In general, this is, of course, a love affair. All the templates are used by the author to the fullest. Amazing story of acquaintance and marriage, which in life does not happen. The sacrifice of the heroine, the desire to ask forgiveness for everything, even if not guilty. All these indispensable attributes - suffering because of his clumsiness, inadequacy of the position, this love, unearthly to the partner, his certain coldness, how familiar it all is. "Ah, I'm no more than a dog to him. Ah, our marriage has failed. Ah, I haven't lived up to it and I'm not worthy. Ridiculous and foolish. I can't wait to be old."
Daphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter.
The second day I cried. Yes, yes. Three times for sure I did. I think these love-novel writers have some key to the female subconscious. For all the annoying and infuriatingly tearful characterization of the heroine, the everyday situations the author creates, with the reactions described, can't help but make a woman's heart clench. You can't just hold back the tears and not feel and remember all the wrongs done to you personally. Not to think - yes, yes, they are like that, bastards, they do not appreciate that great gift and sacrifice that you offer them on a plate, you give up everything for them, and they do not even say thank you. Well, they should be forbidden, these writers, don't I have anything else to cry about?
I ask you to understand me. Considering that this novel was written in '38, I'm even sure it was Dumaurier who launched all these techniques into mass production by Danielle Still, Judith McNaught and other fine fiction writers, but since I had already read the secondary and derivative, my impressions are exactly what they are.
Then, probably realizing the weakness of the plot, the author decided to make it a little heavier with the inclusions of other genres and added to the beginning of a mile long descriptions of everything. Dreams and memories of the heroine, forests, flowers, trees, valleys, dogs, houses and other items in the surrounding landscape. How depressing it was to read. Okay, okay, I thought, dear Dumaurier decided to immerse me in amosfera. This dark, gothic atmosphere. And she chose a dull and unhurried narration, from which you can only yawn, frown and roll your eyes, thinking, dear author, do you want to immerse me in the atmosphere, or drown me in it with ends?
And also, despite the favorite device of masters of the love genre, when it turns out that the hero loves the heroine all the same, unearthly love, which in life does not happen, my favorite, by the way, turn of plot in novels of this genre, when after going through fire and water, having said goodbye to love, having experienced bitter disappointment of life, succumbing to provocation and having suffered defeat from the secret and obvious enemies The heroine finally finds the desired peace of mind, after which the story is actually supposed to end, the author took and stuck absolutely obscene, which apparently is called, according to the back cover, "intellectual thriller" - although I do not see anything intellectual there, if only the endless torment. A psychological one, maybe, but not intellectual. No one has ever cast their brains there. And intellectuality implies that, doesn't it? In general, something similar to a detective line is still stuck in. So it's not at all clear to me why this is one of the best detective novels of all time, according to Wikipedia. There's almost nothing of a detective there except the expectation of a fair punishment.
And the moral. Let's keep in mind that there has to be one, because there was a time when you couldn't do without morality. There's a lot of philosophical thinking going on here, and it's hard to pile it up and put it all in a nutshell. It's either a feminist novel about a strong, strong-willed woman who subjugates everything and everyone and - hey, hey, do as she does. Or it's exactly the opposite, anti-feminist. Don't do like her, do like the main character. Love your men, cover all their sins, especially if they are from high society, because no matter what they have done, they will be untouchable, their society will not allow anyone to creep in their direction. Get over it. By the way, it's not clear here either, whether Dumaurier has a problem with or approves of this order of things. Or maybe there was no morality. Maybe it was written as it was written, and that was the end of it.
Here I do not know what the secret is. Taking the book apart, it is impossible to suspect something in it that made it a worldwide bestseller. I even thought at first that the time would go to waste, because clearly it was not in the mood for me. And then, my dear mother - something happened to me. Somewhere after the first third, perhaps. I couldn't tear myself away. I chased myself and chased myself. I started spoiling myself because I didn't have time to read, and how could I go to bed without knowing what was going to happen next? It was kind of crazy, so to speak. What can I say, I even dreamt about a man, yes. A trustworthy man, with whom I felt calm and peaceful. The kind who solves all my problems with his presence, and I sighed there in the dream, finally, that now everything was in reliable hands and I had nothing to worry about. Such a forgotten feeling, I tell you. And maybe not experienced at all, if only as a child.
All in all, you should read this with caution, I tell you, because it's all fraught. It's disturbing. Especially in springtime.
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