Choice 評論

This first full-length study of Jean Rhys's short stories might be best described as a source book, combining as it does analysis of the stories found in The Left Bank & Other Stories (1927) and Tigers Are Better-Looking (1968). Malcolm and Malcolm (both Univ. of Gdansk, Poland) provide several kinds of apparatus to assist in reading and understanding the stories: 1) more than a dozen excerpts from Rhys's letters on the topics of short stories, being a woman writer, and Dominica; 2) an excerpt from a conversation between Rhys and David Plante on the topic of stories; 3) excerpts from a dozen and a half contemporaneous reviews and from the work of literary critics; 4) a chronology of Rhys's life; 5) a fairly complete bibliography of primary and secondary sources. The authors assert that the sole theme of Rhys's stories is that of the outsider, an insight they acknowledge is not new. Though they look at the meaning of race, gender, class, and age as found in the short fiction, their analysis, on balance, is pedestrian, focusing on "technical matters ... narration ... plot, action, and setting," areas they claim have been neglected in earlier studies. Recommended for collections serving newcomers to Rhys's work and undergraduates. E. R. Baer Gustavus Adolphus College