A View of the Empire at Sunset

Gwendolen watches her husband open a letter and frown slightly at it. When he breaks the news to her she finds out that he has received an unexpected inheritance. He offers to pay for them both to head back to her home of Dominica that she left as a small girl. Her brief childhood there still inhabits her memories, but it was a place of beauty and freedom. It is a place far removed from the grey days and lonely nights of living in England.

This trip home causes her to look back on her life spent far away from home, the steep learning curve of being in an English school, how her background closed so many doors and the moments spent with those looking to take advantage of her. Her visit to the home she left stirs memories that have long been suppressed and makes her consider where her future may lead.

This is a fictionalised account of Gwen Williams, who is better known as Jean Rhys, author of Wide Sargasso Sea. I have not read that book yet so knew nothing of her story. There were parts of Phillips' story that I liked, in particular, the time she spent in Dominica as a child and when she returned at the end of the book. However, there were parts in the middle that really struggled to catch my interest. Not bad overall, but didn't feel it excelled, I would give another of his books a go at some point.

This book describes episodes in the life of Jean Rhys (born Ella Gwendolyn Rees Williams) while keeping at an emotional arm's length. I forced myself to finish the book because I was curious about how it would end, but it was not an enjoyable read. It did, however, inspire me to seek out some of Rhys' books, in the hope of discovering why she is considered a great writer.

3.5
I read The Wide Sargasso Sea by Jean Rhys some years ago and found the novel an unforgettable prequel to Jane Eyre from the viewpoint of Rochester's 'mad' wife.

Rhys vividly described the Caribbean childhood of Antoinette Cosway Rochester, a beautiful Creole whose family entraps Mr. Rochester into marriage. Rhys interprets Antoinette as the victim of a man repulsed by the sensuality of the Caribbean culture and horrified by female sexuality.

When I saw that Caryl Phillips' novel A View of the Empire at Sunset was based on the life of Gwendolyn Rees Williams, who wrote as Jean Rhys, I was eager to read it. I expected passion and glamour and agony.

Gwen was the child of a British man and a Creole woman, unhappily paired. Dominica is beautifully described, the "raucous cacophony of cicadas and frogs," the bats around the mango trees, the mosquitos and the "sickly sweet aroma of the night lilies.'

At sixteen, Gwen was forced from her beloved homeland to be educated in England under her aunt's care. She never really adjusts. She leaves school for the theater and music halls, is taken as a mistress then discarded, becomes a prostitute, has an abortion, is married several times. She drinks too much. Her older brother suffers from "delusions and bouts of agitated mania."

The novel opens in 1936 when Gwen and her husband return to her homeland. They are unhappily paired, but Gwen thinks that if he could see her roots perhaps he would understand she is not of his world. When he sees the view of the empire at sunset, there would be understanding that she could never really be English. Gwen learns that she can't go home again.

Gwen's literary life is outside of the novel, concentrating on her personal life. The "Empire at sunset," the Edwardian Age and colonization in Dominica, is vital to the story.


The novel offered me an understanding of Gwen's darkness and disorientation, her lack of options, the sad feeling of being the temporary object of men's desire. And I saw how young Gwen was devalued in her homeland, not British enough to be respectable, too hoyden and uncivilized, too close to the Negro servants.

And unforgettable was the ending, Gwen and her husband at the burned ruins of her family home, unable to grasp why the Negros would have destroyed such a beautiful place, the sins of colonization beyond their understanding. But I was disappointed in the emotional distance I felt, especially when I expected some of the pathos and passion of Rhys's writing.

I received a free ebook from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for a fair and unbiased review.