Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier

I got a parcel of 4 books from my mother when I turned 15.  Among them were two books by Daphne Du Maurier, Rebecca and House on the Strand.  I got through with these two books and Daphne Du Maurier shot up to the top of my favorite writers list.  I have devoured several of her books therafter and loved each one of them.

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Daphne Du Maurier

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."  This is the famous opening line of the novel.  The story is narrated by a nameless heroine, who then launches into a description of a lovely house and its garden that has now run to rack and ruin.  From there she goes into a flashback where she describes how she met Maximillian De Winter in Monte Carlo.  At the time our heroine was a companion to Mrs. Van Hopper who was holidaying there.  Mrs. Van Hopper happens to be a snob who loves to befriend important people and forces herself upon Maxim.  However, Mrs. Van Hopper is laid up in bed, sick, and the heroine has to spend time alone.  She finds herself in the company of Maxim who seems to enjoy taking her around.  When it is time for Mrs. Van Hopper to go away, the girl goes to Maxim to say goodbye.  To her utter surprise, Maxim proposes marriage to her.

 

Suddenly, the girl is plucked from a subservient position to become the wife of the rich and handsome Maxim De Winter, the master of the famous house Manderley.  Even though she loves Maxim and adores Manderley, she feels like a fish out of water in the fancy surroundings and feels intimidated by the the rituals of a big house, the servants and the social duties thrust upon her.  It is not just the sudden upgrade in her social standing that is unsettling to her; she has to cope with the ghost of Maxim's first wife Rebecca who had died in a boat accident.

Rebecca was beautiful, tall, well dressed, had impeccable taste and manners, threw grand parties and everyone loved her. Our heroine finds herself being compared to her constantly by everyone.  She finds Maxim acting distant and assumes that he too, like the others, finds her very unattractive and cannot get Rebecca out of his mind.  Until some old secrets come tumbling out of the closet and she finds out how wrong she was about things.

The novel is narrated in the first person, from the point of view of the heroine who is hesitant, unsure of herself and a very young girl.  Her own inadequacies colour her view of what is going on.  Her strength lies in the purity of her love and the very things that she felt were her drawbacks, i.e. her unworldliness, her simplicity and her lack of vanity.  These things come to the fore when she is tested and she comes out of her troubles with flying colours.

The style of the novel is perfect, simple and taut.  The romance, mystery and thrills keep you flipping pages till you reach the very end.  There are several unforgettable characters, Maxim De Winter, remote, aristocratic and so desirable; Mrs. Danvers who is always around to see to it that our heroine never forgets how inferior she is;  Frank Crawley, Maxim's friend and Manager, who is the only true friend she has;  Beatrice and Giles - Maxim's sister and brother-in-law - bumbling but affectionate;  Favell, Rebecca's brother who is always at hand to stir up trouble;  The eponymous character, Rebecca, Maxim's first wife who casts her shadow on everything that goes on, even though she is long dead.

This book is supposed to be based on Jane Eyre, a favorite of Daphne Du Maurier's.  This book lives up to its inspiration in every way.  It is a classic, that's for sure.

Happy Birthday Charles Dickens

There is no dearth of material about the life and times of Charles Dickens, one of the most popular novelists of all times, one of my top favorites for a long long time.  He was a master storyteller and so dearly beloved that when my MA Lit. lecturer announced in a class that he had many flaws as a novelist, the whole class let out several exclamation of dissent.  Dickens wrote many iconic novels and has enjoyed a readership that even J.K. Rowling can envy.

To honor this unparallelled master Google depicted this picture on its site:

I have commenced reading The Pickwick Papers today after many years.  Here is a paragraph out of this highly amusing book.

“On his right hand, sat Mr. Tracy Tupman; the too susceptible Tupman, who to the wisdom and experience of maturer years superadded the enthusiasm and ardor of a boy, in the most interesting and pardonable of human weaknesses – love.  Time and feeding had expanded that once romantic form; the black silk waistcoat had become more and more developed; inch by inch had the gold watch chain beneath it disappeared from within the range of Tupman's vision; and gradually had the capacious chin encroached upon the borders of the white cravat, but the soul of Tupman had known no change – admiration of the fair sex was still its ruling passion.”

In a few skillful lines, he sketches the form and character of Mr. Tracy Tupman.  This was his most endearing quality.  It made his novels feel like a visual feast, it made imagining the characters easy, it made them vivid and it made them live in our memory forever.  Happy Birthday Charles Dickens, I am sure your novels will live forever.

Sunset Club - Khushwant Singh

About a week ago, I was loitering in Sector 17, whiling my time away, window shopping, waiting for a friend to arrive.  I usually stop by at the bookseller that spreads his 'wares' on the pavement just outside the Mochi showroom.  One time I was lucky to get a one volume, second hand prime condition set of Lord of the Rings by JRR Tolkien for just Rs.125/-.  This time round my eye fell on Sunset Club, a book by Khushwant Singh.  I leafed through the book and liked what I saw, so I picked it up.

Khushwant Singh wrote this book about the events that took place in the year 2009, seen through the eyes of three old friends who make it a point to meet every evening in Lodhi Garden.  There is Pandit Preetam Sharma, an Oxford Graduate, retired from Civil Services, a bachelor who lives in Khan Market with his sister.  There is Nawab Barkatullah Baig Dehlavi an affluent businessman who lives in Nizamuddin with his devoted wife.  Last but not the least there is Sardar Boota Singh, a widower and a retired newspaperman (ahem!) who lives close to Sharma.  These three men like taking a walk in Lodhi Garden every evening and have taken to congregating on a bench right opposite the Bara Gumbad.  In their honor the bench has been renamed as 'Boodha Binch'.

There is one chapter for each month which recounts the political happenings, weather, and whatever going on in the lives of the three men.  The men talk, argue and reminiscence about their lives.  They talk about politics, love, women, nature and of course, their ailments.  The book starts on 26th January 2009 and ends, a bit sadly, on 26th January 2010.  (For this reason, it is fortuitous that I am writing this on 26th January as well.) There is not really much happening here, but the events are an interesting mishmash of the political scene and weather during the year 2009.  Khushwant Singh throws in a bit of religion, some lovely poetry and nice descriptions of trees and flowers.  In fact, the book is quite like his column.

I enjoyed his book Delhi very much which I reviewed on mouthshut.com.  I have pasted the writing onto my blog here.  This book is not a patch on Delhi, but yet, if you compare it with the kind of stuff being printed these days, it is miles ahead.  KS's language is pretty non-decorative, but has the advantage of being direct and functional.  The poetry he has picked to describe seasons is lovely.

The autumn comes, a maiden fair

In slenderness and grace,

With nodding rice stems in her hair,

And lilies in her face...

-Kalidas

More Reviews More Books

I have been lax in reading, lax-er in reviewing books.  I had picked up Dan Brown's Deception Point on my last foray into Browser, Sector 8. Chandigarh, a private library I am a member of.  Along with it, I took 'Yes Prime Minister' of the famous TV series and Sikhs a book by Khushwant Singh. I had enjoyed his book Delhi very much.  It was nice mish-mash of history with fiction thrown in about the unparalleled and grand city (previously, now it is a state) of Delhi.

The latter two books are still being read by me.  I raced through Deception Point.  It had a good start.  It is election time in US of A.  The contending candidate for presidency, Senator Sedgewick Sexton is a jerk, we realise as we get to know how his daughter views him.  Rachel Sexton is an intelligence analyst for NRO, who soon finds herself embroiled in a series of events that find her nearly freezing to death in the Arctic, and back to Washington DC, to find out who did it.

Nothing wrong with the pace of the thriller.  Its Dan Brown, he knows how to pump the adrenaline into inert bodies lying on the couch and flipping pages of his book.  Its just the premise, finding alien rock with evidence of life stamped all over it is surely a biggie.  But then, the claim fizzles out faster than fizz fizzles out of a coke bottle left open.  The mystery is, who is behind the killings and why.  The suspense ends in a supposed twist, but the twist is not too well qualified with good reasons.  That was the deception point for me.  I must say Dan Brown does better with his ecclesiastical mysteries and his symbologist Dr. Robert Langdon, even if he seems to skedaddle around the world a little to much.

My old old friend, (she is not old, its just that we go way back) Smita of Bookslifeandmore has picked up several formidable challenges for the year 2012.  I wish her all the best, and choose for myself, admittedly the wimpiest of the challenges that seems do-able to me.  Here goes - Amen.

The Immortals of Meluha and The Secret of the Nagas

Amish has come out with a trilogy (the third one, The Oath of the Vayuputras is still pending publication) that retells the story of Shiva.

All Gods were men once, we assume.  They did extraordinary things which caused them to be worshiped like Gods. In India these myths are still alive.  These stories are integrated into religious tracts and listened to with devotion and complete faith.  In such a scenario, it is difficult to fictionalize mythology further.  The initial mythology is so oft repeated and believed that it is taken as a fact.  If you mess with that, it can be viewed as blasphemy.  A while ago I had read The Pregnant King by Devdutt Pattnaik which was peripheral mythological story expanded into a beautiful novel.  Would the retelling of Shiva's story succeed?  Can Shiva be depicted as an extraordinary man who was later idolized as a God?

The Immortals of Meluha:

The story begins with Shiva fending off yet another attack on his tribe high on the mountains of Kailasa.  He is visited by Nandi with an offer to join his brethren in Meluha where they can live a civilized life.  He is reminded of his uncle who had prophesied that his destiny lay far beyond the mountains of Kailasa.  He decides to accompany Nandi.  On his arrival at one of the border towns of Meluha in Kashmir, his tribe is quarantined and given medicine to cleanse them.  The medicine has a strange effect on Shiva, it gives him a blue throat, a Neelkanth.  He is thence catapulated into centre-stage of Meluhan aristocracy where things are expected of him, where he finds love, but also many barriers.  He has to fight wars for a cause that is rapidly becoming his own.

The Secret of the Nagas:

Shiva finds himself undertaking a journey across India to uncover truths.  Nothing seems to be as he had first perceived it.  The Chandravanshi's are not the murderous terrorists they had been portrayed as.  The Brangas have a genuine reason for being hand in glove with the Nagas, now seen as the enemy No.1 of India.  But are they?  They have a secret too.  Shiva finds he cannot rest until he knows the absolute truth.  His quest is for the evil that he is supposed to destroy.  But where is this evil?  Who are the Vasudevs?  Are they misleading him?


The pace of the books is breathtaking, they are quite a page-turners.  The conceptualization of the story is simply fabulous.  As Shiva is himself learning about the Meluhan and later, many other Indian civilization, we get to learn many 'facts'.  The world of the time, 4000 years BC is well mapped.  The fictional world is drawn with accuracy and confidence.  The author is extremely surefooted about his subject.

The only point where the book falters is the conversation.  It can get a wee bit irritating to read 'You are extremely intelligent My Lord' for the umpteenth time.  At times the intelligence of the reader is insulted when the proceedings are explained painstakingly.  A little more skill in writing could have come in very very handy.  Especially as the subject is so overpoweringly strong.  Despite this, the books are a must read.
They are as heady as Shiva's chillum.

Three Loves - AJ Cronin

The Citadel and The Judas Tree are the magnificent novels that introduced me to AJ Cronin.   A J Cronin was a doctor till an illness required him to be idle for six months at a farm, taking complete rest.  During this time, he wrote a novel which as an immediate success.  This set him on to writing as a career, abandoning his medical practice.

Three Loves, his novel about Lucy Moore, charts the life of the lady from her happy married life to her sad end.  At the begining of the novel, Lucy Moore is a young married woman, devoted to her husband, home and child.  She is imperious, and often tries to influence her husband Frank, unduly.  However Frank is happy to be tethered to Lucy until his cousin arrives on the scene and suggests that Lucy is bossy.  Anna has been invited by Lucy to spend a few days with them.  But she turns out to be a colourful woman, Lucy on learning this, begins to beset by doubts of relations between Anna and Frank.  It upsets her happy existence and culminates in her husband's death.  From here on, her life goes into a downward spiral and her only hope and happiness lies in the hands of her son, Peter.  After Peter she latches on to her love of God for succour.

The novel charts all that is pitiful in the life of a woman who is dependent on others for happiness.  All is good for the woman who is safe within her chosen sphere, as long as she chooses to be subordinate to the man, even if she rules from beneath.  Eva is happy as long as her husband Richard - Lucy's brother - is around to provide for her. Polly has accepted her brother's charity and is happily overfed. It is when Lucy is forced by circumstances to be independent, that she faces hardships.  Her brother and brothers-in-law abandon her to her own devices, being too selfish to help her.  She is forced to take up a menial job and pinch pennies mercilessly in order to put her son through a good school and a college.  At the end of her labour, she finds no solace.

Though the men in her life often try to put her down and make her feel that it was her own poor judgement that caused her downfall, it is evident to the reader that all these people who never lifted a finger to help poor Lucy had no right to judge her.  The world is quite like this, there are very few people out there who will help you, there are many who are ready to stand by and judge.

There are many shades of his own life in the novel.  His father, a travelling salesman, had died early from tuberculosis.  His mother also worked, like Lucy Moore, unlike the other women of her times. Lucy Moore put her son through medical college, Cronin also was a doctor. How autobiographical this novel is, however, it is hard to tell.  But it is clear that AJ Cronin had an intimate knowledge of the mind of men and was privy to how it is that our failings and strengths make us what we are - human.

The book is hardly a barrel of laughs, the subject makes it a grim study, as poor Lucy finds hardly any reprieve in life. It is magnificently written and very incisive, sharp as a surgeon's knife. I have resolved to find as many of Mr. Cronin's books as I can find, and read them all.