Re-reading Rebecca

A few weeks ago I picked up Sally Beauman's Rebecca's Tale and put it down again in order to re-read the novel that inspired it, Daphne Du Maurier's Rebecca. Both novels begin with the same sentence: "Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." Fitting, I think, since I believe Manderley, in the latter novel at least, the true protoganist. Certainly neither the knock-kneed unnamed narrator nor the chameleonic lady of the manor, Rebecca de Winter, inspires admiration. The towering rhododendrons and fragrant azaleas, the lush, overgrown wood encroaching on the drive, and the deceptively placid sea, are much more appealing and evocative.