If Margaret Forster's biography of Daphne du Maurier is anything to go by, du Maurier was an extremely complex individual. A second go round of Rebecca makes it easy to see how her personality and experiences come through in her writing. Reading the novel was better the second time around, and I think I can appreciate what she was doing more now than I could the first time I read the book.
Sally Beauman writes an excellent afterword to the novel throwing light on her motivations and meanings, which certainly made it a richer read this time through. Interestingly Beauman writes that Rebecca can be read on two levels, as a conventional romance (probably, Beauman notes, how the reading public approached it when it was first published and became an instant bestseller), which is no doubt how I read it when I was younger. The other approach is to see the "imaginative links" to earlier novelists such as Charlotte Bronte. Du Maurier herself described the novel to her publisher as "a sinister tale about a woman who marries a a widower...psychological rather than macabre." I saw it less as a romance this time around and felt the darker, brooding overtones much more.
Rebecca was written in 1938 while she was living with her military husband in Alexandria, Egypt, which she came to loathe. She was extremely unhappy at this time, her beloved father having passed away only a few years earlier. She was also pregnant with her second child and no doubt the sweltering heat of the desert did nothing to lighten her mood. She chucked the first version (wouldn't it be interesting to get your hands on that?) and later finished it when she returned to England. This was her fifth novel, and it would become her most famous, remaining in print since it's first publication.
The story begins in Monte Carlo and is narrated by a young, unnamed woman who is acting as a companion to an unpleasant and annoying American woman. Mrs. Van Hopper is one of those types of women always hoping to curry favor with the elite crowd, and she does everything she can to insinuate herself into the company of handsome widower, Maxim de Winter, who also happens to be staying at the same hotel. When she falls ill, Maxim and the young woman take to spending time together. It's all a bit whirlwind, but they quickly decide to marry and return to England. To Manderley.
The novel is bookended by two dreams the new Mrs. de Winter has. Both are vivid and nightmarish in quality. I shared the opening scenes of the novel here. Beauman writes that the novel is about a man, two women, and a house. Manderley certainly does take on almost human qualities becoming a towering character in itself. The new Mrs. de Winter is not only young, but unstylish and inexperienced as well. She soon finds she's incapable of managing a household that the first Mrs de Winter, Rebecca, succeeded at so flawlessly. Physically and socially she compares unfavorably with her as well. Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, does everything she can to undermine the new Mrs. de Winter and make her feel what a failure she is in every way to Rebecca.
For a character who is dead and buried long before the action of the story begins, it's hard to get away from her. Manderley exudes Rebecca's presence, and everyone on the estate compares the new Mrs. de Winter to the former, or at least that's what the new Mrs. de Winter thinks. Perhaps as a coping method, she creates a rich fantasy life, but it simply immures her to a feeling of failure. Since the reader is inside the new Mrs. de Winter's head we not only sense her pain, but feel her fears (real and imagined) as she loses control over her life (though did she ever have it?). She believes Maxim looks at her but sees and wants only Rebecca.
I think the story is brilliant at what it sets out to do and how well it's achieved. Daphne du Maurier always wanted to be taken more seriously as a writer than she was during her lifetime. I think critics often wrote her off as someone (a woman) writing popular (and therefore not serious) fiction, which is a pity. I don't think her work can just be read, consumed and forgotten. At least it's stayed with me. Happily Virago Press continues to publish the bulk of her work. I'm very slowly making my way through her oeuvre, and reread this as a run up to reading Justine Picardie's Daphne. I still plan on reading more of the Brontes as well, whose lives and works seem so integral to so much of what I've read this year. And I think now I need to pull out The "Rebecca" Notebook. I will, of course, be reading more of her work (not sure what to follow Rebecca up with). If you've not yet read this, I highly recommend it!