2022 reread: I started reading the upcoming novel What Moves the Dead (by one of my favorite authors, T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) and realized that 2022 reread: I started reading the upcoming novel What Moves the Dead (by one of my favorite authors, T. Kingfisher (Ursula Vernon) and realized that it’s a novelization of this famous story by Poe. So I put a pin in her novel to do a quick reread of this story. It’s as creepy and atmospheric and filled with decay as I remembered! The dual meaning of the title is reflected in several dualities within the tale itself: the Usher siblings, the mouldering house and family, the sounds of the story being read by the narrator echoing in actuality — it would be interesting to see how many more dualities are there if I looked harder!
Original review: Edgar Allan Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher" is one of the original haunted house tales. This story embodies old-fashioned gothic horror.
[image] Arthur Rackham illustration
The unnamed narrator tells of his visit to the dreary country home of his boyhood friend, Roderick Usher. He notices (and describes at length) how both Roderick and his house are crumbling at the edges. Roderick is a deeply mentally disturbed person; his sister Madeline, who wafts past the two men once without regarding them, seems equally troubled, but in different ways. And there's something unexpressed but troubling about the relationship between brother and sister.*
[image] 1919 illustration for this story by Harry Clarke. It doesn't seem to track the story exactly, but it's certainly a weirdly marvelous drawing
This story struck me at first as too verbose - Poe gets perhaps a bit carried away with his descriptions of decay, both in the narrator's friend, Roderick Usher, and in his sister (who at different times reminded me of a ghost or a vampire), and in their house itself. But things get creepier as the story moves along, and the ending is truly chilling.
The physical house of the Ushers, with its large crack in its walls, and its decrepitude and instability, is mirrored in the persons of Roderick Usher and his twin sister. "House of Usher," of course, can mean either the physical house or the family dynasty, a point Poe makes expressly clear. "Usher," too, reverbates with meaning: what kind of a godforsaken place is the narrator - and we as readers - being ushered into?
*SparkNotes offers this opinion: "The family has no enduring branches, so all genetic transmission has occurred incestuously within the domain of the house." Ewww!
The House of Usher is brought to life in this Ray Bradbury story.
[image] Arthur Rackham illustration of the House of Usher
4.5 stars. Review first postThe House of Usher is brought to life in this Ray Bradbury story.
[image] Arthur Rackham illustration of the House of Usher
4.5 stars. Review first posted on Fantasy Literature. (check out the other horror story reviews in that column - I put it together and am proud of it). :)
William Stendahl, a fan of fantasy and horror books and films, has spent $4 million recreating the House of Usher on the planet Mars. It’s always twilight on the property; the color is desolate and terrible; the walls are bleak; tarn is black and lurid. It’s perfect … and it’s completely illegal. Earth’s government turned against all speculative fiction years ago, in an excess of commitment to realism, and in the Burning of 1975 all books and films containing fairy tales, science fiction, fantasy or horror were destroyed. Stendahl knows the enforcers of Moral Climates are spreading their rules and restrictions from Earth to Mars and that he’ll only be able to enjoy his expensive creation for days, if not hours. But he has plans to fight back in an extremely creative ― and appropriate ― way.
The robots, clothed in hair of ape and white of rabbit, arose: Tweedledum following Tweedledee, Mock-Turtle, Dormouse, drowned bodies from the sea compounded of salt and whiteweed, swaying; hanging blue throated men with turned-up, clam-flesh eyes, and creatures of ice and burning tinsel, loam-dwarfs and pepper-elves, Tik-tok, Ruggedo, St. Nicholas with a self-made snow flurry blowing on before him, Bluebeard with whiskers like acetylene flame, and sulphur clouds from which green fire snouts protruded, and, in scaly and gigantic serpentine, a dragon with a furnace in its belly reeled out the door with a scream, a tick, a bellow, a silence, a rush, a wind. … The night was enchanted.
“Usher II” is an homage to Edgar Allan Poe‘s “The Fall of the House of Usher,” “The Cask of Amontillado” and several other classic fantasy and horror works. Bradbury’s lyrical, evocative language lends itself well to the plot. It’s darkly enjoyable to watch Stendahl and his friend Pike, an out-of-work character actor, execute their twisted and vengeful plans.
The story does require quite a lot of suspension of disbelief. For starters, it was written in 1950, and the “future” in which “Usher II” is set is the year 2005. Four million dollars would buy a lot today, but certainly not a house filled with the sophisticated robots and technology described here. While censorship may be a problem, it hasn’t really touched upon the speculative fiction genre as a whole … though the current swell of power of Twitter social justice warriors and self-appointed content police does give one pause for thought. And Stendahl’s plan isn’t precisely the thing to make the morality enforcers rethink their position.
So it’s entirely possible that because of the nostalgia factor (I first read this story at a young, impressionable age) my rating is higher than it would otherwise be, but I still enjoyed it thoroughly on reread. I recommend listening to this 1975 recording of Leonard Nimoy reading "Usher II"....more
3.5 stars for this satirical Victorian-era novella by Oscar Wilde. Young Lord Arthur, engaged to the lovely Sybil (interesting name choice, there!) go3.5 stars for this satirical Victorian-era novella by Oscar Wilde. Young Lord Arthur, engaged to the lovely Sybil (interesting name choice, there!) goes to a posh party hosted by Lady Windermere, where one of the amusements is the eerily accurate fortune-telling by her pet palm reader, Mr. Podgers. Lord Arthur decides to take his turn:
Lord Arthur smiled, and shook his head. ‘I am not afraid,’ he answered. ‘Sybil knows me as well as I know her.’
‘Ah! I am a little sorry to hear you say that. The proper basis for marriage is a mutual misunderstanding. No, I am not at all cynical, I have merely got experience, which, however, is very much the same thing.'
Unfortunately, Podgers (on the hush) predicts an ominous future for Lord Arthur: he's going to murder a distant relative. Arthur decides to take fate by the hands and commit the murder sooner rather than later, so he can wash his hands of it and marry his sweet, beautiful fiancee without this burden on his soul. <--- This totally didn't make sense to me but you just have to roll with it.
But fate has its own plans for Lord Arthur.
I never was able to really buy into the nonsensical central premise, but I guess that's the beauty of this parody of the Gothic genre. Oscar Wilde's engaging wit and epigrams raise this story several notches, and the ending was a pleasant surprise.
Upping my rating to 5 stars on reread. I have to hand it to Daphne du Maurier: she takes the fusty old gothic novel conventions and tropes, and[image]
Upping my rating to 5 stars on reread. I have to hand it to Daphne du Maurier: she takes the fusty old gothic novel conventions and tropes, and amps them up in this 1936 novel. The setting is classic gothic―it's the 1820s in a lonely, cold and windswept area of Cornwall, near the treacherous Bodmin Moor, in a decaying inn that all honest people avoid.
[image] The real Jamaica Inn, built in 1750, which inspired this novel
An isolated, orphaned young woman, 23 year old Mary Yellan, comes to stay with the pretty and outgoing aunt and handsome uncle that she remembers hearing about in letters that her mother received years ago, but finds that he is a hulking, abusive man and her aunt is now beaten and downtrodden. Something terrible is going on at Jamaica Inn, where her brutal uncle is the innkeeper, and Mary can't resist trying to figure it out. Even though she's warned off by, well, pretty much everyone. The only person Mary is willing to trust is the softspoken, albino vicar of a nearby village, who helps Mary a couple of times when she's lost or in trouble, but he lives a few miles away from the inn.
Du Maurier injects elements of true horror―not the supernatural kind, but what can be in people's hearts. Her Aunt Patience (aptly named) is an abused woman who stays with and takes care of her bully of a husband. Du Maurier also includes a very dubious romantic interest for Mary, her uncle's younger brother Jem, a habitual horse thief in whose lawless way of life and his rather careless treatment of Mary I could see some seeds of what his older brother became. It's not a book that left me entirely comfortable in the end ... but I think that's what the author wanted.
Well played, Daphne!
P.S. I strongly recommend that you avoid spoilers, including the Wikipedia article, which gives away the goings on right up front. I had great fun speculating on what exactly was going on at the inn. I was close, but it was worse than I thought. The final twist I guessed, but it was still creepy.
Some of the elements in this story reminded me powerfully of a 1997 movie that in a few ways is like a 20th century version of Jamaica Inn:(view spoiler)[ [image] with Kurt Russell and Kathleen Quinlan (hide spoiler)]...more
3.5 stars. Merlin's Keep really puts the gothic into the gothic historic romance genre, with some mystical and even seriously twisted occult aspects t3.5 stars. Merlin's Keep really puts the gothic into the gothic historic romance genre, with some mystical and even seriously twisted occult aspects to the plot. I have mixed feels here; parts of it I enjoyed a lot; other parts not so much.
Like most of the other Madeleine Brent novels I've read, this one takes a young British heroine and gives her an exotic foreign upbringing: Colonial India in this case. Jani is half-Indian, raised in northern India by a Cockney regimental sergeant major she calls Sembur, who may or may not be her father. He's been on the run for years, for reasons that become clear later on.
When Jani is 12, fate catches up to her and Sembur, and she ends up in the care of the young British captain who was tracking down Sembur. The captain nurses her through a bad case of diphtheria and then has to leave her to the care of an orphanage in England.
We follow Jani as she becomes a young woman, and her story gets even more complicated: a mysterious past, a fortuitous meeting (involving a poisonous viper!) that changes the course of Jani's life, an evil "Silver Man" with occult powers, Haitian voodoo, Tibetan monks with foresight, and more. It's a wild ride, fun if you don't mind seriously suspending disbelief, and kept me up reading too late.
I prefer the less creepy and Twilight Zone-ish Brent novels, but I still enjoyed Merlin's Keep....more
Mistress of Mellyn is one of Victoria Holt's old gothic romantic suspense novels, published in 1960. It's the quintessential "governess in peril falliMistress of Mellyn is one of Victoria Holt's old gothic romantic suspense novels, published in 1960. It's the quintessential "governess in peril falling in love with someone above her station" plot. It's a pretty good, old-fashioned novel of its type, one of the better Victoria Holt novels I've read here and there over the years.
Martha (Marty) Leigh is an impoverished gentlewoman forced to become a governess due to her circumstances. She takes a job in Cornwall, a corner of England that, I was surprised to learn, actually has a subtropical climate (palm trees!). Her duty is to teach and care for the obstinate, emotionally neglected daughter of a widowed master of the mansion, Connan TreMellyn. Connan's wife Alice disappeared a year ago and died in a train crash while running away with another man ... so they say. But Martha still feels Alice's presence around the TreMellyn mansion.
To thicken the plot, we have Peter Nansellock, a handsome neighbor paying Martha some extra attention; his kind sister Celestine; Gillyflower, an emotionally disturbed young daughter of a dead servant and a gentleman who abandoned her; Lady Treslyn, a vividly lovely, young former actress and the wife of an elderly lord, who seems to be waiting for him to die so she can marry Connan; a devoted and gossipy housekeeper with a taste for whiskey in her tea; and various other characters.
Victoria Holt's writing style is prosaic; it's never going to inspire me. But she draws a good plot here. The murder mystery bubbles along under the surface until surfacing with a vengeance late in the pages of this book. There's just a little spookiness here (is Alice really haunting the mansion? maybe...) to flavor the plot.
3.5 stars. Recommended for readers who like old-fashioned gothic romances....more
3.5 stars, rounding up. So we've got a rechristened Retro Reads GR group (for early- to mid-20th century nostalgic type reads, mostly historical ficti3.5 stars, rounding up. So we've got a rechristened Retro Reads GR group (for early- to mid-20th century nostalgic type reads, mostly historical fiction with some mysteries and romances mixed in), and there's an upcoming buddy read of Victoria Holt's Mistress of Mellyn in about two weeks. It sounded kind of fun to me, and I found a big fat omnibus volume of Holt gothic romantic suspense novels on Abebooks:
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$4 for the hardback of all four novels, and no shipping charge. Score! It arrived in the mail yesterday and I was having a really hard time not jumping the gun on the Mistress of Mellyn BR (I may or may not have read a few chapters). So to distract myself from that one, I opened up Bride of Pendorric, and read the whole thing last night (it's only a couple of hundred pages in this book).
It's a pretty classic novel of the gothic romance type, published in 1963 and set in that era. 18 or 19 year old Favel Farrington lives with her widowed artist father on the island of Capri. A 32 year old British man, Roc Pendorric, visits their studio and sweeps Favel off her feet, marrying her a few weeks later in a whirlwind romance. When Favel's father mysteriously dies while swimming in the ocean, Roc takes Favel back to his Cornwall mansion, Pendorric.
Roc and everyone else in the area have a habit of calling Favel the latest Bride of Pendorric, and the ominous story soon comes out: some Pendorric brides have died young, and there's a legend that each Bride will haunt their home in turn, until the next young bride dies. Favel is a practical person, so she shrugs it off, or tries to. But soon dangerous accidents (OR ARE THEY?) start to happen, and Favel has no idea who she can trust. And her husband has pretty clearly been keeping some major secrets from her...
This is one of the better Victoria Holt novels I've read. She's not a great writer, for my money: she too often tells the story rather than showing it (I never felt any real romantic tension between the main characters), and the pace can get a little plodding. But she's good at building up the suspense, and you feel the confusion of the heroine.
I wasn't fond of the large age gap between Favel and Roc, or his occasionally high-handed ways, though you see that kind of thing a lot in these older gothic romances. The mystery here was predictable in one sense but not in another: I spotted the villain early on, but Holt gets points for a late twist that I only saw coming a couple of pages before the big reveal. I've seen this kind of thing in a couple of other mysteries, but this book was written earlier.
Recommended for those who like retro gothic romances....more
In Cousin Kate, one of Georgette Heyer's later books (written in 1968, 46 years after her first book, The Black Moth, was published), Georgette tried In Cousin Kate, one of Georgette Heyer's later books (written in 1968, 46 years after her first book, The Black Moth, was published), Georgette tried a Gothic spin on one of her historical romances, with distinctly mixed results.
Kate Malvern, alone in the world at age 23, has just lost her governess job because the wrong guy made a pass at her, can't get another job, and has no money and nowhere to go except her old nanny's home, which isn't a good permanent solution for her. Her devoted and loving nanny, Sarah Nidd, secretly writes a letter to Kate's one relative that seems likely to be of help: Kate's aunt, Lady Minerva Broome. Minerva, a extremely determined and managing type, swoops in to carry the startled Kate off to Staplewood, Minerva's manor, where she lives with her elderly ailing husband, Sir Timothy, and her also ailing son, 19 year old Torquil, who is drop-dead gorgeous but also sulky, spoiled and ... strange.
At first all seems reasonably good: Sir Timothy is kind although distant, Torquil seems to enjoy Kate's company, and Lady Broome is overwhelmingly generous with new clothing and presents for Kate. Torquil's older cousin Philip soon shows up, and sparks fly between him and Kate even though she resents him, because of Reasons.
But odd incidents keep occurring at Staplewood, Torquil's erratic behavior is becoming more of a problem, and Minerva Broome's generosity to Kate starts to feel suffocating ... especially since people keep hinting that Minerva has ulterior motives. And for some reason Kate's letters to Sarah Nidd are never answered, and she starts to feel isolated and uncomfortable. Philip wants to be there for Kate, but Kate isn't sure that that's the right solution.
The marriage between Heyer's lighthearted Regency romance sensibilities and darker Gothic suspense never quite fell into place for me. Heyer takes on the problem of mental illness in this plot, and writes about it with sympathy, but I don't think she really understood it well enough to do it justice, which is a problem when almost the entire plot is focused on this one issue. Heyer takes the easy way out of this one in the end, and the very ending is one of those odd, abrupt ones that occasionally pop up in her novels.
I thought that the romance, although it was a secondary plotline, was rather charming. Both the heroine and hero were appealing ... well, aside from Kate's penchant for second-guessing herself and others, dithering around unnecessarily, and feeling like she owes more to Lady Broome than she should. For a heroine who was otherwise fairly mature and strong-minded, this was frustrating behavior.
But other than this, Kate is excellent in a crisis and has a good sense of humor, and some of the secondary characters, especially her old nurse Sarah Nidd and her father-in-law, old Mr. Nidd, were original and delightful. I would have enjoyed this book more if it had been more about the Nidds than the unfortunate Broome family.
... and Jane Austen just having fun with us. [image] "Now I must give one smirk, and then weA creepy mansion ... [image]
Dark and stormy nights ... [image]
... and Jane Austen just having fun with us. [image] "Now I must give one smirk, and then we may be rational again."
Seventeen year old Catherine Morland, as innocent and naïve a heroine as Austen ever created, with no particular distinguishing characteristics except goodhearted sincerity and an overfondness for Gothic novels, is invited to stay in Bath for several weeks with kindly and wealthy neighbors. She meets a new bestie, Isabella ... [image]
... as well as Henry Tilney, a guy who's far too quick―not to mention wealthy―for her. But he has a weakness for cute girls who totally admire him. [image]
Their relationship strikes me as weak, probably because Austen was focused more on creating a parody by turning Gothic conventions on their heads than on creating a compelling heroine and romance. Henry is a great character, but Catherine really isn't quite up to his level, despite all of Jane Austen's rationalizations (though maybe that's true to life sometimes). However, I comfort myself with the thought that Catherine isn't unintelligent, just young and inexperienced. I have faith in Henry's ability to kindly help her learn to think more deeply and critically.
Austen inserts a lot of sarcastic side comments mocking Gothic plot elements, like Catherine's father being "not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters" and her mother "instead of dying in bringing the latter [sons] into the world, as anybody might expect," still living on in inexplicably good health. But Austen also takes the time, whilst skewering Gothic novels, to make a few pleas to readers in favor of novels generally. And she creates one of her most deliciously shallow and hypocritical characters in Isabella, whose mendacious comments, along with Henry's sarcastic ones, were the biggest pleasure in this book for me.
When Catherine is invited to visit with Henry's family at the formidable Northanger Abbey, all her Gothic daydreams finally seem poised to come true. A mysterious heavy chest in her bedroom, with silver handles "broken perhaps prematurely by some strange violence"; an odd locked area of the house; a man she suspects of doing away with his wife. Gasp! Austen makes fun of it all, and Catherine's "disturbed imagination" along with it. Catherine repeatedly gets shot down and then makes firm although not necessarily long-lasting resolutions not to let her imagination run away with her in the future. But it seems likely that, in the end, she's gained some experience and wisdom.
Good fun! The 2007 BBC TV movie with Felicity Jones and JJ Feild takes a few liberties with the book's plot, but I still recommend it highly.
Random trivia: Watership Down uses the ending lines from Northanger Abbey as one of its final chapter heading quotes, in what is probably my favorite use ever of a literary quote in an entirely different yet completely fitting context....more
Lord of the Far Island is an older Gothic mystery/romance by the prolific Victoria Holt.
Ellen Kellaway is the poor orphaned relative taken in by wealtLord of the Far Island is an older Gothic mystery/romance by the prolific Victoria Holt.
Ellen Kellaway is the poor orphaned relative taken in by wealthier relatives, who never let her forget her place. She's (reluctantly) on track to become a governess when she's swept off her feet by Phillip, the attractive son of a neighboring family. We're way too early in the book for a Happily Ever After, though, and sure enough, disaster strikes. Luckily for Ellen, a relative of her father suddenly and conveniently appears to whisk her away to Far Island, the Kellaway family island in Cornwall. Ellen begins to fall in love, both with Far Island and with its owner. But there is a dangerous mystery about the island and Ellen's past life that may interfere with her happiness once again.
LOTFI had its moments but was rather forgettable and a little . . . formulaic? I guessed the villain by the simple process of discounting the obvious suspects and then picking the next most likely suspect. Agatha Christie, she's not. I was also more irritated with the love interest and his high-handedness than charmed by him, which isn't the main emotion you want to be feeling when you're reading a gothic romance. And the whole thing with the heroine's lifelong nightmares of a vaguely ominous room was in the end, I thought, a little anticlimactic. Like The Shivering Sands, there's a Sybil fortune teller who Knows and Sees All.
Also, commas can be your friends! [image]
On the plus side, I really enjoyed the scenes where Ellen was getting to know the island of her ancestors. I want my own island! And while the first third of the book and the rest were a little disjointed, in the end the two parts came together in a satisfying way. It's not a bad read if you enjoy the old-fashioned Gothic romances....more
I give up. At least for now. The library wants its copy back, and after 6 months and several renewals, I can't blame them. :) It just never really engI give up. At least for now. The library wants its copy back, and after 6 months and several renewals, I can't blame them. :) It just never really engaged me and I kept getting distracted by other shinier reads.
"On hiatus" is a nice way of saying DNF, but I plan to try again with this book sometime....more
3.5 stars for this romantic suspense novel. Cadi (short for Caterina, her Italian grandmother's name) Tregaron is a fisherman's daughter, living in Co3.5 stars for this romantic suspense novel. Cadi (short for Caterina, her Italian grandmother's name) Tregaron is a fisherman's daughter, living in Cornwall in the early 1900's. When she's 17, she and her father help rescue a gentleman who's been caught in a small sailboat, in a treacherous undertow. Mr. Morton and his handsome nephew, Lucian Farrel, thank Cadi and her father and disappear from their lives for a couple of years. Cadi's got very mixed feelings about Lucian; he reminds her of a man in a mystical, recurring dream that she has of a starlit, palace-like house by the water, a man who sometimes brings her great joy in her dream, and other times terrifies her.
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When Cadi's father dies a couple of years later, leaving her alone in the world, Mr. Morton finds out about it and comes back to Cornwall, asking her to come live with his family. Cadi gradually adjusts to a very different, upper-crust sort of life with the Morton family, some of whom can be a little ... odd, but she does have a great relationship with Mr. Morton. She sees Lucian from time to time, and learns that he's in disgrace in society, accused of cowardice in the Boer Wars and cashiered from his regiment.
And then one day a minor accident happens. **slightly spoilerish info follows** (view spoiler)[It unexpectedly opens up the lost history of Cadi's Italian grandmother, who had been rescued from a drowning attempt by Cadi's sailor grandfather, and had never recovered her memories of her earlier life. The subsequent investigation leads Cadi to Venice and the palace she sees in her dreams, but also into danger, as there are threats to her life. And she's still not sure if Lucian is the evil person of her dreams or the man who will bring her joy. (hide spoiler)]
Tregaron's Daughter isn't as exotic as most of Madeleine Brent historical novels, with only a short part of the story taking place in Italy. The last quarter was exciting, but the story lags in the middle, and I'm always a little irritated with a mystery novel that has (view spoiler)[two villains working independently (hide spoiler)]; it seems rather unfair to readers trying to solve the mystery.
Overall Tregaron's Daughter struck me as a pretty standard historic gothic suspense read, but it does have its moments and some interesting characters. And portentous dreams. I'd only really recommend this one to those who love that genre. If you're considering a Madeleine Brent novel but haven't read any of hers yet, Golden Urchin is a better place to start....more
Manderley and I had a much more successful visit this time around, as compared to the first time I read this book several years ago. Here's the key: TManderley and I had a much more successful visit this time around, as compared to the first time I read this book several years ago. Here's the key: This is not a romance novel. It's a psychological suspense novel. As I reread Rebecca with this in mind, I had a much greater appreciation for its artistry, the way Daphne du Maurier skillfully used words to create a mood and increase the suspense.
We can never go back again, that much is certain. The past is still close to us. The things we have tried to forget and put behind us would stir again, and that sense of fear, of furtive unrest, struggling at length to blind unreasoning panic - now mercifully stilled, thank God - might in some manner unforeseen become a living companion as it had before.
The narrator, a young and painfully self-conscious girl, is a paid companion to Mrs. Van Hopper, a snobbish social climber. While they are in Monte Carlo, Mrs. Van Hopper bulldozes her way into an acquaintance with a quiet widower, Maxim de Winter. Despite our heroine's lack of status and social graces, Maxim begins spending time with her and soon asks her to marry him.
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Desperately in love with him, she does so, despite the vast differences in their ages, wealth, status ... just about everything. And despite his frequent rudeness and mockery of her.
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After a too-brief honeymoon, they return to England and Maxim's lovely country estate, Manderley, presided over by the skeletal housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers, who instantly takes a dislike to the new Mrs. de Winter. Mrs. Danvers does her best to undercut the main character's lack of confidence in every way possible, but mostly by holding up Maxim's first wife, Rebecca, as an impossibly high standard of beauty, taste and accomplishment, a standard that the second wife can never hope to reach.
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The second wife becomes more and more haunted by this paragon, Rebecca, even though there are clues in the things Maxim, his sister and others say - and don't say - that maybe there was more to Rebecca's character than the second wife realizes.
I found it fascinating how du Maurier tells you the end in the beginning, in such a way that it doesn't spoil the story at all, but adds to the underlying tension and sense of oppression. The second Mrs. de Winter thinks they are contented, and perhaps they are, but they are deeply damaged as well, living a sort of half-life.
Mrs. Danvers is quite the character: one wonders how much her presence in Rebecca's childhood influenced the person Rebecca became. And Rebecca herself ... well, without getting into spoiler territory, she has an amazing presence in this novel for someone who's dead before it even starts.
I have to say that the second Mrs. de Winter's paralyzing lack of self-confidence and her gaucherie, even though integral to the plot, was really irksome to me at first. Every time she'd start off into another daydream, which she did All. The. Time., imagining conversations and events out of whole cloth, I would mentally roll my eyes at her. But once I realized that this is not to be read as a romance novel (really, the relationship here is pretty unhealthy on both sides), I was free to appreciate the characters' shortcomings instead of being frustrated by them, and to see how those shortcomings and their past experiences combine to bring them together, but pull them apart at the same time. It's a fascinating psychological study.
My rating has gone from 3, to 4, to 5 stars. It's a book that has really stuck with me.
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Between the well-drawn, seriously flawed characters, the brooding atmosphere, with a feeling that disaster is just waiting for the right moment to strike, and the great plot twists, Rebecca is deservedly a classic in its genre.
Initial comments: I read Rebecca maybe 15 years ago and didn't really care for it back then. I'm not entirely sure now of the reasons why, but I think it may have been that I was expecting more of a romance with some nice happy feels at the end? So now that my expectations have been adjusted, we're going to give this another shot....more
Tadiana ✩Night Owl☽
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