"Rebecca" by Daphne du Maurier.
This is a substantial novel (>400pp) set in Cornwall and the Mediterranean coast in the late 1930s.
The book was chosen by Steve as part of his Book Club series by female authors.
Daphne Du Maurier was a prolific writer including 17 novels over a period of 40 years, plays, short fictions, as well as collections of stories and non-fiction.
“Rebecca” was her fifth novel, and was published in 1938 after Jamaica Inn (1936) and before Frenchman’s Creek (1941).
The book is immensely popular, and has never gone out of print on the 86 years since it was published.
Rebecca is written as the thoughts of an un-named protagonist who becomes emotionally entangled and eventually the second wife of Mr de Winter, the owner of Mandalay.
The whole story is influenced by Mr de Winter’s first wife, Rebecca, who met her fate in strange circumstances.
Mandalay is the main geographical focus of the novel.
That the narrator, who is also the main protagonist, is never given a personal name, creates an odd “resonance” to the whole of the novel.
The various interactions of the new Mrs De Winter, with Mr de Winter, and the house staff is the heart of the novel.
The most popular character seems to be the dog.
Rebecca created a spectrum of responses within the Book Club ranging from “loved it” to “what a slog”.
Club members enjoyed the outdoor descriptive passages, the blandness of the early passages giving way to more lively descriptions later in the book.
Certainly the courtship was questionable being more a young girl’s infatuation with an older man and his motor car than a “wooing”.
The overall story and particularly the destruction of Manderlay suggests that the creative process was heavily influenced by reading Jayne Eyre.
Doorly score: 3.5
PC. 2024
|
