Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

BIBLIOGRAPHIC DETAILS:
-Print: COPYRIGHT ©: (1938) 10/21/1987; ISBN: 978-0385243025; PUBLISHER: Doubleday; PAGES: 284; UNABRIDGED. (Info on Hardbound from Amazon)
-Digital: COPYRIGHT ©: (1938) 2003; PUBLISHER: Little Brown and Company; PAGES: 282; UNABRIDGED. (Info from Libby’s digital version (LAPL))
*Audio: COPYRIGHT ©: (1938) 24 Apr 2015; PUBLISHER: Recorded Books, Inc.; DURATION: 15 hrs approx; Unabridged; (Info from Libby)
-Feature Film or tv: Netflix.

SERIES: No

MAIN CHARACTERS: (Not comprehensive)
Mrs. De Winter – Protagonist
Mrs. Van Hopper -Socialite
Mr. Maxim de Winter – widowed love interest
Rebecca de Winter – late wife of Maxim
Mrs. Danvers – Manderley’s head housekeeper
Frith – Footman
Robert - Footman
Jasper – A young Cocker Spaniel
Alice – A housemaid
Clarice – Mrs. De Winter’s personal maid
Ben – An “idiot” who frequents the bay
Beatrice – Maxim’s sister
Giles – Beatrice’s husband
Frank Crawley – the agent
Colonel Julyan – Kerrith Magistrate
Mr. Favell – Rebecca’s cousin

SUMMARY/ EVALUATION:
SELECTED: When I read in Nelson Mandela's biography that he had read many (or maybe all) of this author’s works, I became curious and made a note to read something of hers. Later, my husband and I happened upon a movie called “Scapegoat”. I noticed in the credits that it was based on a book of the same title by this author. That’s when I decided to try something soon. This was available on Libby in audio, so it’s the one I tried. I remembered starting a movie on Netflix of the same name that I’d not gotten all the way through because I wasn’t in the mood for a scary movie which I thought it was supposed to be. It’s not.
ABOUT: A young woman agrees to be an older woman’s companion, and through this woman, who she soon finds is an embarrassingly obvious social climber, while staying at a hotel in Monte Carlo, meets a widowed man who takes an interest in her. I won’t say anymore, although this book is so old, probably most people know what it’s about.
LIKED: I enjoyed the characters and the plot.
DISLIKED: It starts out at a slow pace, as the main character recalls her long ago past and describes the scenes. It was hard to get used to after reading so many thrillers, but once I got used to it, it did set the tone. I think I’d have liked this more when I was younger and could relate more to the young newlywed’s shy character. We readers spend a lot of time in her imagination worrying about what everyone thinks, always assuming the worse.
OVERALL: I liked it enough to read more of the author’s works.

AUTHOR:
Daphne du Maurier
From Wikipedia--
“Dame Daphne du Maurier, Lady Browning,[1] DBE (/duː ˈmɒrieɪ/; 13 May 1907 – 19 April 1989) was an English novelist, biographer and playwright. Her parents were actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and his wife, actress Muriel Beaumont. Her grandfather was George du Maurier, a writer and cartoonist.
Although du Maurier is classed as a romantic novelist, her stories have been described as "moody and resonant" with overtones of the paranormal. Her bestselling works were not at first taken seriously by critics, but they have since earned an enduring reputation for narrative craft. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now". Du Maurier spent much of her life in Cornwall, where most of her works are set. As her fame increased, she became more reclusive.[2]GENRE:
Fiction; Historical Fantasy; Action & Adventure; Romantic Fiction”

NARRATOR:
Alexandra O’Karma
From IMDb---
“Alexandra O'Karma was born in 1948 in New York City, New York, USA. She was an actress, known for Terms of Endearment (1983), American Playhouse (1982) and Law & Order (1990). She was previously married to John Stuart. She died on September 6, 2019 in New York City, New York, USA.”

TIME FRAME:
1930’s

LOCATION:
Monte Carlo; Manderley, an estate on the Cornish coast

SUBJECTS: Marital relations; society; servants; death; widowhood; guilt

DEDICATION
Not found.

SAMPLE QUOTATION:
From Chapter 2:
It is when I remember these things that I return with relief to the prospect from our balcony. No shadows steal upon this hard glare, the stony vineyards shimmer in the sun and the bougainvillea is white with dust. I may one day look upon it with affection. At the moment it inspires me, if not with love, at least with confidence. And confidence is a quality I prize, although it has come to me a little late in the day. I suppose it is his dependence upon me that has made me bold at last. At any rate I have lost my diffidence, my timidity, my shyness with strangers. I am very different from that self who drove to Manderley for the first time, hopeful and eager, handicapped by a rather desperate gaucherie and filled with an intense desire to please. It was my lack of poise of course that made such a bad impression on people like Mrs. Danvers. What must I have seemed like after Rebecca? I can see myself now, memory spanning the years like a bridge, with straight, bobbed hair and youthful, unpowdered face, dressed in an ill-fitting coat and skirt and a jumper of my own creation, trailing in the wake of Mrs. Van Hopper like a shy, uneasy colt. She would precede me in to lunch, her short body ill-balanced upon tottering, high heels, her fussy, frilly blouse a complement to her large bosom and swinging hips, her new hat pierced with a monster quill aslant upon her head, exposing a wide expanse of forehead bare as a schoolboy’s knee. One hand carried a gigantic bag, the kind that holds passports, engagement diaries, and bridge scores, while the other hand toyed with that inevitable lorgnette, the enemy to other people’s privacy.
She would make for her usual table in the corner of the restaurant, close to the window, and lifting her lorgnette to her small pig’s eyes survey the scene to right and left of her, then she would let the lorgnette fall at length upon its black ribbon and utter a little exclamation of disgust: “Not a single well-known personality, I shall tell the management they must make a reduction on my bill. What do they think I come here for? To look at the page boys?” And she would summon the waiter to her side, her voice sharp and staccato, cutting the air like a saw.
How different the little restaurant where we are today to that vast dining room, ornate and ostentatious, the Hôtel Côte d’Azur at Monte Carlo; and how different my present companion, his steady, well-shaped hands peeling a mandarin in quiet, methodical fashion, looking up now and again from his task to smile at me, compared to Mrs. Van Hopper, her fat, bejeweled fingers questing a plate heaped high with ravioli, her eyes darting suspiciously from her plate to mine for fear I should have made the better choice. She need not have disturbed herself, for the waiter, with the uncanny swiftness of his kind, had long sensed my position as inferior and subservient to hers, and had placed before me a plate of ham and tongue that somebody had sent back to the cold buffet half an hour before as badly carved. Odd, that resentment of servants, and their obvious impatience. I remember staying once with Mrs. Van Hopper in a country house, and the maid never answered my timid bell, or brought up my shoes, and early morning tea, stone cold, was dumped outside my bedroom door. It was the same at the Côte d’Azur, though to a lesser degree, and sometimes the studied indifference turned to familiarity, smirking and offensive, which made buying stamps from the reception clerk an ordeal I would avoid. How young and inexperienced I must have seemed, and how I felt it, too. One was too sensitive, too raw, there were thorns and pinpricks in so many words that in reality fell lightly on the air.
I remember well that plate of ham and tongue. It was dry, unappetizing, cut in a wedge from the outside, but I had not the courage to refuse it. We ate in silence, for Mrs. Van Hopper liked to concentrate on food, and I could tell by the way the sauce ran down her chin that her dish of ravioli pleased her.
It was not a sight that engendered into me great appetite for my own cold choice, and looking away from her I saw that the table next to ours, left vacant for three days, was to be occupied once more. The maître d’hôtel, with the particular bow reserved for his more special patrons, was ushering the new arrival to his place.
Mrs. Van Hopper put down her fork, and reached for her lorgnette. I blushed for her while she stared, and the newcomer, unconscious of her interest, cast a wandering eye over the menu. Then Mrs. Van Hopper folded her lorgnette with a snap, and leaned across the table to me, her small eyes bright with excitement, her voice a shade too loud.
“It’s Max de Winter,” she said, “the man who owns Manderley. You’ve heard of it, of course. He looks ill, doesn’t he? They say he can’t get over his wife’s death…”

RATING:.
3.5

STARTED READING – FINISHED READING
8/7/2023 to 8/14/2023 ( )

4.5/5 My reactions to reading this in my teens and early 20s: what Gothic romance, oh, Byronic Maxim! Ah, love! I loathe Rebecca! #theylivedhappilyeverafter
My reactions as someone in her late 50s: The unreliable masochistic narrator is desperate for a father-like husband with the last name de WINTER (sterility, coldness) and a first name of Maxim (a rule of conduct) to be completely submissive to. But did I still love it? YES. #agirlcanstilldream ( )

Rebecca is the world of film-noir as described in a single novel, and it is surpassed by none across the board of crime fiction and mystery alike. Du Maurier as a writer made Alfred Hitchcock the director that he would become, except that the latter always gets the credit over the former. As the reader, you share the same psychosis that imperils the narrator and are just as naïve, helpless and disoriented as you live her journey through grey, somber Cornwall and the silent, enigmatic corridors of Manderley. With Rebecca, Du Maurier transformed the romantic-gothic trope popularized by the likes of Jane Eyre and embellished it with a sensational modern air, and so became the birth of the thriller. ( )

Having seen 3 adaptations of the novel – Hitchcock's 1940s version with Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, the 1997 version with Charles Dance and Emilia Fox, and Netflix's version in 2020 with Armie Hammer and Lily James – I greatly desired to read this. Out of all the versions, I loved Hitchcock's and I don't think anything could ever top that. It is always interesting to see adaptations and then read and find out where they got the scenes from and how it differs from the original.

I always liked that right off the bat, the novel is called "Rebecca" - it tells you all you need to know. This book is about Rebecca the late Mrs de Winter, not the woman who is telling it the new Mrs de Winter. Indeed, the heroine in her early 20s does not even give her own name, except of course the title of Mrs de Winter, recently married to 42-year-old Maxim de Winter after meeting him on holiday in Monte Carlo. All seems rather ideal to begin with, a blissful honeymoon – until of course it isn't.

They show up at Manderley his estate, run in his absence by the sinister housekeeper Mrs Danvers. And here our heroine first gets compared to Rebecca by Mrs Danvers: essentially, Rebecca could do no wrong, was beautiful, accomplished, and perfect, but our poor heroine can do no right, is plain and not able to organise the household the same. This sentiment eats away at the heroine, especially when she visits relatives: everyone seems to be unable to get over the loss of the previous Mrs de Winter who mysteriously perished in a sailing accident. Or did she?

I love everything about this book. So many mysteries and plot twists, all very enticing! I remember enjoying every second reading this. ( )

A plain, introverted wallflower thinks herself inferior to her husband's late first wife whose reputation and presence seems to haunt her every waking moment and their house itself and finally exclaims, " . . . It's always Rebecca, Rebecca, Rebecca."

Anyone of my generation is going to immediately flash to Jan Brady complaining about her perfect older sister and dramatically whining, "Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!" Unfortunately, without Carol and Mike to provide guidance, our heroine's problems aren't resolved in 22 minutes, and we have to follow her along for several hundred pages as things just get worse and worse.

Long before the Brady vibe kicked in, this book felt like off-kilter homage to Jane Eyre, another marriage with a third wheel looming over everything.

Overall, I found myself pulled along through Rebecca by the style of the prose, but it did prove a bit boring for long segments and overlong in general. A lot of plot developments feel like they'd play better on a soap opera than between the covers of a book, but they effectively hooked me and kept me going even as I got a little impatient with the pacing.

For me, the biggest problem is the twenty-year age gap in the marriage, which the husband sums up in the skeeviest way possible with this bon mot: "It's a pity you have to grow up."

In the end I couldn't really like any of the flawed people in the book, but I rather enjoyed watching their turmoil unfold. ( )