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A review by kierscrivener
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
5.0
Rebecca is a story of jealousy. I fell in love with this beautiful, twisted story that explores self perception, jealousy, and time. It is gorgeous and descriptive and always eerie with a foreboding that every happy moment will end. As we know this is told from a dull hotel in exile.
Our unnamed narrator, known only for her unusual name and later as the second Mrs de Winter is a young companion to an odious stuck up woman. While staying in Cote d'Azur in Monte Carlo, our narrator meets and falls for the middle aged Maxim de Winter who is a recent widower. They soon returns to his family estate of Manderley, and our narrator cannot help but compare herself to his late wife Rebecca. She feels Rebecca in every room, in every routine. She is young and timid and the staff, relatives, and friends of Maxim sing the praise of Rebecca's elegance and loveliness. The story unfolds from there becoming more eerie and twisted as we continue on.
When a place is a character in the story there is always an undefined beauty within. Though places cannot speak, the walls hold memories. When I look back at the eras of my life, I think of the places I lived, the places I frequented. The finality of moments. Daphne du Maurier captures this in the early chapters as she places our narrator in a dull hotel as she dreams of a gorgeous eerie manor where she once lived and can never return.
There are two first lines of Rebecca and both are equally intriguing. First the most iconic line "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." It is only fitting that we should meet Manderley before anything or anyone. We are introduced to where we shall spend the majority of the novel and who narrator shall be and who she shall become but only a glimpse of who she was in between which lends itself to a perfect mystery.
Than when we begin the flashback, the real beginning in chapter three with "I wonder what my life would be today, if Mrs. Van Hopper had not been a snob." It is witty and existential all at the same time. It continues saying "Funny to think that the course of my existence hung like a thread upon that quality of hers." I found myself pondering the line throughout. The nature of life changing moments.
I would say that one of the core tenets of my reading bias would be against first person in favour of third omniscient. And this would be a novel where such a thing could not be more wrong. The first person unreliable and unnamed narrator was almost existential for this novel, without it would not be as twisted or as compelling.
Overall, this novel is near flawless in my mind. Thematic and compelling with proses that tie all of it together. My notebook is chalk full of quotes.
It also kept me guessing until the final moments, the final words. I did not realize they were the last, and really the end is the beginning. It is brilliant.
Our unnamed narrator, known only for her unusual name and later as the second Mrs de Winter is a young companion to an odious stuck up woman. While staying in Cote d'Azur in Monte Carlo, our narrator meets and falls for the middle aged Maxim de Winter who is a recent widower. They soon returns to his family estate of Manderley, and our narrator cannot help but compare herself to his late wife Rebecca. She feels Rebecca in every room, in every routine. She is young and timid and the staff, relatives, and friends of Maxim sing the praise of Rebecca's elegance and loveliness. The story unfolds from there becoming more eerie and twisted as we continue on.
When a place is a character in the story there is always an undefined beauty within. Though places cannot speak, the walls hold memories. When I look back at the eras of my life, I think of the places I lived, the places I frequented. The finality of moments. Daphne du Maurier captures this in the early chapters as she places our narrator in a dull hotel as she dreams of a gorgeous eerie manor where she once lived and can never return.
There are two first lines of Rebecca and both are equally intriguing. First the most iconic line "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." It is only fitting that we should meet Manderley before anything or anyone. We are introduced to where we shall spend the majority of the novel and who narrator shall be and who she shall become but only a glimpse of who she was in between which lends itself to a perfect mystery.
Than when we begin the flashback, the real beginning in chapter three with "I wonder what my life would be today, if Mrs. Van Hopper had not been a snob." It is witty and existential all at the same time. It continues saying "Funny to think that the course of my existence hung like a thread upon that quality of hers." I found myself pondering the line throughout. The nature of life changing moments.
I would say that one of the core tenets of my reading bias would be against first person in favour of third omniscient. And this would be a novel where such a thing could not be more wrong. The first person unreliable and unnamed narrator was almost existential for this novel, without it would not be as twisted or as compelling.
Overall, this novel is near flawless in my mind. Thematic and compelling with proses that tie all of it together. My notebook is chalk full of quotes.
It also kept me guessing until the final moments, the final words. I did not realize they were the last, and really the end is the beginning. It is brilliant.