intrigueing

Just like there seems to be hardly a novel with a fictionalized Jane Austen in the centre that can resist (mis)quoting the opening line from “Pride and Prejudice”, the two novels with a fictionalized Daphne du Maurier in an important role I’ve recently read have to go for “Last night, I dreamed….” In their opening paragraph. (Yours truly had the frivolous thought: if there ever is a novel (not written by himself) with a fictionalized Stephen King in a leading role, which line should it go for? He doesn’t have a single novel more associated with him than the rest, the way JA has P & P and Daphne du Maurier has “Rebecca”, after all.) (Frivolous thought No.2: when I wrote a Yuletide story with legendary novelist Mary Renault in a leading role years ago, I couldn’t resist using one of her lines as well, but at least I didn’t put it in the opening paragraph!)

Said novels are really different from each other otherwise, though, and interesting to read in a compare and contrast way. Both have their respective strengths and flaws and left me with a lot of “yes, but…” feelings by the time I had finished, not all inspired by how they handle Daphne du Maurier as a character on the one hand and engage with her fiction(s) on the other.

(Personal Du Maurier background: I’ve read and seen the different film adaptations of Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel, have read her last but one novel “The House on the Strand” and her Branwell Bronte biography, have not read or seen “Jamaica Inn” or “Don’t Look Now”, have seen Hitchcock’s “The Birds” which is based on a short story of hers but do know form the Hitchcock biography I read that the movie doesn’t have much to do with her tale. I did once in a bookstore browse through a biography about her but can’t claim to have properly read it. Just enough to know that, say, the letter by Daphne du Maurier to Ellen Doubleday quoted in “The Mischief Makers” and paraphrased into dialogue in “The Housekeeper” is actually the genuine article.)

(Personal J.M. Barrie and Lwellyn Davies family background, which is highly relevant for one of the novels: See this post.)

On to the novels:

( Rose Tremain: The Housekeeper: Danni the Woobie vs Daphne the Heartless )

As it happens, the damage fiction and reality intertwining can do and writerly responsibility can do are main themes for the other novel starring a fictionalized version of Daphne du Maurier, though it takes a very different angle, which brings me to:

( Elizabeth Gifford: The Mischief Makers: Daphne du Maurier vs J.M. Barrie )

In which we catch up with a lot of the late Tony Stark's AI and ask existential questions. Also: James Spader has great fun chewing the scenery!

( Spoilers would like to point out Theseus wasn't yet King when he fought the Minotaur, just for the record )