Whilst I don’t believe Alison Case’s Nelly Dean scales the heights of Wide Sargasso Sea, it’s certainly a well-written, absorbing book, and her original Wuthering Heights inspiration, housekeeper Nelly Dean, taking centre stage on this one is made real enough to spend time with, and the invented characters of her own world, the mainly below stairs workers, rather than the landowners, are also rounded and fascinating.Ĭase very wisely has Cathy, Heathcliff and the Lintons as marginal figures, this is Nelly’s story, and, to some extent, Hindley’s Wide Sargasso Sea stands in its own right as a wonderful book. In my mind, it’s only Jean Rhys’ `Wide Sargasso Sea’ which managed to create something new and wonderful in its own right, without it being compared to its progenitor, Jane Eyre, and found wanting. Few manage it in a way which can do anything other than demonstrate the foolishness of the attempt. I’m normally a little leery of the books which re-visit, or take a tangential visit, sparked by well-known, well-loved classics.
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