Rereading Rebecca: A Return to Manderley

I’ll set the scene for you. I’m about eleven and I’m stood inside W.H.Smith at Euston train station. I’ve been to London for a school trip and my teacher is standing at the entrance beckoning frantically to get my attention. I’m trying my hardest to ignore her because my mum gave me a tenner to spend and we’re about to catch the train home and I don’t want to leave empty-handed. Naturally, when we got to Euston and that £10-note was still burning a hole in my pocket, I made a beeline for the books.

I remember that there wasn’t really a particular book I was after. I’d been scanning them aimlessly for a few minutes when one finally caught my eye. Maybe it was its striking black cover that made me reach for it, with the image of a grand house decorating its front like a bruise. Or, it could have been that my teacher was now striding towards me and I knew my window of opportunity to spend my cash was coming to a close.

I’m pretty sure she tried to talk me out of buying it. She was an English specialist, so she’d probably read it and if she hadn’t she’d have heard of it. Either way, she didn’t think it was appropriate for an eleven-year-old. But I wasn’t willing to lose that battle and, five minutes later, I left the shop, my brand-new copy of Rebecca clutched in my hands.

It took me less than two days to devour it.

Funnily enough, as I got older, the actual plot of Rebecca drifted away from me so that if you were to ask me to describe it, I’d have been hard-pressed to get beyond the opening points. So why did I look back on it so fondly when I couldn’t even remember how the story finished?

It was simple. I might have forgotten the events of the novel, but it was impossible to forget the way it made me feel. In the naive way of younger readers, I was completely enraptured by the story and therefore blind to its faults. The way Daphne Du Maurier used language and structured her sentences engendered an overwhelming sense of awe that successfully dragged me down into the broiling events of the novel. Her writing had a smokey quality to it that, even now. makes me imagine each scene being played out in black and white, like a classic movie.

It’s safe to say, it left an impression. So, when it was picked as our book club read at work, it was the perfect excuse for me to put off my TBR (soz, guys) and return to Manderley, its gentle silence punctuated by the sharp staccato of one name: Rebecca.

Well, let me tell you something. A lot has changed in 17 years.

Although this book is the same one I spirited away from Euston train station all those moons ago, I am definitely not the same girl desperate to spend her tenner before it was reclaimed by her mother.

Now, before I’m burned at the stake for being some kind of literature heretic, I’m by no means saying that Rebecca has lost its place amongst my favourite books of all time. In fact, that second read has only served to solidify its position.

However, my perception of the characters and understanding of the story has altered deeply now I’m a little bit older and married to boot. Although there's a ton of stuff I still love about this story, there are also some snag points that are tricky to ignore.

Let's start with marriage.

I’m all for a whirlwind romance but getting hitched after two weeks? I know they went in for that kind of thing back then and eleven-year-old me definitely swooned at the romanticism of it all, but not now. I mean, is it any surprise that the communication between Mr. and Mrs. de Winter is virtually non-existent?

I can still appreciate the nameless narrator’s willingness to be swept away in the thrill of it. After all, she had no-one of any meaning in her life. But to go from being an accessory for Mrs. Van Hopper’s convenience to fulfilling a similar purpose on the arm of Maxim instills a contemptuous pity that’s quite hard to shake.

Maybe it landed so uncomfortably because nowadays, a woman’s sole purpose in life isn’t to become somebody’s wife. I’m not saying that our generation has never experienced insecurity or self-doubt and that the institution of marriage is dead, but our main indicator of self-worth no longer lies in how well we fit the brief of ‘wife’ and ‘mother’.

Rethinking Rebecca

Perhaps this shift in the way we view ourselves is why, this time around, the very pivotal character of Rebecca took on a more complex, three-dimensional form than she did the first time I read the book. I still don’t like her — sadly, one of my main flaws as a person is an undeniable inclination to empathise with a narrator even if they’re truly awful — but I understand her in a way I didn’t before.

This time around, I found it harder to shoehorn her into the definitive position of 'villain'. You’ll never convince me that Rebecca was a victim, but it was difficult to think of her in terms that were so black and white. Instead, she existed in a realm of greyness, where it was clearer to see that she was just a woman trying to live in a world that had already annexed her and decided which box she should fit in whether she wanted to be there or not.

A box that her husband was more than happy to reinforce. Sure, he had his swoon-worthy moments, but his inability to communicate with his wife (I’ll let you decide which one I’m referring to) was a real stumbling block for me. His emotional constipation was only outdone by his statement (or condemnation) of what the future would hold for him and the new Mrs. de Winter: ‘Of course, you’ll have children.’ A conversational remark that his nameless wife didn’t — or daren’t not — contradict.

Sadly, the days where preteen Jordan placed Maxim de Winter on a Prince Charming-esque pedestal are well and truly over.

Memories of Manderley

Clearly, there are a few problems. However, for each one that cropped up during my reread, a thousand more little details wrapped around me that reminded me just why I loved this book so much in the first place.

I’m still besotted with Manderley. Thanks to my history degree, I have a real weakness for ancient English manor houses, but even if I didn’t, the reverence each character holds for the place is enough to make my knees go weak at the thought of living there.

With every page, I could imagine myself inhaling the scent of roses from my bedroom in the east wing, could hear the clip of heels on the flagstoned floors, and smell the oaky scent of the wood paneling, following the pad of Jasper’s (arguably the best character in the whole damn novel) paws into the warm embrace of the library.

The appeal of Manderley lies as much outwith its walls as within thanks to the way Daphne Du Maurier invokes the best of the British countryside through her writing. Whilst reading her descriptions of the estate, it’s hard not to experience a wistful longing to see the blood-red rhododendrons lining the driveway to Manderley and smell the heady scent of azaleas flooding ‘Happy Valley’. She spins a quintessential charm into the house that’s hard to resist.

On the surface, this is a story about human love in all of its complex, twisting iterations, but it’s also a love letter to the English countryside and the sprawling estates that inhabit its wilder corners. After all, Manderley was partly modeled on Du Maurier’s beloved house, Menabilly. The author’s devotion to her own Cornish abode is reflected in the power Manderly holds over its inhabitants and the sacrifices they make to protect it.

Lost in Language

More than anything, Rebecca is still capable of enrapturing me from that first fateful line. Du Maurier’s control over the English language weaves an intoxicating tapestry that I read compulsively. Putting it down to go about my daily life was a painful struggle.

When I first read it, eleven-year-old me was blown away by what she thought was a romantic love story. A grain of that sentiment remains, but reading it again with a more critical eye brought its own rewards and a perception that was sorely lacking. And let me tell you, it made for a meaty book club discussion.

One thing that hasn’t changed?

I still devoured it in two days flat, just like that very first time when I almost didn’t bring it home with me from Euston.

This might have been a very different blog post if I’d left the train station without it tucked safely in my school bag.