#entry039

[yoww2016]

Entry #039: Rebecca (1938)

Just like I had gone through an Agatha Christie phase in junior high, I had similarly gone through something of a Daphne du Maurier phase around the same time as well. It was nowhere near as expansive and in-depth as my obsession with the Queen of Crime, but I read a good sampling of the most famous du Maurier offerings (Jamaica Inn, Don’t Look Now). Yet I never made it around to Rebecca, perhaps her most famous work, known both as a novel and as the popular film which was inspired by the book. I’ve never watched the movie for fear of spoiling my surprise in reading the book, so I figured now was the time to finally read it.

It’s part horror, part mystery, part romance, and part pre-WWII period piece, and it all combines for a great and enjoyable read that I sped through with eagerness. As with all mysteries, it’s difficult to talk about without spoiling important plot points, but I can definitely say that it was more than worth reading, and I only wished that I had done it earlier. The characterization of the main protagonist, who is feeling overshadowed by the memory of her husband’s recently dead ex-wife (Rebecca), is precise and believable. You can see her psyche change the longer she is in the large English country home that she shares with her new husband and their army of servants, and trace her maturing as she becomes her own person in the wake of the memories that everyone has of Rebecca, who seemed to be the perfect person. How can she stand up to everyone’s rose-colored memories of a person who no longer even exists?

[yoww2016]

[yoww2016]

Somewhere, at the back of my mind, there was a frightened furtive seed of curiosity that grew slowly and stealthily, for all my denial of it, and I knew all the doubt and the anxiety of the child who has been told, 'these things are not discussed, they are forbidden.'

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (1938)

[yoww2016]

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.

Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier (1938)