WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU HAVE NOT YET READ REBECCA OR HAVE ANY INTENTION OF DOING SO: SPOILERSS!!
When I was...6?7?8? years old my mother showed me the 1940 film Rebecca (directed by Alfred Hitchcock) and for a few years after that whenever somebody asked me the question I would respond that Rebecca was my favourite film(at the time I don't really think I liked it any more than Toy Story 2 but enjoyed feeling mature and sophisticated). A few years later, around 10 maybe, I watched it again and hated it. I kept on telling everyone that it was my favourite movie because that had sort of become programmed into my brain over the years that I had thought it my reality but eventually I forgot about it. Then, a few years later when I was 12 or 13 I found an old copy of the book in my school library. It had been borrowed once in the 60's when the school had bought it and that was it. Remembering the passion I once had for the movie I picked it up and started reading the some 500 pages. Even if my reading experience was somewhat lessened by the constant buzzing voice at the back of my skull saying "He killed her!He killed her! He killed her!", I loved it. The creepiness, the stupidly drippy main character, the poetic writing, the setting and world of scandal and secret that you are dragged into. I loved all of it. Oh, and my favourite character? Mrs Danvers all the way. Arghh, so darn creepy!! After I first read it, I did a school English project on the symbolism in my chosen novel and of course I chose Rebecca. I made a collage of the main character and Maxim standing on top of the white house( it was the only big Manderley looking building I could find in the Sydney Morning Herald), her in Rebecca's big white dress which they both wore to the ball and Maxim wearing a mask, facing away from her. Manderley was sinking into messily cut waves out of newspaper articles and a slender, manicured hand with a wedding ring on its finger holding a gun was coming out of the water. I got okay marks back and still have it now.Since then, I think I've read that lovely yellow covered book at least five times over and those first few pages(last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again...)too many to count. If you haven't read it well... erm sorry for the huge spoiler and you should go read it!
P.S. I watched the movie the other day too and I guess It's my favourite film again :)
P.P.S> I know my use of commas)) hyphons,- brackets../ full stops- apostrophes and grammar is atrocious.soz
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