Author:
Daphne du Maurier
Published: 1938
Rating: Highly recommended.
Synopsis:
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...
The tale opens with the above sentence, one of the most haunting and memorable first lines in all of fiction. Our young
narrator, who shall remain nameless throughout the book, is employed as a
companion to a rich, annoying gossip that brings her along into the elite social scene. While they are staying in
Monte Carlo, our young narrator meets Maxim de Winter, a wealthy
Englishman who is there recovering from the recent death of his wife. De Winter sweeps young narrator off of her feet, marries her, and brings her back to his home.
His home turns out to be
Manderley, a sprawling countryside estate on the coast of
Britain in
Cornwall. Upon arrival, our young narrator discovers that the memory of the previous mistress of the estate, one Rebecca de Winter, still casts a strong pall over her life there. Universally loved by all, the former Ms. De Winter can be said to “haunt” the estate. Narrator must come to grips with the fact that she can never measure up with the perfection of the late Mrs. De Winter, in the eyes of the servants, the locals, or even her new husband. Finally, in the surprise ending of the book, the world as we have been led to believe it, has been thrown into complete disarray.
Review:
Rebecca is one of those novels that is all
atmosphere to me. The “plot” is summarized in a barely respectable paragraph, and the other four hundred and thirty seven pages are completely up to the skill of the
author. And I find Ms. Du Maurier’s skills quite captivating. Her
prose is tight, yet flowing. Her descriptions are almost
fractal, managing to convey whole emotions/locations with a sentence about a look, or a
rhododendron bush. And she pulls off one of my favorite literary tricks of all time. I am referring to the
pseudo-supernatural, pioneered by
Scooby Doo. I love it when the reader is led to believe that the
supernatural is involved, either through
Occam's Razor, haunting descriptions, or a masterful, almost transparent conveyance of the internal landscape of the narrator's mind.
Another thing that I loved about this book is that it provided me with a window into a lifestyle that I will never know first-hand. Ms. Du Maurier made good use of her times spent living as one of the high elite in
Europe, and provides us with a picture of just what we are all really missing.
Butlers,
gardeners,
Monaco,
teatime, and
scones upon
scones upon
scones. (On a side note, I was eating a
scone a day for like a week after I read this book) Overall, a fascinating look at
English life, if you are mind-numbingly wealthy.