May 21 2025, 19:35

Good Morning, Midnight

Author: Jean Rhys

First published: 1939

Penguin Modern Classics. 155 pages, 300 words/page, ~46000 words. First person as Sophia.

Reading the afterword by A.L. Kennedy, this is the fourth novel in a row where Rhys was working with a similar character, as if trying to find the ideal version of her: intelligent, lonely, processing personal tragedy, and struggling with alcohol. I read this in 2018, and I remember being impressed by it, but I didn’t remember the misery and desperation that runs through every sentence.

In Paris, on a holiday from her life in England, Sophia can’t take a step without being overcome with memories of previous visits. Her days are empty except for meals in local restaurants and drinks in bars. She establishes a routine and tries to occupy her time, but finds herself remembering her husband, Ennio, and being pregnant, the various jobs in clothes shops, and the endless hotel rooms she’s moved through, all the same. She’s trying to find a way of living that’s satisfying, no more than that, independent of her family and friends in London, and relying on no-one.

She meets a series of men, none of them very pleasant, and her state of mind deteriorates, but the details Rhys plucks from her experiences are interesting, surreal, often funny, and always with a dark twist. The way Sophia shifts from the present into memories, dreams, fantasies and back again makes Sophia feel real and relatable. It’s something I can use in my work-in-progress.

It’s terribly exposing to show despair as deep as this in first person. I’m not brave enough to commit to first person as my own character’s point of view in Peninsula. Third person feels like a safe pair of running shoes in comparison. First person is terrifying. It might also be the most revealing while I’m still exploring the story. Perhaps that’s a challenge I should take up.

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