds. We are still here.
The look a beautiful island girl gives young Jean. We all hate you. How can those two eyes speak for all of the eyes of the island? You don't belong here in your white ghost skin against our night time camouflage. Her brothers and sisters, dark to her fair, move on without her. They leap off the stage during her birthday play. To hell with this shit! Scared of aunts, scared of mommy. Scared until their absence is just an absence. If you have to be someone other than you... Jean learns how to be alone.
Sometimes it was not like mind reading and Rhys tried to explain things that had worked for me better when I could read the waves coming off the trembling women waiting and waiting (for someone, or to die, or just for some baby darkness again). Her repression is explained away because she saw her dog doing it (doggy style, no doubt) and her mom told her to repress it. Shit, I've seen that loads of times! I once walked in on my uncle doing it on the couch when I came home from school. The dogs were better. It is interesting that she says she remembered always if she had tried to repress. But still, sometimes you know how people just tell you things about themselves? That can be interesting because you know what someone else thinks is interesting to tell someone else. What people tell you isn't always true. I know! I'm telling stuff no one knows right here. This autobiography isn't free of that either. Not that I can know for certain, or anything, but I had a feeling. The pain in her novels belie a lover who was good to her. A lover who paid her off as a whore through the letterhead of his lawyer? A family who sends her off to England and would not have her back into their familial embrace. Jean learns how to be alone.
Her husband who was a criminal walked around inside the criminal husband who couldn't walk free without walking right back into the noose of Quartet. I noticed that the other inspiration for Quartet was omitted. Maybe because he's famous? (Even though I don't remember his name I know that he's famous. To other people.) I'm sure they have some bodies of water with names that I could make some clever remark like the river of denial. Curse my geography. The dire straits?
Smile Please (I heard similar things all throughout my youth. Complete with ironic nicknames) is titled an unfinished biography. Jean Rhys died before she could finish it, it is true. I consider it unfinished because I don't believe in the doom she professes to be her fate. What if the film kept rolling... It didn't have to be that way even if that was how it happened. (That it was their choice is why her first novels are my favorites and Wide Sargasso Sea I do not love.) I mean, she lets go of them all, except for in her writing. I loved this book when she's writing about her life about the things that happened. It is frustrating the editorial notes about how this or that portended her misery. But really? Jean Rhys has the fiery eye of Sauron turned on herself. On others she would burn inside out rather than look at the light within as they fried (like a face looks when you stick a flash light in your mouth). That's the feeling that I have. I know that one only knows oneself, I do. I still wonder why if you are creating a world in a novel why you would not create beyond yourself to other people and be at ease with yourself. Well, I know it goes that way because I struggle with that myself. I know how set adrift she felt when she looks at the photographs of the little herself when she felt flesh limbs with other blood limbs in a fountain. A fountain of youth, Mariel? Yes! What do you want from me? I'm no writer. Where did it all go wrong? I care about what she missed. I guess she was trying to get back something she missed. It's just a feeling I had while reading this. Jean Rhys is alone even in her novels. She couldn't even get to have it even then. Jean doesn't learn how to be alone. One of her rituals as a girl was to sit in the stairs and listen to the music until she couldn't bear to hear anymore. She fell in love with words. She learns how to be alone.
The night has eyes...
This is from a diary entry she wrote in the 1940s and didn't know if she could find a way to include in Smile Please. Fuck!
"No more quotations. Paul Morand says in one of his books that English novelists always start with a quotation. The text before the sermon. I found that witty."
Fuck! I've been doing that!
P.s. I blew through all the Jean Rhys way too fast. I'm almost done with all the short stories and there will only be the letters. Why do I always do this?
day but one
Jean Rhys novels were autobiographical. I didn't want to go around being an asshole reading her books assuming that everything within was autobiographical. Other people went around saying it a lot. I would shake them by their shoulders and ask if they didn't feel like mind readers as I did. That's how I feel when I read Jean Rhys novels. It is a large part of why I love her as much as I do. I had a feeling the outlook, at least, was autobiographical. If you have read her novels you will recognize her life in all of them. Her childhood in the Caribbean islands is reflected in Wide Sargasso Sea. The move from the heat to the cold of England is Voyage in the Dark, as well as the love affair she didn't know what it would be like when it ended. English men judging her with their devaluing eyes. This is not a pretty little girl. I had own moment like that Englishman when I was a little girl. This strange man went in for a handshake and saw that I had been licking the salt of nervousness off of my palms. I can remember the look he gave me still. Not a pretty little girl. I had the sensation again of reading Jean Rhys's mind. The part of her mind that feels as if it has been taken a hold of by someone else. They could have stuck their flags of Dominica or England or France in the dark parts and flap despite any new winds. We are still here.
The look a beautiful island girl gives young Jean. We all hate you. How can those two eyes speak for all of the eyes of the island? You don't belong here in your white ghost skin against our night time camouflage. Her brothers and sisters, dark to her fair, move on without her. They leap off the stage during her birthday play. To hell with this shit! Scared of aunts, scared of mommy. Scared until their absence is just an absence. If you have to be someone other than you... Jean learns how to be alone.
Sometimes it was not like mind reading and Rhys tried to explain things that had worked for me better when I could read the waves coming off the trembling women waiting and waiting (for someone, or to die, or just for some baby darkness again). Her repression is explained away because she saw her dog doing it (doggy style, no doubt) and her mom told her to repress it. Shit, I've seen that loads of times! I once walked in on my uncle doing it on the couch when I came home from school. The dogs were better. It is interesting that she says she remembered always if she had tried to repress. But still, sometimes you know how people just tell you things about themselves? That can be interesting because you know what someone else thinks is interesting to tell someone else. What people tell you isn't always true. I know! I'm telling stuff no one knows right here. This autobiography isn't free of that either. Not that I can know for certain, or anything, but I had a feeling. The pain in her novels belie a lover who was good to her. A lover who paid her off as a whore through the letterhead of his lawyer? A family who sends her off to England and would not have her back into their familial embrace. Jean learns how to be alone.
Her husband who was a criminal walked around inside the criminal husband who couldn't walk free without walking right back into the noose of Quartet. I noticed that the other inspiration for Quartet was omitted. Maybe because he's famous? (Even though I don't remember his name I know that he's famous. To other people.) I'm sure they have some bodies of water with names that I could make some clever remark like the river of denial. Curse my geography. The dire straits?
Smile Please (I heard similar things all throughout my youth. Complete with ironic nicknames) is titled an unfinished biography. Jean Rhys died before she could finish it, it is true. I consider it unfinished because I don't believe in the doom she professes to be her fate. What if the film kept rolling... It didn't have to be that way even if that was how it happened. (That it was their choice is why her first novels are my favorites and Wide Sargasso Sea I do not love.) I mean, she lets go of them all, except for in her writing. I loved this book when she's writing about her life about the things that happened. It is frustrating the editorial notes about how this or that portended her misery. But really? Jean Rhys has the fiery eye of Sauron turned on herself. On others she would burn inside out rather than look at the light within as they fried (like a face looks when you stick a flash light in your mouth). That's the feeling that I have. I know that one only knows oneself, I do. I still wonder why if you are creating a world in a novel why you would not create beyond yourself to other people and be at ease with yourself. Well, I know it goes that way because I struggle with that myself. I know how set adrift she felt when she looks at the photographs of the little herself when she felt flesh limbs with other blood limbs in a fountain. A fountain of youth, Mariel? Yes! What do you want from me? I'm no writer. Where did it all go wrong? I care about what she missed. I guess she was trying to get back something she missed. It's just a feeling I had while reading this. Jean Rhys is alone even in her novels. She couldn't even get to have it even then. Jean doesn't learn how to be alone. One of her rituals as a girl was to sit in the stairs and listen to the music until she couldn't bear to hear anymore. She fell in love with words. She learns how to be alone.
The night has eyes...
This is from a diary entry she wrote in the 1940s and didn't know if she could find a way to include in Smile Please. Fuck!
"No more quotations. Paul Morand says in one of his books that English novelists always start with a quotation. The text before the sermon. I found that witty."
Fuck! I've been doing that!
P.s. I blew through all the Jean Rhys way too fast. I'm almost done with all the short stories and there will only be the letters. Why do I always do this?
December 27, 2020
Smile Please
Jean Rhys (1890-1979)
Jean Rhys was an English author under some influence by Ford Maddox Ford in her early works.
“Smile Please” is an unfinished Autobiography composed in the late years of her life.
I had read, and greatly appreciated Jean Rhys’s major literature success,
“Wide Sargasso Sea” (1966). This work is a surprising and original write-back of “Jane Eyre”.
It is telling the imaginary young life of the Dominican creole wife of Mr Rochester whom (in Jane Eyre) he had declared mad and kept in the attic.
Readers who have read “Jane Eyre” will link easily.
‘Smile Please’, her biography is giving the reader an insight into the making of “Wide Sargasso Sea”.
The first half of the work takes us to the Caribbean and the young years of the author.
Many of her memories blend directly into “The Wide Sargasso Sea” with others giving the reader more insight into her relations with mother and father.
The second half of the book starts after her father died and Jean is sent to England.
She had always longed to go to England and was arriving with high expectations.
From the sunny Caribbean and a safe family home, she is thrown int a grey, ice-cold country and from childhood into cruel adult life.
To make a modest living just enough to survive she turns to singing, dancing and tries acting.
With hardships and little success.
Then men come into her life and the picture is getting darker. She learns that for any charity there is a price to pay. It must have been at that time Rhys started to compose her first work in England, in the mode of diaries.
“Voyage in the Dark” was published in 1934.
All written in Rhys’s hauntingly simple and beautiful style.
I am glad I did not miss this little book. Thanks, Clodia.
Jean Rhys (1890-1979)
Jean Rhys was an English author under some influence by Ford Maddox Ford in her early works.
“Smile Please” is an unfinished Autobiography composed in the late years of her life.
I had read, and greatly appreciated Jean Rhys’s major literature success,
“Wide Sargasso Sea” (1966). This work is a surprising and original write-back of “Jane Eyre”.
It is telling the imaginary young life of the Dominican creole wife of Mr Rochester whom (in Jane Eyre) he had declared mad and kept in the attic.
Readers who have read “Jane Eyre” will link easily.
‘Smile Please’, her biography is giving the reader an insight into the making of “Wide Sargasso Sea”.
The first half of the work takes us to the Caribbean and the young years of the author.
Many of her memories blend directly into “The Wide Sargasso Sea” with others giving the reader more insight into her relations with mother and father.
The second half of the book starts after her father died and Jean is sent to England.
She had always longed to go to England and was arriving with high expectations.
From the sunny Caribbean and a safe family home, she is thrown int a grey, ice-cold country and from childhood into cruel adult life.
To make a modest living just enough to survive she turns to singing, dancing and tries acting.
With hardships and little success.
Then men come into her life and the picture is getting darker. She learns that for any charity there is a price to pay. It must have been at that time Rhys started to compose her first work in England, in the mode of diaries.
“Voyage in the Dark” was published in 1934.
All written in Rhys’s hauntingly simple and beautiful style.
I am glad I did not miss this little book. Thanks, Clodia.
June 27, 2024
Es una lástima que no sea más que un borrador. 🥺💔😭
Su vida es muy interesante. Me quedaron dudas porque sólo conocemos parte de su infancia y juventud de Jean.
Venía con la esperanza de saber más de su inspiración de El ancho mar de los Sargazos y no encontré casi nada. 🥺
Pero lo poquito que hay es oro.✨
Su vida es muy interesante. Me quedaron dudas porque sólo conocemos parte de su infancia y juventud de Jean.
Venía con la esperanza de saber más de su inspiración de El ancho mar de los Sargazos y no encontré casi nada. 🥺
Pero lo poquito que hay es oro.✨
March 30, 2019
Jean Rhys’ Smile Please: An Unfinished Autobiography is probably best read after reading some or all of her novels. It includes three fragmentary sections: Smile please, It began to grow cold, and From a diary: at the Ropemakers’ Arms, as well as an introduction by Diana Athill, Rhys’ later day editor. For readers who know Rhys’ fiction, Smile Please provides a wonderful extension, with many opportunities to compare incidents from her life to incidents in her novels.
Rather than assess or summarize Smile Please—after all, how could one assess or summarize Jean Rhys’ rich life?—I’ll quote a few notable passages. To start, a wonderful story recounted by Diana Athill in her introduction: "some five years after the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea [Rhys' final novel] she said to me out of the blue: 'There is one thing I've always wanted to ask you. Why did you let me publish that book?' Here a gloss is necessary. She was a writer addressing her editor—a writer hampered by unusually beautiful manners. For 'let me publish' you must read 'badger me into publishing'—an unfair accusation as it happens. I was indignant when I asked her what on earth she meant. 'It was not finished.' she said coldly. She then pointed out the existence in the book of two unnecessary words. One was 'then', the other 'quite'." And now, on to Rhys.
About god: ”Before I could read, almost a baby, I imagined that God, this strange person or thing I heard about, was a book. Sometimes it was a large book standing upright and half open and I could see the print inside but it made no sense to me. Other times the book was smaller and inside were sharp flashing things. The smaller book was, I am sure now, my mother’s needle-book, and the sharp flashing things were her needles with the sun on them.”
About Dominica: ”It’s strange growing up in a very beautiful place and seeing that it is beautiful. It was alive, I was sure of it. Behind the bright colours the softness, the hills like clouds and the clouds like fantastic hills. There was something austere, sad, lost, all these things. I wanted to identify myself with it, to lose myself in it. (But it turned is head away, indifferent, and that broke my heart.)” Go ahead, I dare you to find an excess word or punctuation there.
About leaving Dominica: He [her father] came with my aunt and myself as far as Bridgetown, Barbados, where we caught the ocean boat. When we said goodbye, he hugged me tightly but I said: ‘Goodbye, goodbye’ very cheerfully, for already I was on my way to England. Down in the cabin which I shared with my aunt I saw that the little coral brooch which I was wearing had been crushed. I had been very fond of it; now I took it off and put it away without any particular feeling. Already all my childhood, the West Indies, my father and mother had been left behind; I was forgetting them. They were the past.”
About love: ”When my first love affair came to an end I wrote this poem:
I didn’t know
I didn’t know
I didn’t know”
About readers and writers: ”. . . all of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person. I have never made that mistake.”
About her first stay in England, from ages 17 to 27: ”. . . I learned to know that most English people kept knives under their tongues to stab me. No one told me. I had to find out everything. Ten years were wasted before I got away.”
For those who admire Jean Rhys' fiction, Smile Please is a gem.
Rather than assess or summarize Smile Please—after all, how could one assess or summarize Jean Rhys’ rich life?—I’ll quote a few notable passages. To start, a wonderful story recounted by Diana Athill in her introduction: "some five years after the publication of Wide Sargasso Sea [Rhys' final novel] she said to me out of the blue: 'There is one thing I've always wanted to ask you. Why did you let me publish that book?' Here a gloss is necessary. She was a writer addressing her editor—a writer hampered by unusually beautiful manners. For 'let me publish' you must read 'badger me into publishing'—an unfair accusation as it happens. I was indignant when I asked her what on earth she meant. 'It was not finished.' she said coldly. She then pointed out the existence in the book of two unnecessary words. One was 'then', the other 'quite'." And now, on to Rhys.
About god: ”Before I could read, almost a baby, I imagined that God, this strange person or thing I heard about, was a book. Sometimes it was a large book standing upright and half open and I could see the print inside but it made no sense to me. Other times the book was smaller and inside were sharp flashing things. The smaller book was, I am sure now, my mother’s needle-book, and the sharp flashing things were her needles with the sun on them.”
About Dominica: ”It’s strange growing up in a very beautiful place and seeing that it is beautiful. It was alive, I was sure of it. Behind the bright colours the softness, the hills like clouds and the clouds like fantastic hills. There was something austere, sad, lost, all these things. I wanted to identify myself with it, to lose myself in it. (But it turned is head away, indifferent, and that broke my heart.)” Go ahead, I dare you to find an excess word or punctuation there.
About leaving Dominica: He [her father] came with my aunt and myself as far as Bridgetown, Barbados, where we caught the ocean boat. When we said goodbye, he hugged me tightly but I said: ‘Goodbye, goodbye’ very cheerfully, for already I was on my way to England. Down in the cabin which I shared with my aunt I saw that the little coral brooch which I was wearing had been crushed. I had been very fond of it; now I took it off and put it away without any particular feeling. Already all my childhood, the West Indies, my father and mother had been left behind; I was forgetting them. They were the past.”
About love: ”When my first love affair came to an end I wrote this poem:
I didn’t know
I didn’t know
I didn’t know”
About readers and writers: ”. . . all of a writer that matters is in the book or books. It is idiotic to be curious about the person. I have never made that mistake.”
About her first stay in England, from ages 17 to 27: ”. . . I learned to know that most English people kept knives under their tongues to stab me. No one told me. I had to find out everything. Ten years were wasted before I got away.”
For those who admire Jean Rhys' fiction, Smile Please is a gem.
July 9, 2019
Figlia di una famiglia inglese che vive a Dominica, nei Caraibi, Jean Rhys racconta episodi della sua infanzia e della sua adolescenza, periodi particolarmente infelici, a causa della radicale diversità che la caratterizza. Lei unica bianca fra i neri e i creoli, ne invidia la bellezza, guarda a debita distanza quella vita sociale e solidale da cui è radicalmente estromessa, per natura e per indole. Slavata e imprecisa, così Jean bambina si percepisce.
Ha una famiglia anafettiva, con una madre fredda e distante; soltanto per il padre prova un malinconico amore poco corrisposto, una sorta di nostalgia per ciò che poteva essere e non è stato.
Anche quando, diciottenne, approderà in Inghilterra continuerà a sentirsi sradicata e apolide, sola e priva di un autentico slancio a vivere. Fino a quando la scrittura arriverà a portare senso a quella sua vita fatta di espedienti, lavori pseudoartistici, squallide pensioncine, amori ovviamente impossibili.
La scrittura autobiografica è caratterizzata da una sostanziale discontinuità, perché la Ryhs non ebbe il tempo di rivedere la seconda parte del libro, che è molto più asciutta e ha uno stile più frammentato e lapidario rispetto alla prima (ambientata a Dominica) più ricca di particolari, anche se pur sempre essenziale.
“Smile, please” suggeriva la madre alla piccola Jean in posa dal fotografo. Ma lei sapeva bene che non c’era nulla, proprio nulla, di cui sorridere.
Ha una famiglia anafettiva, con una madre fredda e distante; soltanto per il padre prova un malinconico amore poco corrisposto, una sorta di nostalgia per ciò che poteva essere e non è stato.
Anche quando, diciottenne, approderà in Inghilterra continuerà a sentirsi sradicata e apolide, sola e priva di un autentico slancio a vivere. Fino a quando la scrittura arriverà a portare senso a quella sua vita fatta di espedienti, lavori pseudoartistici, squallide pensioncine, amori ovviamente impossibili.
La scrittura autobiografica è caratterizzata da una sostanziale discontinuità, perché la Ryhs non ebbe il tempo di rivedere la seconda parte del libro, che è molto più asciutta e ha uno stile più frammentato e lapidario rispetto alla prima (ambientata a Dominica) più ricca di particolari, anche se pur sempre essenziale.
“Smile, please” suggeriva la madre alla piccola Jean in posa dal fotografo. Ma lei sapeva bene che non c’era nulla, proprio nulla, di cui sorridere.
February 8, 2015
This was very interesting to read. I read Wide Sargasso Sea before and I felt that it must have come from some deep kinship with Bertha/Antoinette.
This memoir starts of with a foreword by Diana Athill, Jean Rhys' editor. She states that a lot of Rhys' private life had already been used in her novels, but that they were not autobiographical in every detail, as readers sometimes suppose. In Smile Please I have seen quite a number of details that I recognise form Wide Sargasso Sea, but there is enough context to emphasize that Bertha in WSS is not a clone of Jean Rhys.
Smile Pleaseis, though not at all gloomy and dark, a story of loss. She loses her childhood home Bona Vista, her brothers leave for school in England, her spoiled little sister takes all attention from her mother. She remembers instances where her friend Willie doesn't want to play with her anymore, her nurse doesn't like her and she can't see her aunts anymore because of family quarrels.
The burned house with the mounting stone brought me straight back to Coulibri.
In her adult life when she takes matters more into her own hands she seems somewhat happier, but the childhood recollections are almost all of neglect and loss.
With WSS in mind the following passages struck me:
"There is something as unstable as water in me, and when things get tough I go away. I haven't got what the English call 'guts'."
"I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing."
This memoir starts of with a foreword by Diana Athill, Jean Rhys' editor. She states that a lot of Rhys' private life had already been used in her novels, but that they were not autobiographical in every detail, as readers sometimes suppose. In Smile Please I have seen quite a number of details that I recognise form Wide Sargasso Sea, but there is enough context to emphasize that Bertha in WSS is not a clone of Jean Rhys.
Smile Pleaseis, though not at all gloomy and dark, a story of loss. She loses her childhood home Bona Vista, her brothers leave for school in England, her spoiled little sister takes all attention from her mother. She remembers instances where her friend Willie doesn't want to play with her anymore, her nurse doesn't like her and she can't see her aunts anymore because of family quarrels.
The burned house with the mounting stone brought me straight back to Coulibri.
In her adult life when she takes matters more into her own hands she seems somewhat happier, but the childhood recollections are almost all of neglect and loss.
With WSS in mind the following passages struck me:
"There is something as unstable as water in me, and when things get tough I go away. I haven't got what the English call 'guts'."
"I would never be part of anything. I would never really belong anywhere, and I knew it, and all my life would be the same, trying to belong, and failing."
June 22, 2025
È tutto racchiuso già nelle prime righe dell’autobiografia. Una Rhys molto giovane posa per una fotografia con un vestito bianco nuovo che la fa sentire diversa. Il fotografo le chiede di sorridere e di restare ferma, ma il corpo di Rhys sembra ribellarsi alla richiesta, le braccia si muovono, la fotografia deve essere rifatta.
Quando ripensa a questa foto, quando la rivede dopo alcuni anni sola su un tavolino, sente per la prima volta nella sua vita un’inconfondibile nostalgia per il passato. Ha solo nove anni, ma vivere in Dominica sembra aprire la sua mente e la sua anima a una molteplicità di esperienze inimmaginabili, in un perenne contrasto tra lei e il resto della società.
Si sente sempre l’altra, Jean Rhys, l’esclusa: bianca in una comunità prevalentemente nera, invidia ai neri la loro spensieratezza, l’apparente felicità e leggerezza della vita, i riti cattolici pieni di pathos, feste, colori. Lei, invece, si sente sbiadita, capace di sparire in qualsiasi momento in un alito di vento, senza nessuno pronto a stringerla a sé per trattenerla coi piedi ben radicati a terra.
Continua a leggere qui: https://parlaredilibri.wordpress.com/...
Quando ripensa a questa foto, quando la rivede dopo alcuni anni sola su un tavolino, sente per la prima volta nella sua vita un’inconfondibile nostalgia per il passato. Ha solo nove anni, ma vivere in Dominica sembra aprire la sua mente e la sua anima a una molteplicità di esperienze inimmaginabili, in un perenne contrasto tra lei e il resto della società.
Si sente sempre l’altra, Jean Rhys, l’esclusa: bianca in una comunità prevalentemente nera, invidia ai neri la loro spensieratezza, l’apparente felicità e leggerezza della vita, i riti cattolici pieni di pathos, feste, colori. Lei, invece, si sente sbiadita, capace di sparire in qualsiasi momento in un alito di vento, senza nessuno pronto a stringerla a sé per trattenerla coi piedi ben radicati a terra.
Continua a leggere qui: https://parlaredilibri.wordpress.com/...
July 14, 2025
The back cover of my quickly falling apart copy of Smile Please describes Jean Rhys’s novels as “a strange and haunting distillation of the alienation and despair of women who have slipped a little”; This incomplete autobiography is rife with all of those descriptors, just without Rhys’s usual propensity for fictional and novelistic enhancement that she provides in her many presumed-to-be autobiographical novels.
Jean Rhys had a very singular upbringing, a seemingly unemotional connection to her parents, and a curious fascination with the cultures she found herself growing up around, and these short chapters in her dictated words give a tiny glimpse into what feels like a View-Master style click through of more identifiable moments primarily in her childhood. Rhys manages to easily convey her own solemnity within these brief amalgamated chapters and snippets, and despite her constant back and forth changes in locality and company, the moments she chooses to preserve are ultimately very quaint and precise. perfect quick but comforting car trip read
Jean Rhys had a very singular upbringing, a seemingly unemotional connection to her parents, and a curious fascination with the cultures she found herself growing up around, and these short chapters in her dictated words give a tiny glimpse into what feels like a View-Master style click through of more identifiable moments primarily in her childhood. Rhys manages to easily convey her own solemnity within these brief amalgamated chapters and snippets, and despite her constant back and forth changes in locality and company, the moments she chooses to preserve are ultimately very quaint and precise. perfect quick but comforting car trip read
April 4, 2019
This book lowered my opinion of Ms Rhys's fiction.
I liked "After Leaving Mr Mackenzie" because she very effectively painted a portrait of a shallow woman who had done nothing but cultivate the friendship and support of men. When on their own, her characters appeared to sleepwalk through life.
Now after reading this autobiography I find that Jean Rhys is exactly like these characters. She drifts through life, borrowing money from male "friends". Never seems to show any emotion, when saying goodbye to her family, or when her father dies, or when she loses her baby. In the latter case, she drops the sick baby at the hospital, goes home, drinks champagne and seems unmoved to learn of his death the next day.
I do give her credit for being brutally honest.
I liked "After Leaving Mr Mackenzie" because she very effectively painted a portrait of a shallow woman who had done nothing but cultivate the friendship and support of men. When on their own, her characters appeared to sleepwalk through life.
Now after reading this autobiography I find that Jean Rhys is exactly like these characters. She drifts through life, borrowing money from male "friends". Never seems to show any emotion, when saying goodbye to her family, or when her father dies, or when she loses her baby. In the latter case, she drops the sick baby at the hospital, goes home, drinks champagne and seems unmoved to learn of his death the next day.
I do give her credit for being brutally honest.
March 27, 2014
There were pages that I just had to read and then reread and then copy into my notebook. The book got more interesting when she moved to London, Indeed, "It began to grow cold" and she reflected it with such beauty. This is a book that I will read again. I got a little stuck in the chapter where she set up a trial for herself.
July 31, 2014
God I love Jean Rhys so much.
April 13, 2019
Interesting how the autobiographical material fleshes out her fiction. Reading both certainly gives depth and background and adds dimension. For instance, in her fiction, she writes about people in England who mistakenly assume she is black and reject her for that reason, whereas in her autobiography, she writes about feeling socially isolated as a white person and wishes she was black.
A couple of excerpts:
" 'You are a very peculiar child', said my mother. 'There are times when I am very anxious about you. I can't imagine what will happen if you don't learn to behave more like other people.' I didn't answer this...."
"Emilie had asked for my hand in marriage and promised my mother that if she would consent, he would give a present of a large yam. I never heard the last of that yam. 'You're only worth a yam,' my mother would say, shrieking with mirth..."
A couple of excerpts:
" 'You are a very peculiar child', said my mother. 'There are times when I am very anxious about you. I can't imagine what will happen if you don't learn to behave more like other people.' I didn't answer this...."
"Emilie had asked for my hand in marriage and promised my mother that if she would consent, he would give a present of a large yam. I never heard the last of that yam. 'You're only worth a yam,' my mother would say, shrieking with mirth..."
November 16, 2021
Reading Rhys’s autobiography made me realize how autobiographical Wide Sargasso Sea actually was and I didn’t know that. Rhys describes her life in Dominica and the way she and her family, as Europeans, had to live as minorities among local inhabitants who were mostly POC. She then moves to London to seek her lot there. A life of acting, precocious marriage, traveling around Europe with the World War as the backdrop of her European life. Too bad this book is not complete!
December 9, 2009
Creo que Jean Rhys ya era una escritora que me gustaba antes de leer nada de ella. De hecho, lo primero que leí de ella, 'El ancho mar de los Sargazos', no me gustó tanto como esperaba, pero ella seguía gustándome como escritora más de lo que me pudieran gustar los libros que escribiera. El problema es que esperaba mucho de 'El ancho mar de los Sargazos', porque se trataba nada más ni nada menos que la narración del primer matrimonio del señor Rochester de 'Jane Eyre' con Antoinette Cosway (la loca del desván), porque se trataba nada más ni nada menos que de una reescritura des de una óptica feminista y postcolonial de un clásico de la literatura inglesa. La idea me pareció brillante, la ejecución no tanto, pero seguí queriendo a Jean Rhys, porque es una de esas escritoras (como Janet Frame) que tuvo una vida con la que me es imposible no identificarme, no tanto por lo que vivió sino por lo que sintió (o más exactamente por lo que sufrió).
'Una sonrisa, por favor' es la autobiografía inacabada que Jean Rhys empezó a escribir cuando tenía más de ochenta años. Y ahora ya puedo decir que adoro a sus libros (al menos un libro suyo) tanto como la adoro a ella. Jean Rhys nació el 1890 en Dominica, hija de un médico galés y una dama criolla de origen escocés. Se crió en una isla dividida entre blancos y negros, con una niñera que le infundió el miedo, con un padre que casi siempre estaba ausente y con una madre distante y a la que tenía miedo, con unos hermanos mayores que pronto se marcharon de la isla para seguir con sus vidas y con una hermana pequeña a la que nunca le pudo coger auténtico afecto por culpa de los celos. Gwen (que era su verdadero nombre) se convirtió pronto en una niña tímida, insegura, asustadiza, y solitaria. Todo esto lo cuenta Jean Rhys en esta autobiografía.
Rhys luego se fue a vivir a Inglaterra a estudiar, pero tuvo que dejar los estudios cuando murió su padre, así que empezó a trabajar como corista y luego como actriz en obras de teatro de segunda fila y como extra en películas de bajo presupuesto. En Inglaterra pasó frío y se sintió sola, supo que la tristeza ya no la dejaría en toda su vida, pero aún así intentó dejarla atrás y se fue a Paris con su primer marido, allí trabajó como institutriz, perdió un hijo recién nacido y estrechó su relación con el alcohol. Conoció a Ford Madox Ford y empezó a escribir cuentos bajo su tutela. Y ahí se termina la historia que narra 'Una sonrisa, por favor', pero no se trata de un final feliz, porque Rhys se fue hundiendo cada vez más en el alcoholismo y el rencor (que probablemente le venía de su primera época en Inglaterra cuando sus profes de interpretación la machacaban por no tener un acento británico puro y perfecto) y no empezó a ser reconocida (y aún de una forma fugaz e incompleta) hasta el final de su vida, hasta que a mediados de los sesenta escribió 'El ancho mar de los Sargazos'.
Aunque en 'Una sonrisa, por favor' no se mencionan muchas veces las palabras "tristeza" y "soledad", es sin duda de esto de lo que trata el libro. Es un libro profundamente triste, deprimente casi. A diferencia de muchas autobiografías, Rhys pocas veces mira al pasado con nostalgia, más bien lo mira con la conciencia de haber sido toda la vida una perdedora, pero sin caer nunca en la autocompasión. No se trata tampoco de una autobiografía al uso, más bien diría que se trata de una serie de episodios autobiográficos contados por orden cronológico. Rhys describe su vida a grandes pinceladas, contando no tanto los hechos estrictos sino las sensaciones y sentimientos que tuvo al largo de su vida. Es una obra muy triste, lo repito. Y muy bella, que quede claro. Y reconfortante del mismo modo en que es reconfortante saber que existen mujeres que (como yo) nunca han dejado del todo de ser niñas tímidas, inseguras, asustadizas y solitarias.
Cuando una la termina tiene la sensación que todas las relaciones que establecemos con las personas con las que nos cruzamos no son nada más que superficiales, impulsadas sólo por las circunstancias, con fecha de caducidad, porque en el fondo todos nos enfrentamos solos a nuestra tristeza. Y una se da cuenta que la vida no tiene sentido y que las casualidades más absurdas son las que le rigen. Jean Rhys se pasó muchísimos años sin prácticamente leer y empezó a escribir de la forma más curiosa. Se estaba hospedando en una habitación de lo más deprimente y había una mesa vacía que no soportaba ver vacía, así que decidió comprar algo y se decidió por unos cuadernos, sólo porque eran bonitos no porque tuviera ganas de escribir, pero una noche decidió escribir/vomitar todo lo que le había pasado en Inglaterra y así fue como empezó todo.
'Una sonrisa, por favor' es la autobiografía inacabada que Jean Rhys empezó a escribir cuando tenía más de ochenta años. Y ahora ya puedo decir que adoro a sus libros (al menos un libro suyo) tanto como la adoro a ella. Jean Rhys nació el 1890 en Dominica, hija de un médico galés y una dama criolla de origen escocés. Se crió en una isla dividida entre blancos y negros, con una niñera que le infundió el miedo, con un padre que casi siempre estaba ausente y con una madre distante y a la que tenía miedo, con unos hermanos mayores que pronto se marcharon de la isla para seguir con sus vidas y con una hermana pequeña a la que nunca le pudo coger auténtico afecto por culpa de los celos. Gwen (que era su verdadero nombre) se convirtió pronto en una niña tímida, insegura, asustadiza, y solitaria. Todo esto lo cuenta Jean Rhys en esta autobiografía.
Rhys luego se fue a vivir a Inglaterra a estudiar, pero tuvo que dejar los estudios cuando murió su padre, así que empezó a trabajar como corista y luego como actriz en obras de teatro de segunda fila y como extra en películas de bajo presupuesto. En Inglaterra pasó frío y se sintió sola, supo que la tristeza ya no la dejaría en toda su vida, pero aún así intentó dejarla atrás y se fue a Paris con su primer marido, allí trabajó como institutriz, perdió un hijo recién nacido y estrechó su relación con el alcohol. Conoció a Ford Madox Ford y empezó a escribir cuentos bajo su tutela. Y ahí se termina la historia que narra 'Una sonrisa, por favor', pero no se trata de un final feliz, porque Rhys se fue hundiendo cada vez más en el alcoholismo y el rencor (que probablemente le venía de su primera época en Inglaterra cuando sus profes de interpretación la machacaban por no tener un acento británico puro y perfecto) y no empezó a ser reconocida (y aún de una forma fugaz e incompleta) hasta el final de su vida, hasta que a mediados de los sesenta escribió 'El ancho mar de los Sargazos'.
Aunque en 'Una sonrisa, por favor' no se mencionan muchas veces las palabras "tristeza" y "soledad", es sin duda de esto de lo que trata el libro. Es un libro profundamente triste, deprimente casi. A diferencia de muchas autobiografías, Rhys pocas veces mira al pasado con nostalgia, más bien lo mira con la conciencia de haber sido toda la vida una perdedora, pero sin caer nunca en la autocompasión. No se trata tampoco de una autobiografía al uso, más bien diría que se trata de una serie de episodios autobiográficos contados por orden cronológico. Rhys describe su vida a grandes pinceladas, contando no tanto los hechos estrictos sino las sensaciones y sentimientos que tuvo al largo de su vida. Es una obra muy triste, lo repito. Y muy bella, que quede claro. Y reconfortante del mismo modo en que es reconfortante saber que existen mujeres que (como yo) nunca han dejado del todo de ser niñas tímidas, inseguras, asustadizas y solitarias.
Cuando una la termina tiene la sensación que todas las relaciones que establecemos con las personas con las que nos cruzamos no son nada más que superficiales, impulsadas sólo por las circunstancias, con fecha de caducidad, porque en el fondo todos nos enfrentamos solos a nuestra tristeza. Y una se da cuenta que la vida no tiene sentido y que las casualidades más absurdas son las que le rigen. Jean Rhys se pasó muchísimos años sin prácticamente leer y empezó a escribir de la forma más curiosa. Se estaba hospedando en una habitación de lo más deprimente y había una mesa vacía que no soportaba ver vacía, así que decidió comprar algo y se decidió por unos cuadernos, sólo porque eran bonitos no porque tuviera ganas de escribir, pero una noche decidió escribir/vomitar todo lo que le había pasado en Inglaterra y así fue como empezó todo.
February 20, 2025
So interesting to see how her novels and her life are interweaved
Read ot for my thesis
Read ot for my thesis
August 9, 2017
SMILE PLEASE was written late in the life of Jean Rhys, after a long period of obscurity had been brought to an end by the publication of WIDE SARGASSO SEA. It's divided into three parts: the 'unfinished autobiography' of the subtitle; some incomplete drafts of the rest of the planned book, titled 'It began to grow cold'; and 'From a Diary: at the Ropemaker's Arms', which the author was thinking of including in the finished text, if she could find a place for it.
The prose is even more pared back than it is in her early autobiographical novels, and is just as readable. But I have to wonder whether the whole thing is worthy of publication, and not just of interest to Jean Rhys scholars. It's more of an extended appendix than a book in itself. Worth a look, though, for the glimpsed insights into her discovery of her talent for writing: "I filled three exercise books and half another, then a wrote: 'Oh, God, I'm only twenty and I'll have to go on living and living.' I knew then that it was finished and that there was no more to say."
The prose is even more pared back than it is in her early autobiographical novels, and is just as readable. But I have to wonder whether the whole thing is worthy of publication, and not just of interest to Jean Rhys scholars. It's more of an extended appendix than a book in itself. Worth a look, though, for the glimpsed insights into her discovery of her talent for writing: "I filled three exercise books and half another, then a wrote: 'Oh, God, I'm only twenty and I'll have to go on living and living.' I knew then that it was finished and that there was no more to say."
July 1, 2011
I read this book after "Wide Sargasso Sea" was assigned in one of my college lit classes. It is more like a collection of scenes, but it is a powerful work. Rhys sardonic humor is fascinating. I believe she is one of those people I would love to have lunch with...I guess if I get my wish of heaven being a big Barnes and Noble then we might.
January 11, 2019
Per cominciare da qualche parte con questa autrice. Scrittura autentica è riuscita nella parte che racconta la sua vita nei Caraibi, ambiente immobile come l’aria ferma che ci si immagina possa caratterizzare certe atmosfere appunto tropicali. Il resto del racconto molto meno coinvolgente.
January 20, 2015
"i'm only twenty but i have to go on living and living"
June 4, 2022
"En el fondo de mí misma sabía que no volvería a ocurrir nunca. Yo no volvería a formar parte de nada. En realidad, ningún lugar sería para mí, y yo lo sabía, y toda mi vida sería la misma, tratando de encajar en algún lugar, sin lograrlo. Siempre, todo saldría mal. Soy una extranjera y siempre lo seré, y después de todo en realidad no me importó."
September 23, 2023
I am left wondering about so much. If Jean Rhys had lived a few years more would this book have developed into something more, much more? Or quite possibly she might have decided against sharing at all.
August 18, 2025
Una lettura molto interessante che mi ha permesso di approfondire la vita dell’autrice; grazie alla sua stessa voce si scoprono molti più dettagli ed episodi interessanti rispetto a quelli riportati dalle sue biografie.
August 21, 2017
Excellent book!
August 22, 2021
pretty interesting. sad she didn't complete
June 8, 2022
thank you
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