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.
发表于2024-12-25
Rebecca 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书
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 评分宿 命 伽蓝 Dec.13, 2005 17:42 于深圳景田 我挖了一个很深的坑,来埋你。 “我觉得,每个人在自己的一生中迟早会面临考验,我们大家都有各自特定的恶魔灾星,备受压迫和折磨,到头来总得奋起与之搏斗。”——这是《REBECCA 蝴蝶梦》开头就写到的。这...
评分图书标签: 英国 悬疑 小说 Rebecca 英国文学 爱情 外国文学 原版书
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.
Love it!inquest--suicide--confront Favell--Baker--fire…
评分2003年寒假看完,想想挺傻逼的。
评分The plot itself isn't that innovative. But the mechanics it employs is inspiring. I especially appreciate the indirect way of Rebecca's being portrayed. By the way, though I can't think up a better Chinese translation of the name "蝴蝶梦", I still think such translation slightly shift the focus from Rebecca to the two living characters.
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。
Rebecca 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书