Book Reco # 22: Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
The classic tale of romantic suspense
Rebecca is a story about a new bride living in the first wife’s shadow in a house where, in every corner, she still lives. Our unnamed narrator, the new Mrs. de Winter, steps into Manderley, her new home, for the first time but finds the house and the mind of her distant and moody husband dominated by the spirit of Rebecca, his dead first wife. The new Mrs. de Winter is introduced to the household staff. She meets the sinister Mrs. Danvers, Rebecca’s old maid, who keeps Rebecca’s old room in pristine condition with all her clothes and brushes laid out as if Rebecca just went for a short vacation and will return any moment. A shrine, if you ask me. It doesn’t help as well that the other household staff always mention how Rebecca used to run things in Manderley straight to her face. If not motherly love, I think Mrs. Danvers might have been in love with Rebecca. That obsession is unnatural. Eventually, the book uncovers the darkest secrets of Rebecca and how she died.
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 5/5 stars
The moment I read the famous first line, “Last night I went to Manderley again…”, I too, was transported to Manderley. Despite the over description of the drive going to the house, it sets a dark and brooding atmosphere. It filled me with dread. Is this going to be the same all through out the book? Apparently, yes. Especially the parts where Mrs. Danvers enters a room. I had to take a break from the book for a short while because reading it made my skin crawl. I was feeling anxious and uneasy. Dang, what a good book! Of course, I couldn’t take my mind of it and so I picked it up again.
Our narrator keeps mentioning how young she is in age. At first I was kind of annoyed of the repetitiveness but I guess it plays a role in projecting the stark difference between Rebecca and her. Rebecca - older, secure, refined, and well-bred. The new Mrs. de Winter - young, naive, insecure, timid, and shy. I guess this is also why du Maurier choose not to name our narrator - to help project the plain and timid new wife against the shadows of Rebecca’s strong personality.
Through out the book, whole pages are dedicated to our narrator spiraling into anxious thoughts and overthinking certain scenarios - much of which are on how to win Maxim’s (Mr. de Winter) love. I kept thinking, “Girl, if you just talked to him instead of overthinking things, you might have solved your problem early on.”
I also love it when a book uses a house as a backdrop for something sinister. A house having its own personality truly takes something a level darker. I could discuss so many things in here but that would involve spoilers and I promised a spoiler-free review so, that’s it for now.
Rebecca was published in 1983. So many thrillers have been published since then you’d think nothing will surprise you anymore. But Rebecca still did. I don’t usually reread thrillers because I already know how the plot will go but I think I’ll reread Rebecca over and over again, just for the wonderful prose. With that, let me share this beautiful quote.
“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 tomorrow, 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. Here we sat together, Maxim and I, hand-in-hand, and the past and the future mattered not at all. This was secure, this funny little fragment of time he would never remember, never think about again…For them it was just after lunch, quarter-past-three on a haphazard afternoon, like any hour, like any day. They did not want to hold it close, imprisoned and secure, as I did. They were not afraid.”
Since the book starts at the end, after reading the last page, I read the first two chapters again to close the story’s loop. If you’ve read Rebecca already, let me know your thoughts below!
What I’m Reading This Week
Coming into this book blind. I hope I’ll like it!
