Reviews

“Rachel my torment” …. "No one will ever guess the burden of blame I carry on my shoulders; nor will they know that every day, haunted still by doubt, I ask myself a question which I cannot answer. Was Rachel innocent or guilty?

I love a gothic tale & My Cousin Rachel is full of foreboding, mystery, jealousy, doubt & intrigue. It’s a perfect fall read! I love Daphne du Maurier’s writing style… she draws you into the story as you try to discover what is true… is Rachel guilty or not? Daphne du Maurier is known for her ambiguous stories & at the end the reader gets to decide what they believe. Seriously so good! I loved the ending & I know what I believe. One of the things that makes this book so great is the characters. First you have Phillip who is naive & gullible. Phillip kind of drove me crazy & I might have been yelling at him throughout the book but seriously that’s what makes this book so good. Then we have Rachel, who is a mystery while you go back & forth trying to decide if she is a muderer or not. I love Philip’s godfather & his daughter Louisa. I felt bad for Louisa & I just wished Phillip would wake up & realize how amazing she is. If you are looking for an atmospheric gothic tale… I definitely give this one a try.

“How soft and gentle her name sounds when I whisper it. It lingers on the tongue, insidious and slow, almost like poison, which is apt indeed. It passes from the tongue to the parched lips, and from the lips back to the heart. And the heart controls the body, and the mind also. Shall I be free of it one day?”

Synopsis:

My Cousin Rachel was published in 1951, and is a gripping story of suspense. “Orphaned at an early age, Philip Ashley is raised by his benevolent older cousin, Ambrose.

Resolutely single, Ambrose delights in Philip as his heir, a man who will love his grand home as much as he does himself. But the cosy world the two construct is shattered when Ambrose sets off on a trip to Florence. There he falls in love and marries - and there he dies suddenly. Jealous of his marriage, racked by suspicion at the hints in Ambrose's letters, and grief-stricken by his death, Philip prepares to meet his cousin's widow with hatred in his heart. Despite himself, Philip is drawn to this beautiful, sophisticated, mysterious Rachel like a moth to the flame. And yet... might she have had a hand in Ambrose's death?”

meghaha's review against another edition

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4.0

My Cousin Rachel, like Rebecca, is a blend of page-turning suspense, moral and psychological complexity, and graceful prose. I think I liked Rebecca better overall but this is still a wonderfully crafted novel.

The eponymous Rachel is an exquisitely ambiguous character. And therefore, lifelike. But, if you put down this book thinking there seems to be about an equal case for whether she was guilty of poisoning her husband

Spoiler

and Philip

or not, remember who is narrating this novel.

Because it's Philip Ashley who's narrating, I very much doubt we get anything like the Truth, or anything approaching a balanced picture of Rachel, himself, and his cousin. It's hard not to be lulled by his narrative voice, but nearly everything he does in this novel is a misstep, seesawing between foolishness, paranoia, violence, and rashness. The end result is a story that is deeply distorted by its flawed narrator. Taking his word for anything would be a mistake.

Not only do I not trust him an inch, I kind of hate him!

Can we talk about his paranoia and boneheadedness, such that it seems more plausible from the very first to him that his cousin was murdered than that he died of a brain tumor (which runs in the family, and was certified by two doctors)? That he doesn't fully take into account that the symptoms of his cousin's brain tumor are paranoia, delusion, and violence, and that this explains the accusations against Rachel.

Philip arrives in Italy and France, traveling abroad for the first time, and sneers at everything. Granted, he's in a terrible and stressed mood. But the contempt and suspicion he has for all things foreign speaks of a provincial close-mindedness, and an open hostility to culture and the unknown.

If he's hostile to culture, he's even more hostile to women. He's one of the more misogynistic narrators I've encountered, and I kind of feel like the big takeaway from this book is how a normal man with the all too common faults of misogyny, impulsiveness, and arrogance,

Spoiler

can become a murderer in an instant. (Recall the first chapter of the gallows and the parallel made between him and the hanged man, a wife-killer).

I really felt for Rachel, to be honest, and I think it's necessary antidote to Philip's narration to spend a bit of time contemplating the novel's events from her viewpoint. Imagine the misfortune of

Spoiler

losing a child,

and suffering through months of abuse at the hands of a terminally ill husband, who once loved her but comes to hate her due to a brain tumor. Then realizing she's been left not a single penny upon her widowhood. She travels to England to see the estate she might've lived in under happier circumstances, and is relentlessly pursued by this young man, who also holds all the power and money she lacks. She starts to have feelings for him, but his resemblance to her dead husband is a source of both anguish and happiness. He can't take no for an answer, and even

Spoiler

tries to strangle her when she rejects his marriage proposal

. He's a man who is so controlling he doesn't want anyone else to interact or be friends with her; who wants her to surrender completely to his desires; and who responds violently and belligerently to any assertion of agency or a life beyond him.

Honestly, I think there's little reason to believe

Spoiler

Rachel poisoned Ambrose, given the evidence for brain tumor. Even if she did poison Philip (doubtful as well, with the meningitis diagnosis), she might've been in fear for her life or safety. I really don't buy that she's in any way heartless, cold-blooded, or depraved. Quite the opposite. She's mysterious in motives, but perhaps this is only because Philip doesn't understand women and regards them as aliens from another planet. Honestly, even if she rejects his marriage proposal only because she learns she loses her property otherwise, I can't fault her. She could either be a wealthy and independent widower, or a wealthy wife at the mercy of Philip 's controlling and abusive nature. Even if she cared for Philip which there is evidence of (staying in order to nurse him, and the letter from Rainaldi), I know what I'd do in her position--the same. If you in fact believe Rachel is not a murderer, what Philip does to her becomes quite unforgivable. I don't know if I buy, either, that what he did was motivated
at its core by self-preservation. It seemed more like the petty revenge of a controlling man who's been spurned and is about to be abandoned.

The novel of course leaves things ambiguous enough, and that is a point in its favor; that we are in doubt and will have to ponder and think about it to arrive at a conclusion, and then argue amongst ourselves about what really happened. The 2017 film, however, to its detriment, is less ambiguous, and makes a pretty obvious case that Rachel is in fact innocent. It's perhaps a constraint of the medium itself, since the POV in film necessitates third person or omniscient. This allows more objectivity, since we're no longer seeing everything through the filter of Philip's narration. Close-minded, arrogant, petty, generous, foolish, violent, Philip.

I will use the last sentence of my review to complain about Philip's stupid looking pants in the adaption.

slowbollard's review against another edition

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2.0

I wouldn't have picked this up if not for book club, but I think it was worth the read. I didn't like it, and it was predictable and nonsensical at times, but it was interesting to read a book from the time period it was written in. I am curious to see how they handled the story in movie form, so I might have to check that out. I hadn't heard of it before picking it up, but none of the characters are likeable. It always stresses me to read about jerks making bad decisions, so this was never going to be a book for me anyway.

agette's review against another edition

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emotional mysterious reflective relaxing tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

elcoles99's review

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dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

I read Rebecca by du Maurier a few years ago and loved it and since then I've always been keen to read more of her work. This book has a similar vibe- the Cornish backdrop, big house, mysterious characters, cyclical story, gothic with a bit of romance and the overall tension and desire to know what is going to happen next, but I didn't find it quite as compelling, shocking or unsettling in a way that really keeps you on the edge of your seat and involves numerous plot twists. In fact, what shocked me most is

how ambiguous the ending is left and whilst this does allow the reader to interpret it on their own it did feel a bit like something was lacking

. Whilst I did enjoy reading it, it didn't have me quite as hooked as Rebecca, I couldn't connect with the main character as much and the book didn't have quite the same beautiful descriptive writing style I was expecting. Overall it was a good read though and I'd definitely like to read more of her books going forward!

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