Challenge: Daphne du Maurier

WRAP-UP: I only read two of the three books I signed up to read: Rebecca (reviewed here) and My Cousin Rachel, which I didn't review.  I enjoyed my introduction to du Maurier and plan to read several more of her books.  I added several to my TBR shelves during this challenge. Added January 9, 2012.


ORIGINAL SIGN-UP: Not that I need another book challenge, but the Daphne du Maurier Challenge hosted by Chris at book-a-rama looks like fun.  And it runs through April 19, 2011, so I have plenty of time.

But the real reason I am signing up now is because I can count Rebecca as my first book. I just read it and posted my review.  It was my first du Maurier book ever, even though several (at least nine, according to LibraryThing) have been sitting on my TBR shelf for decades.

I am signing up for the "Dreaming of Manderley" category: "Participants in this category, will read 3 of Daphne du Maurier's larger works, her novels or non-fiction. You can also count a collection of her short stories as one book."

MY CHOICES

Since I am still new to du Maurier, I'll start with the greatest hits:

1. Rebecca (reviewed here); 
2. The Flight of the Falcon; and
3. My Cousin Rachel.
   

Opening Sentence of the Day: The Razor's Edge

"I have never begun a novel with more misgiving."

The Razor's Edge by Somerset Maugham.

I am on a bit of a Maugham jag because I am working my way through the short stories.  I always thought that I had read this book before, but I got over half-way through it this time before anything was familiar.  It all seemed new to me until I remembered the scene with Sophie in the Parisian nightclub -- I always remember that scene because her eyebrows were mascaraed. Her eyebrows.

Review of the Day: The Fortress of Solitude

 

The Fortress of Solitude is the story of two friends, Dylan Ebdus and Mingus Rude, growing up in Brooklyn in the 1970s. Dylan is white, Mingus is black; both are growing up without mothers. Dylan’s father is an abstract artist who views himself as a sellout for painting cover art for sci-fi novels. Mingus’s father was the front-man for a Motown harmony group, but spends his days getting high and dreaming of a comeback.

Jonathan Lethem packs so much into the story that there are times reading it is like trying to drink from a firehose of 1970s culture. Dylan spends his days collecting comic books, perfecting street games, being “yoked” by older kids for his lunch money, and trying to hold his own with graffiti taggers, including Mingus. Drugs, sex, race, music, gentrification, crime, art – its all there, but all through the eyes of a kid.

The book has the multiple storylines and hard edge of a Don DiLillo novel, but without the unrelenting grimness because it is told from the point of view of a child who still has some optimism. The best thing about the book is how Lethem perfectly captures the half-perceptions and half-understandings that make a child’s memory.

In the second half of the book, the story flags. It is 1999 and Dylan is living in Berkeley. Mingus is in prison, where he has been off and on since turning to crack. Dylan fills in the details of the years gone by, but this part of the book all builds to a harebrained scheme to get Dylan out of prison.

Unfortunately, where the first part of the book is incredible in the sense of being amazing, the second part is incredible in the sense of not being believable. Dylan uses a “magic” ring he had since childhood to sneak into the prison, with tragic consequences. The ring made sense in the first part, where its magical powers could be explained as the alcoholic delusions of the derelict who passed it on to Dylan, or the fantasies of Dylan and Mingus who wanted to be superheroes. But when Dylan actually uses the ring to become invisible, the story takes a jarring turn to magical realism.

For readers willing to take whatever a story dishes out, the second half could be as entertaining as the first. But for those not willing to suspend disbelief to the point of accepting magic rings and invisibility, the ending will be a letdown.

OTHER REVIEWS

(If you would like your review of this book listed here, leave a comment with a link to your review and I will add it.)

NOTES

I listened to the unabridged audio version of this book, which I suspect made me like it more than I would have had I read all 500+ pages. The narrator did a terrific job with all the voices and brought the kaleidoscope images into focus.

Review: Rebecca

Rebecca is a book that I had to give myself over to completely in order enjoy it. The whole experience depends on buying into the moldering, gothic suspense of it all.

Unfortunately, this requires putting up with the unnamed heroine being a hopeless ninny for the first two-thirds of the story. But once I set aside her fear of every person she encounters and her inability to talk to her own husband and went with the flow of the story, I was eventually swept away.

At the center of the story is Manderley, the seaside mansion of Max de Winter. The house is as much a character in the book as the people, providing atmosphere and an elaborate setting with closed-off wings, back passages, dark woods, and hidden coves. The house and all it stands for also motivates the characters and leads, eventually, to their undoing.

When brooding Max brings his new young bride to Manderley, both are haunted by his beautiful, vivacious first wife Rebecca – he in memory, the bride in imagination. By the time both shake loose from Rebecca’s beyond-the-grave grip, it is too late.

Even when the book is frustrating, it is admirable in its relentless adherence to the genre. Every detail layers on the suffocating suspense, from the spooky skull-headed housekeeper, to the relentless summer heat, to the rat-gnawn day bed in the boathouse. Daphne du Maurier created a perfect neo-gothic thriller in Rebecca.

OTHER REVIEWS

Hannah Soneham's Book Blog

(If you would like your review of Rebecca listed here, please leave a comment with a link and I will add it.)

NOTES

Rebecca is on the Radcliffe Top 100 list. This was the first of three book I read for theDaphne du Maurier Challenge hosted by Chris at book-a-rama.