From the Bookshelf of Catching up on Classics (and lots more!)…

Jamaica Inn

Daphne du Maurier

Start date: August 1, 2013

Finish date: August 31, 2013

Discussion leader: Trisha

Why we're reading this: Contemporary Classic Group Read, August 2013
[close] Contemporary Classic Group Read, August 2013

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Oct 17, 2024 Franky rated it liked it

Shelves: historical-fiction, gothic, mystery, classics, 2024-reading-challenge

“There’s things that happen at Jamaica Inn, Mary, that I’ve never dared to breathe. Bad things. Evil things…I dare not even admit them to myself.”

This is my third novel I’ve read by Daphne Du Maurier. I really enjoyed Rebecca (5 stars), and My Cousin Rachel (4 stars) was pretty stellar, but Jamaica Inn lacks the qualities that make it as stellar as those two. This novel left me a little underwhelmed.

I would like to begin with the positive. In my opinion, Du Maurier is at her best when she is c “There’s things that happen at Jamaica Inn, Mary, that I’ve never dared to breathe. Bad things. Evil things…I dare not even admit them to myself.”

This is my third novel I’ve read by Daphne Du Maurier. I really enjoyed Rebecca (5 stars), and My Cousin Rachel (4 stars) was pretty stellar, but Jamaica Inn lacks the qualities that make it as stellar as those two. This novel left me a little underwhelmed.

I would like to begin with the positive. In my opinion, Du Maurier is at her best when she is creating an unsettling or foreboding atmosphere, and she does this somewhat in this novel. Some of the depictions of Mary exploring the moors and confines outside Jamaica Inn are pure dark ambience, and these moments reminded me a little of the tension in Rebecca.

However, one of the problems I had (other than the lackluster characters) is that, for the most part, there is little in the way of subtlety in Jamaica Inn. There are dark elements for sure, but instead of leaving anything to the discretion of the reader’s imagination, it feels like most key elements and revelations are thrust before us to see and witness upfront. It is often what we don’t see or know or hear that is far more suspenseful and tension-filled but Jamaica Inn, once we know the happenings behind the curtain, is fairly transparent and thus, repetitive, as it circles around.

This, in turn, leads me to the other problem I had: the characters. The characters were lacking in the sense that, for the most part, what you see is what you get. Not that we read mysteries or thrillers for deep characterization, but these characters are fairly prototypical and predictable from the overbearing villain on down. (There is something that the readers could see as a “twist” or turn nearing the end, but some readers were able to see through this as well).

Finally--and this is just a personal preference--but this novel just left me cold. It is, by far, the darkest of the novels I’ve read by this author, and I just kind of wanted to be done with it.

I’m hoping this novel is the “exception to the rule” , the outlier, when it comes to this author in terms of being somewhat letdown. That is not to say that there aren’t foreboding moments, or great prose or descriptions that have moments of tension. But, in the end, overall Jamaica Inn was a so-so experience given my expectations.

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