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.
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.
凌晨三点看完的这本小说,浑身发冷,看完后又回过头去看了看开头。 并不伤感,但是有点无奈的意思。 小说写的该说是不错的,“我”穿着一袭白衣出现在楼梯那一端的那一场看得我几乎要屏住呼吸。除却书中多出描写的拖沓,尤以景物描写的拖沓为特点,这是一本真的很好的小说。它...
评分看完《蝴蝶梦》再回过头来看序,真是长吁了一口气——幸亏没有在看之前先读序言,否则肯定连一点兴趣都没有了。序中写道:“作者通过刻画吕蓓卡(这名也译得别扭)那种放浪形骸之外的腐化生活,以及她与德温特的畸形婚姻,对英国上层社会中的享乐至上、尔虞我诈、穷奢极...
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...
评分刚开始时候,并没有想到这本书和《简爱》的联系,无意中wiki了一下作者,发现她提到了很喜欢勃朗特姐妹。于是很多设定就被对应了起来,丧偶的中年帅哥庄园主,具备吸引女性读者的一切品质。年轻的第二任夫人,以及来自第一任夫人的阴影。不过这本书更像一个彻底的反转,...
评分《蝴蝶梦》读完了。前面很好,后边读的很快。真的很象《简爱》,不过描写重复的地方N多,有的大段描写我都略读了。气氛很诡异,不过女主角的主观臆造成分居多。本来我很讨厌这种没骨气的自卑心理,但是再想想,还是可以理解她,摸摸,可怜滴女孩。男主角恐怕目前看过的名著里我...
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.
评分超喜欢。语言极美 译本语言亦如此。Rebecca阴魂不散的形象实在经典 可恨可怜可悲。the curious slant R. 需精读。
评分电影与之相比还是觉得原书好一点
评分细致入微 没电影那么抓马但更自然动人。。。
评分电影与之相比还是觉得原书好一点
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