Horribly let down by Rebecca

On the other hand I didn’t like Frenchman’s creek at all 😂IMO the airport thriller of its time!

What happened to Rebecca is told and retold and argued over by a bunch of men laying claim to her body and knowledge of her in various ways. We don’t know if any of them are reliable.

The only person who thinks she was wonderful is Mrs Danvers.

Being read on R4 at the moment, presumably is on BBC Sounds.

Loved it. It was the first psychological thriller I ever read.

I read it last year for the first time. I've never seen any adaptations either, so didnt really know what it was about. i recognised a lot of me in the narrator. I'm a big overthinker and also going out with a man who has a lot of friends that i worry don't like me compared to his ex who they are all friends with. My bf hasnt murdered his ex though! I need to worry less about what other people think, especially as I'm also in my 40s!

i loved the book, and then read Jamaica Inn, which was also great. i will definitely read more Daphne Du Maurier.

I wish DDM had written a sequel - maybe getting revenge on Mrs Danvers.

The 1979 version with Joanna David, Jeremy Brett, and, perfectly cast, Anna Massey is on YouTube if you can bear the low resolution.

Emilia Fox (Joanna David's daughter) plays the girl in the 1997 ITV version.

Oh, I love Rebecca! It's one of my favourite books.

I agree that Max is an arse - he's a stick in the mud, privileged man of his time. The second Mrs De Winter is completely in his thrall and there is such a power imbalance between them in the beginning with him being so much older and her social 'superior' and that's definitely what he wants after Rebecca. I think she begins to find feet by the end and field is somewhat levelled, but only after Max is humbled and broken somewhat by his confession.

I love the descriptions, the setting is so evocative!

What I love most though, is Rebecca and how she haunts the pages and the reader as much as the characters. It's amazing that a character who never actually appears can be so powerful.

I'm a big Du Maurier fan!

I absolutely loved Rebecca. I didn’t really like either adaptation I saw, in comparison.

It’s one of my favourite books. I’ve read a lot of Daphne Du Maurier & for me her skill is in describing the inner thoughts & feelings of her protagonists in such a vivid way. She’s particularly good at describing feelings of anxiety & how they can manifest physically- headaches etc. I really related to the narrator in Rebecca, I never found her whiny & found the story utterly compelling.

Surely the second Mrs DW is meant to be an unreliable narrator?

You don't have to like her and you are supposed to try and guess what is real and what is filtered through her narrative.

I think DDM is very good and really enjoyed Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel and Frenchman's Creek which my mum had a set of and I ploughed through them in my 20s.

You’ve just summarised my A level essay on Hardy down to a single line. So nice to know i’m not the only one who thought so 😄

It's my absolute comfort book, I have lost count of how many times I've read it. I find it hard to pinpoint why exactly but it just seems to hit the sweet spot of drama, mystery, evocation of time and place and memorable characterisation. I have such a vivid picture of the world it portrays in my head that I have never wanted to watch a film of it.

One of my favourite books also. I love DdM. When you consider she wrote The Birds as well..I think she's vastly under-rated.
Whatever you do though...don't go anywhere near the recent version with Lily James and Armie Hammer. It's horrible. They've cast Kristin Scott Thomas as Mrs Danvers. I couldn't make it to the end. The BBC version with Charles Dance as Maxim and Diana Rigg as Mrs D isn't bad.

I think this book is wonderful/ there's a magical quality about it. This thread has inspired me to revisit it!

I wonder about her at the end of the book - she's married to a man who she knows killed his wife. What goes through her head when she decides to stay with him

I think that’s a really unfair view. In that time a man could whip you off and sign you into a league antic asylum at the click of his fingers if he wanted. If women didn’t have quite powerful men in their family who were equals or above what she had married into, they were in quite a precarious position.

I very much enjoyed it. Lots of messages in it.

Another example of the bullying house keeper is Mrs Hackett, the Duke of Devonshire’s housekeeper at Chatsworth towards the end of the 17th century. She made the artist Verrio’s life so difficult when he was painting ceilings there that he painted her as Atropos, cutting the thread of life. (Though we don’t have Mrs Hackett’s side of the story - maybe Verrio spilt paint over the furniture).

I very much enjoyed the short scene when the second Mrs de Winter actually stands up to Mrs Danvers. I wish there had been more of that.

I'm actually rereading this at the moment! I first read it when I was about the age of the narrator and identified with her very much - I was horribly unconfident and shy and I think du Maurier captures the paralysing element of this very well, the constant rumination over events and what everyone must be thinking of you. Of course, as you get older you realise that no-one really cares about you very much! Now I'm in my 40s I do want to tell her to get a grip, but a lot of that only comes with age and experience.

Absolutely loved the book. So atmospheric.

I’m reading a book of her short stories at the moment called Breaking Point. There are some very clever stories in there. I love her writing.

Of course YANBU for not liking a popular book, but Hitchcock isn't exactly known for faithfulness to his source material....
I like Rebecca (and MCR) but prefer Du Maurier's swashbuckling historicals.

Better than it was with DH, anyway. Poor Dona. Years of closing her eyes and pretending he's someone else.

I love the part of the book where they’re under cannon fire and they both fall to the ground and catch each other’s eye and start laughing. The sex must have been great