Rebecca – DaneCobain.com

Daphne du Maurier – My Cousin Rachel | Review

Title: My Cousin Rachel

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 322

Rating: 2/5

Daphne du Maurier – My Cousin Rachel

I had high hopes for this after enjoying Rebecca, but I can’t help but feel as though du Maurier is a one trick pony after reading this. It was pretty much the same book, but without the successful execution, and that made it a bit of a slog from start to finish. With Rebecca, I couldn’t put it down. With this, I had to read 20 pages a night just to make sure that I picked it up, and even then it helped to put me to sleep.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the writing style. It’s more that the pacing is way off, to the point at which it’s hard to get interested in any of the characters because nothing seems to happen to them. There were a few great bits of prose, but they were interspersed with so much unnecessary drivel that instead of being the jewels in a crown, they were more like scraping up the crumbs from the bottom of a bag of crisps.

I wanted to love this one, and I went into it just assuming that I would do. After reading it, I’m hesitant to give du Maurier another go, although I do have Frenchman’s Creek and I enjoyed some of her short stories. This one, though, was a big disappointment, and it felt a bit like going to see a one hit wonder in concert and discovering that other than their one hit, they just play covers and sound like a pub band. Maybe my expectations were too high.

All in all, I say skip this one, especially if you’ve read du Maurier before and you weren’t too keen on her. I just hope this wasn’t her at her best because if it is, it doesn’t bode well for her others.

Daphne du Maurier

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Daphne du Maurier – Rebecca | Review

Title: Rebecca

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 432

Rating: 4*/5

Daphne du Maurier – Rebecca

First off, whatever you do, don’t read the Virago Modern Classics edition. The front cover is a spoiler for the last page and the introductory essay is a spoiler for the other 431 of them. I already knew a little bit about the story line of Rebecca because of its parodies in popular culture, and particularly Mitchell and Webb which ruined the scene with the dress from the portrait, and what I didn’t know was spoiled by Sally Beauman’s introductory essay. And from what I understand, that was only there in the first place to try to get you to buy her “award-winning Rebecca’s Tale, authorised by the du Maurier estate.” Yeah, I won’t be reading that.

Because of all that, this entire read felt more like a re-read, even though it’s the first time I’ve ever picked it up. And that’s a shame, because it took a lot of the enjoyment out of it for me. Sure, it was good to read it to see how du Maurier told the story, but none of it took me by surprise, as I imagine it would have if I’d read it in 1938. I’ve also never read Jane Eyre, which apparently it’s based on, so maybe I would have got more from it if I’d read that.

The unnamed narrator is bland and boring, at least for the majority of the book, but that’s a deliberate ploy on du Maurier’s part. Still, it was kind of irritating to have to read her whittering on about stuff, especially when you already know what’s going to happen and that it’ll make most of what she’s even going on about completely redundant. Maxim de Winter and Mrs Danvers were much more interesting.

Daphne du Maurier

I also found it entertaining because I didn’t trust Rebecca and then it turned out that I’d sussed her character out when everyone else in the book was taken in by her. But that wasn’t outright spelled out or spoiled for me and so even though I called it, at least I called it myself. I was also taken by surprise by a twist towards the end when they called upon Rebecca’s former doctor, but I also thought it was a little too convenient.

Overall, based on my reading experience, Rebecca just scrapes a 4/5, and only because I’m generous and based on the strength of du Maurier’s writing. Without being spoiled, it would have been an easy 5* and a contender for my book of the year. Oh well.