"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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