Daphne du Maurier: The Secret Life of the Renowned Storyteller

Often, the subtitle of a book almost seems like an afterthought, a way of cataloging the book but not really significant.

In Daphne Du Maurier, by Margaret Forster, the subtitle is everything. This bio definitely focuses on the bisexual aspect of du Maurier that Forster uncovered during her research and the full scope of which, according to the Afterword, her children didn't know.

While I was reading this bio, I kept wondering whether Daphne would have been the success she was had even one of the conflicting elements that went into her story been different. She was the golden girl of a notorious family--her grandfather was a renowned Victorian illustrator and novelist and her father a successful and flamboyant actor--and living up to her family name clearly was extremely important to her. From her earliest memories, she portrays herself as sexually confused--seeing herself as a boy, wishing she was a boy, and feeling that she had to put her boy in a box. She found artistic as well as psychological and sexual relief in her writing to the point where she came to see the writer within her as a separate self, a "demanding other self" that was "placated only by writing," which drew her away from attending to her other demanding roles of wife and mother.

Thinking about Daphne's story, and having read Justine Picardie's novel Daphne: A Novel recently, I can't help but think about my adolescent logic (derived mostly from healthy doses of the Brontes, Fitgzerald, Thomas Wolfe, and Daphne herself) that went something like this:
1) All writers are tortured souls who must be miserable in order to write.
2) I don't want to be miserable.
3) I cannot be a writer.

I'm not a teenager anymore and writing has brought me great joy, but like I said, I can't help wondering whether she could have written Rebecca or My Cousin Rachel or The Scapegoat or The House on the Strand if she hadn't felt miserable, trapped, scared, driven, insecure, or, at times, a bit psychotic.

This was a fascinating bio, well-written, well-footnoted, and best of all, Forster is a pro at clearly marking where she is speculating. She also does a superb job at reading between the lines of Daphne's letters and highlighting inconsistencies, which usually are quite telling. She provided a nice mix of analysis of the stories and novels, interesting anecdotes about their publication, and, like Daphne herself, provided a wonderful sense of place as she followed Daphne from London to Cornwall to Egypt to Italy, etc.

Peter Pan and Daphne and Rebecca and Wuthering Heights

I swear, Justine Picardie, couldn't have woven a better tapestry of interrelated threads together than the lovely work she uncovered and presented in Daphne. In rereading that sentence, it sounds like a dig, but it isn't. The Brontes and du Mauriers and Lost Boys of Neverland are so intertwined that their story is really, as Picardie presents it, one long story.

Now that I've finished the novel and read her acknowledgements and afterword, I can fully appreciate the work she did as a literary slueth. I especially liked how she wove elements of her own story into that of Daphne with the contemporary heroine, who does, finally, get a name.

When I read books that I love, the stories and the authors that produce them become part of my bones, and their stories become part of my story as well. Part of who I am comes from the books I read and reread, especially during those teenage years. Picardie taps into this feeling so beautifully with Daphne so that interconnected aspect of literature becomes integral to the story and theme as well.

In my last two posts, I neglected to mention the Peter Pan aspect of the Daphne story but the last part of Daphne really brings this facet to the foreground. Daphne du Maurier's cousins were the original Lost Boys that J.M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan for and about, and it is a thing of beauty to watch Picardie work with Branwell Bronte and Peter Pan while not losing track of Rebecca and Rachel and Heathcliff and Cathy. There's a wonderful sense of place throughout the whole--from Hamstead Heath to Haworth to Menabilly and Cornwall and back to London.

I wonder whether I should watch Finding Neverland at last, and what about Daphne? I'll definitely be reading The Brontes, by Juliet Barker and Daphne du Maurier, by Margaret Forster.

Finally, here is Justine Picardie's blog, which is loaded with interesting articles, photos, etc. about Daphne du Maurier.

Here's my first post about Daphne, and here's the second.

Bits and Bobs

Observations on both books that I'm currently reading.

I'm sailing through Daphne, and am nearing the end. It is still as fascinating at this point and getting more impressive. I love how Picardie is able to keep the three voices balanced, and I truly love how the stories of Branwell and the Brontes, Syminton, Daphne du Maurier and her pathetic husband, his Snow Queen, and, of course, her Rebecca, parallel and weave with the modern unnamed heroine and her Paul and his Rachel and Menabilly/Manderley. I have just got to read the recent bio of du Maurier.

In reading about Symington and his futile attempts to bring order and articulation to his life's work (and theft, er, borrowing) with regards to Branwell, I am reminded of Casaubon in George Eliot's Middlemarch. Much as I love and identify with Dorothea, I truly feel sorry for Casaubon. He has what I have come to call the Amadeus complex--he recognizes genius, appreciates genius, and is tormented because as close as he gets to the sublime in art, as much as he is moved by it, he can never produce a work that approaches greatness. For him, it's not enough to appreciate and enjoy. He wants to create, and his efforts can never be more than pedantic, and he knows it in his heart. For me, that is Symington.

I am also still slowly working my way through Rebecca Dickson's A Jane Austen Treasury. One of the gems in this book is her micro essay regarding why anyone should watch the Laurence Olivier/Greer Garson Pride and Prejudice movie from 1940. I've always enjoyed the campiness of it, as well as the cinematic sexiness of Olivier. But, Dickson's sidebar talks about how this movie actually was part of Britain's propaganda to bring the U.S. into WWII on the side of the Allies, showing how Darcy wasn't really against the middle classes (aka the American Dream). According to Dickson, this movie demonstrates, by having Lady Catherine conspiring with Darcy to confirm that Elizabeth will love him as much if he's a poor man, that if the U.S. joins the war effort it "isn't going to war to help save an aristocracy--they're going to war to help the adorable Lizzie Bennet and her soon-to-be aunt-in-law, the chummy Cathy Bourgh." I give Dickson 10 gold stars for this analysis. I love it!