I wondered if it might be possible to tell a story through those songs alone, the sounds of the streets, and the popular music Rhys and her protagonists listen to. [...] a trail of itinerant city life winds its way through the books; the presence of transient figures who drift in and out of the narrative, like music from the streets drifting in through windows, troubles the already tenuous identities of Rhys protagonists and their uncertain status.
Month: March 2019
Violette
Leduc's attentiveness to her marginal subject, and the way she writes about the city reverberate with me. Like the transient figures in Jean Rhys's novels, she exists in the same fine line between inside and outside; and occupies the city as another layer of its movement. She exists side by side with the residents of the city, the passersby; and yet is so invisible. They only see her when she reaches out her hand to beg...
The Street Walks In 