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annemcintyre's review against another edition
4.0
Written in 1972 this is scarily close to the truth with Brexit!! An enjoyable Easter read with some great characters.
horseshoe's review against another edition
5.0
4.5
Highly topical: US take-over of the UK after the UK left the EU following a referendum
Incredible that this was first published in 1972
Highly topical: US take-over of the UK after the UK left the EU following a referendum
Incredible that this was first published in 1972
balancinghistorybooks's review against another edition
4.0
My review can be found here: https://theliterarysisters.wordpress.com/2014/12/30/du-maurier-december-rule-britannia-by-daphne-du-maurier/
bobareann's review against another edition
2.0
This was a very interesting premise and the book took all the twists and turns I would have wanted, but somehow I still skimmed the last third with waning attentiveness.
julian12's review against another edition
5.0
Daphne Du Maurier’s Rule Britannia was playful and sinister at the same time. The shifting tone made it compelling and unsettling. Emma and her grandmother Mad live in a Cornish outpost with Mad’s dresser who is now a cook (Mad is a retired thespian of some renown) – in addition, there are Mad’s adopted boys – maladjusted versions of the boys from Peter Pan or perhaps Lord of the Flies. Their world is thrown into disarray by a United States/UK merger – or is it an invasion? Strangely prophetic, this was Du Maurier’s last book but shows no waning of her powers as a storyteller. The world in this book has gone awry with our complacent First World lives in terrifying abeyance – it brings to mind our current eerie predicament with COVID and recalls in its tone Du Maurier’s famous story The Birds. There is nothing smug or self-righteous in Du Maurier’s writing ; she constantly disarms us and provokes questions that have never gone away since the 1970s when this very original and at times scabrous and pleasingly amoral black comedy first saw the light of day.
npryan's review against another edition
1.0
For some time before joining Goodreads I maintained a social media list of my favorite books. Thus when I did join, the process of listing all my top books was straightforward. Unfortunately it had the knock-on effect of making it look like I thought every book I'd ever read a fantastic work, so in a way devaluing the ratings. I don't remember every book I've ever read, but as they come back to me I add them to Goodreads (so making it appear that after years of reading solely great books, I've suddenly hit a patch muddled with all sorts). This one I was reminded of when reading an article about British pubs as DdM's Jamaica Inn was mentioned.
I read Rule Britannia around the time of the Brexit vote (not that long ago, so how quickly it was forgotten!) due to a BBC article claiming it foresaw Brexit and all it's shenanigans and problems all the way back in the 70s. If it hadn't been so long to get it from the library and read it, I may have been inclined to drop the Beeb a line to tell them it's nothing of the sort. I suspect someone still with some kind of income from DdM's work managed to sneak the idea into the head of someone else with some influence at the Corporation.
DdM can certainly string a narrative along, there's no doubting that. But such a skill doesn't guarantee a good story; instead (as is the case here) often one so bad one is inclined to read it to the end to see how much worse it can get. Though I may be too generous to the author here - without the Beeb suggesting it contained great nuggets of prediction, I wholeheartedly doubt I would've made it much past page 87.
I see the plot coming about like this: DdM has some highfalutin friends to dinner, everyone has too much wine (despite some people present having to drive - but hey, it was the 70s after all) so start becoming all wonderfully lovey and fawning. A ridiculous 'what-if' scenario starts to get talked out and someone suggests it would make the most excellent plot for DdM's next novel. Swept up in the glassy-eyed inebriation of it all, DdM not only says she damn well will write it, but actually gets up the next day, let's a fussy ego get in the way, and does.
The result is a disaster of literature; twee and arrogant in such equal measure, it goes right over the head of the author (and everyone else involved - but who would really care when they knew a name like DdM's alone would sell copy?) that the plot is no more than one convenience of nonsense after another until enough pages are filled to make a book.
Conversely, I am now a little intrigued to read Jamaica Inn; this review alone does not put me off DdM wholesale. One of my fav authors James Jones wrote some diabolical works in later life without it ever having a negative impact on the great books of his earlier years.
I read Rule Britannia around the time of the Brexit vote (not that long ago, so how quickly it was forgotten!) due to a BBC article claiming it foresaw Brexit and all it's shenanigans and problems all the way back in the 70s. If it hadn't been so long to get it from the library and read it, I may have been inclined to drop the Beeb a line to tell them it's nothing of the sort. I suspect someone still with some kind of income from DdM's work managed to sneak the idea into the head of someone else with some influence at the Corporation.
DdM can certainly string a narrative along, there's no doubting that. But such a skill doesn't guarantee a good story; instead (as is the case here) often one so bad one is inclined to read it to the end to see how much worse it can get. Though I may be too generous to the author here - without the Beeb suggesting it contained great nuggets of prediction, I wholeheartedly doubt I would've made it much past page 87.
I see the plot coming about like this: DdM has some highfalutin friends to dinner, everyone has too much wine (despite some people present having to drive - but hey, it was the 70s after all) so start becoming all wonderfully lovey and fawning. A ridiculous 'what-if' scenario starts to get talked out and someone suggests it would make the most excellent plot for DdM's next novel. Swept up in the glassy-eyed inebriation of it all, DdM not only says she damn well will write it, but actually gets up the next day, let's a fussy ego get in the way, and does.
The result is a disaster of literature; twee and arrogant in such equal measure, it goes right over the head of the author (and everyone else involved - but who would really care when they knew a name like DdM's alone would sell copy?) that the plot is no more than one convenience of nonsense after another until enough pages are filled to make a book.
Conversely, I am now a little intrigued to read Jamaica Inn; this review alone does not put me off DdM wholesale. One of my fav authors James Jones wrote some diabolical works in later life without it ever having a negative impact on the great books of his earlier years.
modquokka's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this.
Perhaps it was Du Maurier's 1940s voice in a 1970s setting that I loved. The eccentricity of the writing, of Mad and her boys and in Cornwall itself. Then there was the context; it might have been the political landscape of today, and that made me laugh. A lot; and shake my head in despair at times (at the uselessness of politics and politicians).
Bearing in mind this was written a good fifty years ago....
There was a referendum, a coalition government, the withdrawal of Britain from Europe; a financial crash, the threat of nuclear weapons; all set against the peaceful takeover by a friendly big brother (the US) to create a puppet state.
I might have been reading tomorrow's papers.
(Here comes Donald Trump)
And so I did find myself chuckling constantly. That said, I can see why a lot of people might not like 'Rule Brittania'. The characters are larger than life caricatures ... eccentric beyond reckoning. A drama queen (literally), her dresser, a straight-laced, pompous son and six adopted boys - a shoutout to JM Barries 'Lost Boys' - all watched and cared for by a demure granddaughter.
So it is that the US does 'invade' the UK. Peaceably by force. Meets with stubborn locals of Cornwall and the closeknit community that was (and still is in places) Little England. Farmers and doctors unite, military might is snubbed and a murder is committed; but is it murder in such cicumstance, and what does murder lead to?
Escalation.
In the end, I found it a great yarn; typical of Du Maurier's dark mind. I certainly didn't see the end coming until the end and so it turned out to be a good yarn.
Good fun!
Perhaps it was Du Maurier's 1940s voice in a 1970s setting that I loved. The eccentricity of the writing, of Mad and her boys and in Cornwall itself. Then there was the context; it might have been the political landscape of today, and that made me laugh. A lot; and shake my head in despair at times (at the uselessness of politics and politicians).
Bearing in mind this was written a good fifty years ago....
There was a referendum, a coalition government, the withdrawal of Britain from Europe; a financial crash, the threat of nuclear weapons; all set against the peaceful takeover by a friendly big brother (the US) to create a puppet state.
I might have been reading tomorrow's papers.
(Here comes Donald Trump)
And so I did find myself chuckling constantly. That said, I can see why a lot of people might not like 'Rule Brittania'. The characters are larger than life caricatures ... eccentric beyond reckoning. A drama queen (literally), her dresser, a straight-laced, pompous son and six adopted boys - a shoutout to JM Barries 'Lost Boys' - all watched and cared for by a demure granddaughter.
So it is that the US does 'invade' the UK. Peaceably by force. Meets with stubborn locals of Cornwall and the closeknit community that was (and still is in places) Little England. Farmers and doctors unite, military might is snubbed and a murder is committed; but is it murder in such cicumstance, and what does murder lead to?
Escalation.
In the end, I found it a great yarn; typical of Du Maurier's dark mind. I certainly didn't see the end coming until the end and so it turned out to be a good yarn.
Good fun!
zefrog's review against another edition
2.0
It's the 1980s, there is a coalition government and, following a referendum, the UK has left Europe. As the story begins, US troops take up position in a small Cornish village. The UK on the brink of bankruptcy has formed a union with the US, and more widely with the main English-speaking nations. It's called USUK ("you suck"?!) and very quickly it turns out that the UK is being invaded, destined to become a sort of historical leisure park.
The main characters of the book, seen mostly through the eyes of a 20 year old woman, Emma, live in a big house in said Cornish village. Madame (known to Emma, her granddaughter, as Mad) is a retired famous actress, possibly modelled on Josephine Baker, who's adopted a brood of 6 boys. Together they, more or less unwittingly, foment the start of a rebellion.
This is a very strange book. It reads like a more grown-up, and slightly disappointing version of a Famous Five adventure, though it is never very clear where it is going and it seems to peter out rather suddenly and unconvincingly at the end.
With the obvious Brexity undertones, I was expecting something a little more political and meaningful, if I'm honest. It is moderately entertaining but the reader doesn't much out of it. This last novel (published in 1972) is possibly not Du Maurier's best...
The main characters of the book, seen mostly through the eyes of a 20 year old woman, Emma, live in a big house in said Cornish village. Madame (known to Emma, her granddaughter, as Mad) is a retired famous actress, possibly modelled on Josephine Baker, who's adopted a brood of 6 boys. Together they, more or less unwittingly, foment the start of a rebellion.
This is a very strange book. It reads like a more grown-up, and slightly disappointing version of a Famous Five adventure, though it is never very clear where it is going and it seems to peter out rather suddenly and unconvincingly at the end.
With the obvious Brexity undertones, I was expecting something a little more political and meaningful, if I'm honest. It is moderately entertaining but the reader doesn't much out of it. This last novel (published in 1972) is possibly not Du Maurier's best...
raehink's review against another edition
3.0
I read this so long ago that I hardly remember it. It's time to read some du Maurier again. I do remember that the plot had something to do with an alliance between Great Britain and the United States and how it went wrong. Very futuristic.