Customer Reviews

Daphne: A Novel

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Justine Picardie's Daphne is a fictionalized/biographical/literary mystery centering, ostensibly, upon one question: what became of Emily Bronte's notebook of poems that disappeared from the Bronte Society's collections in the mid 20th century? After a few chapters, the reader can guess what happened to the priceless manuscript. What is more difficult to tease out is the novel's underlying meaning or purpose.

The narrative is presented from three perspectives and two time periods. One, of course, is that of Daphne DuMaurier as she struggles over the writing of her biography of Branwell Bronte. The second is that of Alex Symington, a retired, less than honest Bronte scholar who cannot come to terms with his professional mistakes. The third is an unnamed, newly married grad student, working on a dissertation involving Daphne's work 40 years later. Sound confusing? It can be. But it is intriguing as well, because the plot and the setting also draw upon the shades of the characters from Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel. Throw some Peter Pan into the mix (the duMaurier family was close to JM Barrie and his adopted "lost boys"), and the plot thickens.

I finished this book last night and am still not sure what to make of it. But I did enjoy it and found it reminiscent of the duMaurier novels I've read and loved. Interesting....

I really enjoyed this book--how could I not? It's jam packed with Brontes, du Mauriers, Haworth, Manderley, Hamstead Heath, Peter Pan, Rebecca, My Cousin Rachel, Wuthering Heights, and Jane Eyre.

It's a novel about Daphne du Maurier during the time when she is writing "The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte," and investigating whether Branwell was actually a more prolific and accomplished author than he has been given credit for. She uncovers evidence that poems and stories attributed to Emily and Charlotte were actually written by Branwell.

It's a literary mystery. It combines Bronte family history as well as the themes and characters from their major works with du Maurier family history and themes and characters from Daphne's major works, which happens to intersect with the J.M. Barrie and his Peter Pan novel and play.

And that's not all, Picardie also brings in a contemporary story that parallels and intersects the lot, and it's all beautifully written, compelling, and a thumping good read.

If you're interested, I've been blogging about it at www.janegs.blogspot.com

I began this book with skepticism, thinking Picardie's descriptions of Daphne du Maurier being haunted by Rebecca, the fictional character of her renowned novel of the same name, a bit contrived, but as I read I also researched on-line, and found much of her story (the Rebecca haunting aside perhaps), to be based in truth. It is obvious Picardie did an incredible amount of research for this novel. She appears to have discovered enough new material for a thesis, yet presents this information in a much more interesting fictional form with many parallels in both du Maurier's books and the Bronte books as well. Did anyone else notice the "un-named" narrator, while appearing much like the un-named narrator of "Rebecca", also has many similarities to Jane, in "Jane Eyre", which was, of course, written by Charlotte Bronte, and upon research, with Picardie herself in the way she discovered the letters between du Maurer and Symington, a Bronte scholar? I found the mysteries in this book very intriguing, with the same gothic feel of "Rebecca" and "Jane Eyre". The more familiar you are with du Maurier's and the Bronte's novels, the more you will notice how deftly woven these stories are in "Daphne", and if you enjoyed those books, you will enjoy "Daphne".

In this interesting fact-based novel the author tells the story of how Daphne du Maurier came to write her biography of Branwell Bronte in the early 1960s, The Infernal World of Branwell Bronte.

When the novel opens Daphne du Maurier is in her early fifties and is dealing with a host of personal problems. Her husband Tommy has had a breakdown and is temporarily hospitalized. Their relationship is rocky in any case because of Daphne has found out that he had a recent affair. She is portrayed as being rather unstable, she frequently hears the voice of her most famous character, Rebecca, and she can hardly ever bring herself to leave her isolated house, Menabilly.

As Daphne becomes enthralled with the Brontes and writing a biography on Branwell, she begins to write letters to J. Alexander Symington who had edited a Collected Works of the Brontes and been the librarian of a large collection. It becomes clear that he has a large collection of original Bronte manuscripts (questionably acquired!) and he offers to sell some of them to her. But since he has planned to write a book himself for many years he only sells her a few unimportant pages, keeping the best back for himself.

The story is told from alternating points of view: Daphne du Maurier, Mr. Symington and a young female narrator who is not named. She is a young student who is working on Daphne du Maurier's obsession with the Brontes for her PHD. She discovers the letters between Daphne and Mr. Symington by accident but they end up having quite an impact on her personal life.

This novel is packed with facts that make it a fascinating read for any lover of English Literature, Daphne du Maurier or the Brontes. For example, J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, adopted Daphne's five male cousins after they were orphaned in 1910. (That part of the story was made into a movie a few years ago, Finding Neverland). He was part of the family, Daphne called him "Uncle Jim." And Daphne du Maurier put her diaries of her early life in a bank vault in 1979 with orders that they not be released for fifty years!

It's an intriguing story, well written and carefully researched. I recommend it!

I read this book in the hope of finding some interesting historical information and a good novel combined much in the same way 'The Hours' was.

But the story itself was drab and uninteresting and the biography side appears to be a combination of ripping off other biographies and inventing information. The research and information seems so far off base, I have to wonder what the author was researching at the time of writing this? Tripe is the only answer I can come up with.

As an academic of English Literature I found it to be historically incorrect, and a thoroughly uninteresting read.

If you like Daphne Du Maurier, avoid this like the plague!

this was an interesting story, it's actually three stories told at the same time that are related to one another other. This novel is based on actual events.

I purchased this book at a lovely little independent bookstore right outside the train station at Kew Gardens. I agree with many of the reviewers here that the story was often unevenly told. But what I found fascinating was the excellent evocation of a moody darkness created by the author-very much so reminiscent of the Bronte novels.

The author captures deftly the desire many writers have (here, all three protagonists) to bring to life a forgotten or misunderstood literary figure. As we read about Du Maurier's desire to resurrect an interest in the ignored Bronte sibling, the author, too, sheds light on the complexity of Du Maurier's novels themselves, also often dismissed as second-rate fiction.

This novel is quite unique and I highly recommend it.

Justine Picardie's new novel is a rich, speculative portrait of the great British author, Daphne du Maurier, during a turbulent period in her life. From 1957-1960, she wrote her famous biography of Branwell Brontė and a collection of bizarre short stories, THE BREAKING POINT; lost her mother and her favorite uncle, Peter (who had inspired James Barrie's PETER PAN); and faced some troubling truths about her relationships with her late father, actor Gerald du Maurier, actress Gertrude Lawrence, and her husband, the bipolar, alcoholic General Frederick "Boy" Browning, notorious for his role in the disastrous Battle of Arnhem in WWII that cost so many Allied lives (recounted in the book and film, A BRIDGE TOO FAR). She is further haunted by some of her own creations, notably the title character of REBECCA, and her ambiguous feelings about her own worth as a writer. Du Maurier's research for the book about Branwell includes her correspondence with the shady Brontė "scholar," J. A. Symington, who emerges here as a figure more tragic than ridiculous. (Most of the letters between him and du Maurier are reprinted word-for-word.)

Framing this series of events is the story of a scholar in the present who is researching the du Maurier/Brontė connection, an unnamed young woman whose own life and experiences eerily mirror those of her subject. This may sound complicated, but it reads like what it is, a fascinating portrait of a writer researching a writer who is researching a writer. The mirrored events of all three periods (1840s, 1950s, present) come together to form a vivid picture. My only reservation is that Picardie consulted Daphne du Maurier's own children and friends in putting this all together, and (as several critics have pointed out) she seems to have voluntarily drawn a discreet veil over much of the truth. (General Browning's involvement in the Arnhem debacle--and the fact that, at the time of this story, many people in Britain all but blamed him for it--is never even mentioned.) Challenging, perhaps--and a working knowledge of the Brontės and du Maurier certainly helps--but a fascinating (if toned-down) look at the creative process and how it affects the artists responsible. Recommended.

The disappointment of DAPHNE comes in direct proportion to the promise of its beginning. I was one of those initially baffled by the complex and jumpy time structure of Michael Cunningham's Woolf novel, THE HOURS, but after awhile I caught on, as did most people who took it on, so I was all prepared to read DAPHNE as a sort of middlebrow version of THE HOURS, which indeed was middlebrow enough to go on with. Two different time periods, 1957 and today, would be a snap. Back and forth. Back and forth. First there was Daphne Du Maurier just as we remembered her from Margaret Forster's invaluable 1993 biography DAPHNE DU MAURIER: THE SECRET LIFE OF THE RENOWNED STORYTELLER--in fact, Justine Picardie has borrows so much of Forster's picture of Daphne that I hope Forster's accountants are sending her a bill for intellectual property. Anyhow there we have Daphne at a particularly grim moment in her life--between books--stuck on an unrewarding biography of Bramwell Bronte and, as she discovers to her horror, in direct competition with her rival, the professional biographer Winifred Gerin who has already wowed the literary world with biographies of Anne Bronte and Anne Thackeray. Daphne is sure her fate will be that which it always has been--nailed as a hack by sanctimonious critics who discount the sheer female storytelling power of her books, and just sneer at her sales figures.

Then she finds out that Tommy has been cheating on her with a horrible society woman. Has she been spending too much time in beloved Menabilly on the Cornish coast?

I was intrigued by this beginning but the book fell apart when Picardie switches first to a dreary account of a "second Mrs De Winter" type of dull mouse married to a Maxim type professor (Paul) still attached to his first wife, dashing poet Rachel. Oh my goodness, was this story awful!

Just awful, as dull as ditchwater and really making you appreciate the artistry of Rebecca. Why, Justine Picardie, why? And then even your main plot runs off the rails when you detail Daphne's (extremely lukewarm it seems) interest in Bramwell Bronte and her tepid dealings with a shady manuscript collector. It was as though you couldn't work up enough interest in telling your own story to even try to intrigue us.

If the book was based on lots of research, it was wasted indeed. If the thesis is that somehow Daphne wound up with missing Bronte manuscripts, then spell it out in a chipper article for NOTES AND QUERIES. I used to love Daphne, but your book made me want to stamp out her name with sealing wax every time I come across it now.

As a lover of Daphne Du Maurier's novels ever since adolescence, I approached Justine Picardie's novel starring Daphne as a main character with much trepidation. I wanted it to be good and I was not disappointed.

In a successfully satisfying fictional tale based on actual events, Picardie juxtaposes the life of a fifty-something year old Du Maurier at a low point in her life with that of John A. Symington, a former librarian and scholar of the Brontes of Hayworth Parsonage, and a present day almost unnamed (shades of "Rebecca") female graduate student who in pursuing her doctorate uncovers an unsettling component to the Du Maurier/Symington connection.

Of course, Picardie relies on her imagination to pull together a story of psychological dependency that rivals one of Du Maurier's own. Du Maurier, acclaimed as a popular bestselling author rather than as a respected mistress of the inner literary circle, decides to write an exploratory account of a lesser-known Bronte--Branwell. Along with his famous sisters, Charlotte, Emily and Anne, Branwell wrote ferociously as a child and adolescent and indeed possessed the same fevered and revered imagination for one isolated in such a desolate environment. Du Maurier discovers that some of his actual life experiences may well have provided the foundation for the Brontes' timeless characters and she wonders if he may have conceived and written some of the poems and story lines attributed to his siblings. In her quest for scholarly acceptance, she decides to pursue this theory and begins a correspondence with the debatably disreputable Symington who as the former librarian at the Parsonage may or may not have removed treasured artifacts that he contrives to sell to the unsuspecting Daphne.

Simultaneously, the doctorate candidate struggles with her thesis and her marriage to an older divorced scholar whose fascination with his ex-wife, a celebrated poetess, borders on the psychological back-story to Du Maurier's famous "Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier." Like the second mistress of Manderley, the third and only first person narrator of "Daphne" fights her insecurity and inability to self-identify. Drawn to Du Maurier's fiction like a helpless moth to the flame, she has the foresight to recognize that the inspiration behind some of Du Maurier's most horrific works of psychological suspense were creative brainchildren fashioned by Du Maurier to defend against insecurities brought on by real misunderstood family skeletons and the reliance on a fictive world where the characters are controlled and don't deviate from the author's set course.

With great style and insight, Picardie investigates the mind of Du Maurier as she attempts to lay down ghosts of the far and near past. Husband Boy Browning betrays a bewildered Daphne in an extramarital affair, her beloved cousin, Peter, persists disastrously in his desire to shrug off the widely publicized connection with J. M. Barrie of Peter Pan fame (see the well done Neverland: J. M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, and the Dark Side of Peter Pan )and Daphne suffers from memories of her own in which her father plays an important influential and perhaps infamous role. Using the fact that Du Maurier sealed the contents of her personal journal until fifty years after her death, Picardie speculates on what actually provided the fodder for so many of Du Maurier's spectacularly sinister tales (Echoes from the Macabre : Selected Stories and The Birds and Other Stories (Virago Modern Classics)).

Decidedly an impoverished opportunist, the voice of Symington in letters and third person narration provides a disreputable look at the inner works of scholarship and its need for fame and recognition that both attracts and repels Picardie and her version of Du Maurier.

All three voices provide a broadband of information that intrigues the reader in both its intricacy and intimacy with the little explored arena of the popular versus respected worries of an author that creates art and generates capital.

Bottom line? Justine Picardie's "Daphne" provides a spectacular two days of intensely pleasant and compelling reading. As a lover and admirer of Daphne Du Maurier's outstanding contribution to storytelling, I found this novel interesting in the extreme with its three juxtaposed story lines and revelatory hints at family mysteries and heretofore undisclosed closeted skeletons that give insight into the inner workings of the mind of Du Maurier. Picardie's third narrative by the unnamed (until the end) doctoral candidate resembles a modern day "Rebecca" where the "R" in her life doesn't overshadow her developing identity. Well done! Highly recommended.
Diana Faillace Von Behren
"reneofc"