With these words, the reader is ushered into an isolated gray stone mansion on the windswept Cornish coast, as the second Mrs. Maxim de Winter recalls the chilling events that transpired as she began her new life as the young bride of a husband she barely knew. For in every corner of every room were phantoms of a time dead but not forgotten a past devotedly preserved by the sinister housekeeper, Mrs. Danvers: a suite immaculate and untouched, clothing laid out and ready to be worn, but not by any of the great house's current occupants. With an eerie presentiment of evil tightening her heart, the second Mrs. de Winter walked in the shadow of her mysterious predecessor, determined to uncover the darkest secrets and shattering truths about Maxim's first wife the late and hauntingly beautiful Rebecca. (from goodreads.com)
I rate this book 1 out of 5 stars.
I picked up this book at the library because I mistakenly thought it was a ghost story. It wasn't, but that wasn't really a big deal to me. It's a classic gothic novel and many people consider it to be a must-read, but I just didn't care for it. The protagonist, unnamed narrator, the second Mrs. de Winter, is so co-dependent and weak that it's painful to read. Sure, ok, so she was born and bred poor and her highest aspiration in life prior to meeting Maxim de Winter was to be a whipping boy, er, I mean "lady's companion". But c'mon she should have some backbone. Everyone gets irritated and pissed off once in a while. Why doesn't she? Probably because she's too busy being a sniveling idiot. By the way, why doesn't she have a name? In my opinion, it makes her seem even more insignificant as a person. I'm going to refer to her as no-name lame from now on. That's what we called one of our cats before she ran away.
No-name lame also has no personality and her only hobbies (as far as I can tell) are sketching and taking long walks. Her sketches are apparently as unremarkable as the rest of her. Why does Maxim ask her to marry him? Maybe because he's a dirty old man? Haha, no, I'm joking, there's nothing in the storyline that even hints at that. In fact, the ending will reveal some very sordid details about Rebecca (his deceased ex) that would have made 1930's society ladies feel faint. For all intents and purposes, Maxim seems to be a decent guy. He treats no-name lame well and tries to encourage her to find her own voice. Except for a couple of times where he called her unintelligent and ignorant (but, I mean, really, who wouldn't??), Maxim is portrayed as a nice, although aloof husband.
Ah, which brings me to Mrs. Danvers, the housekeeper. This lady is like a bag of trail mix: you scoop out a handful and although you can't exactly see or taste the nuts, you know they're there. Mrs. Danvers is the typical evil villain and very consistent in her hatred of no-name lame. No-name lame, however, seems to be too self-absorbed in her feelings of worthlessness to notice, or remember, Mrs. Danvers' hatred, although Mrs. Danvers does her best to remind her with snide and condescending comments. I just couldn't get over the fact that a housekeeper was treating the lady of the house the way that Mrs. Danvers did. Mrs. Danvers may have been nuts, but No-name lame should have gotten rid of her instead of cowering around and hiding from her.
I don't like weak characters. I didn't like that No-name lame was so desperate for her husband's approval. I didn't like that she acted like a child. I didn't like that she was too dumb to put any thought into her actions. I didn't like that she had no idea how to act as a lady of a large estate like Manderly AND that she didn't bother to find out how. Having no interests not only makes someone boring, it makes a character flat. I honestly don't know why this book is so famous. The only thing I liked about it was its ending and how it ties into the beginning without going into any details. It left a sense of intrigue and made me wonder how the characters got from the ending of the book to the beginning of it and I thought that was nicely done.
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