Book Review- Rebecca

 

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again," quoted my friend holding up her copy of Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. "Err what now?" was my response. "Don't tell me you've never read Rebecca," exclaimed my very astonished friend, "it's a classic!" Ashamed, I had to respond that I had actually never even heard of the book, never mind quoting what I later realized was the book's famous opening line. A quick poll amongst other friends who like to read proved that I was one of the very few who hadn't heard of the book, even if most hadn't read it themselves. 

After finishing Age of Innocence , a book that I absolutely loved, I was looking forward to launching straight into Rebecca especially since Piyali, the quoter of said book's opening line and my book club partner had hated AOI, decided to quit reading it midway and zipped through Rebecca, loving it yet again. I was intrigued by the first few chapters and I carried on reading... and reading.. and reading. "Does anything actually HAPPEN in this damn book?" I texted my friend. She asked me what page number I was on and asked me to keep reading. "Am halfway through," I messaged her a few days later, "still nothing." "Keep at it," came the not very encouraging response. I kept reading and thought ok NOW it's going to turn into a ghost story! Murder mystery maybe? Philosophical tale? All a dream? I met a friend for dinner and mentioned to him that I was reading Rebecca and there was absolutely no plot and that the story wasn't going anywhere. "I'd wait till I get to the last 100 pages of the book," he said smiling. He hadn't read the book he added, but instead watched the movie. Movie? I didn't know there was a movie. Apparently there is- An Alfred Hitchcock one that too, and I believe his first movie ever. I found that out after completing the book and in hindsight realize that the novel is right up Hitchcock's alley. 

So, I finally reached the fabled last hundred pages and bam! Suddenly my dull boring tale became a page turner and I was absolutely hooked. Is there a point to almost half of the book being painfully tedious? Well, yes, it definitely adds to the intrigue and ties it all in together. Could it have been conveyed in fewer words with a lot less description? Well yes, but like a Hitchcock movie it definitely adds to the story and builds it up to the crescendo. Would I recommend it? Definitely. If you have patience that is.

So, here's a glimpse into the story- the woman who acts as our narrator (whose name we never find out) reminisces about, as the first line would suggest, her time at Manderlay. The reader is then transported to the narrator's time as a young girl in Monte Carlo where she acts as a companion to a wealthy woman when meets the rich widower Maxim de Winter, who after a brief courtship offers to marry her and whisk her off to his palatial home that is Manderlay. The new Mrs de Winter goes to Manderlay but something is not quite right. With the sense of the late Rebecca de Winter still looming in the air and the downright spooky Mrs Danvers, the housekeeper and apparent lover of all things Rebecca hanging around things start getting downright strange for our poor narrator. Things go on and get stranger still till... 

Aah but you're going to have to read the book to find that out. Go on, I promise in the end it'll be worth your while. 

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Book Review- Age of Innocence

 Aah! The Age of Innocence! We decided to read this book in my 2 person book club when my friend's daughter was visiting town, joined us as an honorary member and came book shopping with us to help our future picks. I wanted to pick either The Great Gatsby or Age of Innocence but since she too wanted to read this we picked up AOI despite getting much resistance from her Mother. Since the TV show (and one of my ex guilty pleasures) Gossip Girl had referred to this book a few times, I knew it was about New York society, but I didn't really know too much else about it and hadn't seen the movie.
When I started reading the book I found it a bit difficult to get into as I hadn't read a classic for a while (it was written in 1920 but is set in the 1870's) and I found the language a bit difficult to get into. Once I realized to not get bogged into the descriptive element of the book and get the gist of the story line and narrative instead, I found the language to be incredibly beautiful and one of the main reasons why I loved the book so much. As I mentioned already, the book is set in New York City in an era that is governed by convention and appearances. In the first chapter itself I was thoroughly amused by these descriptions and figured the book could very easily be based in Modern Dubai! For example Wharton describes a woman who is at the opera in the setting scene, whose presence is even more noted as she is hosting a ball at her house later that evening, so wants to make a statement as to how well trained her staff are and how often they entertain that her presence is not even required at home. Now make that opera be set at the Madinat and the lady's home at the Emirates Hills and we've got a modern day fairytale! But, I digress...
The book is about a young man, Newland Archer, who is engaged to be married to the young May Welland when her cousin, Countess Olenska comes to town after leaving her husband and causes a stir in the conservative society of New York. Of course, Newland is completely besotted with May are men were expected to be, and May in turn seems to be at first glance the perfect "wife material"and a bit of a mindless bimbo to be honest, but that soon changes. Wharton has a wickedly delicious sense of humour that doesn't always come through at first, but soon you realize she's laughing at the nuances of the society along with you. Her language though shines halfway through the book when it comes to the romance between the characters and the sheer brilliance of her use of words kept me absolutely hooked on to the book. My most favourite line was when Newland Archer tells the Countess about the effect she has on him every time they meet- “Each time you happen to me all over again. ” And another one I absolutely loved- “I shan't be lonely now. I was lonely; I was afraid. But the emptiness and the darkness are gone; when I turn back into myself now I'm like a child going at night into a room where there's always a light.”
 The romance in the novel is beautiful, breathtaking and heart breaking at the same time. And if you think it's a typical romance novel with a predictable end, think again. And as I said earlier, especially if you live in Dubai you may find yourself drawing quite a few parallels... “It was the old New York way...the way people who dreaded scandal more than disease, who placed decency above courage, and who considered that nothing was more ill-bred than "scenes", except those who gave rise to them."
I absolutely loved the book and found myself savouring it towards the end as I enjoyed the writing so much. And of course if that's not reason enough, the fact that it won a Pulitzer in 1921 may be enough to tempt you?
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Book Review- Maus

This review refers to "The Complete Maus" which is a publication that contains book 1 and 2, which are also available separately. Maus is not a widely known book despite it having won a Pulitzer prize, and the only reason I'd heard of it and read it around 15 years ago, is because it caught my eye at my College bookstore in the US. After all, it isn't common for a comic book to be featured in any course's reading list, not to mention win a Pulitzer, and that made me want to pick it up and check it out. In my last post, I'd mentioned my book-a-week book club I'd started with a friend, and after Palace of Illusions and Animal Farm I suggested Maus to her and set about rereading the book again.

In case the illustration on the cover isn't a dead giveaway, I'll spell it out- Maus is about the holocaust and is a true story by Art Spiegelman who sets out to do a comic book depicting his Father's nightmarish journey, and ultimate survival, through the same. Through the book, the Jews have been depicted as mice, the Poles as Pigs and Germans as Cats. Ironically, the last book we'd read as part of the book club was Animal Farm which depicts events taking place right before WWII and of course, also uses animals to depict it's story. Having not read too much about the holocaust since I generally favour fiction to non-fiction, the subject matter was new to me as I'd even skipped out on watching movies on it such as Schindler's List. There is one thing knowing exactly what happened during the holocaust, but it's another to read through a painful narration of a man who went hungry for days and in some instances eats snow to be alive, for whom a small piece of bread is the difference between life and death, and whose family was almost all completely wiped out in the Holocaust.

When discussing the book with my friend during our book club meet, she and her daughter both gave me feedback that they hadn't really enjoyed the book and wondered how it had won a Pulitzer. My friend even said that she felt the story being told in comic form almost trivialized the occurrences. In hindsight, I feel Maus is about so much more than just the holocaust, it is a beautiful depiction of human suffering, the desire to survive in face of torment and the aftermath of that struggle. Spiegelman portrays his tense relationship with his father whom he shows being extremely stingy to the point of embarrassing his son on multiple occasions. At the end of the book he also portrays the Father's unpleasant reaction to an African American, which makes you think about racism and hate breeding hate. The most shocking is that Spiegelman's Mother survives all the torture of the holocaust only to commit suicide years later, without even leaving a note.

All in all I personally very much enjoyed Maus and would highly recommend it to anyone, especially for someone who, like me, may not have read too much about the holocaust.
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