July 2013: Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier

When Michelle recruited her facebook friends for a summer classics reading club, I was in. We read Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier for the group's second meeting, a slightly lighter read than our first book, Anna Karenina, although both had in common an unhappy woman made unhappy mostly by her own tortured thoughts.

I thought of both novels when I read this article in the Wall Street Journal which claims that introverts can be happier when they act like extroverts. The main character in Rebecca (who is never named, an interesting literary device) dwells on the comparisons she believes her husband and the staff of her husband's English estate, Manderley, are making between her and the former Mrs. DeWinters, Rebecca. And the road from comparisons leads to self-doubt, shame, and ultimately despair, as it did for both Mrs. DeWinter and Anna Karenina.

Ultimately, the plot of Rebecca reads like a prototype mass market thriller - Du Maurier leads us tantalizingly in one direction up until the very end when the truth is revealed. But even then, when we think perhaps the new Mrs. DeWinter can live happily ever after, the story abruptly ends and if the reader recalls the strange slow start to the novel, a re-read of the first few chapters serves as an epilogue, a summing up of the DeWinters' ever after. Happy or not is left to the reader to conclude.

Reading this novel again for the book club, I was struck by the number of details that Stephen King lifted for his novel, Bag of Bones, which I read during my SAHM days and loved. In fact, Bag of Bones led me to Rebecca in those years, as well as to the work of W. Somerset Maugham, particularly Of Human Bondage. There may have been other literary easter eggs King planted in Bag of Bones which I didn't discover, and I have yet to attempt Bartleby, also part of the plot of King's story. Hmm, perhaps a second third another read of Bag of Bones is in order this summer to see what else is on King's recommended reading list.

Overall, Rebecca is worth the time to read. And if anyone is thinking of starting a book club, my recommendation is to go for it. I am so glad I got a chance to spend a few evenings talking about books, kids, and life with other ladies and got to discover some additions to my never ending to-read list.