crack book

Books just don't get much more satisfying than "Rebecca" was. I stayed up last night and finished it, reading quickly and eagerly, like I was eating the crack bread at Jimmy John's. Lots of times when a book is that fascinating, I am left wanting more. But with "Rebecca," everything was just so perfect. And I don't mean perfect in a happily-ever-after kind of way. The ending of the book is actually quite frightening. 

There is a strange presence in the book, beyond the narrator. It's as though you've been told more than the narrator knows, which is quite impossible for a book written in first person. But we are told everything that does happen so thoroughly and in great detail, and even the events that occur beyond the narrator's purview are related to us through her imagination. She's constantly daydreaming, wondering and wandering in her mind. And her scenes are believable -- who better than a sketch artist could bring to life that which she believes to be true? She pictures what's going on over the other side of the telephone line, the predictable conversations people use as gossip, what happens when a guest drives away from Manderley. This faux omniscience is useful to the reader on several levels, but sometimes we are misled just as the narrator is -- hoodwinked by Rebecca, perhaps.

The local authorities are compelled to conduct an inquest into the death of Rebecca de Winter upon finding her body. Of course, it's treated as a formality until her boat man declares there is no way the holes in the bottom of the boat (aptly named "She Comes Back" in French) were made by rocks. He believes them to be manmade -- deliberately. Of course, he's right, but Maxim remains cool and collected, checking his temper at the site of his current wife fainting from heat and nerves in the inquest room. Because she was alone when she died, and it would have been "easy enough for a woman" to alter the boat in the evident ways it was, it's finally declared suicide. I kept thinking that was the only solution during the whole affair, biting my nails through it all, wondering if Maxim would be found out. When I read the word "suicide," it was such a huge relief. But it wasn't over yet.

The book was hard to put down all through the second half, but these last 60 pages or so were intensely compelling. Rebecca's cousin/lover (ew) Jack Favell waits till later in the evening to come to Manderley and use evidence to blackmail Maxim into paying him off. However, Maxim refuses, hiding the anxiety he must've felt. Favell believed Rebecca was in love with him, and he possessed a note from her to him, stating that she wanted to meet him at the boathouse, but she died before that meeting was to have taken place. Favell thinks Maxim murdered her, because who would commit suicide if they had written an urgent note to meet with someone? He produced Ben as a witness to the murder, which indeed he was, but the idiot remained (possibly unknowingly, but likely not) faithful to Maxim. The note had said Rebecca wanted to tell Favell something, and that presence in the book was telling me and, I believe, the narrator that she was going to tell him she was pregnant. Then it was found she had an appointment with a mysterious doctor in London that day -- a women's specialist. So they all go driving out to meet him hours and hours away the next day, only to find he had seen her for quite a different reason, but one he believed could have caused her to end her own life. She had cancer, and just months to live -- months that would be increasingly painful.

So Maxim is off the hook. And I realize I'm being much too summarizing in this post, but I just love how the events unfold in this book. Because that still wasn't the end. On the way home, Maxim calls Frank, who tells him that Mrs. Danvers has left the house in a strange rush. Maxim knows something is up, and it turns out it's exactly what had to happen -- and what I almost thought did happen earlier in the book. When the ship crashed, its distress signals were loud exploding noises, and I rather thought Mr. de Winter had bombed the place. And I can't believe I just used the word rather like that, but the narrator used it so frequently I suppose I've picked it up. Alas, old Danny must've got the idea, too, because she sure ignited the place and ran. And like the narrator, even upon the last lines, I imagined the aftermath: "The road to Manderley lay ahead. There was no moon. The sky above our heads was inky black. But the sky on the horizon was not black at all. It was shot with crimson, like a splash of blood. And the ashes blew towards us with the salt wind of the sea." I pictured all the servants standing outside the great house, watching the fire with tears in their eyes. I thought of the de Winters being so tired from their long overnight drive, spending the night at Frank's bachelor home. 

It's exactly as though a character died at the end of the book. Manderley was a character in "Rebecca" the way New York City was a character in "Sex and the City." "The peace of Manderley. The quietude and the grace. Whoever lived within its walls, whatever trouble there was and strife, however much uneasiness and pain, no matter what tears were shed, what sorrows born, the peace of Manderley could not be broken or the loveliness destroyed" (357). Unfortunately, she's wrong. But we can imagine that Manderley lives on as it does in her dream in chapter one, the plants massively overgrown and taking on that wild raucousness like the unharvested rose. The building itself would indeed be "a desolate shell, soulless at last" (3). Upon rereading those first pages, I find the narrator foreshadows the events: "I believe there is a theory that men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world we must endure ordeal by fire. This we have done in full measure, ironic though it seems" (5). 

The happiness of the book is that Mr. and Mrs. de Winter bond over the tragic events. It's morbidly romantic, but there's no better example of two people needing each other so desperately. The strong Maxim even has his moment of weakness, coming to his wife's outstretched arms to be comforted. 

I've definitely added a new favorite to my list. I only wonder if the movie adaptation does it any justice -- I can see that it would be difficult. I also wonder if "Jamaica Inn" will be as brilliant. A book this engaging is exactly why I love reading. I feel so totally invested in the story, almost protective of it -- like it's a secret I'm afraid to share for fear it would be misinterpreted. 

• Pince-nez = style of spectacles popular in the 19th century, supported not by the ears but the bridge of the nose (and from the French words for "pinch nose")
• Sluice = a drain
• Gaol = jail
• Banting = slang for dieting, apparently referring to the "father of the low-carb diet" in the 1860s