Rebecca

I tried to write about Rebecca last night and would up getting side-tracked, writing about whatever was on my mind lately, namely, the satisfaction I derive from reading as opposed to watching a good film or show.

What I had intended to write about is the nature of suspense in Rebecca. Du Maurier does a truly masterful job of slowly unfurling a mysterious plot. The opening to the novel is like a master-class is showing, not telling. It's quite incredible; from the first line, the narrator provides us with a simple statement of fact that implies a question, and sets up a structure wherein we are given a morsel of information and stay hungry for several more. "Last night I dreamed we were in Manderlay again," runs the first line. What is Manderlay? Why was she there? Why did she have to leave, because clearly she's been cut off from it. The whole story moves that way: we wonder who Rebecca was, what the dark secret in Max de Winter's past is, how he and the narrator wound up together, and just who is the narrator, this mysterious cipher of a girl? The book is just a masterful example of clever plotting that leaves the reader hungry to find out what happens next. I'd forgotten that novels could be pleasing in that way.

That's what I was trying to write about last night.