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2024-05-17
Rebecca 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书
《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 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,...
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.
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。
评分所有女人都不是Rebecca,但最終會否都變成Rebecca?
评分Audio book, another Gothic novel, read by Ann Massey. The memorable characters in this book are 1. a dead woman; 2. a house; 3. a sinister
评分very emotional, detailed narratation. I like subjective narratation better.
评分这个女主角内心戏也是很足,可以想出一个世界,真的好(sui)细(sui)腻(nian),就这么想了一本书……极端女性视角如果不是年代在那里我真觉得有些campy了
Rebecca 2024 pdf epub mobi 电子书