Discovering Daphne du Maurier in the Age of Twilight

On first time encounters with "Old Soul Books"

It’s difficult to trace back to the exact moment my love for novels of the past began, (and if I’m really looking for a starting point it likely all began in my high-school freshman English class when everyone else was begrudgingly reading Beowulf while I was only pretending to not enjoy it…), but I would be remiss if I did not give credit to the writing of Daphne du Maurier.

It was a slow, gray day at my local library when I stumbled upon a copy of Rebecca in the Young Adult section. Nursing a teenage heartache in the midst of the Twilight craze, I casually picked up the weathered paperback, read the first sentence, and was curiously and steadily transported straight into the arresting world of Manderley. I could hear the murmur of the sea from the west wing and smell the towering rhododendrons that overran the garden. Time slowed down. My feet were planted.I was bewitched.

Admittedly, I did read the Twilight series that same year and awaited each new novel’s arrival, but this “old-fashioned” book I had stumbled upon was so beautifully written I couldn’t help but wonder what else I might be missing. There was no sense in pretending I hadn’t stumbled upon something richer and, arguably, more worthwhile. The contrast in writing was stark.

While I don’t want to give too much of the novel away, should I discuss it in depth at a later date, my brief synopsis is that this late 1930s literary gem, (often pegged as a romance), is a gothic anti-romance of sorts. The reader is transported to a seaside estate in the wilds of Cornwall, in which the nameless narrator is woefully unprepared to run the mansion after she hastily marries the dark, mysterious—and recently widowed—Maxim de Winter. The power of place, mystery, and suspense make this hauntingly beautiful novel one that’s hard to put down and Manderley lingers in your mind long after you’ve left.

Here was a book that had me pulling out a physical dictionary, wondering exactly what a “mackintosh” was, and longing for a routine, mid-day tea hour at 17-years-old. There was simply something about the other-worldliness of 1930s Cornwall that sharply contrasted with my present day circumstances that I’m still not quite able to put my finger on. The slower pace of life, the tea and crumpets, the long walks in the wood…all of it whisked me into a time and place where I wanted to dwell.

Of course, the mystery weaved into the background of the story gripped me just as strongly and demanded my attention to detail. I needed to know exactly who this Rebecca was and what actually happened to her. Suddenly, I myself was the painfully shy, nameless narrator. And I needed to know the truth as much as she did.

While this is not a wholesome story with morals to tuck away for a difficult day, it is one of my most recommended books to readers searching for something beyond the modern novel simply because

1. I know it will whisk the reader away, and

2. I think many of us often feel like nameless narrators in our own lives.

There is a startling sense of the flawed (and often crippling) humanity in the nameless narrator that I quickly recognized and related with. I saw myself in her. And by the end of the novel I so desperately wanted her to see herself.

(I really can’t write much further on this without revealing some spoilers, but I will say that this is a book that strangely and unexpectedly pointed me to courage. I can’t guarantee it will do the same for all readers, but the power for it to do so is certainly there. That’s what great writing does.)

The slow build of the mystery and suspense of Rebecca also sets it apart from other works. Readers aren’t given the answers to their questions right away. You intentionally linger in Manderley, asking the same questions over and over. And while I love a suspenseful physiological thriller with frequent twists and turns just as much as any avid reader, I believe the steady pace of this novel is a somewhat diminishing art in the literary world. We want to know what happens quickly. We want our answers undoubtedly. And we want to be shocked and entertained.

Manderley, however, demands a slow-burning sort of discernment in which the reader learns to trust his/her gut. And this is precisely what I believe great novels and “old soul books” can teach us. We can learn to read real life well when we are trained to read literary life well.

As you can likely imagine, this “old soul book” sent me on a quest for other works by Daphne and authors like her. It’s a bit of an old friend I tend to revisit every couple of years—and I’m certain it will eventually be one of the many monthly read-alongs we discuss here.

Of course, I am curious to know what your first time encounter with an “old soul book” was like. What did you read? And what did you take away ? What is still lingering in you to this day, long after you’ve closed the book?