Literary Birthday: Daphne DuMaurier

Today, in 1907, that obsessive reader of "Brooding Hunx Weekly" and biggest Bronte fan EVAH, Daphne DuMaurier, was born unto this world. Her unstoppable pen gave us "Rebecca" and "Jamaica Inn" and "The Birds" and dozens of chilling settings and smoldering heroes and pseudo-retrograde, pseudo-feminist counter-narratives and subtexts. Most importantly, she gave us the kind of books that are utterly un-put-downable and so hard to replicate--and she lived a haunted life worth obsessing over on its own.

Jamaica Inn, at long last

You're a queer girl, Mary Yellan.

Jamaica Inn is, in these parts at least, often the second-most visible DuMaurier novel, partially because of the mass market paperback seen above and the Hitchcock film.

The story of young, spunky, head-on-her shoulders Mary Yellan who get sent to live in the titular inn with her frightened aunt and demonic uncle shares some Rebecca's obsessions: tall dark men with horrible secrets, the balance of power in marriage, the brutal and evocative Cornwall coast, the role of women in a man's world. But unlike Rebecca, which transcends genre to be something more than the sum of its parts, this book is exactly what it's advertised to be: a romantic thriller that's fun to read and leaves you with striking images, but not a profound, earth-shattering story.

When the recently-bereft young Mary arrives at Jamaica Inn, shunned by all the surrounding countryside, she finds the place deserted, firghtened by the specter of drunk, angry, uncle who has totally cowed her once-young and merry aunt Patience. After a lot of snooping, eavesdropping, and picking up on rumors, she realizes that the inn is a front for some very evil activities that only begun at smuggling. Meanwhile, Mary befriends an albino priest and flirts with Jem, the sheep-stealing younger brother of her uncle who appears to be no less rascally, but perhaps more upright at the core, than his cursed sibling.

As the sharp and brave Mary gets more and more entwined in her uncles' schemes, she risks losing her heart--and maybe even her life. DuMaurier writes with evocative, gripping prose and serves up a few big plot twists that I will avoid spoiling. However I will say that I TOTALLY called them early on, and you probably will too--but that didn't make it any less fun to read. And the ending has a twist of ambiguity to it that hearkens back to the Jane Eyre/Rebecca paradigm and actually gave me food for thought.

This is a perfect book for a rainy day, which is all it will take you to get through it. I recommend it for an afternoon when you want to be swept back to dark, drizzly moors, echoing empty inns, and a far more dangerous time for plucky young women recently orphaned.

Anyone Want to Do an EBC Book Club?

Hi faithful readers. While cleaning out my apartment yesterday I found a trade paperback of Daphne DuMaurier's Jamaica Inn that I picked up as a beach read. Its extremely cheap price and quick, summery nature got me thinking that maybe some of you would like to read it too and then reconvene towards the end of the summer to discuss it, book-club style without the deepness. Nothing formal, just a fun way to read a good mystery and chat about it, compare it to Rebecca and talk about how creepy it was. I won't be able to start it until next week at the earliest which would give people time to purchase it.

If this interests you or you have a better book idea let me know. Otherwise I'll plunge into it on my own and review it as I always do, with no hard feelings ;)

Daphne,

by Justine Picardie

I'm not going to expound too much on this novel, because I've already been working on an article (whether it will see the light of day or not remains to be determined) that relates to it...

But it's an important book for those who have egalitarian bookwormy tastes like mine, in that it uses fiction to really address the cult of the female reader and her relationship to the female writers who have come before her.

Basically, Daphne is two stories: one involving Daphne DuMaurier and her obsession with Branwell Bronte, her obsessive quest to "unlock" his secrets, and her back-and-forth correspondence with a weird old British scholar with some secrets of his own.

The second story involves a DuMaurier and Bronte-loving narrator, nameless, who's involved in a marriage with a domineering older man who scorns her taste in literature, and who pines over his lovely, charismatic ex, a sexy poet named Rachel.

The allusions to Rebecca here (and thereby to Jane Eyre) are obvious, and there are also tons of references to other literary folks, like JM Barrie and more, and that's the worst part of Daphne: too literary inside-baseball, even for me. It gets confusing.

But Picardie's quietly strong storytelling and her musings on the relationships between women, each other, and the books they love is really compelling. I felt for the narrator, even in her ignorance at times, and I thought Picardie was quite astute, and sometimes painfully so, getting into these two women's heads. As for the sweeping cliffs of Cornwall and the rattling streets of London--yes, the scenery that backgrounds good old British Fiction endures the test of time quite well!

I have to say it's a must-read for fans of DuMaurier and the Brontes and all who are interested in the concept of a female literary tradition... which brings me to the Madwoman in the Attic, my next review, which you shall receive forthwith.

So stay tuned:)

Rebecca in 800 words

[Via the ladies at Bronteblog who manage to catch literally every single Bronte reference on the web, no matter how trivial, in their astute net of bloggage]

The Guardian has a feature called Digested Classic, which is basically a parody of a canonical novel. This week they target everyone's favorite sexy aristocracy-in-decline noir, Rebecca.

The two best excerpts (spoiler alert!)

"Oh Maxim," I answered. "I don't care if you killed your first wife. Anyone can make a silly mistake. Just kiss me hard and we can make it better."

***

"Oh darling," I said. "I always knew you were only a pretend wife-murderer. And look! Isn't that Manderley on fire? Silly Mrs Danvers. I told her not to read Jane Eyre."

Just goes to show you that Edward Cullen and Bella of the Twilight series weren't the first controlling-dude/ weak-lady couple to win the heart of women readers. Still, Daphne DuMaurier did it better.

A Touch of Romance

A Uk survey lists readers' favoritest love stories:

(via the Guardian)

"It's really heartening to see how these stories, written so long ago, retain the power to captivate 21st century audiences," said Richard Kingsbury, channel head of UKTV Drama, which commissioned the study. (aha! a TV station commissioned it eh?)

My main girls Jane and the Brontes are definitely representing. I might add some post-1900 romances like The Age of Innocence or Tender is the Night but since those all end so miserably... I see why they didn't get votes. But then again Wuthering Heights' "and then the two ghosts wandered around the depressing moors forever" ending isn't exactly heartwarming. Nor is R and J. So go figure.

The top 20

1 Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë, 1847

2 Pride and Prejudice Jane Austen, 1813

3 Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare, 1597

4 Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë, 1847

5 Gone with the Wind Margaret Mitchell, 1936

6 The English Patient Michael Ondaatje, 1992

7 Rebecca Daphne du Maurier, 1938

8 Doctor Zhivago Boris Pasternak, 1957

9 Lady Chatterley's Lover DH Lawrence, 1928

10 Far from The Madding Crowd Thomas Hardy, 1874

11 = My Fair Lady Alan Jay Lerner, 1956

The African Queen CS Forester, 1935

13 The Great Gatsby F Scott Fitzgerald, 1925

14 Sense and Sensibility Jane Austen, 1811

15 = The Way We Were Arthur Laurents, 1972

War and Peace Leo Tolstoy, 1865

17 Frenchman's Creek Daphne du Maurier, 1942

18 Persuasion Jane Austen, 1818

19 Take a Girl Like You Kingsley Amis, 1960

20 Daniel Deronda George Eliot, 1876