So I'm one of those people who avoid classic books unless they really take my fancy. Despite longing to be cultured so I can sit at a tea party snobbishly and say 'ah yes! I am completely versed in the works of Dickens' or something equally ridiculous, I read what I want and that's that. I came about this modern classic because my Grandma recommended it to me, and the way she sold it to me I just had to have it. By the Sunday morning I was in receipt of this beauty and lovingly cast it aside why I finished much more pressing reading matters.
I won't lie, I spied a few pages and was immediately put off by the tiny writing and the size of the book, at around 428 pages it isn't a massive book but I was worried of not being able to engage with the content, much like I had found when reading Great Expectations several years earlier. However after the first few pages I was absorbed and that no longer mattered to me.
I did a very stupid thing however, in an attempt to find out the name of the narrator for my own selfish purposes (as I read I found myself casting the characters like a movie for yet another adaptation) I googled the book and accidentally read the entire plot synopsis when I was not even a quarter way through the book. I'll tell you now, I've never been more furious with myself, and I truly meant to stop myself but I just couldn't. So despite ruining the ending for myself I read on and I have so many mixed emotions.
Trying to juggle a call centre job and reading a book is not as easy as you may have originally thought. Especially on a busy day. The more I got drawn into the book the more frustrated I got with interruptions, I needed to know how this shifted, at this point I was the narrator and I was hurt and confused and so terrified, but every time I closed the book I was still left with this anxious feeling because nothing so far had soothed me from it. Finally my shift had ended and I was alone for an hour and a half before my family walked through the door so I managed to devour quite a chunk before the interruptions continued. Two chapters left, which I managed to finish during Gardener's World.
Recently I have found myself consumed with gothic mysteries in an attempt to write my own mystery novel. I surrounded myself with Agatha Christie and Elizabeth Peters, and while it can be argued neither of those are actually gothic, when turning to the screen adaptations as I also love to do, through the period it does give a certain vibe, as all murder mysteries are able to do. It is through one of these adaptations that I found the perfect man for my own murderer. I was watching Endless Night, late once evening, a Marple I had never seen before and my mum informs me they don't often show the sixth series. Tom Hughes who plays the main character Mike completely convinced me. To my dear friends who know me and my celeb crushes so well, yes this was the start of the Tom Hughes period in my life. But I had an excuse for this one as he had the perfect persona for my own villain, so research AND admiration my dears, don't judge me.
You may be thinking 'why is she telling me this?', well dear reader, my reasoning is this: For those of you who are aware of who Mr Hughes is, would he not be a perfect fit for Maxim de Winter? Tall, dark haired, so quietly sombre. His acting ranges from explosive to gentle in a matter of seconds just as Maxim is portrayed. I think it would be a brilliant match, and this may be tooting my own horn but I think I'm naive enough to play the narrator, I'd love to take her on stage when I eventually rejoin my acting group, but we will see what the future brings!
Regardless of my imagination, I think even without my intrusion of this literary world it is an outstanding plot. At no point is it easy to follow. We are seeing this life as it runs through our narrator's eyes, therefore we are subjected to her every emotion, her every thought, unreliable as it may be we are still able to draw our own anxieties to hers and draw our own conclusions as to what may happen next despite her clues. She admits her impressions of certain people such as Giles, Beatrice and Frank were completely incorrect and she let her own mind get the better of her, but she also lets through the clues so that we are also to know during her original fear of them that she is wrong. With characters like Mrs Danvers and Jack Favell the fear is constant and right, these are bad eggs and we know even before their mental breaks that they are not good for her.
Minor spoiler here, and the only criticism I have for the poor girl, but despite everything that has happened to her, once Maxim had confessed the truth of Rebecca's end she should have told him everything about Mrs Danvers. If that proved too much for her she should have told Beatrice or Frank, that window scene left mental scars and inflicted such trauma to both her and the reader she should have told someone, anyone, she needed to speak about that event. Mrs Danvers played on all her insecurities, most of which she had inflicted, and all of these lie unresolved within her. The only things she actually managed to solve was the conundrum of Rebecca and the fact Maxim did love her after all.
I didn't expect to love this book as much as I did. There's a review on the back of my edition by Malorie Blackman which ends with: 'The moment I finished, I turned to page one and started it over again.' On first glance at this I thought no she's just saying that, this is going to be one of those books which has confused me with it's era so much I can't finish. First of all me from a week ago, this book is from 1938, you've read books from way before then and understood them perfectly. Second, you are wrong and you wanted to do the exact same thing as Malorie so hush. For context I am writing this review on a Saturday morning as work is very quiet, and I finished the book late around nine last night, I haven't stopped thinking about it since. Funnily enough review number 8 was supposed to be on The Game, a soviet spy based series starring Tom Hughes, but Rebecca was far too impactful so I must speak about it.
I would love to see an expansion on that damned ending. It made me cross, as naturally I drew the assumption Mrs Danvers was responsible. But I think it is due to be taken with a pinch of salt, there were many different possibilities for what we can assume to take from the end. I NEEDED to know what happened next, we left the narrator at yet another crucial point in her short marriage and it doesn't sit right with me. There is a point where she is describing the fancy dress ball and she mentions something like 'my first and last party at Manderley' at that I thought she was dead, I thought the last few pages would be something like 'and Rebecca won, these are the memories I had as life drifted from my corpse' or something as equally tragic and dramatic (our narrator is around my age so I know she has a flare for drama no matter how shy she is). Once again in a moment of stupidity and impatience I skipped to the last page and read the end, so she wasn't dead it's fine. But I knew from that moment something had happened to Manderley and I think it's safe to say based on that ending the building was not recovered. I can see the film ending in my head perfectly though, the camera at first focused on the back of our couples' heads as their home comes into view, then they draw away from us and we watch as they go speeding up the drive but with calming yet tragic piano and then just....black. SCENE. My talents are wasted here.
A haunting novel, it truly is. And I would recommend to anyone who wants to go back and experience a modern classic. One day I'll finish Great Expectations but until that day I think I'll steer clear of Dicken's for a little while, but I will 100% visit some more literary classics. On my agenda I have a beautiful collectors edition of Dracula (which I had already read but this one is pretty) and of Frankenstein which I am greatly looking forward to. I think the advice to give at the moment based on my own experience is don't feel pressured to read a certain book or that you have to enjoy it, you don't have to finish if it doesn't appeal to you, and you don't have to read anything just to feel intelligent, stick to the moderns if you want to, books are a place of magic and escape, no one has the right to make you feel little in a world of your own imagining. I'll draw into another experience of mine, I happen to know a person who rubs their achievements in your face and looks down on your reading choices as they have read classic Holmes and Marple blah blah blah, they are an expert on everything and far superior. I felt my identity at liking those things being sapped from me every time I was around them as my perspective just wasn't good enough (especially as I was a woman), I enjoyed the telly versions but that made me a 'fake fan' because I had never completed the books. Well I have news for you, even as child I struggled to complete the Sherlock Holmes series, I just couldn't click with the material, some stories caught me and I enjoyed them, such as the short about the dancing men, but otherwise I just found trying to force myself to read this to prove myself tedious so I stopped. I reread a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories a few weeks ago and found it much the same, I have huge respect for those who are able to enjoy the novels but I do much prefer the adaptations, I intentionally lost the book for a month so I didn't have to endure, each to their own but that doesn't mean I can't like Sherlock Holmes. Moral of the story is don't let anyone tell you you are not clever because you can't do something. Stick it.
Drawing to a close then before I name and shame, I give Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier a chilling 9/10. I did have an internal debate just then which I feel as though I should share. I'm staring at the cover on the makeshift table next to me (it's a clothes bin) thinking should it be 8 or 9? Well I'm sticking with 9 as it was my first instinct, I really enjoyed this book and it's quite rare that I actually get to picture myself as the character and fully take on their emotions, I'm an empath at the best of times but this was ridiculous, I was left feeling anxious long after I had finished the book. Normally when escaping into a world through a book you feel like an onlooker if you get me? Not this time, I was married to Maxim, I was suffering, I saw through our narrator and for a time I was her. Beautiful, immersive writing is what I live for. Like fanfiction but not. Those who know will know.
Anyway on that note I think I've said enough, if you ever get the chance then pick up this book and give it a go, it's a haunting tale of a deceased wife lingering to cause upset to a new bride through memories which are not hers. If it's not to your taste then find something you do like and please let me know! As always stay safe, love willingly, and remember in a world full of opinions only yours should matter to you. Much love!
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