Rebecca Book Review

    Rebecca, by Daphne Du Maurier, was published in 1938. Roughly based off of Jane Eyre, Rebecca--a book of many a secret and heartbreak--commences with our young narrator visiting Monte Carlo with her employer Mrs. Van Hopper. Mrs. Van Hopper, a sour old lady with no sense of humor, is telling the protagonist about the enigmatic Maxim de Winter and how he's been ever so sad since his wife--Rebecca--died and how they ought to lunch with him sometime, when they have a speak-of-the-devil moment and meet Mr. de Winter at the hotel's restaurant. The book continues to a party, where the protagonist and Mr. de Winter become briefly acquainted. The protagonist and Mr. de Winter continue to meet, going on drives and lunching at the aforementioned hotel restaurant together, and before you know it, they're married. Maxim whisks our protagonist away to Italy for their honeymoon, and they share a blissful couple of months before reality comes knocking again and the couple has to move back to Manderley, Maxim's property. And, albeit beautiful, Manderley is weighted with all the secrets Maxim and his staff hide; from the forbidden West Wing to Rebecca's seemingly barren boathouse on the beach. 

    Needless to say, Mr. de Winter is beyond heartbroken about the death of Rebecca, his wife. She drowned, as Maxim's real estate agent tells the protagonist. They found her body washed up 40 miles from Maxim's estate two months later. He went up to identify her. She's been dead for over a year. Manderley's entire staff is heartbroken; especially Mrs. Danvers, the brooding main housekeeper of the property who absolutely adored Rebecca and just won't accept our protagonist into the de Winter family. Everything fits into place... until it doesn't. How did Rebecca actually die? And why is the entire foundation of Manderley creeping around like they have a huge ticking time bomb of a secret to hide? 

    The strangest thing about Rebecca isn't Maxim de Winter's emotional distance from his second wife or the many secrets his house carries. Nay, the most bizarre thing about Rebecca is the protagonist's name; or, rather, the lack of the protagonist's name. Throughout the book, the narrator (Maxim's second wife) is never directly addressed. Nobody ever goes up to her and says her name, so we--the readers--never learn her given name. The entire book is narrated from her perspective in the past tense, as though the protagonist is reflecting on everything that's happened to her since she married the conundrum that was Maximilian de Winter.

    Throughout the entire book, the protagonist is eclipsed by the shadow of Rebecca, a character we readers never even get to meet. As soon as she arrives at Manderley, our narrator is told, "Oh, Rebecca did it this way." "Rebecca put the flowers over here." "This is Rebecca's windbreaker." "Don't go over there, that's Rebecca's room." "Oh, but you know, Maxim is still grieving Rebecca. He married that girl from Monte Carlo for solace; have you seen her? Poor little thing." It's almost understandable how the protagonist spirals--even though Manderley is her property, and Maxim is her husband, she notes that everything still feels like Rebecca's countless times throughout the novel. It's as though she lost her identity once she married Maxim. Our protagonist becomes so engrossed in the whirlwind of Rebecca: what happened to her, if Maxim still loves her, and the enigma of whether her legacy is as perfect and pristine as it seems. However, towards the end of the novel, it's revealed that Rebecca had flaws, too, flaws way larger than anything our protagonist could have ever imagined. As the plot developed, it became harder to discern Rebecca's legacy--everything she left behind, whether Maxim truly loved her, and the façade she displayed to everyone besides her husband.  

    At the novel's end, I had to remind myself that Rebecca was just another book, that there was no Manderley and Rebecca and self-conscious unnamed protagonist and strange house of many secrets. It was that good. I would recommend Rebecca to anyone who enjoys a good romance -- or even a good thriller. Rebecca packed many punches in its 376 pages, quite short for a novel of its weight, and I loved every single sentence. Du Maurier's novel is complex but light, feathery but ever-so-heavy, and relatable, even though I'm sure none of us have ever been married to a saddened widower with a huge house and rude staff. Rebecca has a little bit of everything; romance, happiness, sadness, thrill, a murder mystery, and even a crazy investigation twist towards the end. It's not quite a whirlwind romance, since the finale of how our protagonist and Maxim end up together is just a little crazy, but Rebecca was an amazing read.

    So, in conclusion, I loved Rebecca, and I'm a thousand percent sure that everyone else who reads it will too. It's a book about love, loss, feminism, and the horrible feeling of futility when it seems like someone will always be better than you, no matter what you do. As aforementioned, almost all of Rebecca is told in a flashback, as though our narrator is reflecting on everything that's happened to her since she married Maxim de Winter. Maybe that's a good thing, and maybe that's a bad thing; Du Maurier leaves that up to readers to decide. But as Mrs. de Winter the Second, our protagonist, says at the very beginning of Rebecca: "Happiness is not a possession to be prized, it is a quality of thought, a state of mind." 

- Simrah