Horribly let down by Rebecca

[MsAmerica]

I love the Hitchcock movie of Rebecca, my second or third favorite Hitchcock, and I've always heard that the book was good, so when I recently came across a cheap copy, I bought it.

What a disappointment! Hated all the excessive description of greenery. Impatient at the overkill. But, worst, while the character of Max is slightly pleasanter than Olivier in the movie, the unnamed narrator is unbearable - a whiny, insecure bore.

Ugh!

It is a great username.

I seem to remember that Hitchcock didn't want Mrs D to be seen walking (or blinking!) so she verged on the spectral.

Oh FFS,I hadn't had my coffee when I posted that and have just mashed up Agatha Christie and DDM 🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🤣 Ignore all of the above unless you want to see Agatha Christie's house 🤣

Menabilly I believe.

I love DDM and Rebecca! I came across the Olivier film on YouTube the other day and it sucked me in again. I think Max is worse in the book - didn't he know she was pregnant in the book? Not sure how you could look past that.

the Dick in the House on the Strand,

That's a bit harsh, although yes, he is a bit 😂

Totally agree that Du Maurier was a master at the unreliable narrator though.

She wasn't but she told him she was to manipulate him into killing her. She knew he couldn't stand the thought of a cuckoo in the nest at Manderley. She wanted to die because she was secretly ill.

Totally fucked up nowadays to think that would be justification!

@LunaNorth

Definitely love Frenchman's Creek!

Jean-Benoit really gets the heart all a-flutter & the character of William is very intriguing.

The blood red rhododendrons of the driveway really sparked my imagination as in my area, whilst there are lots of wild rhododendrons they are all mauvey-pink in colour.

There's a Rhododendron Wood in Leith Hill, Surrey where you get to see so many types & colours - can almost imagine I'm heading towards Manderley.

The book is wonderful but very disturbing. The 2nd Mrs de Winter seems completely out of her depth. And Mrs Danvers really gave me the creeps.

One day I will plant some red rhodies in my garden...

Great rhodies at Kew, as well. Always reminds me of DDM's description.

I love Rebecca - and most of DDM's books. Maxim was very much of his time and class, and the narrator was meant to be meek, subservient and the complete opposite of Rebecca (who I have to say I've always sort of admired - she really didn't GAF at a time when women weren't supposed to behave that way).

I love it ,i read it as a teenager and thought it was a brilliant story but badly written , having read it as an adult i see it completely differently.
It is 'of its time' and the characters are stiff and awkward but they're meant to be, Mrs D W is weak and a bit pathetic and i find her more unlikeable when we know that she knows for certain that Maxim did murder Rebecca , she almost becomes stronger then and its them against the world , she sees no bad in him.
I love how Rebecca dominates the story , i think she is my favourite character .
The influence of Mrs Danvers in the story another great aspect and i love Mrs Van Hopper who is truly vile.
Reading the descriptions of the area almost puts me there , i think it is a perfect book, i also love My cousin Rachel and Jamaica inn.
Daphne Du Maurier intrigues me her books are so dark , such an imagination.

Yes that was wonderful! I remember it so well. Jeremy Brett as Maxime de Winter, and Anna Massey! So menacing! The new one with Lily James is useless

@MrsDanversGlidesAgain

I'll have to have a look next month. Not been to Kew for ages.

Love it. Rebecca wins really. Their boring lives at the end, on the terrace of their dull hotel in the sun!

I read the book before a saw the film. I think that makes a difference. I quite liked the detailed descriptions.

I also first read it when I was about 14 and at the time, I took the narrator’s perspective at face value. I thought Rebecca was evil and I felt so sorry for poor Maxim.

Rereading it a couple of years ago was a completely different experience and I found Maxim far more disturbing.

I can’t work out whether Du Maurier intended readers to view him as sinister and controlling or not. Maybe it reads that way to a modern audience but wouldn’t have done at the time of writing?

She definitely wasn't from a working class family. I don't think a working class girl would have been taken on as a companion to a rich woman. She'd have ended up in service or working in a factory. She would have been from a middle class background, but fallen on hard times (comparatively), hence the need to earn her own living, but she'd have been able to capitalise on what she'd learned in her upbringing and schooling - her accent; knowledge of the very snobbish rules of the time about table manners, how to dress etc; having a little French so she could deal with hotel staff, railway porters and so on; and enough general knowledge to make conversation and read aloud to her employer. It would have been a pretty awful job, even so. Not well paid, very little freedom, constantly patronised and bullied. No wonder marrying Maxim seemed like a fairytale!

Daphne du Maurier's house is in Hampstead (or one of them), although the blue plaque on it id for her father.

If you haven't read Margaret Forsters biography of Daphne du Maurier it's worth reading, it explains a lot about the way she wrote.

The film of Rebecca is very different, Max is a hero. Hollywood couldn't have accepted someone getting away with murder. In the book I think he's meant to be controlling.

Her house is Menabilly near Fowey where she lived most of her adult life. Manderley is based on it. The Hampstead house is her childhood home, Ferryside in Fowey was a childhood holiday home where she discovered her love of Cornwall.

Rebecca is a masterpiece, this is the hill I will die on.

I didn't love it either op. It doesn't compare at all to Austen or the Brontes imo.

Why would it?? Completely different eras.

I read it as a teenager and I didn't know the plot. I still remember the thrill of Maxim's revelation. It's a classic. It came up in university a decade later where I first saw the film. It's great but no comparison to the book.

Yes, sorry I meant - didn't Maxim kill her THINKING she was pregnant? Or have I misremembered?

I meant the quality of writing, the prose, etc, nothing to do with the era. They are all considered classics but I don't think it's in the same league. Just my opinion