Rebecca

Rebecca (1938) by Daphne du Maurier. This 1938 novel still reads well today. An Oscar-winning movie, directed by Alfred Hitchcock, was made from the book in 1940. Having seen the movie before I read the book, my impressions of the book were inevitably colored by my foreknowledge of crucial events, and also by my memory of the actors who had appeared in all the main roles in the film. For those who are unfamiliar with it, the book is about a young woman (ever nameless) who meets and marries a wealthy man twice her age and goes to live with him at his estate and mansion known as Manderley. There she lives in the shadow of Rebecca, his previous wife, who had died in mysterious circumstances just the year before. Always imagining that she is being compared unfavorably to Rebecca, the young woman is miserable most of the time, until the book's climax resolves her concerns. The book is poetically written, with strongly colored descriptions of scenery and landscapes, as well as of the mansion itself. It's a pleasurable read -- though the story is morally ambiguous at its core, and I didn't feel that the author adequately explored this moral ambiguity. Grade: A-