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emaciated_dragon's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.25
jkathleen5's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
5.0
arlamont13's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
rebr_04's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
afterttherain's review against another edition
5.0
“I wondered how many people there were in the world who suffered, and continued to suffer, because they could not break out from their own web of shyness and reserve, and in their blindness and folly built up a great distorted wall in front of them that hid the truth.”
I took my time reading this because it was written in such beautiful details. I feel like I wouldn't give it justice if I had read it on my usual pace. Originally read this because apparently it inspired Taylor Swift's "tolerate it" which is a beautiful sad sad painful song. So honestly I don't know what exactly I was expecting when I picked up this book other than, well, a painful book.
There is a Lot in this book; of course, the romance, which felt like the main part of it - but it's also mystery and thriller - and even in the themes it varies all the way from class and power, to marriage, to grief and love, coming of age... It's such a well-rounded book? And there is something about the way it's written that makes you feel the pain of the narrator and watch her evolve and grow and change to a more mature version of herself. And I think something very impressive that du Maurier did in this book is that no matter how horrible the things that her characters are doing, you empathise and you root for them anyway. I think that is the best point you can get to in writing a book, to be able to create that kind of unconditional support from the readers.
Also in awe of the narrator's character development. There is something empowering in the way she rose and grew; and how her choices are hers and she owns up to them - and knowing that other people can't say anything about them.
I took my time reading this because it was written in such beautiful details. I feel like I wouldn't give it justice if I had read it on my usual pace. Originally read this because apparently it inspired Taylor Swift's "tolerate it" which is a beautiful sad sad painful song. So honestly I don't know what exactly I was expecting when I picked up this book other than, well, a painful book.
There is a Lot in this book; of course, the romance, which felt like the main part of it - but it's also mystery and thriller - and even in the themes it varies all the way from class and power, to marriage, to grief and love, coming of age... It's such a well-rounded book? And there is something about the way it's written that makes you feel the pain of the narrator and watch her evolve and grow and change to a more mature version of herself. And I think something very impressive that du Maurier did in this book is that no matter how horrible the things that her characters are doing, you empathise and you root for them anyway. I think that is the best point you can get to in writing a book, to be able to create that kind of unconditional support from the readers.
Also in awe of the narrator's character development. There is something empowering in the way she rose and grew; and how her choices are hers and she owns up to them - and knowing that other people can't say anything about them.
carolinejenica's review against another edition
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
hermiocow's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
julianepgn's review against another edition
emotional
mysterious
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
4.75
daja57's review against another edition
5.0
"Last night I dream I went to Manderley again" is the first line of this book, made famous by being the first (voiceover) line of the Hitchcock film (which, being made just two years after the book's publication, and starring Laurence Olivier, and winning the Oscar for Best Picture, was probably responsible for the book's enormous success but has subsequently coloured many people's reading of the book).
The novel is narrated by the never-named protagonist (all we are told, in chapter 4, is that she has "a very lovely and unusual name") in the first-person, past-tense. It is introduced (it's a sort of framing device, excpet that in the end we don't return to the frame) by her living abroad in a hotel with a man for whom she cares. She tells her story. As an orphaned young companion to a wonderfully spiteful old woman, she is staying in Monte Carlo when she meets Maxim de Winter. They fall in love and marry; he then takes her back to England where he lives in Manderley, a stately home. She finds it difficult to assume the role of chatelaine of the manor, especially since she has stepped into the shoes of the first Mrs de Winter, the eponymous Rebecca, a woman whom, it seems, the servants and the local community adored; the narrator assumes her new husband is still in thrall to his deceased first wife. Rebecca's shadow hangs heavily over the house, there are even suggestions that her ghost haunts it. There is tremendous conflict, especially from Mrs Danvers, the uber-competent housekeeper, who is still in mourning for the dead Rebecca. And there is a mystery about how Rebecca died.
The book is powered by the character of the narrator. She is an imaginative woman and this leads her to imagine what people are thinking and sometimes her assumptions are wrong, leading her into wonderful faux pas. She is also, at least in the first part of the book, hugely intimidated by the servants, leading her to do things like concealing little mistakes she makes. But when the chips are down, she becomes a tower of strength, powered by her love. (This character arc reminded me of that of the easily-bullied protagonist of my novel The Kids of God, although that takes a rather darker and, I think, more realistic turn.)
The first chapter provides the hook and acts as a sort of prologue or a framing device (without, however a corresponding epilogue to complete the frame). The narrator has a dream of her past life; presently she is living with an unnamed male companion in a sort of exile. Then she starts remembering what happened and the next sixth of the book describes how Prince Charming meets Cinderella while Cinderella's employer provides the ugly stepmother who seeks to prevent the blossoming romance.
The next part of the book, the main part, is a classic Gothic novel. Cinderella becomes the Damsel in Distress, transported to the Big House, whose West Wing is disused. Prince Charming is now the Brooding Hero-with-a-Mysterious-Past and the Housekeeper (described at first sight as "tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek-bones and great, hollow eyes gave her a skull's face, parchment white, set on a skeleton's frame" Ch 7) is the villain who has the Damsel in her power (though this is topsy-turvy in that the Damsel technically employs the villain). The house is haunted by the memories of Rebecca: there is the classic Gothic trope of the past infecting and contaminating the present. There's even a mad peasant on the seashore who makes cryptic comments which the reader just knows must be crucial to the plot!
Then comes the final quarter of the book which is almost a thriller.
At the heart of the novel, there is a wonderful set piece: the fancy dress balll. It is one of those moments when the reader is ahead of the narrator and understands exactly what the consequences will be. Du Maurier takes her time building up the suspense, putting in delay after delay: I was reading this section as fast as I could. It was glorious. It is also characteristically Gothic: Ann Radcliffe, who wrote A Sicilian Romance, amongst many other books, suggested that terror was created by suspense.
There is some very cleverly constructed dialogue. In a number of scenes, when there is a secret of which some of the participants are unaware, the conversation is wonderfully one-sided. The innocent blather on about trivialities (the weather, social issues) and sometimes tangentially refer to the secret they don't know, while those in on the secret are restricted to replying almost in monosyllables, eg "'Yes,' I said." This device is repeated several times and works very well.
Like in her novel Jamaica Inn, Du Maurier milks the pathetic fallacy to the max. The weather in Cornwall always seems to mirror the narrator's mood, whether providing sun or (far more frequently) rain and, when needed, mist. Nevertheless, du Maurier gets away with this because of the brilliance of her descriptions of the countryside in all its meteorological moods. In her dream at the opening of the book, the narrator imagines a Manderley without its gardeners, where the tamed nature surrounding it has grown wild and reclaimed it; this is a trope of Gothic fiction.
The only bit that slightly let the novel down, I thought, was the rather over melodramatic scene in which the housekeeper, now apparently a madwoman, tries to persuade the narrator to jump out of the window. But all the best Gothic novels have moments of melodrama.
The novel is narrated by the never-named protagonist (all we are told, in chapter 4, is that she has "a very lovely and unusual name") in the first-person, past-tense. It is introduced (it's a sort of framing device, excpet that in the end we don't return to the frame) by her living abroad in a hotel with a man for whom she cares. She tells her story. As an orphaned young companion to a wonderfully spiteful old woman, she is staying in Monte Carlo when she meets Maxim de Winter. They fall in love and marry; he then takes her back to England where he lives in Manderley, a stately home. She finds it difficult to assume the role of chatelaine of the manor, especially since she has stepped into the shoes of the first Mrs de Winter, the eponymous Rebecca, a woman whom, it seems, the servants and the local community adored; the narrator assumes her new husband is still in thrall to his deceased first wife. Rebecca's shadow hangs heavily over the house, there are even suggestions that her ghost haunts it. There is tremendous conflict, especially from Mrs Danvers, the uber-competent housekeeper, who is still in mourning for the dead Rebecca. And there is a mystery about how Rebecca died.
The book is powered by the character of the narrator. She is an imaginative woman and this leads her to imagine what people are thinking and sometimes her assumptions are wrong, leading her into wonderful faux pas. She is also, at least in the first part of the book, hugely intimidated by the servants, leading her to do things like concealing little mistakes she makes. But when the chips are down, she becomes a tower of strength, powered by her love. (This character arc reminded me of that of the easily-bullied protagonist of my novel The Kids of God, although that takes a rather darker and, I think, more realistic turn.)
The first chapter provides the hook and acts as a sort of prologue or a framing device (without, however a corresponding epilogue to complete the frame). The narrator has a dream of her past life; presently she is living with an unnamed male companion in a sort of exile. Then she starts remembering what happened and the next sixth of the book describes how Prince Charming meets Cinderella while Cinderella's employer provides the ugly stepmother who seeks to prevent the blossoming romance.
The next part of the book, the main part, is a classic Gothic novel. Cinderella becomes the Damsel in Distress, transported to the Big House, whose West Wing is disused. Prince Charming is now the Brooding Hero-with-a-Mysterious-Past and the Housekeeper (described at first sight as "tall and gaunt, dressed in deep black, whose prominent cheek-bones and great, hollow eyes gave her a skull's face, parchment white, set on a skeleton's frame" Ch 7) is the villain who has the Damsel in her power (though this is topsy-turvy in that the Damsel technically employs the villain). The house is haunted by the memories of Rebecca: there is the classic Gothic trope of the past infecting and contaminating the present. There's even a mad peasant on the seashore who makes cryptic comments which the reader just knows must be crucial to the plot!
Then comes the final quarter of the book which is almost a thriller.
At the heart of the novel, there is a wonderful set piece: the fancy dress balll. It is one of those moments when the reader is ahead of the narrator and understands exactly what the consequences will be. Du Maurier takes her time building up the suspense, putting in delay after delay: I was reading this section as fast as I could. It was glorious. It is also characteristically Gothic: Ann Radcliffe, who wrote A Sicilian Romance, amongst many other books, suggested that terror was created by suspense.
There is some very cleverly constructed dialogue. In a number of scenes, when there is a secret of which some of the participants are unaware, the conversation is wonderfully one-sided. The innocent blather on about trivialities (the weather, social issues) and sometimes tangentially refer to the secret they don't know, while those in on the secret are restricted to replying almost in monosyllables, eg "'Yes,' I said." This device is repeated several times and works very well.
Like in her novel Jamaica Inn, Du Maurier milks the pathetic fallacy to the max. The weather in Cornwall always seems to mirror the narrator's mood, whether providing sun or (far more frequently) rain and, when needed, mist. Nevertheless, du Maurier gets away with this because of the brilliance of her descriptions of the countryside in all its meteorological moods. In her dream at the opening of the book, the narrator imagines a Manderley without its gardeners, where the tamed nature surrounding it has grown wild and reclaimed it; this is a trope of Gothic fiction.
The only bit that slightly let the novel down, I thought, was the rather over melodramatic scene in which the housekeeper, now apparently a madwoman, tries to persuade the narrator to jump out of the window. But all the best Gothic novels have moments of melodrama.