I hate Belgium. I'm starting to not be sure I can stay here long enough to leave with all the tonnes of money I was planning on leaving with. At least the children and the F-word aren't working this week so they can enjoy the white fluffy bullshit. I know it's beautiful but you know what? It was a lot more beautiful in Canada and it was still one of the reasons I left.
Well, moving on with my fucking existence. This weekend I read Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, which my boss had lent me. I like her - she has good taste and our department functions better than most at our corporation, which I'm finding out to my unending stress these days. Anyhoo, I read Rebecca and now I'm going to spoil it. If you haven't read it, I suggest you stop reading this and do, because it's definitely worth reading for the suspense. Okay, you've been warned.
I've heard Rebecca was partly inspired by what could measurably be my favourite novel, Jane Eyre. I think 'partly' is putting it mildly. I can see Daphne Du Maurier sitting at her nice little pigeon-holey writing desk, like the one in Mandersley's morning room, asking herself a four part question: "What would Jane Eyre be like if
a) it was moved into the early 20th century
b) Mrs. Rochester was a slutty bitch instead of a slutty lunatic
c) Mr. Rochester was post-Victorian instead of pre-Victorian
d) Jane Eyre was spineless to the point of semi-idiocy?"
And the answer is essentially Rebecca. That's not to knock Rebecca - I liked it. But it is to testify a bit to the greatness of Jane Eyre - that it's rich enough to bear a spin-off like Rebecca, and also like the Wide Sargasso Sea (Mrs. Rochester's post-feminist backstory, a cracking good read as well).
I liked the pacing of Rebecca a lot - there were moments of real tension, real fear; certainly a different style from Jane Eyre, whose heroine-narrator was too strong to communicate panic to us. The nameless narrator of Rebecca was fluttery, ghostly by comparison, and finally, after she finds out about the murder of her predecessor, far less steely in her morality. Nothing bad can happen to Jane Eyre in the end, we think, she's too strong and conscious of her own mind - she knows how to beat back the pre-marital advances of her horndog fiancé without alienating him, and she has the wherewithal to walk away from love and happiness when it will pose to much of a challenge to her fundamental self.
Not Rebecca's narrator. The difference between them is that Jane Eyre breaks and tames her loving, nasty Bluebeard, while Rebecca's narrator is only grateful to be loved by him. So there is much more vulnerability to her, and we read in the anticipation that something fucking horrible is going to happen any second. Especially as the character of Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, and the equivalent of Jane Eyre's Mrs. Fairfax, is so venomous and great.
Well, moving on with my fucking existence. This weekend I read Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca, which my boss had lent me. I like her - she has good taste and our department functions better than most at our corporation, which I'm finding out to my unending stress these days. Anyhoo, I read Rebecca and now I'm going to spoil it. If you haven't read it, I suggest you stop reading this and do, because it's definitely worth reading for the suspense. Okay, you've been warned.
I've heard Rebecca was partly inspired by what could measurably be my favourite novel, Jane Eyre. I think 'partly' is putting it mildly. I can see Daphne Du Maurier sitting at her nice little pigeon-holey writing desk, like the one in Mandersley's morning room, asking herself a four part question: "What would Jane Eyre be like if
a) it was moved into the early 20th century
b) Mrs. Rochester was a slutty bitch instead of a slutty lunatic
c) Mr. Rochester was post-Victorian instead of pre-Victorian
d) Jane Eyre was spineless to the point of semi-idiocy?"
And the answer is essentially Rebecca. That's not to knock Rebecca - I liked it. But it is to testify a bit to the greatness of Jane Eyre - that it's rich enough to bear a spin-off like Rebecca, and also like the Wide Sargasso Sea (Mrs. Rochester's post-feminist backstory, a cracking good read as well).
I liked the pacing of Rebecca a lot - there were moments of real tension, real fear; certainly a different style from Jane Eyre, whose heroine-narrator was too strong to communicate panic to us. The nameless narrator of Rebecca was fluttery, ghostly by comparison, and finally, after she finds out about the murder of her predecessor, far less steely in her morality. Nothing bad can happen to Jane Eyre in the end, we think, she's too strong and conscious of her own mind - she knows how to beat back the pre-marital advances of her horndog fiancé without alienating him, and she has the wherewithal to walk away from love and happiness when it will pose to much of a challenge to her fundamental self.
Not Rebecca's narrator. The difference between them is that Jane Eyre breaks and tames her loving, nasty Bluebeard, while Rebecca's narrator is only grateful to be loved by him. So there is much more vulnerability to her, and we read in the anticipation that something fucking horrible is going to happen any second. Especially as the character of Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper, and the equivalent of Jane Eyre's Mrs. Fairfax, is so venomous and great.
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