Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier
Summary (from Barnes and Noble): "Last Night I DreamtI Went To Manderley Again."
So the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter remembered the chilling events that led her down the turning drive past ther beeches, white and naked, to the isolated gray stone manse on the windswept Cornish coast. With a husband she barely knew, the young bride arrived at this immense estate, only to be inexorably drawn into the life of the first Mrs. de Winter, the beautiful Rebecca, dead but never forgotten...her suite of rooms never touched, her clothes ready to be worn, her servant -- the sinister Mrs. Danvers -- still loyal. And as an eerie presentiment of evil tightened around her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter began her search for the real fate of Rebecca...for the secrets of Manderley.
My thoughts: I've always meant to read this one, so I'm glad the Something About Me Challenge gave me the chance. I recall seeing a PBS miniseries about it when I was a kid, but don't recall much beyond Mrs. Danvers being really creepy. While I didn't race through it, I enjoyed it and the plot twist came as a surprise and then I found it really picked up. I enjoyed all the descriptions of Manderley and wanted to live there.
I spent a lot of time being annoyed with both Maxim and the narrator, too - he had no business marrying such a young, unsophisticated girl and dumping her at Manderley with all its baggage. He does nothing to help her settle in, just leaves her at the mercy of Mrs. Danvers and expects her to know how to run a huge house. And it really did seem as if any young girl he'd picked up in Monte Carlo would've done as the second Mrs. De Winter - for all the protestations of love in the novel, I didn't buy it. She loved him in a puppy-dog way, he loved her because he needed a new wife. After the circumstances of Rebecca's death came to light, they did seem to develop an actual relationship, but it was still sketchy to me. Still, it's an excellent example of gothic suspense and I'm glad I finally read it.
2 comments:
I had not heard of this book before reading The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, that particular book being compared to Rebecca now and then. I hope to read Rebecca one of these days. Thank you for the great review.
I just bought a cheap copy of this the other day and can't wait to start reading it. Maybe on a dreary cold day - I feel gothic novels are best on dreary cold days. :)
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