Dear reader,

If you thought the unnamed narrator of Rebecca gave us a lot to talk about, she had nothing on Humbert Humbert, the narrator of this week’s book, Lolita.

The story has courted controversy since the beginning, being passed over repeatedly by publishers before being banned on its eventual publication by many countries, including the UK.

As I said on the show, the protagonist is a child abuser, a rapist, a murderer, a liar, the subject matter is extremely disturbing – and yet Vladimir Nabokov’s novel is also regarded as a masterpiece of postmodern literature.

We’ve read so many brilliant books in our time recording the podcast and I’ve always been a voracious reader, so it’s with consideration that I made my claim in this episode that this is the most beautifully written book in the entire English language.

But I know the subject matter isn’t for everybody. That tension – between the style and the subject – has been part of the story of Lolita from the day it was published, and people often feel very strongly about it, which is completely understandable.

It may be a novel that you’ve never considered picking up, but I hope that after our discussions you might reconsider, if only so you can email us and let us know your thoughts.

Our inbox is filled with literary analysis and debate and I have no doubt that this week it will be as busy as ever. Email [email protected] and we’ll share some of the best letters next week. Especially from fellow synesthetes who want to discuss what colour the story is…

Below, you’ll find our usual Book Club Notes from Rhiannon to help guide you through a conversation with friends or to shape your book club. Whatever your feelings about this novel, you’ll likely want to unpick them with someone.

We also have reading recommendations, polls and your excellent correspondence about Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca.

You’ll find this edition of our newsletter is somewhat longer than usual because we had so many Rebecca notes and reviews to feature.

Until next time,

Tabby

“You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

Demonstrating at once the charm and humour of Humbert, the knowing style of the novel and that constant interplay between the narrator and his audience. But what quote stayed with you after you finished? Email and let us know.

We love featuring your suggestions here to share with fellow Book Notes members. Last week, Tabby asked which books you wished you could read for the first time again. Here’s what you said…

We look forward to reading your thoughts on Lolita. Write in to [email protected] with ‘review’ in the subject line and tell us…

Rebecca has long been one of our most requested books so were were prepared for a lot of emails and reviews – but you really blew us away.

Your polls

When it comes to whether you love an unreliable narrator, the response was overwhelmingly YES, with 81% of the votes.

Some of you admitted you had never seen the new Mrs de Winter this way and are now viewing the book in a whole new light. As Mick said: “Unreliable narrators allow you to re-read books adopting a different perspective each time!”

Lisa said unreliable narrators provide a “better insight into the author's themes”. “One of my favourite examples is Dennis Lehane's Shutter Island. Another more recent example is Natalie Heller Mills in [Caro Claire Burke’s]Yesteryear. Granted, the insight only comes after finishing the novel.”

Kristie wrote in with a counterview. “I'm too gullible when I read (but not in real life) and then am mad at myself for not being smart enough to have seen what was going on in such a book,” she said. “However, I loved Herman Koch's The Dinner.”

When it came to scoring, 40% of you awarded Rebecca 9/10. A considerable number of you opted for 10/10.

Touchingly, J Crump said: “As a 'senior citizen' (I like 'elder,' these days), I was delighted a couple of years ago to revisit Rebecca with a high schooler. She was enchanted; absolutely in love with it. We even watched the movie version after finishing the book. It's always so rewarding to see a young person fall in love with a classic.”

Maggie said the novel deserved 10/10 and added: “Rebecca was the first book I stayed up really late reading because I couldn't put it down, aged about 12. Since then it has remained one of my favourites and I've read it several times. The atmosphere is perfectly captured in the writing – the red rhododendrons somehow seeming oppressive and sinister in spite of their beauty; the wild Cornish coast; the old house with its secrets.”

And finally, Rosie wrote in to say: “If you haven’t seen the That Mitchell and Webb Look sketch about Rebecca, please go and watch it immediately, it’s hilarious!”

From dream to nightmare

Kaye answered our call asking who she’d recommend Rebecca to. “Any young girl who romantically still thinks the dream is to marry a dark and brooding rich man, then live a life of idle luxury,” she says.

“When I re-read Rebecca I kept thinking the other nightmare for the narrator, apart from Mrs Danvers, was how meaningless and lonely her life would be.”

Rebecca re-reads

Thank you to the very large number of you who wrote in to say you re-read Rebecca because of the podcast.

Claire said that, 20 years on, the comparisons with Jane Eyre really struck her: “It's not just the big house that burns down, or the scary females, or the jealousy, it's the men! Emotionally damaged by their disloyal wives, they somehow manage to get these women to overlook the misogyny and say yes!

“Of all the terrible marriage proposals in literature, Maxim de Winter's proposal was second only to Edward Rochester's to Jane Eyre. Rochester: ‘You--poor and obscure, and small and plain as you are--I entreat to accept me as a husband.’ (She really should have slapped him hard, preferably with a sizeable piece of timber.) Maxim: ‘I'm asking you to marry me, you little fool.’ (She should have thrown the marmalade at his face.)”

Heather writes: “I’ve read the book multiple times, but every time, there is a point in the story at which I become fully gripped and can’t put it down – around the time of the fancy dress ball incident. The pace and the horror and the sense of isolation becomes so overwhelming at that point.” She continues: “I’m hoping to share Rebecca with my daughter one day, when I can wean her away from her current Hunger Games and Percy Jackson reading list. I think she’ll love it, as she loves a murder mystery.”

It doesn’t always work out though. As Sharon told us: “When I first read this as a naive socially awkward 20-year-old I really felt engaged with and identified with the narrator. (I too would have swept up the broken ornament and put it in an envelope!) However, rereading it 43 years later from the perspective of a mature woman who has had a demanding career I found the narrator's timidity very irritating. Whilst my younger self lapped up the Gothic creepiness this time round I found it far too melodramatic.”

And good luck to Ian, and his third venture into the book. “I loved Rebecca the first time I read it,” he said. “However, on a second read, a holiday somewhere hot long ago, I remember growing distinctly aware of being tricked or falling into something too clever for me to grasp, possibly something unpleasant. I definitely didn’t like the narrator or Maxim anymore, but then if they were the baddies…who was left that was good? Surely not Mrs Danvers. I was lost. At the time, an old aunt assured me that I was reading far too much into it.

“Now, thanks to you two, all these years later I’m up and running again. And it’s even trickier than I’d ever imagined. Am off to dig out my old scruffy paperback and enjoy it all over again.”

Otherworldly…

Many of us will relate to Teresa’s first impressions. She shared: “A family friend who loves reading as much as I do gave me Rebecca as a present when I was 16. I remember being so entranced during a break in school that I almost missed a class.

“What I truly love about this book is how atmospheric it is. The way that I approach reading is as if I am entering a completely new universe, one which I do not know the rules and anything is possible. For most of the book, Daphne du Maurier had me wondering whether ghosts were real and Rebecca had been haunting the narrator (and everyone else, me included) all along.”

No substance

In our Book Notes last week, we wondered why our narrator is never named, Louise wrote in to suggest it is to “reflect the stark contrast between Rebecca's overwhelming presence in the book, and the narrator's lack of substance. The narrator is portrayed as lacking in self-esteem and self-confidence, whereas Rebbeca is portrayed as a beautiful and enchanting wife and hostess. At the end, when Maxim declares his love for the narrator, it almost doesn't ring true and I'm not sure the narrator herself really believes it.”

Unreliably unreliable

On that note, we’re fascinated by this reading from Victoria, who says: “I think ‘unreliable narrator’ is too blunt a description. She isn't necessarily trying to mislead us. She is a person who has become unreliable to herself. Her perception has been distorted by shame, insecurity and comparison. The distinction seems crucial to me.

“There is also something wonderfully circular about this. The more she tries to become Rebecca rather than herself, the less capable she becomes of simply being herself. She becomes increasingly anxious, childlike and prone to mistakes. At the beginning I felt enormous sympathy for her because the shame she experiences is so painfully recognisable. But as the novel progresses, I found myself questioning her judgement too: how much of the world she experiences is actually happening, and how much has been created by the story she is telling herself?”

Class struggles

Laurie was driven to write in to discuss their thoughts on a new perspective they gained on a recent re-read. “I realised that Maxim's class also plays significantly into his misery,” they wrote. “While being a wealthy landowning member of the upper class certainly affords him great privileges, his desire to maintain that effortlessly perfect upper class facade at Manderley ultimately trapped him in a marriage to a woman he hates. He was willing to sacrifice his own happiness for Manderley's reputation, but was social capital really worth it in the end? I wonder if, on some level, Maxim realised that himself, as once he is rid of Rebecca he shows no interest in turning Manderley back into what it was when Rebecca was alive. He seems to despise the silly neighbours who stop by Manderley throughout the novel, and doesn't play much of a role in the upper class social scene. Combined with the narrator's struggle to fit in and Mrs. Danvers’ obsession with Rebecca and how she played her role as a great lady, there seems to me to definitely be some commentary on how this level of preoccupation with the upper classes is ultimately not healthy for anybody.”

Cornish-based lady novelist

We love a literary theory, so thanks to Tim for writing in with this one. “Hammond Innes' early book, Wreckers Must Breathe, written just after the start of the Second World War, involves Nazi skulduggery on the Cornish coast. About a third of the way through the book, the protagonist, a male journalist from a London newspaper disappears. His hapless editor contacts the only person he knows in the area, a Cornish-based lady novelist. She turns out to be rather good at investigating but also disappears allowing the narrative to switch back to the journalist.

“There has never been any direct link or acknowledgement that the lady novelist was Daphne du Maurier but she is almost the only candidate and I chose to believe that the lady novelist was her.” And now we are pondering that too…

The anti-Jane

Sophia wrote in with this review. “The reading that resonated most with me was to view the novel through the fate of the three women whose lives are bound to Maxim de Winter: the narrator, Mrs Danvers and Rebecca,” she said. “The narrator’s apparent transformation after the ball feels less like liberation than a traumatised young woman becoming emotionally dependent on the man who has left her isolated and insecure. Mrs Danvers, meanwhile, is treated as a nuisance to be removed rather than a profoundly unwell person for whom Maxim has any responsibility. And Rebecca’s supposed monstrosity comes almost entirely through the testimony of the husband who shot her, leaving us with very little reason to accept his version of her uncritically. Whether she was unfaithful, cruel or difficult, nothing about her behaviour could justify Maxim killing her. For me, this makes Rebecca a dark inversion of Jane Eyre: Rebecca becomes the victorious Bertha, still haunting and ultimately destroying the house, while the narrator is an anti-Jane who ends by surrendering her identity to Maxim.”

See you next week for Lord of the Flies.

The Book Club Team