A Best-Seller With Faults

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 226, 24 September 1938, Page 17 (Supplement)

A Best-Seller With Faults

IT is not often that the principal character of a novel is dead before the story begins; this, however, is the case in Miss Daphne Du Maurier's new novel, "Rcbecca (Gollancz). This ti<.ok, wliirh has already mini l .! a sensation in Kni'l a nd. ir>, we think, sure of an equally wide popularity in New Zealand. If eannot be called a great novel, hut while the critics will easily find in it enough faults to satisfy the most disgruntled of them, yet it undoubtedly his the quality, however ephemeral it jnnv be, that marks the beat-seller.

Rebecca, de Winter had 'been the misof Manderley, a beautiful country house on the Devon coast. At the beginning of the etory she is already dead, and Maxim, her husband, is in the South of France seeking comfort fiom the change of scene when lie encounters the heroine of the boolc, whom he soon marries. It characteristic of the curious qualitv of the book and the considerable technical skill that is interTTiiUontlv apparent in it that the author shoub', lie able to write a long story without telling 11s the heroine s name no d..ubt this is deliberately done to empha -o-o t ho unobtrusive modesty of her character. The theme of the book is a rrcon->1 ruction of the character of the beautiful, glamorous, brilliant Rebecca by the sll v little mouse who succeed* her as the mistress of Manderley. and the inevitable comparison between them. I'.iit the hook is much more than thi*. for action priv-ently supervenes upon inl ro- ; e 1 j, .n. and action tiffin to ad- \ 'iiture and adventure into drama of l ie ino-t. c\filing kind, 'lhis irt one of l im exciting books wo have read 1> 'I' tn|||«' 1 i me. So nnieli bcincr praise, it would ii'>t 11 >' indfeate that the book f.ilU c.,ii i,ler.iblv short of real greatre,... Alihuiigh {he action move* thnl--1 ■ 11 I\ and the atmosphere is wonderful, r-'irie'i one slartlingly at times of r.ne'-i :ir.-t thrilling perusal of "Jane l yre.'' \ et there is no profundity in t' and 011 rellection one is struck nit a t he improbability of some of the Fit.uat ions. 1 he vagueness of many of tl e t : iiies indicated in Rebecca's history are pr* bably deliberate —how old was she, for instance, and how long were she and Maxim married? One wonders whether Mi's Du Maurier herself could

\vrite a consistent and probable history of "Rebecca t« fit in with the secondhand impression of her set out in this story. To labour such criticisms as these, however, would be ungrateful, in respect of a story which we wholeheartedly en joyed, and'for which we predict a box-ofliee success comparable with that of "The Citadel."' ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ Boohs In Local Demand The following list of hooks in demand at the Auckland Public Libraries is supplied by the chief librarian: — NON FICTION. Dark Paths —By rieolTroy rinnopfc. Tools of To-morrow —By Jonathan N. J.ronard. Insanity Fair—By Douylns Heed. In the Step* of Moses the Conqueror—By bonis i/olrlini-. Speed, Spare end Time—Ry Vernon Somrnerilelfl. Hand-picked Howlers—By Cecil Hunt. Journeys Between Wars—lty John dos r.is'o*. Science for the Home—By A. M. Low. In Korean Wilds and Villages—By Sten Berg-man. Think and Grow Rich—By Napoleon Hill. FICTION Meat for Mammon —By Mary Mitchell. Out of This Nettle—Bv Norah I»rt=. The Doomsday Men—By J. B. PiiesTTt-y. I'm No Wlurderar —By Barry Perowne. A Rops for the Hanging—By Nigel Moriiirid. Truth to Tell—By Alice Grant Rogman. Death of a Celebrity—By Hulbert Footner. A Mad World —By E. W. iavi.