Help me Daphne du Maurier, you're my only hope

I can't believe I haven't posted here in a year and a half. That is disgusting. I'm seriously disgusted with myself. So just for that, I'm going to copy and paste this half-written blog post that's been sitting in my email drafts for like two years. And then I'll write a real one, because this is pathetic. Yeah that at the bottom? It's the notes I was supposed to report back on. Ugh.

Daphne du Maurier really wanted me to cry on the subway. But I refused. She kept bringing the dramatic death scenes, and I kept biting my bottom lip. I got all excited about writing about this book, but I couldn't stop reading long enough to finish a blog post, even though I found myself crafting sentences in the shower. (I'm sure I forgot them all, maybe I need a waterproof notepad in there.)

There are some really beautiful parallels in the lives of the four family members profiled in this book. Janet, Joseph and Christopher all died in connection with the Janet Coombe, the ship the family built at their own shipyard. Upon the vessel's launch, its namesake's spirit became its primary resident. As a figurehead at sea Janet could enjoy the life she always dreamed of, close to her son Joseph (the ship's skipper) and watching over her family as a sort of matriarchal ghost. She died, it seems, of pure joy -- ecstatic, fulfilled and in compliance with her fate. Her legacy was the foundation of future events she knew would occur but could scarcely predict. It's as if these four generations of sea-loving deep feelers was predestined to be part of a neatly tied package, sad and tedious at the time but inspiring and heartwrenching in legend form.

Joseph throws his life into the sea after his mother's death, and eventually dies by literally throwing his life into the sea. He became depressed when his sometimes-fragile son, Christopher, decided to try out his sea legs upon the Janet Coombe, only to abandon ship in London. Joseph had high hopes for his firstborn, and felt betrayed, deciding never to speak to him again. His depression leads to a breakdown in his second marriage, and wife Annie visits her old friend and gentleman caller, Joseph's brother Philip. Joseph discovers this, and his agitated state and verbal rage are enough to kill Annie and her unborn baby. Philip has Joseph committed to an asylum, a move that causes him to live out his days in a mournful stupor, eventually giving up completely.

Meanwhile Christopher has managed a tolerable London life. He returns to Plyn too late to save his father, but brings his family and settles down there.

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missed connections