Rebecca

This week, I've been rereading Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier. I first read it my senior year of high school when it was assigned by my fabulous AP English teacher Mrs. Greiner. I loved it enough that I read it again the following year during my freshman year at KU. Both times, I was mesmerized.

First published in 1938, Rebecca is about a young woman who marries a rich widower with a shady past. Maxim de Winter sweeps the young narrator off her feet and carries her away to Manderly, his ancestral estate. Manderly is beautiful, but it's also haunted by the memory of Rebecca de Winter, Maxim's first wife who died only a year before. The shy, nameless narrator is cowed by the sumptuous setting of Manderly, but she's even more cowed by the household's continuing love for the dead Rebecca who, by all accounts, was beautiful, charming, and an elegant hostess. The novel transforms from a romance to a mystery as the speaker begins to suspect that there's something fishy about Rebecca's death.

Rereading this book for a third time hasn't been as rewarding as I thought it would be. The novel, which once seemed rich, multivalent, and romantic, now feels long-winded and heavy-handed. The narrator especially keeps getting on my nerves. I think that I used to identify with her shyness, but now she just tires me. I keep thinking, Just tell the damn servant to bugger off! You're the mistress of the house, and they can't tell you where to put that vase! or, Just ask Maxim what the hell happened to Rebecca! She was only a woman, for heaven sakes! 

Some novels grow with you and offer more riches with each rereading. Rebecca, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be one of them.

What books do you love that stand up to multiple rereadings? What books have grown with you, and what books have failed to stand the test of time?