Saw this one on a goodreads list of best novels, I'd never heard of it before, but it is well known as a Gothic suspense and even won an award as best novel of the century. It's very impressive, I can see why.
It's just so impressively dark, in a loveless, jealous second marriage way. On the surface our nameless narrator has landed an amazing catch: husband and incredible estate. But it's wrong, very wrong, we just don't know why exactly for a long time. The suspense is incredible.
He likes me in the way I like Jasper [the dog]
Manderlay, modeled on the real-world Menabilly in Cornwall is as big a character in the novel as any other. The descriptions of the estate, the beach, and the gardens are amazing, building an incredible atmosphere of suspense from this foggy, wet, and treacherous environment by the sea. And suffusing every part of Manderlay is Rebecca, the first wife who died in a tragic accident:
Her footsteps sounded in the corridors, her scent lingered on the stairs. The servants obeyed her orders still, the food we ate was the food she liked. Her favorite flowers filled the rooms. Her clothes were in the wardrobes in her room, her brushes were on the table, her shoes beneath the chair, her nightdress on her bed. Rebecca was still mistress of Manderley.
When the reveal comes it's amazing. And the change it wreaks in our narrator is spectacularly written. Apparently it was too much for Hitchcock, he watered it down for the movie version!
In the version I read there's an excellent analysis in an afterword that I'm tempted to quote from, but too many spoilers. Interestingly though, du Maurier applied parts of her life and character to multiple women represented in the novel.
Loved it.
5 stars.
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