Time for a new perspective on Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca'?

Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I guess nearly everyone knows the story ... gauche, inexperienced young girl attracts the attention of rich widower twice her age who owns rambling country pile with resident housekeeper, and accepts his proposal of marriage little knowing that there's something he's not telling her about his first wife ... It was recently pointed out to me that it's a very similar plot to Charlotte Bronte's 'Jane Eyre', updated to 1930s Cornwall!
If by any chance you don't already know the ending, you're in for a roller-coaster ride with thrills and spills a-plenty right up to the dramatic conclusion ... but even on the third or fourth reading it's still gripping and immersive, thanks mainly to Daphne du Maurier's intimate and psychologically spot-on portrayal of her heroine's thought processes. Every doubt, suspicion and niggling worry is revealed in vivid detail, in exactly the kind of inner monologue we all indulge in from time to time - the long paragraph towards the end, speculating as to whether or not hanging is a quick death, is a tour de force.
Also, the characters are unforgettable, and instantly recognisable: the shy, awkward, unnamed heroine desperately in love with the dark and brooding hero, Maxim de Winter; rich but vulgar Mrs Van Hopper; jolly-hockey-sticks sister-in-law Beatrice; tactful, kind estate manager Frank Crawley; and of course the eponymous Rebecca, Mrs de Winter#1, enigmatic, beautiful, wilful and universally beloved - or is she?
The real star of the show, though, has got to be obsessive, infatuated, scheming housekeeper Mrs Danvers, who deserves a novel in her own right ... a thought that's occupying much of my time at the moment ... watch this space!



View all my reviews