PUBLIC LIBRARIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 116, 12 November 1938, Page 29

PUBLIC LIBRARIES

BOOKS OF THE WEEK

The city librarian has chosen "Rebecca," by Daphne Dv Maurier, as the book of the week, and has furnished the following review:—

Miss Dv Maurier has written a book which is of fascinating interest to anyone who remembers with affection her grandfather's stories "The Martian," "Trilby," and "Peter Ibbetson," because she has shown herself to be in the same direct tradition as he was. There is no question of imitation, and her earlier work has only half promised this splendid fulfilment. , Unfortunately Miss Dv Maurier's taste is in many ways not impeccable. She has not yet the sure and steady hand for detail which marks the great artist. But although she jumps the rails in a hundred minor respects she has written a book which shows her to possess the soul of an artist, and which in its conception and in the broader strokes of its execution might not be deemed unworthy of the pen of her immortal grandfather. The story is placed in the mouth of the heroine of the book, a nondescript little girl who is the companion of a vulgar American woman on the Riviera. Maxim de Winter, an aristrocratic Englishman who owns a famous place in the West Country called Manderley, is there trying to forget the tragic death of his famous and beautiful wife in a boating accident in the sea near this estate. The nondescript little girl finds that her mistress is forcing her attentions on de Winter, but de Winter, taking out the nameless child for drives, finds that she has fallen in love with him and asks her to marry him. After a happy honeymoon they go back to Manderley. Now here Miss Dv Maurier shows a touch of her grandfather's genius for the macabre and the unusual, for suspense and nostalgia. When de Winter takes his wife back to Manderley the whole spirit of the lovely countryside catches her and grips her and makes her conscious of her own ineptitude. Rebecca, the first wife, seems to be inherent in the spirit of the place and everything about it. It was due to Rebecca that the house was so beautiful and orderly. It was due to her that everything in the garden ran so smoothly. It was she who had made the entertainments so successful. The mute reproach of Rebecca's spirit seemed to have crystallised into the living form of the old housekeeper who had become mad with grief at her death. Gradually the new wife becomes involved—the stage is set for horrors; and a Bronte-esque flair for suspense and for the analysis of the tortuous workings of the human mind become in Miss Dv Maurier's hands weapons to chivvy and torment not only her principal character but the reader of the book. In something the same way did the man whose granddaughter Miss/ Dv Maurier is keep a* Victorian public on tenterhooks. It would be neither fair nor ad-* vantageous to reveal the balance of the story, but the long introductory pas-* sages are only a prelude to writing; which places Miss Dv Maurier among the people who write because they can and must. Literary craftsmanship in such cases is a secondary consideration. The spirit is there: after a time th© craftgmansMp, as in Miss Dv Maurier's case, invariably begins to appear, RECENT LIBRARY ADDITIONS. Other titles selected from recent accession lists are as follows. —General: "Surgeon Extraordinary," by J. Davis; "The Importance of Living," by Lin Yutang; "Dancer in Madrid," by J. Riesenfeld. Fiction: "Royal Escape," by G. Heyer; "Twenty-Four Tales," by G. W. Bullett; "Malice of Men," by G. W. Deeping.