Customer Rating:  
Summary: Transported to Manderley.
Comment: This was a great read and I am so glad I found it. The first two chapters are slow, so give it a chance to at least get through those (I noticed some readers gave up way too soon!). I read the book in a couple of days' time. The book is to me, not a romance, though it is labeled as such. There are romantic elements to the book, but they are not the forefront. It is more about the internal and external struggles of the heroine and her quest to uncover secrets surrounding her. This book was eerie in the way that Great Expectations was to me (thinking Mrs. Havisham). Very vivid, I felt i could almost smell the azaleas in the garden. I loved it and will pass it on to friends and absolutely plan to watch the Hitchock movie and read more of her books!
Customer Rating:
Summary: This is a character study, not a romance or mystery really
Comment: For all of Rebecca's hype as the "modern masterpiece" of Gothic fiction, romantic suspense, etc., I think readers need to understand exactly what they will be getting with this story. I can understand people's frustration with the Second Mrs. De Winter (I wanted to slap her repeatedly too) and what they perceive as a "boring narrative pace" where nothing "happens until the last hundred pages or so," and while these are all valid points to a degree, I think they should approach the novel from a different perspective.
Rebecca is first and foremost a probe into human psychology. Du Maurier herself saw this as a "study of jealousy." There is romance, but the story is not romantic, nor was it intended to be. The narrator and Maxim have a love of co-dependency on her part and selfishness on his part. A forty-two year old man and twenty-one year old girl meet in Monte Carlo and marry within several weeks. The man takes his inexperienced bride back to his great estate and thrusts her into a life she's not prepared for. The Second Mrs. De Winter becomes insecure and obsessive over her husband's dead first wife, the seemingly beautiful, intelligent, and perfect Rebecca.
People claim that the Second Mrs. De Winter is spineless, weak, over-imaginative, and spends her time making the situation worse than it is, imagining that she is more deficient that she is, and they are right! But the narrator is not supposed to be anything other than that. The Second Mrs. De Winter is pathetic, and she could have solved a lot of her problems by simply firing Mrs. Danvers and/or taking initiative, but she allows her own internal fears to stop her from doing anything. She keeps trying to convince herself that she and Maxim "are happy," even though the shadow of the past looms over them. When Maxim goes away to London for a few days, the narrator actually feels more free and happier than she's been in a while then tells herself she's being "wicked," "unloyal," that Maxim is her "world." The relationship has a dark undertone to it from the beginning. Even when Maxim proposes to her, she tells herself that she didn't really want a "church wedding" and all that, except she does.
Mrs. Danvers, the creepy housekeeper, obsesses over Rebecca too and resents the Second Mrs. De Winter for both replacing her mistress AND for being a coward (if our narrator had been bold the first time they met it might have made for an entirely different dynamic between the two, maybe Danvers might even have respected her a little). Mrs. Danvers loved Rebecca for being strong, and the psychological warfare she wages upon the narrator, as well as the shrine she keeps for Rebecca makes for interesting material.
Maxim is our third character study. His and Rebecca's relationship and the drama that followed could have been prevented if Maxim hadn't allowed his pride and excessive love of "Manderly" to...well, I leave that for the reader to discover. About halfway through the book, he asks if his wife is he was "selfish" for marrying her, showing that he's aware of what he's done yet there's not much he can do about it now. Maxim broods, is aloof and on the cold-blooded side, and how much he loves the narrator for herself versus her being the anti-Rebecca (and thus helping him to "blot out the past") is a subject of discussion.
I've seen a few people who called the ending "happily ever after." They need to re-read the end and the beginning of the novel (which I grant--the first two chapters are a chore to get through). The narrator and Maxim survive through their ordeal, escape, and are "free" from the past with no "secrets between us now," but they live in exile, scarred forever by what has happened. They do not go off into the sunset. In fact, one must go back to narrator's obnoxious employer, Mrs. Van Hopper, who upon hearing of her engagement to Maxim, says "you are making a big mistake--one you will bitterly regret." One can't help but wonder if the Mrs. Van Hopper wasn't right, not that the narrator would ever allow herself to *think* so.
The character of Rebecca herself is fascinating. Dead before the story begins, we only know her through what other people say. And as the Second Mrs. De Winter's demonstrates through her own narrative, perception can be quite different from reality.
If you're looking for an epic, love conquers all romance or an exciting, thrilling plot in the modern sense, Rebecca might not be for you. But if you allow yourlself to understand the subtlties of the Second Mrs. De Winter's highly subjective narrative--what she believes or imagines versus what is true--and if you are willing to journey into the complexity of human nature and relationships, Rebecca is well worth your time and energy. And once you past the first few chapters, it's quite an easy read.
This is a novel of character.
Customer Rating:
Summary: the anti-character
Comment: Rebecca de Winter is dead when this story begins, and yet is its strongest character. She haunts the second Mrs. de Winter (whose first name we never learn) even before her arrival at Manderley. Convinced that Mr. de Winter is still in love with Rebecca, she allows herself to be completely undone by the prospect of stepping into Rebecca's shoes. She is scared witless by Mrs. Danvers, the overbearing and creepy housekeeper, who remains devoted to Rebecca and determined to keep everything at Manderly just the way it was before Rebecca died.
To be fair, Mr. de Winter seems to give absolutely no consideration of the fact that she might feel out of her league and doesn't seem to even notice her distress. However, even when the de Winters finally start communicating and things look like they might work out, she continues to act like a nitwit. It's very hard to sympathize which such a protagonist, but that aside, this is an excellent work of suspense.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Rebecca
Comment:
While beautiful, the descriptions are sometimes over the top. I would imagine something one way after reading a bit, then the author would say something that shattered my mental image for absolutely no necessary reason other than being hopelessly verbose. Perhaps this is my own problem, but with so many descriptions I would have to try to figure out what the particular setting was, now.
Beyond that, if you are willing to skim and dig for the important points, a rather haunting book at times.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Loved it
Comment: One of my most favorite books ever. You must remember when it was written and the period it is set in when reading. From other reviews I see some have become bored and impatient with the book which is a shame. If you take the time to understand the characters, including Manderley, you may find more to consider than it seems.
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