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A review by prolificliving
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
5.0
I never re-read books and yet I read Rebecca twice, both with great pleasure and anticipation. This is a novel I first read over 15 years ago. Funny how little I remember, including the climax and the surprise and bitter ending. The writing is superb, and I was inseparable from the book through the last 100 pages.
The character development and depiction is one of the strongest traits of du Maurier, and it is no better pronounced than in the characters of Manderly - the estate, Mrs. Danvers, and Rebecca herself. Manderly being the ultimate beautiful estate, which becomes the unnecessary victim in this harsh story of murder, mystery and a fight for justice.
In this murder mystery romance thriller, you become one with the eyes and ears of Manderley, the magnificent estate where Mr. Maxim de Winter resides. You follow our narrator’s every single discovery and observation as she first meets Maxim down in Monte Carlo, and quickly – very quickly – is married to this recently widowed man, 20 years her senior. The courtship is short, and the honeymoon is swift and the return to Manderley inevitable.
The new Mrs. de Winter, whose first name we never learn, takes us with her into the mysterious air of Manderley where the spirit of the late Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca, is eerily following her in every turn. She tries very unsuccessfully to adjust to her new life, to the long silences of her husband, to the staff and strict daily routines, to the peculiar few people in Maxim’s life, and worst of all, to Rebecca’s most loyal servant, the vicious Mrs. Danvers.
I find it strange that I loved the novel without liking or affording any sympathy toward the main character and narrator. Her shyness is despicable, her appearance awkward, her low self-confidence annoying, and her actions cowardly, belonging more to a child than the would-be mistress of Manderley. She flounders and fumbles in all she attempts from checking the day’s menu to arranging her books on a shelf that cause her to break – and subsequently hide all evidence of – a rare expensive cupid china treasure.
She is forever helpless and apologetic. She hardly makes an effort to change her massive weaknesses, as Maxim truthfully points out, to which she argues that this is hard for her and she was not brought up on this life. Her actions are highly driven by the opponent she has created in her mind, Rebecca, a force that quite obviously, she cannot content with, for how do you fight a person in death.
Rebecca is as much alive as she is dead, and our narrator remains nameless throughout. Even on a second read, the book captivated me through and through, and I am quite happy to have gone down the pages one more time.
The character development and depiction is one of the strongest traits of du Maurier, and it is no better pronounced than in the characters of Manderly - the estate, Mrs. Danvers, and Rebecca herself. Manderly being the ultimate beautiful estate, which becomes the unnecessary victim in this harsh story of murder, mystery and a fight for justice.
In this murder mystery romance thriller, you become one with the eyes and ears of Manderley, the magnificent estate where Mr. Maxim de Winter resides. You follow our narrator’s every single discovery and observation as she first meets Maxim down in Monte Carlo, and quickly – very quickly – is married to this recently widowed man, 20 years her senior. The courtship is short, and the honeymoon is swift and the return to Manderley inevitable.
The new Mrs. de Winter, whose first name we never learn, takes us with her into the mysterious air of Manderley where the spirit of the late Mrs. de Winter, Rebecca, is eerily following her in every turn. She tries very unsuccessfully to adjust to her new life, to the long silences of her husband, to the staff and strict daily routines, to the peculiar few people in Maxim’s life, and worst of all, to Rebecca’s most loyal servant, the vicious Mrs. Danvers.
I find it strange that I loved the novel without liking or affording any sympathy toward the main character and narrator. Her shyness is despicable, her appearance awkward, her low self-confidence annoying, and her actions cowardly, belonging more to a child than the would-be mistress of Manderley. She flounders and fumbles in all she attempts from checking the day’s menu to arranging her books on a shelf that cause her to break – and subsequently hide all evidence of – a rare expensive cupid china treasure.
She is forever helpless and apologetic. She hardly makes an effort to change her massive weaknesses, as Maxim truthfully points out, to which she argues that this is hard for her and she was not brought up on this life. Her actions are highly driven by the opponent she has created in her mind, Rebecca, a force that quite obviously, she cannot content with, for how do you fight a person in death.
Rebecca is as much alive as she is dead, and our narrator remains nameless throughout. Even on a second read, the book captivated me through and through, and I am quite happy to have gone down the pages one more time.