My Cousin Rachel

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 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 show more 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

Wow. I am so glad that I read this. "My Cousin Rachel" is not just a mystery/thriller, it also has very good Gothic elements and a very twisty (in a good way story). We have two men who come across their cousin Rachel with both trying their best to hang onto her even though she wants freedom from both. You do wonder if Rachel has done all that she has been accused of via her husband Ambrose and his cousin and heir Phillip. Or have both men been seeing zebras where there were just horses? I like to think in the end there was a mixture of things in this story.

The story begins with the Phillip thinking of how murderers are no longer hung at a certain location anymore. He goes on about his upbringing with his cousin Ambrose, and how he will show more be seen as a standing and upright citizen like Ambrose one day. But you start to realize that these are merely words to Phillip. That something has happened that has broken him. We eventually have him mention his cousin Rachel.

Phillip is 23 when we go back to when Ambrose decides to depart for a warmer climate due to his health. Both of the men (long without women) have backwards notions about women even for the time this book takes place in. There are a few times we get Phillip's comments about his godfather's daughter, Louise, and wow. His condescension towards her at times did make me worry for her health a few times. Ambrose eventually writes to Phillip about meeting their cousin Rachel in Florence and before you know it, the two are married. Phillip is jealous of the fact that Ambrose has fallen in love and forgotten about him. And those nearby gently tell Philip that he will have to see about getting his own home soon. When Ambrose starts writing Phillip, it seems the bloom is off the rose of his new marriage (it's been 10 months) and then the letters becoming increasingly unhinged with Phillip concerned that something is being done to Ambrose. Taking himself off to Italy he finds that Ambrose has died a few weeks before he came there and all his thoughts are about destroying Rachel if and when he comes across her.

The story takes a turn at this point with Phillip eventually getting to meet his cousin Rachel and having her stay with him at his house and estate (he inherited from Ambrose). You start to wonder if Rachel is just a woman with unfortunate luck (her first husband died by duel, Ambrose by they say a tumor/brain disease) or is she more devious than she seems.

Du Maurier likes playing both sides throughout the story. You can see how Rachel's actions at time seem to be as if she is playing with Phillip. However, you get to see his actions and they are in some ways worse. He ignores Rachel when she says stop and doesn't listen to her wants and needs. He seems determined to treat her as if she has no say in her own life. Since Rachel is 35 and Phillip about to turn 25, you would wonder why he would become so fixated on Rachel, but it seems that he was determined to take over something that Ambrose had.

The other characters in this book are interesting as well. Initially Phillip's godfather (Nicholas Kendall) is put out by Phillip's hostile behavior towards Rachel. But when Phillip swings the other way to being too generous and not listening to his advice, he realizes that Phillip will come to some bad end if things are not changed.

I thought the character of Louise was the only one who saw things clearly and loved re-reading her comments to Phillip. The fact that Phillip treats her as brainless made me shake my head. If anyone could not see what was going on it was definitely Phillip. And you become sad since if things had gone another way, she would have been a perfect wife for him. Due to the ending, I wonder if she stayed away from Phillip in the future, or not.

The writing was very good. The house starts to feel oppressive and dark after a while, matching Phillip's mood. Even though the house is undergoing a restoration with gardens, a bridge, flowers, it feels like it will stay a museum, pretty to look at, with no soul.

The flow was a bit wonky at first. The book starts off slow and you may find yourself bored, but stick with the story, it will pick up and you won't be able to put this down.

The setting of the story is in Cornwall and Florence. Most of the book takes place in Cornwall though. Phillip hates Florence and does not write of the charm of the place or the food. He merely complains of the heat and dryness. In contrast, Rachel longs for Italy and the weather. Cornwall at first seems quite magical when Rachel first comes to the house.

The ending leaves you with so many questions. The uppermost in my mind is the question of whether Rachel is guilty of what Ambrose and Phillip thought of her? In the end though, does it matter? show less

I read this book in a crazed frenzy. The pleasant country life described was full of tension due to the uncertainty related to various events as well as the narrator’s naïve, heedless feelings and decisions. There were similarities to du Maurier’s Rebecca – an enigmatic woman and a treasured estate are at the center of the plot. However, there was much more ambiguity surrounding the woman who sets off the events, Rachel. As in Rebecca, the author ends on a climax but less is resolved. The simple prose, focus on the natural surroundings and a refusal to admit feelings in a first person narrative create a good portrait of Philip, the narrator.

du Maurier quickly sets up the events that lead to a clash between Rachel and Philip. show more Philip’s guardian Ambrose, an eternal bachelor who planned to leave the estate to him, travels to Italy for his health and meets and marries Rachel, a distant relative. While everyone in Cornwall is happy for him, Philip is annoyed. He already has hateful images of Rachel in his head when Ambrose sends him incoherent letters hinting that Rachel is trying to kill him. He rushes to Florence but Ambrose is already dead and Rachel is gone. Philip plans revenge against her until she suddenly shows up at his estate.

It is perhaps not a spoiler to say that he falls in love with her but her feelings, thoughts and actions remain a mystery. The tension ratchets up as new information about Rachel trickles out and Philip remains blind to her bad qualities. Even the placid scenes depicted are interesting as you wonder if Rachel is sincere or manipulating Philip and everyone else. For example, several times he is suspicious of her, but she immediately detects the change, finds out what’s wrong and provides an explanation that satisfies him. A master manipulator, one might think. However, it’s entirely possible that the answers she provides are the truth. More tension comes from Philip’s rush to fall in love with her – like his godfather and friends, you want to tell him to slow down and see reason. He’s avoided the company of women all his life and plans to be a bachelor like Ambrose – could be why he has no intuition or emotional intelligence or whatever it’s called. The silences between them become deafening – pretty quickly on the reader realizes that Philip knows nothing about Rachel. Her background, her first marriage, her life with Ambrose – all this is ignored or put off because Rachel says it’s painful to talk about. Some people may think that Philip’s actions are rash and stupid and they are. However, he’s like a hormone-crazed teenager in love who thinks that no one has ever felt like this before and the more people try to slow him down, the faster he runs off a cliff.

Rachel reminded me of Rebecca in several ways. She is able to win everyone over in a quick fashion (as Maxim said that Rebecca could do) and all her work turning Philip’s home into a comfortable and beautiful place recalls Rebecca making Manderley what it was. Rebecca’s secrets are revealed at the end of her book, but readers must weigh the evidence on Rachel for themselves. Philip is a bit of a misogynist at the beginning of the book – he thinks women are pretty much useless and his initial view of her is either as a nagging, controlling wife or a spoiled, greedy vixen. He remains one even after Rachel wins him over – his view of her recalls the virgin/whore, above reason/below reason etc. dichotomy. When he’s in love with her, nothing can make him believe anything negative about her and there’s always an explanation for everything. When he’s suspicious of her, she must be an evil murderer. I felt the real explanation must lie somewhere in between. An excellent, suspenseful read. show less

What an idiot I am.

Over the last few years I’ve been reading more of du Maurier’s work and coming to consider her a favorite writer. I’ve read Jamaica Inn, The House on the Strand, The Flight of the Falcon, The Scapegoat, Rebecca and Frenchman’s Creek, plus a collection of short stories. At some point I read a negative review of MCR that said it was basically a warmed-over Rebecca. What? Did we read the same book? MCR is most assuredly NOT a warmed-over Rebecca. It’s a deliberately-crafted psychological thriller dripping with atmosphere.

So that’s my first instance of idiocy over MCR. There is another. While reading I took notes about Rachel’s character and how if she’s playing a game, she’s playing it awfully close to show more the vest. There was nothing overtly furtive or misleading in her actions and so I wondered just how du Maurier would check this up with whatever she wrote as the denouement. I had suspicions of a weak ending that just wouldn’t jibe and some behavior or action would seem out of the blue.

I should have known to trust du Maurier and that the way she wrote Rachel would serve a purpose. Only at the very end, literally the last few pages, is the brilliance of the subdued portrait of Rachel, made clear.

Spoilers.

Like any good novelist, du Maurier gives us bits of foreshadowing that work really well to set tension. What did R spend her allowance on and why is she so overdrawn at the bank? The incident with the pearls and how poor, backward Philip couldn’t see their significance. Ambrose’s mysterious letters (which all get destroyed in one way or another) and what they really mean. The similar illnesses that befall both Ambrose and Philip. The way the staff, previously unsympathetic to R, start calling her the mistress. Just what are R & Rainaldi talking about in their whispered conversations in Italian? So much to savor and wonder about.

Interspersed with these cryptic moments are Philips completely stupid inner monologues, lies and disastrous decisions. Monumentally disastrous decisions. As a character he’s the strongest. Sheltered, backward and almost completely ignorant of women he falls under a spell with regard to Rachel. I can’t really say whether the spell is hers in the sense that she has cast it and that’s one of the glorious ambiguities you will be left with at the end. If R was deliberately ensnaring poor, sappy Philip, she did it with such subtlety that as readers we don’t really know if it was deliberate. Philip is a perfect mark if it is a con, he’s so sheltered and ignorant that it wouldn’t have been hard to convince him to part with his fortune, estate and legacy.

Like a little kid who is anxious to show how grown up he is, Philip is always declaring that he is a man, master of his estate and has reached the ripe old age of nearly five and twenty. He even laments the loss of his beard that grows during his illness because it made him look older. He’s pathetic and I didn’t have a lot of sympathy if she did screw him out of his estate. He had good advice and warnings about R, but ignored all of them thinking he knew better. Oh and he is quite the liar when he needs to be.

The warning about Rachel put me in mind of Anna Barton in the novel Damage by Josephine Hart. Compare -

“There are some women, Philip,” he observed, “good women very possibly, who through no fault of their own impel disaster. Whatever they touch somehow turns to tragedy. I don’t know why I say this to you, but I feel I must.” (Philip’s godfather and guardian Mr. Kendall to Philip, MCR, p 212.)

“Anna has brought a great deal of pain to a number of people. She is completely blameless, in my opinion. But she is a catalyst for disaster. [...] So you, my friend, should heed what I say. It’s clearly too late for the only advice that could save you. Stay away from Anna.” (Anna’s step-father Wilbur to the unnamed victim of her thrall, her fiance’s father, Damage, p 80 of my nook book)

Rachel’s personality is much more shrouded. She’s so opaque and enigmatic that I initially counted this as a flaw in the novel. I wanted her actions and motivations to be more clear. This was because I expected a definitive ending falling on one side or the other; was R guilty or innocent? An ambiguous ending didn’t occur to me simply because in many gothic novels the ending is solid. I should have prepared myself for ambiguity.

The ending is pitch perfect and the way it’s foreshadowed fills you with dread and foreboding. The bridge in the garden is clearly the means and we (well at least I) want her to fall victim to it. By this time with the seeds in the drawer and her coldness and control of the money, we want her dead and Philip restored to his prior existence. Then there is the letter. The letter that spooked Philip, but that he couldn’t subvert and prevent its delivery. And the note about returning the Ashley family jewels to the bank so that Philip can inherit them like he would if he hadn’t foolishly given them to R. Oh how quickly our feelings change and we want him to catch up with her on the bridge and save her. In our heart of hearts though, we know this story cannot have a happy ending. That much has already been made clear by du Maurier’s narrative framing; Philip relates this incident from the distant future, his life a shell of its former happiness and contentment. The way he talks about how they used to hang murderers at the crossroads. No, this story cannot end well and it doesn’t.

It is a great ending though and both appropriate and satisfying. Rachel’s opacity as a character has full meaning as well as all those little clues of condemnation; are they really showing her as guilty or are they innocent? We will never know. And that’s ok. show less

This leans more on a 3.5 but du Maurier's hauntingly ambiguous My Cousin Rachel is a poisonous food for thought. With biting Oedipal implications, young heir Philip's initial hatred of Ambrose's widow (both of which his cousins), Rachel Ashley, turns slow burningly into a feverish, violent, and obsessive infatuation. ** "How simple it must be for a woman of the world, like Mrs Ashley, to twist a young man like yourself around her finger." Philip is very naïve then develops into an annoying lad until he becomes some kind of villain depending on one's perception. And what's more to make this all complicated than the inclusion of money and assets to the matter, Ambrose's suspicious death and letters, and Philip's disturbing likeness with show more Ambrose?

A book difficult to put down with its aggravating ambiance of paranoia and suspense as the plot twists and turns itself all made horrifically charming by the seemingly gold digging, ambivalent, and subduedly promiscuous cousin Rachel until she's just Rachel, my own inability to completely decide who to believe and trust is (magnificently) concerning and (positively) frustrating. du Maurier has gone as far as making a subtle commentary on women's dependency on men most particularly in financial matters and it works brilliantly in this narrative of deceit, doubts, and distractions. My Cousin Rachel is a coup of reverse psychology and scepticism. As soon as you close the book with a gasping thud, the story has just started in your head. show less

This is the third of du Maurier’s books that I’ve read. I do love the way she writes, it draws me into the story completely. My Cousin Rachel is told from the perspective of Philip Ashley, a young man of 24, who was brought up by his much older cousin Ambrose after the death of both of his parents. They live in a large estate in Cornwall, and for the past few winters Ambrose has had to travel to warmer climates to prevent him from becoming too ill. During one of his yearly travels, he ends up in Italy, only to meet and fall in love with Rachel – a widower who, soon after marrying her, he grows to hate and fear. Not too long afterwards, Ambrose dies, and Philip believes that Rachel is the cause of Ambrose’s death.

When Rachel show more comes to live at Philip’s home, he goes from hating her, to falling in love with her, to fearing that she is attempting to poison him like he believes she poisoned his older cousin.

While it took a while for me to get into the book, as soon as I hit about a third of the way in, I devoured the rest of it. The setting – ah! I love books that take place on estates in the English countryside. And the characters were wonderful. It was hard seeing them all through the eyes of Philip (the narrator) however, as his moods changed frequently, so he either saw only the good in people or (more often as the book went on) only the bad (in everyone else but Rachel). It can be hard, though, when reading a book that takes place through first person to know how accurate what they are telling you is – because you know that they’re not always going to tell you exactly the way things are, but more how they appear to them.

I loved that I was left wondering whether Rachel was really as at fault as Philip believed her to be, or whether Philip was dealing with the same sort of brain tumor (leading to delusions) that people believe Ambrose died of. It’s very ambiguous, and I want to go back and read the book again to see if I can gain any more evidence either way.

In fact, as soon as I finished the book, I went back and reread the first chapter. Like Rebecca and The Frenchman’s Creek, the first chapter of My Cousin Rachel takes place after the actual events of the novel. It gives the outcome of the whole book, but not how we get there, which is in this case the most exciting part (as it is with Rebecca). So yes, as soon as I finished, I reread the first chapter to see if there was anything I had forgotten that would shed a little bit of light on the final outcome.

But, I do have a question for those of you who have read all of du Maurier’s books (ahem, Rachel): do all of her books start after the story takes place and then go back to the beginning of the story?

The Bottom Line: I definitely liked this better than The Frenchman’s Creek, but not as much as Rebecca. As mentioned, I will definitely be keeping this on my shelf in order to read again in the future. I would recommend this book to people who did enjoy Rebecca and were looking for some more du Maurier to read. show less

Rachel is simply the original model of gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. The levels of deception seen almost clearly by the readers are masked by Phillip's pure infatuation and obsession. The pieces of the puzzle are laid out plainly, but seeing a pretty lady takes away any ability for Phillip to think with logic and reason. I think the reason for the lower ranking is simply because I found Phillip's inability to see what was truly in front of him so beyond frustrating.

The setting and the actual writing paint such a lovely picture for the readers to see in their minds eye, but again the frustration of what the readers know/can see versus what the narrator chooses to see don't always match which took me out of the story.