Daphne Du Maurier Reading Week: The Glass-Blowers

I've been a big fan of Daphne du Maurier since I was thirteen and my mother let me stay up late with her to watch an adaptation of Rebecca on Masterpiece. I was instantly hooked, but it wasn't until many years later that I realized how many other books du Maurier had written. When I read that Ali from Heavenali was hosting a Daphne du Maurier reading week I knew I'd be participating -- but which book? 

As it happened, I had planned a long weekend in Paris that coincided, so The Glass-Blowers seemed like the perfect choice. Loosely based on du Maurier's own ancestors, it's a historical novel about the French revolution as experienced by a the Bussons, a family of glassblowers.

Published in 1963, the story begins with a prologue, as an elderly woman recounts meeting a long-lost relative who knows nothing about his family of French glassblowers. (I read this as an e-book and accidentally skipped the prologue, but I think I prefer it that way as there were some minor spoilers). She then writes the family history, beginning  in 1741 with the marriage of her mother, Magdaleine, to Matharin Busson, a master glassblower from Chenu a village south of Le Mans. After their marriage, Madame Busson quickly steps in to help with the business, from keeping accounts to managing domestic affairs of the workers and their families, in addition to raising five children of her own. The story is told in the first person by Sophie, the fourth child and eldest daughter, but most of novel is the history of the three eldest:  sons Robert, Pierre, and Michel, who all train to be glassblowers but end up taking very different paths: Robert is a speculator, gambler and royalist; Pierre is enlightened and and a follower of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; the youngest, Michel, is a republican.

The Glass-Blowers is fairly short for a historical novel, less than 400 pages, but du Maurier essentially tries to pack in most of the entire French Revolution -- the storming of the Bastille; the departure of the royalist sympathizers; and the bloody terror. I'm not nearly as familiar with the history of France as I'd like to be, so parts of this felt like a crash-course to me -- I appreciate what du Maurier was trying to do, but politics in books tend to bore me, so I wished there was more about the family than about the history. I liked the novel but I would have liked more character development; also, sometimes it felt like du Maurier was doing a lot of telling and not showing. I was more interested in the family's story than about the actual politics that were going on. It's not as creepy or suspenseful as Rebecca or The House on the Strand, though there are definitely some tense moments during some scenes set riots and when counter-revolutionaries are terrorizing a town.

However, I did really enjoy it. I was struck in particular by how much of the upheaval was stirred by gossip and rumors -- people were terrified with stories of marauding brigands and thieves; stories of foreign armies retaliating after the arrest and execution of Louis XIV and Marie Antoinette, and so on. It's even worse than the misinformation people are getting today on social media.

I would love to know how much of this is based on facts about her family, and how much is fiction. Du Maurier also published several nonfiction books, including a memoir of her early years and, a family history called The Du Mauriers. And last week I also finished Letters From Menabilly: Portrait of a Friendship by Oriel Malet, who documents their friendship from the 1950s until du Maurier's death in the late 1980s.

I did really enjoy reading this book while I was on my trip to France -- it's not often that my reading and my travels coincide, but I actually ended up reading this on a bus trip to Versailles! It really brought the story to life, after seeing the excess of the palace and driving through the countryside, passing through a couple of villages which still had Medieval buildings and historic churches. If I have time I'll put up another post with photos of my trip. And many thanks to Ali for organizing this blogging event!

Time Travel Rarely Ends Well

For this year's RIP Challenge, I had intended to reread either Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca (one of my all-time favorite novels) or My Cousin Rachel, which was recently adapted into a movie. I may yet read both of these, but I also discovered that The House on the Strand was available from my library's digital catalog as an audiobook -- so I've crossed one of her lesser-known novels off my to-read list! House on the Strand is the fifth of du Maurier's novels that I've read, and I absolutely loved it -- it's a close second to Rebecca and I don't think it gets nearly the attention it deserves.

Here's the setup: published in 1969, this is the story of a forty-something man named Dick Young, told as a first person narrative. Dick recently left a high-pressure publishing job in London and is spending the summer holidays in Cornwall at a house called Kilmarth, the home of his oldest friend, Magnus Lane, a noted professor of biophysics. Dick's wife Vita and two stepsons are due to join him in a week or so, but before they arrive, Magnus asks Dick to do him a favor -- Magnus is trying to create a drug that will actually allow the user to travel back in time -- not physically, but through memory -- and he wants Dick to be his guinea pig.

Magnus explains that somehow, memories are biologically passed down, and by taking the drug, the user can somehow access memories that are centuries old, as if they've actually traveled into the past and are experiencing it in real time. The user is just an observer, and can't be seen or heard by the people in the past; also, if the user makes physical contact with anyone, they will be instantly returned back to the present, with very uncomfortable side effects.

Dick takes the plunge and goes back in time to the 1300s, observing a man named Roger Kylmerth who lived in the original property. Roger was the steward of a Cornish aristocrat, Sir Henry Champernoune, and Dick is immersed in the intrigues between Henry's manipulative widow Joanna and the beautiful Isolda, wife of another aristocrat, who is carrying on an affair with Joanna's brother. Roger is secretly in love with Isolde, and is something of a doppleganger for Dick, who becomes obsessed with Isolda and the drama surrounding her life. Dick becomes more and more obsessed with Isolda and the long-dead players in this Middle Ages drama, to the detriment of his life in the present.

I really, really enjoyed this book, though I did find the parts set in the past a bit confusing -- it was harder on audio because I couldn't flip back to earlier sections to reread and clarify who was who (apparently the print version has family trees and a map, which would have been extremely helpful). Luckily, I'd gotten used to some of the Cornish names after reading so many of the Poldark novels -- names like Bodrugon and Trenwyth are pretty familiar now, and listening on audio, I've learned how they're actually pronounced.

Overall, though, the parts of the book that were most fascinating were how Dick reconciles his new obsession with the people in the present, particularly his wife who shows up unexpectedly early. He has to make up excuses as to why he disappears for hours at a time, and returns confused and dirty after wandering around the countryside in a trancelike state while under the influence of the drug as he follows Roger, Isolda, and the rest of the historical Cornish characters. It becomes increasingly apparent to the reader that Dick is putting himself in grave danger, both from the drug itself, and in physical danger since he has no concept of the present while he's traveling into the past -- it's hard to look both ways crossing the street when you think you're in the Middle Ages, when cars didn't exist.

This book is a really interesting psychological study -- is this really happening to Dick, or is he just hallucinating?  Is it all just the drugs, or is Dick subconsciously working through his personal issues in the present? I got really invested in the story, and became really worried about what was going to happen to everyone, in both narratives. I found this a really interesting twist on how time travel works and the physical and mental effects on the traveler.

The only thing I really didn't like was the characterization of the women in this book, none of whom come off as sympathetic except the luminous Isolde, who doesn't seem especially developed. For a female writer, du Maurier has a lot of terrible women in her books. However, I still loved it and it's definitely one of my top reads of the year.