Books that ask (and answer), "What if?"

I'm sorry not to add to the discussion of Rebecca, but my mind is on a book I put down last evening - One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd, by Jim Fergus. I thought it might go well with our theme of books about (or by) women, but I was disappointed. The premise relates to a 1854 incident in which the chief of the Cheyenne requested that the U.S. government give 1,000 white women as brides for his warriors in exchange for peace. It never happened, except in this author's imagination. It's an interesting premise, but not as realized here. Even though it comes highly recommended on the back cover, I found the characters to be contrived (one representative for each ethnic or social group), their dialects clumsy, and the writing without the feel of a journal. I put it down unfinished.

Another book of this type is Michael Chabon's Yiddish Policeman's Union. It asks, what if the United States had given a portion of Alaska to Jews fleeing the Holocaust? Instead of Palestine, they would have a homeland in Sitka for 50 years, after which they would have to assimilate elsewhere. The book takes up just as the 50 years are up, just as the main-character detective is drawn into a murder case that ties together the region's history, politics, society, culture, and angst. Fully conceived and executed. Entertaining, suspenseful, warm, humorous, compelling . . . everything a good book should be. Obviously, the better of the two, IMHO.

All Hannah Coulter, All the Time!

For everyone who enjoyed Hannah Coulter, there is a blog entirely devoted to discussing it: Hannah Coulter Book Club for Copy Cats. Check it out!

This one's for you, A. B.!!!!

More Discusson about Rebecca

As mentioned previously, we continued our discussion about Rebecca by e-mail after our January meeting. Instead of cutting and pasting those messages into the comments, we'll just give them their own post, and then the discussion can continue in the comments if anyone would like.

Wordsmith started the discussion:

Thanks for a good dinner, interesting show, and brief discussion. I wish we'd had more time to talk about the book. If anyone's interested in continuing the talk online, I'd like to ask this: do you think the author thought Rebecca's murder was justified?

G.C. answered:

I think the author was trying to "expand our horizons" into the thought that things are more complicated and that there is moral ambiguity. At the time she wrote the novel, moral ambiguity was not a popular concept. While "murder" *(remember that the commandment, properly translated, states that thou shalt not murder.) is most often heinous. It can be justified as Grisham posited in A Time to Kill or understandable as the author posits in Rebecca. It is interesting that the director made a change in the details fo the death much as the director made the change in The Shawshank Redemption. In the movie, the Morgan Freeman character "killed a guy in a bar fight" - it could happen. In the book, the character cut the brake lines on his wife's car and she just happened to have picked up a pregnant friend (or a friend with a child - I forget) before the accident occurred.

Maybe that says something about the expectations of the mental flexibility of "readers" (a niche group) versus movie goes (a broad audience).

I was just watching Tales of the City - The main character says to someone coming home late at night - Welcome to Manderly, I'm Mrs. Danvers. It was "tongue in cheek" scary. I love those literary references. Since I read so much, I usually get them. However, my annotated edition of Lolita (which supposedly has an average reference rate of 1 every other line) remains unread. I liked it fine as just a dirty novel!

Wordsmith responded:

I really appreciate your thoughts, G. C. There was so much we could have discussed - just not enough time! One of our goals in Captive Thoughts is to broaden our understanding, and Rebecca certainly presented a lot to think about. That being said, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by moral ambiguity, but at face value I disagree. There are moral confusions or moral complexities - it's certainly difficult to sort things out - but I do believe in moral absolutes. Life is messy and some webs of wrong (whether actively performed or thrust upon innocents) are impossible to untangle; consequences - fair or unfair - come our way and we must decide what we're going to do with them. But we always have a choice. I haven't read A Time to Kill - maybe it presents a stronger case. I do agree that definitions are important, that murder can be different from killing, that sometimes killing is justifiable. I agree that Rebecca's murder is understandable, but not justifiable. Of course I don't really know what DuMaurier is positing, but it's interesting that Maxim's murder of Rebecca is unneccesary since her disease will do her in. If Maxim had pursued the truth he would have found out that Rebecca wasn't pregnant but dying, and his patience would have freed him from her. (This is why I read the paragraph I did, b/c it points out that if only the truth had been sought, - by a lot of the characters - the outcome would have been totally different.) The consequences of his actions are severe - he loses Manderley and must live as an exile. His psyche is ruined and seems to put the nameless her in more of a position of caretaker than wife. What do the rest of you think?

Page Turner commented:

Those are some great thoughts, Wordsmith. I too pondered the same question (was the murder justified) after I read the book. Du Maurier leads us to sympathize with the characters, which makes it easier to excuse their behavior. But regardless of the circumstances, murder is still murder, and like you said, it is understandable, but not justifiable. I think the many consequences that follow that single act might be the author's subtle indication that she was leading her readers to see the moral implications of murder. I had not thought through all the "what ifs" that you suggested, but that certainly sheds a different light on the matter, too. So much could have been different.

The idea of truth in this novel is another topic we could explore. If you remember, we discussed that when we read The 13th Tale last year. (Have you read that one, G. C.?) Interestingly, it was somewhat gothic, too. I suppose that the question of truth is almost inherent in that genre since things are not always as they seem. Perhaps that's why I like the complexities and perplexities of these stories - the characters' perceptions and misconceptions of truth shape their choices and their lives, and we as readers/observers get the suspense of seeking the truth along with the responsibility of judging the outcome for good or ill. In my opinion, that makes for a fascinating read, both interesting and thought provoking!

REBECCA by Daphne du Maurier ~ January '09

We had a lot of fun with our January meeting! We read Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier and had a dinner theater, watching the 1940 Hitchcock film of Rebecca, staring Laurence Olivier and Joan Fontaine, while we enjoyed a wonderful meal. The only down side was that we didn't have much time to discuss the novel and the movie adaptation, but we've continued the discussion some by e-mail and can add more comments here.

This gothic romance evokes a period when the roles of men and women were so different. The movie reinforces and even accentuates those roles: the strong, handsome, yet distant male, the timid, fawning wife. We discussed whether the character of the second Mrs. de Winter was really believable. Would someone have really been that smitten and naive to be so blind to the underlying issues troubling Maxim? Was she so eager to please that she couldn't see through Mrs. Danver's duplicity? Given her options of staying with Mrs. Van Hopper or marrying Mr. de Winter, the latter must have seemed to offer a brighter future, but we really thought she should have been more cautious with Mrs. Danver's suggestions for the costume ball. That woman obviously had no good intentions toward the second Mrs. de Winter. (Many of us were frustrated that she was never named in the book or movie, though we understood how it made her even more a shadow of the first Mrs. de Winter!)

We agreed that Mrs. Danvers was portrayed in all her grim and sinister glory by Judith Anderson in the film. Apparently the Masterpiece Theater adaptation of Rebecca seems to indicate that there was something of an unnatural affection between Rebecca and Mrs. Danvers, which further intensified her grief and jealousy over Rebecca's death and the second Mrs. de Winter's presence at Manderley. You could find hints of that in the Hitchcock film if you were looking for it, but it wasn't necessarily obvious.

Our follow-up discussion by e-mail covered the idea of whether Rebecca's murder was justified and the idea of truth in this and other gothic novels like The Thirteenth Tale that we read last year. Please feel free to cut and paste those e-mails in the comments and continue the discussion here.

Happy New Year & January Meeting Update

We hope that all Captive Thoughts Book Club Members have had a joyful Christmas season and a happy New Year!

Our first meeting of 2009 will happen in just two weeks, on Thursday, January 15th. We are still finalizing the location and a few other details for this meeting because it will be our first movie night to watch Rebecca, the 1940 adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's novel (see link in the side bar), directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Laurence Olivier. Don't worry if you haven't started the book yet; it's a really easy read, and I found it to be quite a suspenseful page-turner. I posted my personal review here - you can read it to whet your reading appetite - I haven't given away any of the twists in plot. But even if you aren't able to read or finish the book, please come and watch it with us!

More details will follow by e-mail. Looking forward to a fun evening. . .