Rebecca

By Daphne Du Maurier | ⭐️⭐️⭐️ (3 out of 5 stars)

Rebecca follows a story of an unnamed woman, referred mostly to in the book as Mrs. De Winter, who married a widower (Mr. Maximillan De Winter). They met in France and later moved to De Winter’s estate in Manderley which was crept by the memories of Rebecca De Winter, the late wife of Maximillan or Maxim/Max De Winter.

If you haven’t read the book and you are inclined to do so, kindly stop here as I might spoil some of the details. Hehe.

I could fight the living, but I could not fight the dead.

The book was said to be first published in 1938 and may be considered a classic. They said that the book is continuously printing and selling, and was impressive. I might have read fast-paced books prior to this to find that the plot of Rebecca is a bit slow for me. At around 50% in the book, I still wait for the twist, though I have already made assumptions on my own while on it.

My earliest assumption is that the house was haunted, but of course, it wasn’t in the book. The Manderley mansion was just full of memories of the late Rebecca because Mrs. Danvers, her personal maid, was fully in owe of her still. But my assumption that Mr. De Winter killed his wife was ought to be true. It was a good twist that a lot might consider gold especially if movies or films of this kind existed or if you haven’t seen one, but I, having been able to see and read some in the past, it was a little predictable to me then.

If only there could be an invention that bottled up a memory, like a scent. And it never faded, and it never got stale. And then, when one wanted it, the bottle could be uncorked, and it would be like living the moment all over again.

Rebecca was a charmer and surely doesn’t stick to one guy, hence the marital problems she and Mr. De Winter had that led to his motive to do Rebecca wrong. It was later on ruled out as suicide, and so he was able to walk as a free man and be with his new wife then. What was shocking in the end was the fact that Manderley was summoned by a fire, and Mr. De Winter and his new beau were able to not go back there and probably live a new life.

The plot twist was a little bit at the end of the book and then there were a lot of turns–like finding Rebecca’s journal and that she was sick, and Favell, her cousin, contest of Mr. De Winter’s verdict or lack thereof.

The book was okay and probably a source, of one of the sources, for films antics of its kind.