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Sep/Oct 18 Rebecca by du Maurier
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What is your quote from Rebecca?
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Catharine
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Oct 02, 2018 05:37PM
My favorite passage from Rebecca: “I wanted to go on sitting there, not talking, not listening to the others, keeping the moment precious for all time, because we were peaceful all of us, we were content and drowsy even as the bee who droned above our heads. In a little while it would be different, there would come to-morrow, and the next day, and another year. And we would be changed perhaps, never sitting quite like this again. Some of us would go away, or suffer, or die, the future stretched away in front of us, unknown, unseen, not perhaps what we wanted, not what we planned. This moment was safe though, this could not be touched. “
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“A lilac had mated with a copper beech, and to bind them yet more closely to one another the malevolent ivy, always an enemy to grace, had thrown her tendrils about the pair and made them prisoners.
There are a few quotes that struck me:"Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind."
"I suppose sooner or later in the life of everyone comes a moment of trial. We all of us have our particular devil who rides us and torments us, and we must give battle in the end."
" "She made a bargain with me up there, on the side of the precipice," he said. " 'I'll run your house for you,' she told me, 'I'll look after your precious Manderley for you, make it the most famous show-place in all the country, if you like. And people will visit us, and envy us, and talk about us; they'll say we are the luckiest, happiest, handsomest couple in all England. What a leg-pull, Max,' she said, 'what a (word I'm not gonna say) triumph!' She sat there on the hillside, laughing, tearing a flower to bits in her hands."
'She belonged to another breed of men and women, another race than I. They had guts, the women of her race. They were not like me. If it had been Beatrice who had done this thing instead of me she would have put on her other dress and gone down again to welcome her guests. She would have stood by Giles’s side, and shaken hands with people, a smile on her face. I could not do that. I had not the pride, I had not the guts. I was badly bred.'
Doris wrote: "'She belonged to another breed of men and women, another race than I. They had guts, the women of her race. They were not like me. If it had been Beatrice who had done this thing instead of me she ..."This line really struck me in the novel. It made me really angry that the narrator blamed her cowardice on breeding. But I am curious...why did you like it? I mean no offense nor do I mean to argue, I'm just curious.
Megan wrote: "...This line really struck me in the novel. It made me really angry that the narrator blamed her cowardice on breeding. But I am curious...why did you like it? I mean no offense nor do I mean to argue, I'm just curious. "No offense taken. Quick question in reply: Can you for a moment imagine a (contemporary) American author writing such a line, or an American heroine expressing such a sentiment? Because I can't. We like to pretend that America is class-free, or alternately that upwards mobility exists. (Any boy can grow up to be President, and by the same token, any girl can grow up to be mistress of a major estate.)
British literature, on the other hand, tends to take for granted the existence of differences between classes, and I'm always fascinated by passages such as this which point this up. The second Mrs. deWinter can face her deficiencies unflinchingly, but she can also present them as being beyond her control: she has married outside her class, and this is the price she must pay.
So "like" this passage is overstating it, but I do find it very revealing!
Doris wrote: "Megan wrote: "...This line really struck me in the novel. It made me really angry that the narrator blamed her cowardice on breeding. But I am curious...why did you like it? I mean no offense nor d..."I'm not sure I completely understand but I am glad to have of an answer. :)
Doris wrote: "'She belonged to another breed of men and women, another race than I. They had guts, the women of her race. They were not like me. If it had been Beatrice who had done this thing instead of me she ..."That struck me right from the beginning, the narrator's obssession with purity of breeding when she described the garden in her dream and the "bastard offspring".
That quote serves a better example of it surely.
Very true and beautifully expressed. We often forget the great pain we endure in youth. In hindsight we see it is the catalyst to begin the journey to become become brave and wise. ..."They are not brave, the days when we are twenty-one. They are full of little cowardices, little fears without foundation, and one is so easily bruised, so swiftly wounded, one falls to the first barbed word. To-day, wrapped in the complacent armour of approaching middle age, the infinitesimal pricks of day by day brush one but lightly and are soon forgotten, but then—how a careless word would linger, becoming a fiery stigma, and how a look, a glance over a shoulder, branded themselves as things eternal."
"That kind of crying, deep into a pillow, does not happen after we are twenty-one. The throbbing head, the swollen eyes, the tight contracted throat, And the wild anxiety in the morning to hide all traces from the world, sponging with cold water, dabbing eau-de-Cologne, the furtive dash of power that is significant in itself."I've had many nights like this and it was so comforting to see that it's a thing Daphne understood. The timelessness of the protagonist's coming of age is so beautiful.
Akira wrote: ""That kind of crying, deep into a pillow, does not happen after we are twenty-one. The throbbing head, the swollen eyes, the tight contracted throat, And the wild anxiety in the morning to hide all..."I disagree that that doesn't happen after the age of 21 - I cried like that when my former partner, one of the best friends I'd ever had, died suddenly - I was in my 60s.
Leslie wrote: "I disagree that that doesn't happen after the age of 21 - I cried like that when my former partner, one of the best friends I'd ever had, died suddenly - I was in my 60s."Hi Leslie,
I’m sorry for what you’ve been through. The permanent loss of a partner and best friend is not an experience I can fathom. I completely agree with you that having a strong emotional response to an event is not something that is reserved for people under the age of 21. However, the way I interpreted this quote was that her emotional reaction was disproportional to the event occurring. She was overemotional and too young to understand how to deal with her emotions for sad events that are lesser in magnitude to some of life’s greatest sorrows.
Also, I don’t think that Daphne was saying that these sad events shouldn’t elicit an emotional response, but that they are only put into perspective with age and/or life experience.
I’d love to hear other interpretations of this passage. In my copy of the book (published by HarperCollins), it’s on page 49.
-Akira
There are so many compelling quotes in the book so it's difficult to choose one! But I think that in this difficult part of my life the quote about precious memories and the fear that we are gonna lose them is very important to me. 'If only there could be an invention,' I said impulsively, 'that bottled up a memory, like scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.'
Akira wrote: "Leslie wrote: "I disagree that that doesn't happen after the age of 21 - I cried like that when my former partner, one of the best friends I'd ever had, died suddenly - I was in my 60s."Hi Leslie..."
Agreed, it's about this delightful over emotionality that turns all into drama when you're young. Where every ending feels akin to the end of your world.
God, do I miss those times. :)
'When I heard the sound of the car in the drive I got up in sudden panic, glancing at the clock, for I knew that it meant Beatrice and her husband had arrived. It was only just gone twelve, they where much earlier than I expected. And Maxim was not yet back. I wondered if it would be possible to hide, to get out of the window into the garden, so that Frith, bringing them to the morning room, would say "Madam must have gone out," and it would seem quite natural, they would take it as a matter of course."Not a fave fave this passage, but one that made me wince in sympathy with our nameless narrator for the sheer familiarity of the feeling.
Gerd wrote: "God, do I miss those times. :)"Hi Gerd,
Interesting that you say that. I feel like I just left those times and it's a major relief hahaha. Perhaps later on when I reflect back on everything I'll look at the past "excitement" more fondly :)
-Akira
Gerd wrote: "Akira wrote: "Leslie wrote: "I disagree that that doesn't happen after the age of 21 - I cried like that when my former partner, one of the best friends I'd ever had, died suddenly - I was in my 60..."Thank you for your responses, Akira and Gerd. You're both very kind.
Kamila wrote: "There are so many compelling quotes in the book so it's difficult to choose one! But I think that in this difficult part of my life the quote about precious memories and the fear that we are gonna ..."lol. I'm reminded of Dumbledore's pensieves. But I think the problem here is that Max wants to forget his memories. Still, I can understand the desire to go back to happier times.
"poise , and grace , and assuarance were not qualities inbred in me, but were things to be acquired, painfully perhaps, and slowly, costing me many bitter moments"wow!
Cyn wrote: "There are a few quotes that struck me:
"Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind."
I love this quote too.
I had never marked a sentence in a book before, but for this one I actually stood up from my couch to get a pencil to mark it, because I liked it that much.
"Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind."
I love this quote too.
I had never marked a sentence in a book before, but for this one I actually stood up from my couch to get a pencil to mark it, because I liked it that much.
