Book Reviews: Rebecca + The Picture of Dorian Gray
- tashhtalks
- Jul 22, 2017
- 5 min read
I picked up these books as part of my Summer Reading for school and I'm not exaggerating when I say that I couldn't put them down! They were both thought-provoking and captivating with gorgeous language and setting. Even though Rebecca was written in 1938 and The Picture of Dorian Gray is almost 130 years old, what they discuss is not only relevant to present day but also relatable. I would thoroughly recommend them if you are looking for something to stretch the way you think or if you want a thriller with many twists and turns.
Rebecca by Daphne du Maurier
I am in awe of this masterpiece! It has often been called the most influential book of the 20th century and I can certainly see why. The novel follows a young girl who works as a companion for an older lady, Mrs. Van Hopper, in Monte Carlo during the 1930s. There, she meets a handsome, charming man named Maxim de Winter whom she falls in love with almost immediately. However, Mrs Van Hopper wants to travel to New York to see her daughter and it seems as though the couple will be separated. Hours before she is about to leave, she runs to Maxim to say goodbye and he proposes! They spend their honeymoon in Italy and then move into Maxim de Winter's infamous mansion by the sea. The young girl, however, is living in the shadow of Maxim's ex wife, Rebecca, who sadly drowned whilst sailing one year before. She was adored by everyone: Rebecca was a talented, kind, beautiful lady who hosted huge, marvellous parties and always had people over at the house. How on earth can she live up to Rebecca?
The novel is full of mystery and shocking twists, leaving me on the edge of my seat desperately wanting to know the truth. It is definitely not your usual classic, nothing like anything by Jane Austen, so if you don't usually enjoy reading classics but want to give one a go, this is your best shot!
I don't think I could discuss Rebecca without mentioning the glorious Manderley. I can't stop thinking about this exquisite home with it's drawing rooms, library, morning room, gardens and bedrooms. Sounds like heaven to me! Here are some photos from the Alfred Hitchcock film:
The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde:
I absolutely adored this piece of artwork by Oscar Wilde. It is was short and sweet, less than 200 pages, meaning that I read it in about 2 days. The story is about a beautiful, young man, Dorian Gray, who has his portrait painted by one of his friends, Basil Hallward, who is a talented artist. Basil's friend, Lord Henry Wotton, who is an intellectual, well-spoken, philosophical man advises Dorian to take advantage of his youth and good looks. Therefore, Dorian exclaims that he would exchange his soul in order for the painting to grow old and for him to stay eternally young. Magically, the wish comes true and Dorian Gray turns to a life of misery and crime.
Here are some of my favourite quotes from the book. I may not completely agree with them or in fact even like them but they intrigue and fascinate me:
"But beauty, real beauty, ends where an intellectual expression begins. Intellect is in itself an exaggeration, and destroys the harmony of any face."
"Every portrait that is painted with feeling is a portrait of the artist, not of the sitter. The sitter is merely the accident, the occasion. It is not he who is revealed by the painter; it is rather the painter who, on the coloured canvas, reveals himself"
"An artist should create beautiful things, but should put nothing of his own life into them. We live in an age when men treat art as if it were meant to be a form of autobiography. We have lost the abstract sense of beauty."
"It is a sad thing to think of, but there is no doubt that Genius lasts longer than Beauty. That accounts for the fact that we all take such pains to over-educate ourselves. In the wild struggle for existence, we want to have something that endures, and so we fill our minds with rubbish and facts, in the silly hope of keeping our place. The thoroughly well informed man,— that is the modern ideal. And the mind of the thoroughly well informed man is a dreadful thing. It is like a bric-à- brac shop, all monsters and dust, and everything priced above its proper value."
"How pleasant it was in the garden! And how delightful other people’s emotions were!—much more delightful than their ideas, it seemed to him. One’s own soul, and the passions of one’s friends,—those were the fascinating things in life."
"Because to influence a person is to give him one’s own soul. He does not think his natural thoughts, or burn with his natural passions. His virtues are not real to him. His sins, if there are such things as sins, are borrowed. He becomes an echo of some one else’s music, an actor of a part that has not been written for him. The aim of life is self-development. To realise one’s nature perfectly,—that is what each of us is here for."
"Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul."
"The only artists I have ever known who are personally delightful are bad artists. Good artists give everything to their art, and consequently are perfectly uninteresting in themselves. A great poet, a really great poet, is the most unpoetical of all creatures. But inferior poets are absolutely fascinating. The worse their rhymes are, the more picturesque they look."
"Love is more than money"
"You have killed my love. You used to stir my imagination. Now you don’t even stir my curiosity. You simply produce no effect. I loved you because you were wonderful, because you had genius and intellect, because you realised the dreams of great poets and gave shape and substance to the shadows of art. You have thrown it all away. You are shallow and stupid. My God! how mad I was to love you! What a fool I have been! You are nothing to me now."
"We live in an age when only unnecessary things are absolutely necessary to us."
"To become the spectator of one’s own life, as Harry says, is to escape the suffering of life."
"Romance lives by repetition and repetition converts an appetite into art."
"Knowledge would be fatal. It is the uncertainty that charms one. A mist makes things wonderful."
"The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young."
"Life is not governed by will or intention. Life is a question of nerves, and fibres, and slowly-built-up cells in which thought hides itself and passion has its dreams."
"Life has been your art. You have set yourself to music. Your days are your sonnets."
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