Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989)

This starts out so lush and winking and allusive and the psychology of it all is so apt, especially poor "Mouse," as my reading club dubbed her, the narrator, with her shining desire and her blind spots and her lust for safety and fascination with the twisted and fearsome, that I have to admit to some disappointment as we declined from keen psychological glimpses and hints through the series of reveals that pull the curtain off the whole Gothic backstory and down into the downright lurid; show more you feel like you're reading a pulp novel without even meaning to, and I like to know. But much, perhaps most, of this is magnificent like a hand full of aces or a fist full of peacock feathers. I feel like I'd like to've seen the early part protracted (perhaps Maxim and Mouse have many adventures in Monte Carlo and on the way home, and we fall for her ingenuity and pluck and get more and more illly invested in his illly illuminated past, while we still think he's a Rochester and not a Heathcliff--and by the way, think of Rebecca as a Catherine for a minute and think about the pulsating polyphonic novel that's just below the surface here--again, partly why I'm let down to see her reduced to a kind of all-purpose malevolence, waiting to be picked up by grad students writing on psychopathy or borderline personality in literature) and the latter part, especially when it gets down to goddamn police procedural basically, compacted. No but this book is great: it will haunt you if you have the right wounds for it to gain purchase, and be one hell of a beach read otherwise. show less

Sophie Busson is the daughter of Mathurin Busson, a master glass maker in central France, and this is the story of her family, spanning nearly 100 years: starting with the year of her parents’ marriage, all through the turbulent years of the events leading up to and including the Revolution, the brief years of the Republic, until the rise of Napoleon Bonaparte and his coronation as Emperor, and the restoration of the monarchy.

Based on Daphne du Maurier’s own French forebears, in the show more novel Sophie writes down the history of the Bussons, a family of glass blowers, for the benefit of her nephew Louis-Mathurin Busson, who grew up in England and is ignorant of his true family history. The first half of the book is not only provincial in perspective, but positively pedestrian, but du Maurier manages to create an evocative impression of rural France in the latter half of the eighteenth century, with the descriptions of the glass-blowing industry particularly vivid. Finally, in the 1780s, we can actually read about real events deserving of the name, as the political situation in France deteriorates, with riots and uprisings throughout the country, and the royal family having to make more and more concessions to the people to keep the peace. The passages detailing the riots in Paris and in Loir-et-Cher, the area where Sophie and her family live, the fear and suspicion after the fall of the ancien régime and the terror of the subsequent civil war are among the most powerful in the novel and for once shift the usual central perspective focused on Paris during those years to the provinces, where unspeakable atrocities took place that are much less known. The chapter about the Vendéans taking Le Mans, with its potent images of utter dehumanisation, will stay with me a long time; there is a still-relevant message to be found in these pages. By the end, each character had grown on me, as I had come to know all their individual stories, and I felt sorry I had to take my leave.

This will not be everyone’s cup of tea, and a lot will probably give up long before they make it to the halfway point, but there is a definite reward to be had for those who persevere. show less

Digital audio performed by Jonathan Pryce

Philip Ashley is the young heir to the great Cornwall estate owned by his cousin, Ambrose, who is his guardian and has been like a father to him. For health reasons, Ambrose goes to Italy in the winter months, but this time he does not return. He has married the lovely widowed Contessa and is staying for a time until her late husband’s affairs are fully settled. But then Ambrose dies suddenly, and Cousin Rachel shows up in Cornwall. Is she the show more bereaved widow? A temptress and gold-digger? Could she have poisoned Ambrose?

Oh, what a tangled web we weave …. Wonderfully atmospheric, gothic psychological suspense. Philip is a naïve young man who is seemingly easily manipulated by the worldly Rachel. Or is he? Is the mutual attraction a figment of his over-active imagination? Does he believe the cryptic notes cousin Ambrose sent him? Or should he shrug them off as the product of a diseased and fevered brain? Rachel, herself, is the soul of propriety one moment, and then seemingly giddy as a schoolgirl at her good fortune the next. She is flirtatious one moment, and standoffishly proper then next. She seems callously indifferent in one scene and then solicitous and concerned about Philip on the next page. She’s both captivating and infuriating!

I was second-guessing myself as often as Philip was. At the end I’m left wondering what really happened. And that’s a good thing.

Johnathan Pryce does a marvelous job narrating the audio book. He’s a talented actor and he gives all the characters, men and women, distinct voices that really bring them to life. show less

From the book jacket - Two men – one English, the other French – meet by chance in a provincial railway station and are astounded that they are so much alike that they could easily pass for each other. Over the course of a long evening, they talk and drink. It is not until he awakes the next day that John, the Englishman, realizes that he may have spoken too much. His French companion is gone, having stolen his identity. For his part, John has no choice but to take the Frenchman’s show more place – as master of a chateau, director of a failing business, head of a large and embittered family, and keeper of too many secrets.

My reactions
Du Maurier writes wonderfully complex psychological suspense, and this is a stellar example of her skill. Told almost entirely from John’s point of view we see him go from a depressed professor, to a befuddled (and very hung over) victim of a cruel “practical joke,” to a concerned outsider doing his best to keep things going, and finally to a man who had found new reserves of inner strength.

The way in which John muddles along as “Jean de Gue” reveals much about his doppelganger. For no matter how badly he behaves, what horribly embarrassing mistakes he makes, how much he hurts (however unintentionally) Jean’s wife, sister-in-law, brother, sister, mother, employees, everyone forgives him because Jean has so charmed them in the past that they overlook his “bad-boy” behavior. But John, not knowing when or if Jean will return, tries to make the best of things. Touched by the loyalty of workers in the family’s glass foundry, he agrees to a contract that will bring financial ruin to the Comte de Gue. Trying to find a way to make amends, John discovers the realities of the family finances. Jean’s wife has a significant trust fund but a modest annual allowance – unless she bears a son or dies before her husband. Francoise is about seven-months pregnant and having a difficult time of it, so John tries his best to be solicitous hoping to hang on until the long-awaited son is born, but this is clearly a troubled marriage.

That’s not the only difficulty in the household. The dowager countess is a bed-ridden old woman with a somewhat sinister handmaid, Charlotte. Sister Blanche has not spoken to her brother in fifteen years, and is a repressed and bitter woman who spends much time praying at the altar in her room. Brother Paul is an ineffective businessman, saddled with doing his best to manage a business his older brother completely neglects. Paul’s wife Renee is a bored housewife whose sexual yearning for Jean is evident to everyone. Ten-year-old Marie-Noel is a spoiled child who dotes on her father, is jealous of the not-yet-born baby brother, ignores her mother and spies on the household (which at least provides John with information, because the little girl loves to tell her father all the secrets she uncovers).

The plot is full of twists and turns which kept me interested and intrigued from beginning to end. I had seen a British movie on PBS Masterpiece, but it differs significantly from the book, so my expectations of where the plot was going were quickly proven wrong. Then, just as I thought I had figured out what would happen, du Maurier changed direction on me again. There is no neat solution to the mess Jean de Gue has made of his life, despite how John tries to set things right. The book ends with many questions left for the future. show less