“But to women — some women, my kind of women — this book is something more, not merely beloved or popular but foundational.” – Parul Sehgal, The New York Times
The English novel and I met at Purchase, where I was an undergrad, and stacks of Penguin Classics lined the bookstore shelves. It was a passing glance, though, as I was a Drama Studies major, and therefore a chance encounter. “We shall meet again,” we agreed.
When I was a graduate student at City College, the English Novel consumed me, taking from me what little spare time I had as a young mother. It was utterly delightful. Which is why it is time to talk about Rebecca, and the way in which memory and previous paths converge, bringing you to the moment when it all comes together.
I first read Rebecca in high school. I’d seen the film with my parents – black-and-white films were a family activity – and checked the book out of the library. I never recovered.
Rebecca was not on my school list, and reading it was an act of independence, of being completely taken by the timelessness of du Maurier’s storytelling magic and elegant style. However, it also introduced me to the mysterious world of adults. “Her novels,” says Parul Sehgal, “in particular, reify adulthood. Youth is treated as an embarrassing if unavoidable affliction, thankfully temporary.”
It wasn’t until I studied Jane Eyre in graduate school that I discovered the story similarities and wrote my thesis on Rebecca. To say that it is a masterpiece of narrative and suspense simply does not do it any sort of justice. There is a reason “Rebecca was an instant best seller that has never gone out of print and still sells about 50,000 copies a year,” Sehgal writes. When The Modern Library released its 100 Best Books of the Century Rebecca was not included. Erica Jong and The Women’s Review of Books responded by submitting their own lists which included Rebecca.
“Why do we love du Maurier so?” Sehgal asks. “There’s an element of nostalgia, to be sure, for the books we read when we were young and impatient not to be.” But there is also her ability to transport one to what feels like a pre-industrial world. Even in her stories, there might be a radio or a car, but du Maurier is so concerned with people, relationships, and their overall psychology that the modern world seems more like an afterthought, and less like a force one battles every day.
For a writer, du Maurier can be a nemesis, for she makes it all look so simple, natural, and effortless. It’s a daily trial not to snap your pencil and rip up whatever work you’re writing. “Toss it all,” you tell yourself. “You’ll never write like her.”
Yet here we are. I am still a writing about du Maurier, and, among others, her uncanny ability to describe the female experience. “Few writers,” says Sehgal, “have watched and captured women with such conspicuous pleasure as du Maurier — the way they walk and wear coats and unscrew their earrings. The way they pin up their hair and stub out their cigarettes; the way they call to their dogs, break horses, comfort children, deceive their husbands and coax plants from flinty soil. Few writers (Elena Ferrante comes to mind) have been so aware of how women excite one another’s imaginations.”
To read the more mature du Maurier works – My Cousin Rachel is another masterpiece -- is like succumbing to a hypnotic spell. However, even in her early stories -- which are less sophisticated -- one sees the seeds being sown. She has a natural ability to set scenes, introduce characters, and above all, create a mood.
Perhaps I’ll let another writer, one Stephen King, have the final say: “I love Du Maurier’s stories. I love their clarity, I love their often grim view of human nature, I love her prodigious talent and narrative ability.”