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Rebecca

Daphne du Maurier,

Sally Beauman (Afterword)

Start date: December 1, 2020

Finish date: December 31, 2020

Why we're reading this: Revisit the Shelf, December 2020

Revisit the Shelf Reread, May 2015

Contemporary Classic Group Read, Januar…more
[close] Revisit the Shelf, December 2020

Revisit the Shelf Reread, May 2015

Contemporary Classic Group Read, January 2012

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Nov 08, 2016 Candi rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classics-shelf, favorites, cornwall, mystery-crime, gothic

Oh, how I wish I could rewind the past month and start all over again! Then I could pick up Rebecca and experience this breathtaking novel once more as if for the first time. Truth be told, this wasn’t actually my first time reading this quintessential piece of classic gothic literature. However, I am ashamed to say that the number of years that have passed between my first reading and this recent one, combined with what I like to call a lingering case of ‘momnesia’, effectively rendered this re Oh, how I wish I could rewind the past month and start all over again! Then I could pick up Rebecca and experience this breathtaking novel once more as if for the first time. Truth be told, this wasn’t actually my first time reading this quintessential piece of classic gothic literature. However, I am ashamed to say that the number of years that have passed between my first reading and this recent one, combined with what I like to call a lingering case of ‘momnesia’, effectively rendered this reading very much like a first time. For that I am actually grateful, because I completely immersed and surrendered myself to the beautiful writing of the remarkably talented Daphne du Maurier.

The unnamed narrator is an inexperienced and insecure young woman with not much of a future to speak of – unless becoming a companion to an overbearing busybody by the name of Mrs. Van Hopper could be called a promising prospect! So when the handsome, mysterious and wealthy Maxim de Winter seems to take an interest and offers a much more enticing alternative – that of being his wife – what is a girl to do but accept?! The honeymoon at an end, the newly married couple returns to Manderley, Max de Winter’s estate. Manderley itself is a major character in this novel. I could sense it almost as a living, breathing entity; the descriptions of this magnificent place were so masterfully crafted. I felt as if I were sitting right there with Mrs. de Winter as she approached Manderley for the first time.

"Suddenly I saw a clearing in the dark drive ahead, and a patch of sky, and in a moment the dark trees had thinned, the nameless shrubs had disappeared, and on either side of us was a wall of colour, blood-red, reaching far above our heads. We were amongst the rhododendrons. There was something bewildering, even shocking, about the suddenness of their discovery. The woods had not prepared me for them. They startled me with their crimson faces, massed one upon the other in incredible profusion, showing no leaf, no twig, nothing but the slaughterous red, luscious and fantastic, unlike any rhododendron plant I had seen before… these were monsters, rearing to the sky, massed like a battalion, too beautiful I thought, too powerful; they were not plants at all."

Rhododendrons, Red, Rebecca… She is everywhere. The second Mrs. de Winter (the only name by which she will ever be identified) had not expected the ceaseless competition from the deceased first Mrs. de winter, Rebecca - Rebecca with a capital R written with such confidence, a confidence that even transcends death. She lingers in the morning-room, she lurks in the gallery, she tarries in the cottage by the beach. But most of all, Rebecca dwells within the minds of everyone living in the West Country along the rugged coast of England. Max de Winter becomes a brooding and aloof husband once back within the clutches of Manderley and Rebecca’s memory. The new Mrs. de Winter is tormented by her own fantasies of this formidable adversary. Since the novel is cleverly written from the perspective of this naïve young woman, the reader becomes intimate with the psychological turmoil she endures. She is also subject to the criticism and malice of the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers. Mrs. Danvers worshiped Rebecca during her life and continues to do so even after her death. I absolutely loved to hate this dark and intimidating woman!

"Once more, I glanced up at her and once more I met her eyes, dark and somber, in that white face of hers, instilling into me, I knew not why, a strange feeling of disquiet, of foreboding. I tried to smile, and could not; I found myself held by those eyes, that had no light, no flicker of sympathy towards me."

Every single character is drawn skillfully and comes to life within the pages of this book. The tension builds and one cannot help becoming entangled with the suspenseful buildup of events leading to the climax. I was transported to another time and place and was perfectly mesmerized. I can’t say much more without getting into spoiler territory if you have not yet read this masterpiece. Just grab a copy soon and experience this one – please! This is the best of the best and is going on that very special bookshelf at home.

"I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth. This was what I had done. I had built up false pictures in my mind and sat before them. I had never had the courage to demand the truth."
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