Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier

Well we’re almost at the end of October again, how fast has this year gone in?! Anyway I did mention that I would be re-reading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier again and writing about my thoughts on it around now. I re-read Jamaica Inn a wee while ago and it was interesting to compare the two, Rebecca is a much better book I think, the writing is smoother making it an easier read.

I’ve no idea how many times I’ve read Rebecca over the years, it has been one of my favourites since I first read it, probably when I was about 12 or 13. But it must be about 10 years since I have read it and I was interested to see what I felt about it now – ahem – over 40 years since I first read it.

I’m going to assume that most people will have read the book or at least seen a film of it and so already know the story, so I’m just going to chat about some of the problems that people sometimes have with it nowadays.

I know that some people have had a problem with the book in recent times because they have so little sympathy with the narrator. I doubt if this was ever a problem when the book was first published way back in 1938. Of course although the narrator eventually becomes the second Mrs de Winter that’s as close as we get to her name. Du Maurier teases us with hints about her name: “You have a very lovely and unusual name.” says Maxim de Winter to the young companion of the ghastly Mrs Van Hopper, but that’s as much as we know about her name.

She’s 21 years old, and that was a surprise to me because in my mind she was always younger, in fact when I was 12 or 13 I really identified with her as I know I would have behaved in a very similar way to her. Crippled with shyness and lacking in confidence exacerbated by being thrown into the company of very rich people, the narrator is an orphan with no family or friends to support her so it would have been unusual if she had been a brash confident type, there was just too much against her at a time when young people were expected to know their place in society, unless they were rich. So I don’t have a problem with the meekness and nerves which she is dogged by.

I suspect that the second wives of most widowers can’t help feeling that their husband is constantly comparing them with their first wife, and when that first wife is a Rebecca type, apparently adored by everyone, it would be soul destroying for all but the most confident of women. So the second Mrs de Winter is a completely believeable and likeable character for me.

She’s under the impression that she’s a disappointment as a wife to Maxim but the reader knows differently as the clues are there. Mrs de W has just missed them. “I wish I was a woman of about thirty-six dressed in black satin with a string of pearls.” she says. But Maxim wouldn’t have been interested in her if she had been dressed like that, because that was Rebecca’s style.

Famously the book begins: Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again.

It was a real house which inspired the beginning of the book, but I’ll talk about that in my next blogpost. If you’ve read Rebecca recently or even ages ago and want to link to a post on the book, leave a link in the comments or just leave a comment.

Forthcoming Rebecca Read

Joan from Planet Joan and I are planning to do a Rebecca re-read, hoping to write about our thoughts on it sometime towards the end of October. If you fancy joining in with us you’re more than welcome, whether it’s a re-read for you or you’re a first time reader of Rebecca. In fact I’d be really interested to hear what a first time reader thinks of the Daphne du Maurier classic which has always been a favourite of mine. Maybe it will seem too dated for readers now, but I don’t think so, I hope not anyway.

I believe that Peggy at Peggy Ann’s Post is going to join in with us, and maybe Michelle of In the Silver Room too, I think.

Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier

Earlier this summer, my friend Joan, at Planet Joan, and I were having a chat about Jamaica Inn by Daphne du Maurier, which we’d both just read. We’ve edited our chat a bit, leaving out the parts about what we were each making for dinner that evening, Katrina’s new summerhouse, the demolition happening around my house, the weather, gardening, and a raft of other things. We humbly submit our erudite discussion:

Joan Kyler:
I thought the moors and the weather on the moors were major characters.

Katrina Stephen:

Yes I know that du Maurier was a big fan of the Brontes and I suppose this is her version of Wuthering Heights, Bodmin Moor being used as a substitute for the Yorkshire Moors.

Joan:
I didn’t know that. I thought the characters and the outcome were predictable. I knew who the good guys and who the bad guys were from the start. And who Mary’d fall for and what she’d do about it. Not much suspense there. But it was a fun read. I read it back in the 1960s and have my index card from then. I said I didn’t think it was one of her best books.

Katrina:

I would agree with that although I did enjoy it, it is predictable. I first read it around 1970 I think and again in the mid 80s probably, sadly I didn’t take any notes but thinking back I thought it was darker and scarier than it actually is. There was more sexual threat in it than I remembered, but maybe I just didn’t pick up on that as a 12 year old. Uncle Joss saying – I could have had you anytime if I wanted you a few times in the book.

Joan:

I don’t remember if any of that got past me or not. I was into reading modern Gothics then, they’re usually fairly sexually charged. I just checked my file. Although they don’t have dates either, I have cards on Rebecca and Frenchman’s Creek that, from the handwriting, look like I read them about the same time. I know I’ve read My Cousin Rachel, but I don’t have a card on it. Mary annoyed me for seeing things so black and white, but she was young, so maybe she could be excused.

Katrina:

On the other hand she is a stronger female character than her aunt who is I suppose worn down by years of domestic abuse. Also compared with the second Mrs de Winter in Rebecca Mary seems like a really strong young woman.

Joan:

That’s true. I don’t think Mary understood how hard it sometimes is to leave that sort of relationship, as we often wonder why women stay in them. She does seem strong and independent. I understand why she found Jem so attractive. I wasn’t sure she’d leave with him at the end, but I wasn’t surprised when she did.

Katrina:

Yes but maybe it would have been more sensible for her not to go with Jem. It’s that dark and dangerous male – I read years ago that it was books like this and Wuthering Heights which were bad for young women, making them think that men who were going to turn out to be bad for them were exciting and so worth the risk. I think it was a 1970s burn your bras feminist who came up with that one.

Joan:

But I can understand. I wonder what happened to them in the next ten years. He didn’t seem to be the type who would stay and she seemed like she might decide to go back to that farm by herself. In the meantime, they probably had some fun.

Katrina:

Yes I don’t see it lasting that long but in those days she would probably have had a few kids in tow by the time it all fell apart, she would have been forced to put the kids first.

Joan:

I think I’d like to read Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel sometime before the end of the year. I’ve seen the movie Rebecca so often, I think I get it confused with reading the book!

Katrina:

Rebecca is one of my comfort books so I’ll definitely join you in that. Obviously that’s her version of Jane Eyre, I love both of the books. As you say though it’s du Maurier’s writing of the place which is such a large part of the book and after reading this one I always wanted to go to Cornwall and loved books with a Cornish setting. It’s quite unusual for an English writer to have the setting basically as important as any of the actual characters. It’s a Scottish/Celtic trait in writing I think.

Joan:

Is it? I have to get on board with more Scottish books. I loved the wildness of the weather and the moors. I don’t think we made it quite that far when we were travelling in England. I looked at a map to see if I recognized any towns. We were in Swindon (sp?) and Cheltenham, but don’t think they’re considered Cornwall, especially Cheltenham. I was such a little Anglofile in the 1960s, all that British invasion stuff, but I used to go out in storms and thought I was very oddly British doing it!

Katrina:

You probably were, we often have no option and have to go out in hellish weather otherwise we would be housebound, in the winter anyway. You would have to have travelled quite a bit further south west to get to Cornwall. Strangely Cornwall feels and looks very much like parts of Scotland, even the old buildings look similar, I suppose it’s the stone but also the design of the houses. It must be a Celtic thing, the Cornish don’t regard themselves as English.

Joan:

That’s interesting. England’s such a small country to have divides like that.

Katrina:

I think it is because when the Romans invaded the Celts were pushed out to the fringes of the island. The Romans didn’t like Celts, I think they were afraid of them.

Katrina:

How about Rebecca what’s your opinion of Max de Winter – from memory . Do you see him as ‘that murderer’ or ‘sex on legs’ or what?

Joan:

You know, I don’t really remember. I don’t think I liked him very much, but I don’t remember much more than that.

Katrina:

Well that’ll be interesting then, I’ve always been on the ‘sex on legs’ side but it is a while since I re-read it, you never know, I might have changed my mind in my old age.

Joan:
I don’t think I’ve read it since the 60s, at least I don’t have a card on it. I started to get fairly compulsive about recording my reading after the late 1970s.

Katrina:

I so wish that I had thought of taking notes on all the books which I’ve read over the years. Shall we plan to do a Rebecca readalong sometime before the end of the year then?

Jamaica Inn on the BBC

Were you one of the many people who struggled to hear the dialogue in the new BBC adaptation of Jamaica Inn? Apparently people were thinking that they must be going deaf, but we didn’t hink that because it isn’t the first time that we’ve had trouble hearing things on TV. I don’t think it’s anything to do with the sound engineers, it’s just that some actors are rotten at speaking, how they get the parts is beyond me. You would think that being able to make yourself heard would be the least that could be expected of an actor. Lots of people ended up switching on the subtitles to understand what was going on.

But apart from that I think that the whole thing was just very disappointing. I read Jamaica Inn as a 13 year old and again some 20 years later, so it’s a good long while since I read it but I do know that the BBC failed to conjure up the dramatic and dangerous atmosphere of the book. Then for some reason they chose to film a lot of it in the Lake District rather than Cornwall and the two places are not really alike. It’s as if someone just said – one patch of green is much like any other – which just isn’t true.

The character of Uncle Joss just bore no resemblance to the one in the book and the fact that you couldn’t hear what he was mumbling meant that there was no way that he was going to be able to act his way into being more like the character which Daphne du Maurier wrote.

All in all I was very disappointed by the whole thing and I just feel that I’ll have to re-read the book to get a proper dose of du Maurier. But was I one of the 800 or so people who contacted the BBC to complain? – I hear you ask. Well, no I didn’t think to complain, I just moaned at Jack and he mumped back, but we were more audible than any of those actors.

The Doll by Daphne du Maurier

The Doll by Daphne du Maurier is a compilation of short stories, I know that a lot of people don’t like reading short stories but du Maurier is one of the best at them I think, and if you’re a du Maurier fan then you’ll definitely want to read them. The stories are:

East Wind
The Doll
And Now to God the Father
A Difference in Temperament
Frustration
Piccadilly
Tame Cat
Mazie
Nothing Hurts for Long
Week-End
The Happy Valley
And Her Letters Grew Colder
The Limpet

There’s an introduction by Polly Samson, she says – Within these stories – some good , some less so but all fascinating – are the preoccupations which would possess Daphne du Maurier for a lifetime. The psychological insight that she would later exercise while inhabiting the characters of her novels and biographies is here, but out in the open and turned much more obviously on herself.

Like many writers Daphne du Maurier was obviously drawn to particular themes again and again and it’s interesting to read what turned out to be the kernel of an idea which she returned to in later books.

Books and a dental mishap

Last night I fancied a treat so I unwrapped a creme egg, my first of the season. I actually paused before chomping into it because that first bite is always a bit scary as the chocolate is so thick at the top. The worst happened I’m afraid and a front capped tooth sheered off, so I had an unexpected trip to my dentist in Glenrothes today to begin to get it all sorted out. I’m now exactly like that girl in the advert which warns you to take care of your teeth – or else!

Anyway, after the dentist I had a look around the town and went into The Works, more in hope than expectation really because their choice of books has been dire the last year or so, but I was in luck. They were having a stock liquidation sale and they had quite a lot of books at the princely sum of £1 each and amazingly there were four that were worth buying. So I bought:

The Land of Green Ginger by Winifred Holtby. I read and enjoyed South Riding years ago and I’ve been meaning to read this one for ages.

Marking Time by Elizabeth Jane Howard
. Apparently this one was on Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour but I missed it. I like her writing, sadly she died just a week or so ago, but I suppose she had a good innings – as THEY say.

Every Man for Himself by Beryl Bainbridge
. I’ve enjoyed quite a few of her books, this one is yet another Titanic setting which did put me off a bit because I think that that subject has been overdone in the past but I’m sure I’ll enjoy this, if that’s the word in the circumstances.

And lastly, Some Must Watch by Ethel Lina White. I’ve never heard of this author before but it’s vintage crime and apparently this book inspired the classic film The Spiral Staircase. I thought that would have been inspired by the Mignon Eberhart book of the same title, but I bow to their superior knowledge!

Crazily, on the way home I dropped into the museum shop as it’s a good place to get unusual cards and I made the mistake of hopping into the library next door, which due to the refurbishment is now only one step away. I couldn’t resist the new books shelves and ended up borrowing:

The Doll – short stories by Daphne du Maurier
Secrets of the Sea House by Elisabeth Gifford
The Comforters by Muriel Spark
Summer by Edith Wharton

I’m trying to read my way through everything by du Maurier. I think it was Peggy who mentioned Elisabeth Gifford, but I haven’t read anything by her yet. The Muriel Spark book will count towards the Read Scotland 2014 challenge and I’m also trying to read my way through everything by Wharton, so that was a great haul of shiny new books. Now I just need the time to read them all!

You might want to have a listen to Pam Ayres reciting her poem – I wish I’d Looked After My Teeth. – It’s exactly how I feel although of course I don’t have her rural English accent. But ‘tak tent’ (pay attention) as we say or used to say in Scotland, and if I ever eat another creme egg I’m thinking that I might just bash it on the head with my rolling pin, to soften it up first. If you have a better idea of how to go about eating one safely, let me know!

Daphne du Maurier and Her Sisters by Jane Dunn

Reading through the Guardian Review on Saturday, I came across yet another book which I have to put on my To Read list. I’ve been interested in the du Mauriers ever since I first read Rebecca when I was around 12 years old. Of course they were related to the Llewelyn Davies family of J.M. Barrie fame and that’s another interest of mine.

Anyway, you might like to have a read at this review by Simon Callow to see if you want to put the book on your list too.

The Rebecca Notebook & other memories by Daphne du Maurier

The Rebecca Notebook

I was lucky enough to pick up this book in an Edinburgh bookshop. It was just lying amongst sundry miscellaneous books, in a basket on the floor. So I was really surprised when I had a look inside it and discovered that it had been signed by Daphne du Maurier, it’s a hardback and in perfect condition. It was cheap too, so I had to buy it!

If you’re into Daphne du Maurier I think this is a book which you will want to read. Over the years I’ve heard that du Maurier was a bit of an odd bod – one of the awkward squad, but honestly, which of us isn’t at some time or another?!

Anyway, I was a wee bit trepidatious about reading the book as if I don’t like an author it doesn’t half put me off reading their books, I know, silly but true. All was well though as I think that the author’s voice came through really clearly and I DID like her. In fact I agreed with her about lots of things.

This book was first published in 1981 and as she says, it was almost 40 years since she had written Rebecca but she still had her notebook in which she had jotted down her plans for the outline of the book, quite detailed really and a must read for any devotee of Rebecca.

The rest of the book contains 11 prose pieces, not articles as such she says, for she had never been a journalist. They come under the heading of Memories and some are her reminiscences of her father and grandfather. Others are her thoughts on subjects such as Romantic Love, Death and Widowhood, Moving House, and A Winter’s Afternoon, Kilmarth – to name a few of them.

She was a woman for whom houses seem to have been the most important thing in her life. Possibly her children felt that Menabilly, her house in Cornwall for 25 years, was more important to their mother than they were and I suppose that would be more than a bit annoying.

It’s interesting to note that Daphne du Maurier didn’t actually own either of the houses she lived in in Cornwall, she rented them on long leases from the family which had owned them for generations. Times have changed so much since those days, people equate owning a house with success and stabilty now and hate the thought of having to rent.

I had also completely forgotten that Daphne’s father had been related to the ‘Darling’ family of Peter Pan fame, or in other words the Llewelyn-Davies family. Sylvia L-D was Daphne’s aunt and she writes about the family in the article titled Sylvia’s Boys who were of course well known to her as they grew up together. J.M. Barrie was known to them all as Uncle Jim at a time when he had umpteen plays on in various London theatres, he did far more than just write Peter Pan. What an advantage for an aspiring writer!

Edinburgh Book Haul

You might know that I went to Hay-on-Wye (that famous book town) recently and was quite disappointed with the place, I didn’t manage to find any books which I wanted to buy.

So it was a lovely surprise when we came out the east gate of the Botanic Gardens in Edinburgh, to discover second-hand bookshops which were completely unknown to me. We hadn’t been in that area of Edinburgh before, I think it is called Broughton Road.

Edinburgh Book Haul

As you can see, I bought four:
Silence Observed by Michael Innes
The New Sonia Wayward by Michael Innes
The Village by Marghanita Laski
The Rebecca Notebook and Other Memories by Daphne du Maurier

I was especially chuffed to find the du Maurier book in a shop which is part bookshop and part antiques shop. I would have bought it anyway but it’s particularly nice that it’s a signed copy, as you can see. It was very reasonably priced too.

Bookplate

I always get my best book finds when I least expect to. I could have bought quite a few more books but I exercised restraint and of course I now wish I hadn’t. Luckily, Edinburgh isn’t very far away!

Julius by Daphne du Maurier

This book was first published as The Progress of Julius in 1933. It’s the story of Julius Levy who was born in France, the product of a mixed marriage between a French Christian woman and an Algerian Jewish man. Life hasn’t been easy for Julius and his parents and after a traumatic incident Julius and his father have to travel to Algeria to escape the French police.

The young Julius takes after his maternal side of the family business wise anyway and ambition rules his life. He’s determined to make money and when he does get money he holds on to it, never using it to make life easier for himself. Every pound a prisoner – as we say!

Eventually he makes his way to London and starts building his business empire and it became a very big one.

I did enjoy this book, which is surprising really as Julius isn’t a very likeable character, in fact I think nowadays he would be described as having some kind of mental problem like autism or Asperger’s.

Although Julius was written in 1932, a time when things were just beginning to get fairly scary for the Jews of mainland Europe and let’s face it there were people in Britain too who were anti-semitic, there’s really nothing to upset anyone of tender feelings.

I kept thinking of Lyons Corner Houses all the time I was reading about Julius’ empire building because it reminded me so much of that tea-room restaurant chain which became a British institution. The first one was opened in 1894 and the last closed in 1981. I wonder if du Maurier used them as inspiration for Julius. They were a family run Jewish business, in fact Nigella Lawson is related to them.

Julius was Daphne du Maurier’s third book to be published, she was 26 years old when she wrote it.