"On a trip to the South of France, the shy heroine of Rebecca falls in love with Maxim de Winter, a handsome widower. Although his proposal comes as a surprise, she happily agrees to marry him. But as they arrive at her husband’s home, Manderley, a change comes over Maxim, and the young bride is filled with dread. Friendless in the isolated mansion, she realises that she barely knows him. In every corner of every room is the phantom of his beautiful first wife, Rebecca, and the new Mrs de Winter walks in her shadow."
In what is now becoming a tradition for the book club we chose a classic for January and boy what a good one we had chosen. Quite a few of us had already read it before but this didn't stop us from all having (re)read it by the time the meeting came round.
Rebecca is such a good book to talk about at book club. Why does the second Mrs De Winter not have a name? As someones wife is she not worthy enough to have one? Is she so overcast by Rebecca that nothing could compare? Is it to emphasise that she is in fact Maxim’s wife now and not Rebecca? We spent a lot of time talking about her naivety (it was slightly annoying) and how this changed once the murder had been revealed. Once she had broken away from Rebecca's hold.
We then naturally went on to talk about Rebecca. I do think there the ability to argue she wasn't such a heinous harlot as the second Mrs De Winter describes her. We only have the second wife’s version of events -the woman willing to cover up the murder of the first wife by her now husband. The affair with Rebecca’s cousin is revealed by a man broken by her death, drunk and knowing he is up against the band of brothers that is white upper class men. Rebecca was after all loved by everyone, even Maxim’s grandmother in the grips of dementia. Could it be that Rebecca was in fact wronged by murderous Maxim? The group didn't seem to agree with me and pointed out sensible Beatrice (Maxim's brother) didn't like Rebecca either thus bolstering the second Mrs De Winter's cause.
Maxim was an interesting character, rich, brooding, good looking. We questioned his relationship with the second Mrs De Winter, was it just to cover up the fact he had murdered Rebecca? and we also noted more than a hint of violence in his nature. We discussed him murdering Rebecca and how tense the reveal, trial and subsequent long drawn out visit to the doctor was.
We thought Mrs Danvers an evil character - the part when she had Mrs De Winter in Rebecca's old bedroom and tried to persuade her to jump! Yet we noted her grief, she did seem to truly love Rebecca.
We weren't sure about Frank. Did he love Rebecca? Was he secretly gay and loved Maxim? Did he crack and set fire to Manderley? The group were all pretty certain it was Mrs Danvers who had set fire to Manderley. Although I'm not too sure.
We all loved Manderley. One of the group informed us that Du Maurier wrote the book whilst she was abroad and missing Cornwall and I think it shows. Rebecca does at times read very much like a love story to the house, the gardens and the surrounding Estate. Oh for buttered crumpets in the library!
We all loved the book, I think the lowest score was a 7 but it averaged a 9. A brilliant start to the year.
In what is now becoming a tradition for the book club we chose a classic for January and boy what a good one we had chosen. Quite a few of us had already read it before but this didn't stop us from all having (re)read it by the time the meeting came round.
Rebecca is such a good book to talk about at book club. Why does the second Mrs De Winter not have a name? As someones wife is she not worthy enough to have one? Is she so overcast by Rebecca that nothing could compare? Is it to emphasise that she is in fact Maxim’s wife now and not Rebecca? We spent a lot of time talking about her naivety (it was slightly annoying) and how this changed once the murder had been revealed. Once she had broken away from Rebecca's hold.
We then naturally went on to talk about Rebecca. I do think there the ability to argue she wasn't such a heinous harlot as the second Mrs De Winter describes her. We only have the second wife’s version of events -the woman willing to cover up the murder of the first wife by her now husband. The affair with Rebecca’s cousin is revealed by a man broken by her death, drunk and knowing he is up against the band of brothers that is white upper class men. Rebecca was after all loved by everyone, even Maxim’s grandmother in the grips of dementia. Could it be that Rebecca was in fact wronged by murderous Maxim? The group didn't seem to agree with me and pointed out sensible Beatrice (Maxim's brother) didn't like Rebecca either thus bolstering the second Mrs De Winter's cause.
Maxim was an interesting character, rich, brooding, good looking. We questioned his relationship with the second Mrs De Winter, was it just to cover up the fact he had murdered Rebecca? and we also noted more than a hint of violence in his nature. We discussed him murdering Rebecca and how tense the reveal, trial and subsequent long drawn out visit to the doctor was.
We thought Mrs Danvers an evil character - the part when she had Mrs De Winter in Rebecca's old bedroom and tried to persuade her to jump! Yet we noted her grief, she did seem to truly love Rebecca.
We weren't sure about Frank. Did he love Rebecca? Was he secretly gay and loved Maxim? Did he crack and set fire to Manderley? The group were all pretty certain it was Mrs Danvers who had set fire to Manderley. Although I'm not too sure.
We all loved Manderley. One of the group informed us that Du Maurier wrote the book whilst she was abroad and missing Cornwall and I think it shows. Rebecca does at times read very much like a love story to the house, the gardens and the surrounding Estate. Oh for buttered crumpets in the library!
We all loved the book, I think the lowest score was a 7 but it averaged a 9. A brilliant start to the year.
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