Dear all,
A wonderful surprise from BBC Drama last week was a three-part adaptation of the Daphne du Maurier novel Jamaica Inn. For most readers of du Maurier’s work, Jamaica Inn is perhaps not a novel they much mention, mainly because it is so dark: morally ambiguous and full of crime and violence.
But this three part dramatisation really does do justice to the book: it is (visually) dark and it as much about the bleak landscape and the terrain as it is about the central character, Mary Yelland. Mary is a headstrong young woman with strong ideas about right and wrong, who after being orphaned goes to live with her aunt who, with her husband Joss Merlin, runs the grim Jamaica Inn.
The uncle is a violent man who Mary suspects is involved in smuggling -- and worse. She gets caught up in a tangled web of local corruption and intrigue, and to confuse her further she is strongly attracted to her Uncle’s younger brother, Jem.
The TV drama reminded me yet again what a brilliant -- and totally underrated -- writer Daphne du Maurier is. I fail to understand why she is not regarded as one of the ‘greats’ of 20th century British fiction.Rebecca with its nameless narrator may have become her best known novel (perhaps because of the Hitchcock film), but her other novels are outstanding literary creations: The King’s General, set during the English civil war, is a moving story of families dealing with war and division -- as well as a terrific love story; My Cousin Rachel is a brilliant study of obsession and suspicion which leaves you guessing even after the story ends; The Flight of the Falcon is a disturbing account of megalomania and persuasion; The Parasites is an incisive study of a theatrical, self-involved and self destructive family; Frenchman’s Creek is a swashbuckling story of a bored, rich wife who has life-changing relationship with a pirate and The Scapegoat is a gripping example of the double-identity, trading-places genre.
Du Maurier’s short stories have inspired a few films too: most notably The Birds and Don’t Look Now, and they are wonderful examples of the style of mundane horror you see later in Julio Cortazar’s work. Her story The Blue Lenses is a good example: a woman who has eye surgery and is given spectacles that she must wear in the recovery phase, but they allow her to see truths about people that she was previously completely ignorant of: she sees the people -- her friends, her husband -- as various sorts of animals.
So what is the reason that Du Maurier is not regarded as being of the stature of Somerset Maugham or Kingsley Amis? I don’t know what the answer is but I suspect it is both to do with her being a woman and being a best-selling, or ‘popular’, author. The fact that she writes romance so well might also have something to do with it.
Whatever the reason, her fans continue to pay her tribute: a Daphne du Maurier society is active and organises an annual festival (about her work but also about the Cornish town of Fowey where she lived). She is a great writer and a master story teller, yet remains confined to the fringes of 20th century British Literature. I think I’m going to try and re-read all of her work this year…
Best wishes