If Daphne du Maurier had written only Rebecca, she would still be one of the great shapers of popular culture and the modern imagination. Few writers have created more magical and mysterious places than Jamaica Inn and Manderley, buildings invested with a rich character that gives them a memorable life of their own.
In many ways the life of Daphne du Maurier resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, the daughter of a famous actor-manager, she was indulged as a child and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.
Her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. While Alfred Hitchcock's film based upon her novel proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.
Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.
While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.
In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.
In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story. The nameless heroine has been saved from a life of drudgery by marrying a handsome, wealthy aristocrat, but unlike the Prince in Cinderella, Maxim de Winter is old enough to be the narrator's father. The narrator thus must do battle with The Other Woman—the dead Rebecca and her witch-like surrogate, Mrs Danvers—to win the love of her husband and father-figure.
Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again . . .
The novel begins in Monte Carlo, where our heroine is swept off her feet by the dashing widower Maxim de Winter and his sudden proposal of marriage. Orphaned and working as a lady's maid, she can barely believe her luck. It is only when they arrive at his massive country estate that she realizes how large a shadow his late wife will cast over their lives--presenting her with a lingering evil that threatens to destroy their marriage from beyond the grave.
When I was reading a book on the literary history of Meji Japan (1868 - 1912) a couple of days ago, the sort of reading that one reads merely for the purpose of her research, there was a line at the end of chapter 1 that caught my attention. It was a quote ...
评分《蝴蝶梦》的原名是《吕蓓卡》。相对而言,我还更喜欢《蝴蝶梦》这个名字,女主角所经历的一切何尝不像是个梦呢,如蝴蝶般美丽,而这美丽也如同蝴蝶的生命般短暂。当然《吕蓓卡》更符合文章的中心。毕竟她虽死犹生。一直一直如幽灵般潜伏在曼陀丽的每一个角落,栖息在那儿每...
评分When I was reading a book on the literary history of Meji Japan (1868 - 1912) a couple of days ago, the sort of reading that one reads merely for the purpose of her research, there was a line at the end of chapter 1 that caught my attention. It was a quote ...
评分追忆第一次于文字中看到石楠,是在《呼啸山庄》广袤的荒原上。时隔多日,我如痴如醉地走进《蝴蝶梦》,走进了神秘的曼陀丽,蓦然看到,这里竟也有石楠,只是不同于那野性苍凉的初次印象,曼陀丽的石楠拥有高耸密集的火红,像血一样。 《蝴蝶梦》(又译《丽贝卡》)的作者达...
评分家里一本老版的吕贝卡,被中学时代那个嗜书如命的我,翻烂了又补好,再翻烂再补好……终于就这么彻底烂了。 其实很怀念那时候的我,一本书一读再读,仿佛那是全世界最珍贵、最好看的书,我总是囫囵吞枣式地读第一遍,再拆肉剔骨地读二三遍,然后在每一个闲暇时光,比如考试前...
虚实相生!!!!
评分Daphne Du Maurier's writing is so atmospheric. The way she writes about nature... she really brings you to Manderley. And the mystery, the plot itself is original. Like many others, I didn't see the twist coming either. And the flawed characters are memorable too. I don't think we'd ever forgotten them, even the ghost-like Rebecca.
评分Rebecca用诗化的语言,细腻而富于代入感的心理叙事手法,讲述了一个堪与现代戏剧和电影剧本媲美的精彩故事,这三者的结合,神奇而难得。
评分2003年寒假看完,想想挺傻逼的。
评分很喜欢语言风格。第一次读外文原著的悬疑,经典好看!
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