Juliet
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"To learn to read is to light a fire; every syllable that is spelled out is a spark.?Victor Hugo
Posts: 576
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Post by Juliet on Sept 2, 2007 7:26:08 GMT -5
i think that favell was just one of her many toys and that he was very similar to her...
i agree:in the end she was so sure of herself that she became careless, she was the kind of person who is capable of everything for her own reasons and i think that if she wouldn't have died maybe max would have really killed her.
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Post by Dominique on Aug 31, 2008 20:55:50 GMT -5
I finished this book last night and I loved it so much. It was so well written and gripping and yet so complex that it can be analysed and interpreted in a number of different ways. I agree with a lot of what everyone's said about the similarities between it and Jane Eyre. I also agree that Maxim obviously loved the house and moved there thinking he could replace Rebecca and erase her existence but couldn't. I had actually seen the Hitchcock film before reading the novel and was struck by some of the differences. In it Rebecca is accidentally killed in a fight with Maxim, he doesn't shoot her. Also Mrs Danvers is clearly identified as the instigator of the fire at the end of the film, where as she is merely insinuated to be the cause of it in the novel. I read up on it a bit and apparently it was changed so that her death was an accident because maybe Hitchcock didn't think audiences would be able to still like Max after they found out he killed his wife, which is an interesting point. du Maurier manages to get the reader to identify and root for a man who shot his wife point blank simply because Rebecca is painted as amoral and the narrator loves Max. When I was reading it I was wondering if Rebecca was really so bad or if it was just Maxim's story that painted her as so promiscuous and awful to blame her for her own death. The narrator just accepts his story without question. At the end of my copy of the novel there was an afterward by Sally Beauman which was really interesting and largely from a feminist perspective. She says that the narrator's name is never given because her whole identity and status is derived from Maxim and because she is so subserviant to his male power. Also she says that Rebecca is hinted to be bisexual (I didn't pick up on that), and du Maurier was actually bisexual as well. Further, she states that Rebecca and the narrator are actually two halves of one woman, the promiscuous, amoral, powerful and free Rebecca and the shy, quiet and subserviant narrator and that this is reflected in a number of parts of the book but especially the end where the narrator dreams that she has become one with Rebecca and their hair wraps around Maxim's neck like a noose. She also says that the narrator is drawn to Rebecca and almost wants to imitate her rebellion (I didn't see this so much, but she was obsessed with her). She also goes into a lot of the aspects of du Maurier's life that shaped the novel. The most interesting part was where she said that the novel is about two women, one dead and one dying. She said the narrator is dying in the book, her spirit is dying and the contrast between the boring, mediocre life presented in the first chapter with "we" being used instead of "I" is where she is metaphorically dead. The rest of the book she is being taken over by Maxim and slowly dying. Maxim essentially murdered two women, one literally and one metaphorically. I didn't think through a lot of that stuff, although the female characters being two halves kind of occured to me. It's so interesting that all the characters are kind of anti-heroes. The narrator for hiding a murder, Maxim for murdering and Rebecca for being so fierce, strong and self-absorbed. It's funny, Rebecca drew quite heavily from Jane Eyre, but I think I loved Rebecca more than Jane Eyre
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louise
First short story featured in regional newspaper
Posts: 169
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Post by louise on Sept 1, 2008 1:21:47 GMT -5
I'm putting this on my TBR list!
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neh
Collection of short stories published by an independent editor
"I live in two worlds; one is a world of books"
Posts: 943
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Post by neh on Jan 8, 2009 19:58:25 GMT -5
I thought i'd go through and find some of the books featured in The Book Club Bible and list some of the questions etc. cited for each work. Here goes!
REBECCA:
* Do we feel a connection to the narrator, or are we drawn more to Rebecca? Whom does the reader ultimately feel sorry for?
*Is Rebecca's character reflected in Mrs Danvers?
* What do you think the book's message is regarding the role of women in a patriarchal society?
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Bina
First novel published
Posts: 2,472
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Post by Bina on Jan 9, 2009 7:26:45 GMT -5
I wasn´t too patient with the narrator at first, she was so timid. Rebecca overshadowed her in every aspect and I thought that the other characters were mostly reacting to her not standing up for herself and letting Rebecca´s presence rule her life. And Mrs Danvers only made things worse with her devotion to Rebecca. The similarities between Jane Eyre and Rebecca are so strong, this really is a case of if you liked. . . , you´ll love this! Fun reference: In The Fourth Bear (Fforde) the main character Jack Spratt is given the advice to stand up and say "I am the new Mrs de Winter now!" I used that line but I´m not really surrounded by readers so no one got it
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