Book report: Rebecca

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again."

Every review of this book starts (or should start) with this opening sentence. It might not seem like such a great sentence until you finish the book, and then the line becomes haunting, evocative, foretelling. Perfect.

My tenth grade English teacher told us that this was her favorite book. Maybe because I always wanted to be teacher's pet, I found this book at a used book store and read it for a book report. The image above is the closest I could find to what I remember was the book jacket of my copy. So this is my image of Manderley.

I have been thinking a lot about books lately, and maybe it is the southern girl in me, but gothic stories are the best. I am not going to look up the definition of gothic, because this is my blog and I get to say whatever I want. But to me, southern literature and gothic stories go hand in hand, because to me, these stories are those that depend on a sense of place. The place itself is an important character, maybe the main character. Rebecca would not be Rebecca without Manderley.

I am not going to write about the story of Rebecca, because if you don't already know it, get thee to the library! But I do want to write about what makes it great, beyond the story, which is awesome.

So, the first great thing, Manderley. No one can imagine Gone with the Wind without Tara, or Peachtree Street, or Twelve Oaks. This was the first grown-up book I ever read for fun, the summer I turned 14. Loved it. Earlier that same year I read Wuthering Heights for school, which I didn't really understand at the time but I held onto my old paperback version because I think I knew it would one day be my kind of book. I have read it many times since then (I know myself so well!) and really, where would Wuthering Heights be without the moors. Or without, you know, Wuthering Heights and (spoiler alert!) the ghost at the window. Sigh. These are all books where the house isn't just a house but a House. A Mansion. An Estate. You can practically hear it breathe, wishing it could speak, wanting to give up all its secrets.

The second great thing about this book: our narrator has no name. We see everything through her eyes, which means we are as confused as she is early on, and as things slowly unfold, we are putting the pieces together (rightly or wrongly) right along with her. You become the Narrator. It's simply amazing.

The third great thing: the lull. This might be a book that someone picks up, starts to read, gets bored early on, and gives up. Because I think du Maurier sets out to sort of lull the reader at the same time that she's setting the story up. I think that "lull" is a great word. We don't see much storytelling that gives us time to be lulled anymore.

Another example of being lulled is the movie Rear Window. I remember falling asleep the first time I watched it. OK, we get it, he's bored and sitting at the window and watching people. If it wasn't for Grace Kelly's clothes I might never have kept watching to get to the good parts. But the good parts wouldn't have been nearly as good if we hadn't been lulled in a way that put us in that wheelchair with James Stewart. And then we might not have been nearly as panicked when things got scary.

No surprise that Alfred Hitchcock directed both Rear Window and the movie version of Rebecca. Also no surprise that Psycho is more popular than either of those movies - talk about the opposite of being lulled in the beginning. There is also a lot to be said for this as well. The Vampire Diaries - the TV show - is a good example of starting things off with a bang, every single week, and keeping you on your toes. Yes I admit it, I watch TVD and it is one of my favorite guilty pleasures. Bravo, Kevin Williamson. I forgive you for what you did to I Know What You Did Last Summer, but that's another topic altogether.

Another example of this is The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which I put down several times before I finally got to the good stuff and kept reading. I am not ready to say that Stieg Larsson intended to lull us, but I will say that I am still surprised that book was so widely-read when the first 100+ pages were. so. boring.

So, long story short, let yourself be lulled. Sometimes it pays off. It definitely does in Rebecca.

One last thing - the best gothic stories end with the House caving in, collapsing, or (best of all) burning down. That's all I'm going to say.

Pollyanna's prisms

I am a scientist. Those who meet me outside of the scientific realm are usually surprised to learn this about me. (I guess my attempts to act normal are successful.) Like many people, once I became a real grown-up I started trying to remember any events from my childhood that could be seen as foreshadowing what I would become. When I was a little girl, I wanted to be a teacher and/or a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. In high school I wanted to be a diplomat, international journalist and world traveller. It was not until I was a sophomore in college that I accepted the truth, that I was destined to be a scientist.

But there were signs early on, and it was not long ago when I realized that among these things are Pollyanna's prisms. To be honest, I never read the real Eleanor Porter book (although I did buy it recently and it's on Simone's bookshelf). I also never saw the Disney movie. But what I did read was the Little Golden Book based on the Disney movie which is based on Eleanor Porter's book. My grandparents had this at their house (which according to melkozee on eBay was published in 1960 and is now "hard to find.")

Pollyanna has become a name for people who are, at best, wide-eyed optimists, and at worst, naively annoying. What I remember about her are the prisms.

Prisms are magical. They turn ordinary light into rainbows. Pollyanna came across some prisms - I don't remember the details and in an effort to stay true to my little-girl self I won't look it up. All I remember is that there was some cranky old person who had them and did not find them at all interesting, but when Pollyanna got her hands on them she was absolutely delighted by them. I believe there was some other cranky old person that was also sick, and she took the prisms to the sickroom and hung them in the windows to create rainbows all around the room.

I get a little weepy just thinking about it. I am so glad I read that book as a little girl. Pollyanna was a lot like Anne Frank, who both always believed that people are good at heart. I believe this too. It is not easy to believe, and in fact I think it is a conscious choice I've made to live my life thinking this is true.

But back to the prisms. After I graduated from college I went on to get my PhD in chemistry. My research and studies focused on the field of spectroscopy. Spectroscopy, as in spectrum, as in the colors of the rainbow. I've used many a prism to cast rainbows as a grown-up and I'm delighted every. single. time. Pollyanna was right, and I can't believe that twenty or so years passed before I put two-and-two together.

I would not consider myself a Pollyanna. I am not a naive optimist. Many things I've wanted in life have been hard-won and not easy in the slightest. In fact there have been many times in my life that I would have told Pollyanna where she could go with those prisms if she had tried to convince me that everything is wonderful if you just look at it the right way.

But I would say that she formed the connection in my mind between science, magic, and the goodness of people. My belief in those three things is maybe the most important thing there is to know about me.