Thanks so much for the wonderful discussion following my post on Anti-heroines last week. In the course of debating what makes a character an anti-heroine, Sarah commented, “An anti-heroine isn’t, in my eyes, necessarily a good girl gone bad, or even a better person trapped by circumstances, but a character fighting against the hero, for whatever reason – opposing interests, whether personal or political – who inspires the reader to follow their story just as much as that of the protagonist.”
As I replied, “That’s an idea that intrigues me, because I think every reader brings a lot to a book and every reader reads a given book slightly differently.” Gabriele commented, “You’re so right about the reader bringing his/her own to a book. I have a soft spot for mysterious, tortured heros, and for me, Athos is a perfect example of those. And since I had developed a crush on him before I learned about his past with Mylady, I was on his side. ”
While Sarah and I both found ourselves sympathizing with Milady when we read The Three Musketeers, seeing the story from her perspective. As CJM pointed out, “Though Milady is fully wrought, and delightfully so, she’s an antagonist, not a protagonist.” And yet Sarah and I both found ourselves, as Sarah said, wanting to follow Milady’s story as much as the story of the four musketeer protagonists. A great deal of fan fiction is based on retelling television show episodes, books, or movies from the POV of a character who isn’t the protagonist in the original story. Lately in particular there seems to be a trend of re-telling classics from a different POV from that in the original story, which books such as Geraldine Brooks’s March (which I’ve heard wonderful things about but haven’t read yet), Sally Beauman’s Rebecca’s Tale, a number of retellings of Jane Austen. I don’t think anyone’s retold The Three Musketeers from Milady’s viewpoint, but it would definitely make an interesting novel.
I think that to a certain extent every time we read a book we collaborate with the author. We bring our own likes and dislikes to the story, our own preconceptions, our own historical knowledge. We may hear lines inflected differently from the way the author hears them, imagine different expressions of the character’s faces as they speak, even fill in bits of back story differently in our imaginations. Our sympathies may not lie precisely where the author’s do. The words on the page may be the same, but every book is slightly different depending on who is reading it.
As a writer, I find the thought that readers are reading a somewhat different book from the one I wrote totally fascinating. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve heard from readers who have sharply differing views of Charles and Mélanie. Perla commented, “I have not had much sympathy for Melanie, I hadn’t forgiven her even if Charles had. And Cate said, “I’ll echo Perla in saying that I didn’t precisely ‘like’ Melanie on my first reading of the books. I found her fascinating and wanted to know more about her.” On the other hand, a good friend of mine said on reading Secrets of a Lady, “Why is Charles being so stubborn, she was only doing her job?” and some have gone so far as to suggest Mélanie should take the children and leave since Charles is being so unforgiving. ” Sharon had yet another perspective when she said, “Twice I’ve tried to answer the question of with whom I sympathize more, and twice I couldn’t come up with an answer. I finally realized that it is because I don’t really sympathize with either one of them. I admire and feel for both of them, but sympathies? No. To me none of their actions asked for sympathies, and it doesn’t seem to me that either one of them would have cared for anyone’s sympathies at all. Does it make sense?”
And then there’s Raoul O’Roarke, who also inspires conflicting feelings in readers. I’ve heard from readers who find him a fascinating character and want me to write a book about him (one of my friends, also a writer, said that while Charles is the most “marriageable” guy in the book, Raoul would be fun to have a fling with :-). On the other hand Perla wrote, “I intensely dislike Raoul. And not because of Melanie, but because of what Raoul did.” You could retell Secrets of a Lady from Raoul’s POV. Or Edgar’s. Or Beneath a Silent Moon from the POV of Evie, Gisèle, Quen, or any number of the characters. One of the things I love about writing the Fraser Correspondence is that it lets me explore the viewpoints of different characters.
One of the things I love and blogging and particularly the follow up discussions is that it gives me the chance to try to see my books and characters through the eyes of different readers. Have you ever read a book and then discussed it with a friend or in a book club and been surprised by how differently others viewed the story and characters (so that it almost felt as if you’d read different books)? Have you ever found yourself more engaged by the story of an antagonist or a secondary character than by the story of the protagonist? Have you found yourself wanting to retell the story from that character’s perspective? If you’ve read Secrets of a Lady/Daughter of the Game, what did you think of Raoul? Does reading my comments on my books and characters ever make you feel you read a different book from the one I’m talking about? :-).
As you’ve probably noticed, the site has a new look (thanks to Greg and jim, my fabulous web designers) for the 29 April trade re-release of Beneath a Silent Moon. Make sure to check out the Gallery. There are two new photo groupings with photos of setting from Beneath a Silent Moon. And take a look at this week’s Fraser Correspondence. Talking of how characters may be viewed differently, Lord Carfax’s take on Charles is not the same as that of many of the other characters (let alone the author :-).
Tracy Grant - Novelist 
March 30, 2008 at 9:24 pm
There is a German novel from Mylady’s POV, but I don’t remember any details. I browsed it in the store but didn’t like it – which had nothing to do with Mylady being the heroine but with the too modern view of women – so I forgot about the book. 😉
March 30, 2008 at 9:38 pm
Thanks for the information, Gabriele! I wonder if the book was ever translated into English? Are the Three Musketeers books particularly popular in Germany?
March 30, 2008 at 9:54 pm
I think Dumas is timeless and always popular. But I don’t know about any statistics.
I don’t think the Mylady novel would have been translated. It doesn’t seem to have become popular or I’d have seen it more often than on one back shelf in paperback store, and since even popular books like Rebecca Gablé’s novels don’t get translated (despite taking place in Mediaeval England), there’s even less chance for shelf sitters.
March 30, 2008 at 10:29 pm
Thanks, Gabriele. I wish more books were translated into English!
March 31, 2008 at 10:02 am
I seem to recall reading on a forum somewhere recently that two very different takes on Milady’s story have been written; one of course was a feminist revision. If anybody can supply any titles or authors, I would be grateful!
However – I think one author taking it upon themselves to rewrite an existing character in a sequel or prequel can be tricky. I am currently – perservering, shall I say? – with ‘Rebecca’s Tale’ by Sally Beauman, and I think she has stripped DuMaurier’s mysterious and slightly dangerous shadow-heroine of all interest and romance by connecting all the characters in the book and diluting Rebecca’s personality to make her a sympathetic figure. It’s a thin line between regurgitating an original story and creating a new perspective, and I’ve only ever read one successful attempt – ‘Wide Sargasso Sea’ by Jean Rhys.
However, as my request for information on Milady sequels shows – not to mention my own fondness for fan fiction – I’m always open to new candidates!
March 31, 2008 at 11:12 am
To follow up on the Milady revision of The Three Musketeers – I’ve just found the reference again, on a film review, and the author is Tiffany Thayer. His ‘Three Musketeers and a Lady’ is a rewrite of Dumas’ novel, but from Milady’s perspective. It sounds fairly obscure – has anybody read it?
March 31, 2008 at 2:03 pm
I’ve tried one book (actually a trilogy) purporting to tell Marguerite’s story; they were truly horrid. On the other hand, I love the Irene Adler books (which have Sherlock Holmes popping up now and then).
As for MY reader’s role? I have a lot less patience for “tortured” heroes than most readers and I am *not* inclined to cut them any slack.
I’ve read far too many books where I want to scream “Get OVER it, you wimp!” at the “hero” who comes off less as a man with a sad past than a whiny baby. (The author should call these “torturING” heroes, because they often use their pain as an excuse to lay waste to the world around them.) I enjoy heroines (anti-heroines) who are not sweet and gentle and perfect, frolicking through the woods with puppies and kittens scampering after them. 🙂
March 31, 2008 at 2:11 pm
Do you mean the C. Guy Clayton trilogy, JMM? I tried the first book, and couldn’t get past the blurb! Clayton is a perfect example of writers who like to take established characters and turn them on their heads, just to claim that the work is their own – he didn’t add to Marguerite’s story, he just refuted Orczy’s knowledge of her own heroine in a bid to ‘modernise’, I suspect, the story (ironically, his focus on Marguerite turned out to be more misogynistic than feminist!) I often wonder what motivates such writers to ‘reinvent the wheel’, as it were, when they obviously don’t care a jot for the characters they are destroying.
March 31, 2008 at 4:27 pm
I totally agree that it’s a turn-off when the tortured heroes get whiny. Athos wasn’t whiny, though, he was mysterious. Thomas Covenanter is one of those that ended against a wall (I read more Historical Fiction and Fantasy than Romance and can’t come up with a better example right now).
It’s a difficult line to thread. You want to show the reader that there are things in a character’s past that overshadow his present and that he has to deal with and maybe overcome, but he shan’t come across as whiny, or drift too far into the bad boy direction and become an asshole.
March 31, 2008 at 5:05 pm
Sarah, I do think it’s tough for an author to step into another author’s world. Not something I’ve ever wanted to try myself. But as a reader I often find the results interesting. “Rebecca’s Tale” definitely wasn’t precisely my vision of the characters in the original book–not so much in Rebecca’s case–Rebecca is so shadowy and elusive that I don’t have much sense of her from the original novel, but in the case of Maxim and the unnamed heroine. But as one possible interpretation of the past/future of those characters, I found it very compelling reading.
I haven’t read the Clayton Marguerite books of any retelling of “The Three Musketeers.”
March 31, 2008 at 5:14 pm
JMM and Gabriele, I love tortured heroes, but I agree that they can be a challenge to write. I get very impatient when they “wallow” too much. Much as some of Athos’s behavior may have disturbed me, I agree, Gabriele, that he didn’t whine about his tortured past or wallow in his suffering. On the other hand, much as I love Francis Crawford of Lymond, there are times in “Checkmate” (the last book in the series) when I want to shake him and say “oh, for heaven’s sake, grow up.” :-). I worry writing Charles sometimes–he has a lot of past baggage to deal with, particularly in “Beneath a Silent Moon.” It’s a tough balancing act to have him deal with it honestly without crossing the line into wallowing or whining.
Btw, JMM, I should have mentioned in my reply above about sequels/retellings that I haven’t read the Irene Adler books, but I do love Laurie King’s Mary Russell series, which doesn’t retell, it continues Holmes stories into the future, but in doing so in a sense sheds light on some of the past.
April 2, 2008 at 1:34 am
Yes, the C. Guy Clayton books. Ick. I only keep them because: A) I’m against burning books, and B) I hope I can sell them on Ebay for some cash.
I do think some “tortured” characters (male and female) tend to both overreact AND carry a grudge too far. Think of Rafe in MJP’s “Petals”. He had a broken engagement, and used that as an excuse to act like a jerk for over thirteen years. His… malevolence against the heroine was scary.
She didn’t murder his parents, kill his dog and steal his bible (what movie is that line from), she (he ASSumed) was unfaithful to him THIRTEEN years before. And yet, the second he meets her, it’s “I must have my vengenance!” Ick.
But some readers adore Rafe. It’s all in the reader.
April 2, 2008 at 3:48 am
When I think of a reader’s role in telling a story, I think of it more than just each individual reader’s preferences. I think of it as a question of how a reader brings his or her own experiences and understandings into the story. Sort of like filling in the blanks or reading between the lines. More than once I have been told at my book club that I “read too much into it”. I think that is when my mind supplied its own text. 🙂
April 2, 2008 at 6:16 am
“She didn’t murder his parents, kill his dog and steal his bible (what movie is that line from)”–“Romancing the Stone.” From the opening sequence that is actually supposed to be a scene from one of her books. Such a fun movie. Extra fun because I saw it right as I was starting to write romances.
It’s been along time since I read “The Controversial Countess” (and I haven’t read the rewrite as “Petals from the Storm”). I remember really enjoying the book, but as I’ve blogged about before, more for Robin and Maggie than Rafe. In general, I prefer tortured characters who angst in silence to those who get angry (though even the angst can frustrate me if they seem to wallow too much, as in the Lymond example). And writing my share of tortured characters, I’m not sure how well I balance the angsting/wallowing line myself :-).
April 2, 2008 at 6:24 am
Sharon, that’s exactly what I was getting at. No matter how detailed a story is, there are always blanks (bits of backstory, what happens between scenes, what a character who isn’t the POV character in a scene is thinking during that scene). I think every reader fills in those blanks differently–it’s part of the fun of reading. So in a sense every reader is collaborating in the story and reading a somewhat different book. As a writer that totally fascinates me, and I love trying to see how readers read my books. I suspect if five readers took the scene from “Secrets of a Lady,” kept my dialogue and descriptions, but wrote it from Mélanie’s POV (the original if from Charles’s), we’d get give very different interpretations of what’s going on in Mélanie’s head. The same if you took the scene between Mélanie and Raoul in the library late in the book and wrote it from Roaul’s POV.
Can you think of specific examples where your book club told you you were “reading too much in”?
April 2, 2008 at 9:08 am
I think it’s better for the reader to read too much into a subtext, real or imagined, than the author to use a story/character as a platform for personal views; one is subtle writing and a good imagination, the other tends to work against the reader. I don’t need telling that this character is ‘strong’ over and over again – show me! Hint at a background that could have created such a determined personality, and let me make the connection. (Pardon the rant, but a particular book and its bitter, feminist author have really irritated me!)
April 2, 2008 at 3:10 pm
Which book?
Yes, some authors DO “tell”, over and over and over and over again, how strong the hero is, how perfect the heroine is… I get very tired of that. It goes into Mary-Sue and Gary-Stu category. I also get tired of books that feel less like romance and more like a lecture on How Good Women Live. (Although these ususally are anti-feminist)
But I love to put in my own speculation of backstory for characters! I do that all the time with books I like. (I also write alternate endings of characters I dislike. In my imagination, Athos is tricked by Milady, who escapes.)
April 2, 2008 at 3:47 pm
I think it’s great for readers to read into subtext, Sarah–I think it’s part of the reading process. I wouldn’t even say it’s reading “too much” into subtext–I think part of the fun of reading it using one’s own imagination.
JMM, I also put in my own speculation for backstory. And write alternate endings in my head (I definitely mentally rewrote the end of “The Three Musketeers” when I read it :-). I’ll also mentally continuing stories after the end and imagine what happens to the characters or fill in missing scenes in the book itself. The sort of thing that’s fanfiction when it’s written down.
Have you ever been surprised to talk to another reader and find the backstory you’ve imagined is very different than what they imagined? Are there books other than “The Three Musketeers” for which you’ve imagined alternate endings?
April 2, 2008 at 4:11 pm
JMM, the book is ‘Rebecca’s Tale’, as I mentioned in an earlier post. I gave it to the end of Rebecca’s story, in her words – three quarters of the way through – and then buried it at the back of my shelves again (like you, I tend to treasure books, however bad they are!) If Sally Beauman, the author, told the reader once that Rebecca was a strong, determined woman, she must have done so a hundred times; it just got tedious. Her definition of ‘strength’ in a woman is to not get married, or if that condition is inavoidable – say, if you want to get your hands on a mansion by the sea – marry a ‘weak’ man (I never saw Maxim de Winter as weak in DuMaurier’s novel) and seethe with hatred at mankind in general. That woman has issues! 1970s feminist dogma in a story set during the 1930s/1950s – works perfectly! And also, her backstory merely involved weaving all the secondary characters in the original novel into one large incestuous web – was Rebecca’s real father actually Maxim’s father, etc? Weak writing.
Tracy – I’m currently reading a book which I have been avoiding for months, because of my own interpretation of a gesture made by one of the main characters. Is he condoning domestic violence by ‘congratulating’ the husband with a bottle of champagne, or is he being ironic? It’s such a small point, but it threw me, and other readers of the book (Nero Wolfe: Too Many Clients) have debated the point, too – does this make Archie a misogynist, or a hero? I think that’s my ultimate example of creating – or distorting – a backstory!
April 2, 2008 at 6:20 pm
Tracy, I am not sure I can come up with adequate examples because most of my cases of “reading too much into the story” do not result from imagining a character’s back story or imagining a specific scene from a different POV. Sometimes, it comes from being caught by a word. Many readers in my book club consider the central characters in “The Painted Veil” shallow, either in the sense that the characters are superficial beings or that the author failed to portray them with depth. My take is that they are shallow because the author didn’t care about them and he didn’t because they are not the central elements of the writing. I think the author was writing about life as emptiness. What I did was connecting the word “vanity” that Kitty repeatedly used to describe Walter (which didn’t make sense to me in terms of their personalities and relationships) to “vanity of vanities! All is vanity” in Ecclesiastes. Since I think the point of the book is “What’s the point”, I think the author portrayed shallowness with depth. 🙂
April 3, 2008 at 12:25 am
Sarah, speaking of the reader’s role in telling a story, you and I obviously read “Rebecca’s Tale” very differently :-). It’s been a bit since I read it, but I don’t remember feeling I was told by the author that Rebecca was strong and determined. I do remember being engrossed in the book as I turned to pages to see how the mystery of “who Rebecca was” unfolded. To me the characters in the book came across as quite nuanced and complex. That said, the Maxim of “Rebecca’s Tale” isn’t my reading of the Maxim of “Rebecca.” But I didn’t think “Rebecca’s Tale” worked as as possible interpretation of “Rebecca” and I enjoyed it on its own terms.
Archie’s behavior in “Too Many Clients” doesn’t sound like a small point at all. I’ll be fascinated to hear what you think when you’ve read it!
April 3, 2008 at 12:31 am
Fascinating analysis of “The Painted Veil,” Sharon! I think I agree that Maugham saw their lives as empty, at least at the start. To me, though, they both grow in the course of the book, particularly Kitty. And Maugham’s take on Kitty at the end of the novel strikes me as quite compassionate (and remarkably insightful about the situation of young, pretty upperclass woman at the time). So I’m not sure I agree that Maugham didn’t care about her.
April 3, 2008 at 6:25 am
‘The Painted Veil’ is one of the few examples of the film improving on the book – I’m not usually one for ‘happy endings’, as Tracy mentioned about writing for Milady, but I much preferred the Kitty who grew and met her husband halfway, than the woman who blathered on about raising her daughter in a different environment but who didn’t seem to have changed. I enjoyed Maugham’s writing, but Sharon is right, the characters were not independent of the book’s social perspective.
Tracy – how ironic! I thought Beauman’s interpretation of Rebecca was fixed by the author, but once again, the reader makes an individual impact! Did you find Rebecca’s ‘Secret Heartache’ ‘excused’ her behaviour in ‘Rebecca’, or that Beauman ‘doth protest too much’? I was hoping for a character more in the lines of Milady, I think, whose perfectly created world is shattered when she hears the truth about her health, not a illegitimate daughter from a wealthy background, raised in France, attacked by a local boy, shunned by her family, who becomes an actress, and who marries to get her hands on a property and then complains that her husband doesn’t love her. It was all a little too much, and I couldn’t ‘connect’ with her.
April 3, 2008 at 7:01 pm
“The Painted Veil” – Almost everyone in my book club, too, prefers the movie, which I have yet to see. I think sometimes movies and books tell different stories. Most movies I like tell the stories of people, while books may tell stories of something more than the people in them. At least in this book, I think a central character is life itself, or “situation of young, pretty upper class women at that time” in Tracy’s word. I agree with Sarah that Kitty at the end of the book didn’t seem to have changed, but I also think she have gained sufficient self-knowledge to change. The problem is that I also get this sense of helplessness that she may not succeed even when she did try to change. Thus back to the issue of vanity.
April 3, 2008 at 8:14 pm
I was hooked by the tagline to the film: ‘The greatest journey is the distance between two people’! It’s a very evocative and romantic adaptation, although I do think Walter’s own faults – marrying an ideal, a ‘doll’, and not a woman – are minimised, and it’s Kitty who has to change and back down for the marriage to work.
This sort of relates back to the ‘Anti-heroines’ blog, in a way – should Kitty have to sacrifice her personality, however negative, to ‘conform’ and please her husband? She is not a pleasant character, but I couldn’t escape the fact that both she and Walter are very true to life, for all their faults; I could understand her situation, though I was far from sympathising with her! For once, though, I was glad that the film applied a little artistic licence to please the audience.
April 4, 2008 at 5:33 am
Sarah, it’s fascinating how readers react differently to the same book. I didn’t feel that Rebecaa’s back story in “Rebecca’s Tale” excused her actions per say or even that that was necessarily the author’s intent. I did think her back story as outline in the book helped explain who she was. It was the only back story for her that would work, but in the context of that book it made for compelling reading. A book about a Rebecca who was more unapologetically “hard” like Milady would be interesting, but I’d still want to know what drove her and what made her the way she was.
April 4, 2008 at 5:47 am
Sarah and Sharon, I think “The Painted Veil” is an interesting example of a story where many of the basic plot elements remain the same in the book and the film, and yet the characters and emotional nuances change quite a bit. I enjoyed both. The romantic in me liked the film as a love story. You’re right, though, Sarah, particularly in the film it’s Kitty who seems to have to change more. (Walter changes as well, but not quite as much I think, and Walter’s not loving the “real” Kitty doesn’t come across as strongly). The film creates at least the possibility of a romantic happy ending, so that in the end it’s cholera that brings about the tragedy not the personalities of the central characters. Which left me frustrated and wanting a HEA. (I even imagined one, talking about mentally rewriting a story :-). Whereas in the book, I’m not sure a HEA was possible for the characters, at least not at the point at which Walter dies. On the other hand, I have higher hopes than both of you do for Kitty making something of her life (and her child’s) after the end of the book.
April 4, 2008 at 7:08 pm
I’m currently re-reading ‘Rebecca’, and I’ve been digging around on the Internet to find out how ‘autobiographical’ the novel is (the second Mrs de Winter with her ‘lovely and unusual name’, who was much in love with her father and intimidated as a hostess); it seems that DuMaurier was both Mrs de Winters, dividing her personality between two women, and so I wonder just what it was that Maxim found out about Rebecca that bound him to a lie?
Anyway, I also found a fitting quote from another author, Justine Picardie, which sums up this discussion, really: “It would be terrible to see Rebecca in the film: she has to be left to everybody’s imagination. That’s her power, because everyone will have a different Rebecca in their life.”
April 4, 2008 at 7:19 pm
What a fabulous quote, Sarah! And so perfect for this discussion, because it goes so the reader’s role in a book, and how the reader’s own experiences will shape their experience of a novel.
April 5, 2008 at 12:51 am
Perhaps the reader plays a more active role in the telling of the story because “Rebecca” is written in first person? Neither one of the two movie adaptations of Rebecca I’ve seen worked for me. Even Hitchcock’s version, in which Rebecca didn’t materialize, didn’t feel quite right. Thanks to Sarah’s quote, I think I’ve just found the reason. The “relationship” established between Rebecca and me the reader via the nameless heroine no longer exist when Rebecca goes from page to screen.
April 5, 2008 at 4:33 am
I think even more than the first person narration, it’s the ambiguities in “Rebecca” that invite the reader to play a more active role. So much about Rebecca and her back story, her motivations, Maxim’s motivations, and what really happened is left tantalizingly up in the air, even after Maxim’s confession. For that matter, even the nameless heroine’s real name and appearance are left for the reader to fill in.
I’ve seen three film adaptations of “Rebecca”-the Hitchcock movie Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, and two British television versions, one with Jeremy Brett and Joanna David and the more recent one with Charles Dance and Emilia Fox. I enjoyed all three–it’s such a rich story, that I find different things in each, the way I do with Jane Austen adaptations or different versions of “The Scarlet Pimpernel.” I don’t think any of them actually showed Rebecca. Is there a version that does?
April 5, 2008 at 6:29 am
The Charles Dance/Emilia Fox adaptation has a cast listing for Rebecca on the IMDb, but I haven’t seen it. My favourite screen ‘Rebecca’ is the Hitchcock film – although, after reading the novel again, I can see that it’s a different take on DuMaurier’s story (apparently, the Hays Code wouldn’t allow a murderer to get away with his crime, so her death became an ‘accident’! I forgot all about Maxim’s confession until I picked up the book again.)
Speaking of the nameless second Mrs de Winter, does she hold your sympathy? Does your view of her change with new readings? I still think she is a very believable character, perhaps because she is written from personal experience, and also because I am that type of person! I still cringe when she answers the house phone and tells Mrs Danvers, ‘No, I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake, Mrs de Winter is dead’! 😉
April 5, 2008 at 6:53 am
Maybe you see Rebecca from a distance in the Dance/Fox “Rebecca”? I don’t recall seeing her face or seeing actual scenes with her, which I’d have thought would have made an impression. On the other hand, I saw it more than ten years ago, so it’s possible I’m forgetting. Sharon, is that one of the versions you’ve seen? Do you remember?
I like the Hitchcock movie a lot, but it’s definitely a different take on the story. Not only is Rebecca’s death an accident, but the ending is much happier (perhaps because Maxim, not having actually committed murder, is more easily able to be freed from his demons). The ending of the book (which is really there in the prologue) is bittersweet and quite haunting.
Good question about the “the second Mrs. de Winter.” I’d love to hear other readers’ takes. I do sympathize with her, but I also spend the first half of the story longing for her to stand up for herself. That’s view has pretty much held true on readings and viewings through the years.
April 5, 2008 at 10:00 am
‘Rebecca’ (1997) – the actress credited in the ‘title role’ is Lucy Cohu. She is dark-haired and sort of looks the part, but I can’t imagine her being credited if she didn’t have a speaking role. Perhaps flashbacks?
I perfectly understand the second Mrs de Winter’s situation, and can see how hard it would be for her to stand up for herself; perhaps if Maxim had stood by her from the beginning, and not fallen back into his own routine, she would have been stronger, but she’s alone in a strange house, with the intimidating presence of Mrs Danvers to make her feel worse. I can’t help but compare her situation to TSP’s Marguerite, in the first year of her marriage – whereas Marguerite was able to ‘act’ the part of the perfect hostess (a lot like Rebecca!), despite being a stranger in a foreign land and also cut off from her husband’s support, Mrs de Winter can only be herself, and her insecurities are compounded by the role she is expected to perform.
April 5, 2008 at 3:53 pm
It’s so weird I can’t remember Rebecca from the 1997 adaptation. Hopefully Sharon’s seen that one and can speak up.
Great point about the second Mrs. de Winter and Marguerite. Because you’re right, superficially Marguerite is much more like Rebecca–beautiful, sophisticated, worldly, clever, the toast of society, and also in a marriage that is a sham (and fell apart quickly after the wedding though for very different reasons). And yet in other ways–the isolation, feeling she’s lost her husband and wanting him back–Marguerite is much more like Mrs. de Winter. For that matter, Mélanie is much the same–sophisticated and self-assured on the surface, but struggling to fit into a society with its complex web of unwritten rules, into a world of people who have known each other (and known her husband) since the nursery. I was very much aware of that parallel when I wrote “Beneath a Silent Moon,” with the perfect Honoria Talbot as more of a Rebecca-type character.
April 5, 2008 at 4:25 pm
It’s been some 5 years, I think, since I last seen the Dance/Fox “Rebecca”. I vaguely remember seeing a Rebecca moving around the house in shadows and speaking into the camera with half her face obscured by a hat. Or was that my imagination?
I admit to a tendency of finding film adaptations of books I most love lacking. (I am probably the only person on this earth who is not enchanted by the Colin Firth version of P&P.) Nevertheless, I like Hitchcock’s “Rebecca” very much. It’s just that when I see the film, I don’t feel as much bound by Rebecca the character as I do via the nameless second Mrs. de Winter’s obsession with her when I read the book. I as a viewer of the film do not have a relationship with Rebecca whereas I as a reader of the book do.
While Rebecca fascinates me, the nameless heroine has more than my sympathy. I love it when she states that confidence has come late to her; a simple sentence that conveys self-knowledge and growth. My view of her doesn’t change much over time, but my view of Maxim de Winter does, perhaps because my view of men is constantly changing as I grow older.
April 5, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Sharon, the idea of a shadowy Rebecca in the 1997 version sounds vaguely familiar. I love adaptations of favorite books, though of course they’re never “my” image of the book (which again goes to the reader’s role in telling the story–the film’s director and writer interpret it differently). An exception was “Atonement” which as a film was startlingly close to my image as I read the book.
I’d say my view of Maxim has changed as well. When I first saw the film and read the book, at the age of about eleven, I thought he was a great romantic hero and saw no reason they shouldn’t live happily ever after. Now my view of him is a bit more complex :-).
April 5, 2008 at 5:00 pm
I remember feeling desperate for a happily-ever-after for Maxim and the nameless heroine when I first read the story. Lately, I’ve imagined him dead soon after their exile, 🙂 so the heroine could cease being a wanderer on the earth, a punishment befitting his crime, but totally unfair for her. “Rebecca” for me is a brilliant psycho-drama that different issues emerge with each reading even by the same reader.
April 5, 2008 at 7:45 pm
I’d still be sad to imagine him dead. I think they’re happy in a way in their exile. In a sense, she becomes the stronger one. He’s the one who’s lost the most, as Manderley meant so much to him. It is indeed a brilliant novel with so many layers to explore. Just the question of how happy the ending is can be cause for endless debate :-).
April 6, 2008 at 9:24 am
I’m currently reading ‘Mrs de Winter’ by Susan Hill, which is a sequel to ‘Rebecca’ (will I never learn?) I’m only a third or so in, but this story seems to cover the ‘What next?’ of Maxim and Mrs de Winter – she is indeed the stronger one, constantly having to act as a buffer between her husband and his memories, wanting to return home to England but kept in exile by his fears and sadness. They do return, of course, but I haven’t got very far into what happens then 😉 Have you read this version, too?
Maxim’s love of Manderley is a very subtle layer to the character in du Maurier’s book; at first, it’s almost as if he hates the place for the lingering essence of Rebecca, but he tells his wife that he loves the place more than anything. In Susan Hill’s book, he drives away from the fire and never looks back. Sally Beauman got it wrong, in my opinion, by tying Rebecca to the house as well – the history, the reputation, the responsibility, are what drives Maxim; he accepted her ‘bargain’ because he knew that she would be good for the house, whereas the truth could only damage its prestige, and Rebecca knew it too.
April 7, 2008 at 4:30 am
I haven’t read the Susan Hill’s “Mrs. de Winter,” Sarah–I’ll be interested to hear what you think of it. Excellent point about Manderley in “Rebecca”-the house is almost a character. (That’s why I returned to “Rebecca” when writing “Beneath a Silent Moon,” because I was trying to make Dunmykel a character in the book). I didn’t mind Rebecca’s ties to the house in “Rebecca’s Tale”–I thought it was interesting that fascination with the house drove both of them. But in the my reading of “Rebecca,” I wonder if losing Manderley didn’t in a sense free Maxim, wrenching as it is. In the Hitchcock movie, at the end I have the sense that he realizes having his wife safe (not to mention the dog 🙂 is what’s important.
April 11, 2008 at 1:17 pm
Tracy – just finished ‘Mrs de Winter’, and I can’t say I recommend it! I like how Maxim and his wife are very aware of the past – that Maxim is a murderer (cold-blooded, I’m beginning to think!) – and how they never really leave their self-imposed exile even after returning to England, but I thought their relationship very unbalanced. She seems to gain her ‘strength’ (not in evidence) and her happiness through protecting him, and both continue to have secrets from each other. I suppose there were signs at the end of ‘Rebecca’, with Mrs de Winter’s strange glee upon learning that her husband killed his first wife and then disposed of her body, but I had hoped for a happy ending, I confess; I also preferred the old Maxim, dour and droll, to the shell he becomes in Susan Hill’s sequel. And poor old Jack Favell, amusing if unpleasant in the original, is treated to another drubbing as a villainous plot device!
April 11, 2008 at 6:15 pm
Thanks for the description, Sarah! It does sound like a dark take on the futures of Maxim and the second Mrs. de Winter. (As is what we see of them in “Rebecca’s Tale.”) I can see their story going in that direction from the original novel, but I can also imagine a happier future and that’s more what I’ve always envisioned for them.
October 27, 2008 at 1:50 am
[…] Grant My blog last week on History Hoydens took off on my blog earlier on this site about The Reader’s role in telling a story. As it’s a topic I find endlessly fascinating, I thought I’d repost it here and hope it […]
March 20, 2016 at 7:59 am
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