Rebecca

During the month of June my book club chose to read the classic Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier.  Even though the movie adaptation is one of my very favorites (I am a huge fan of Alfred Hitchcock), I had never actually read this book! It was quite unusual for me to be comparing the book to the movie instead of vice versa.  I kept picturing Laurence Olivier as Maxim de Winter and Joan Fontaine as his second wife (I didn't realize until reading the book that the narrator is never actually named).  The narrator is a shy, mousy, and penniless young woman in Monte Carlo as the paid companion to an odious woman. There she meets the aloof and tormented Maxim de Winter and, after a whirlwind romance, she spontaneously marries him.  When they return to Manderley, Max's opulent home on the coast of Cornwall, she begins to feel the oppressive presence of Rebecca, the first Mrs. de Winter. Knowing that she cannot compete with the beautiful and sophisticated Rebecca, the narrator begins to doubt her relationship with Max and sinks into despair.  The housekeeper at Manderley, the sinister Mrs. Danvers, tells the narrator that she will never live up to Rebecca and tries to convince her to commit suicide.  There are quite a few plot twists as the circumstances of Rebecca's mysterious death are revealed and the story builds and builds to a startling conclusion. Despite seeing the movie more times than I can count, I was literally on the edge of my seat from the suspense.  The novel is even more suspenseful than the movie because the reader is actually inside the head of the narrator as she is slowly driven mad. However, I do feel that the movie does a better job of making Rebecca an actual character in the story, perhaps because film is a visual medium.  I really enjoyed reading this classic Gothic romance and, if you are a fan of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre (and I certainly am), I suspect you will enjoy Rebecca as well.

Note:  I also highly recommend the Academy Award winning movie.  Good stuff.