Hot off the shelf: What I'm reading - 'Rebecca' DuMaurier, Daphnie

I've read one from my Easter reading list! I rated this three out of five. One one level, I enjoyed it. On all other levels it frustrated the hell out of me.

 

Why did I like it?
The writing is excellent. The language is so eloquent, yet so understandable. She tells a brilliant story and has a  genuine talent for sending shivers down your unsuspecting spine. It's creepy and haunting. So what's the problem? I'll tell you. My problem was our unnamed protagonist.

 

I understand that the novel is rooted in a time much different to our own, and that social conventions and people in general were much different than they are today. But the newly married, unnamed Mrs De Winter is so frustrating and unsure I almost gave up on the book more than once (something I have almost never done). It's like she's constantly seeking reassurance. She is always questioning herself and other people there's hardly any room for development to her character. When she marries Max in what is quite a hurried and exciting fashion, I wanted her to sustain some of that great spontaneity, it made me think her to have a certain hidden passion for adventure. This thought was steadily and continually  squashed as I continued to read. As soon as she gets to Manderley she goes back to being meek, just as she was before, as a companion to Mrs Van Hopper. She doesn't know how to behave, constantly curses her 'bad breeding' and does nothing about it. Not once does she say, hey you know what, I don't know how to play golf. Maybe I should learn, then when someone next suggests a game I could join in instead of apologising meekly to everyone and telling them I simply cannot play.

 

Also her entire survival seems to be dependent on 'he loves me, he loves me not'. Even when the biggest plot twist in the whole novel is revealed, her only thought is "he had never loved Rebecca". This is repeated so many times, parroted to the audience, it seems to be the only thing in her one track mind. The whole story had been building to this moment and all she can do is go "thank god, the guy I married, despite only knowing him for a couple of months, doesn't love his dead wife". As if it would be a huge deal if he did. She married him, knowing he'd lost a wife approx a year before. You'd have thought that if the notion he had loved another woman bothered her, she wouldn't have gone through with it.

 

Apart from this I think Rebecca was a great read. I'm trying to read several books from the BBC's top 100 books list, and hopefully will post some more reviews soon.

 

Over and out.