Re-reading Rebecca

I also got onto the bandwagon of re-reading Rebecca before the new adaptation by Netflix comes out on the 21st of this month (which is tomorrow!). I’m not very crazy about book to movie adaptations because they usually never do justice to the book. The first Rebecca movie by Alfred Hitchcock was quite good, even though the ending was a bit altered, considering it was made in 1940, just three years after the book was published.

Re-reading some books takes us on a personal journey. Whenever I pick up a book for a re-read I feel I don’t just re-visit the story but also the events in my life while I was reading that particular book or even how I came across the book in the first place. Rebecca has a little story also.

The year was 1997 and I was a student of pre-engineering in Federal College for Girls Rawalpindi (also known as CB college) who was trying to juggle reading with studies. I didn’t have much access to books because I was only able to buy them when we visited the old book stalls in Saddar on Sundays and that was only once in two months after a lot of pleading and begging. I had never heard of Daphne du Maurier, let alone of her most famous novel Rebecca, and it was a classmate who introduced me to her writings.

It’s odd how sometimes one can recreate an entire scene around a small thing. I still remember how we were all walking inside the classroom, a large hall type space with big windows and large wooden tables, and this class fellow asked me of my current read. I don’t remember what I told her but I do recall her asking me if I’d read Rebecca. When she found out I hadn’t, she kindly agreed to lend me her copy. I was a bit reluctant to take the book from her because a) I was always a bit wary about ‘lending’ and borrowing books and b) I was a bit of a book snob and didn’t think the book would be all that she was drumming it up to be.

I was proved wrong.

I read Rebecca in a state of wonder and awe. I was completely sucked into the story. The 17 year old me loved Rebecca and hated the protagonist. I was aghast when I discovered that Rebecca was a ‘fallen’ sort of woman and refused to believe it but then I was brought around by the turn of events in the final chapters and was heartbroken when Manderley was no more. But I definitely loved the writing and wanted to read more books by the author. It was many years later that I read her other famous novels and became a Du Maurier fan.

I had a vague idea of the story when I picked up the book last month. The ending I knew well but some of the other details of the story came as a surprise to me. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the book more this time around because I wasn’t in a hurry to finish it and ‘find out’ the ending. It was a treat to roam around Manderley during the pockets of time I managed to steal from the twins. 

My feelings towards the book, however, were totally different after this re-read. I didn’t feel a lot of sympathy for Max de Winter and his young bride as the events around Rebecca’s death unfolded. Rebecca’s debauchery and her wild manners were a tiny bit hard to believe. And the ending was dripping with sickeningly large quantities of melodrama. How come there isn’t a Lollywood or Bollywood version of Rebecca yet? Or have I missed it?

Is Rebecca worth reading? Hell, yes! It is a dark, dark book. If someone tells you that is essentially a love story, hit them with your copy of the book. It is not a love story by a WIDE margin. It has large doses of jealousy, envy and hate. It is also sprinkled with insecurities and mysteries. But so many people say there is a love story somewhere in it, you ask. I say yes you might find it - if you have crazy notions about romance or are 17.