{ Book Review } – The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier!

The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If you need any proof of how amazing Daphne du Maurier’s writing is, do give The Birds and Other Stories a go. I don’t need that reassurance though, I have already jumped over the boundaries of blind faith in her writing by this point. But, still, every du Maurier story gives me high, honestly! Yes yes, you can roll your eyes and say that I have caught the revival bug, but I am just glad that I found her work even if I found it this late in my life. Because it is simply amazing!  Also, her writing lends itself to cinematic experience so naturally. Even as I was reading the first story of this anthologies, I found myself thinking about how amazing the story would be when turned into a movie. It was only later that I learnt that several of her works have been adapted to the silver screen by Hitchcock. While my opinion of the movie The Birds is not as amazing as its story, I still am a huge fan of the book. In any case, as one read The Birds, one realises how vivid are the images that form in your mind even as you are reading it. As bizarre as it might sound,  The Birds was indeed an extremely “visual” experience for me.

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne Du Maurier!

My Cousin Rachel by Daphne du Maurier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My Cousin Rachel is not a straightforward story of whodunit if you ask me. Yes, it is tightly knit, full of suspense and ambiguity and everything about Cousin Rachel screams guilty. But, it doesn’t take a straight path. It is an old fashioned mystery and I was partly charmed by the elegant and yet strange backdrop of an English Estate. If you have watched Downton Abbey, you would know what I mean at once. Rachel is a character whose entire persona is shrouded in black. There is a sinister, creepy feeling about Du Maurier’s Rachel that gives you a tingling sensation every time she appears in the book. I do not know the answer to most basic question of this story, and while it would be a blatant lie to say that I don’t care about the answer, the truth is that it was far more fascinating to watch her in action, peep from behind the door of her boudoir than to actually know if she killed her husband. The reader knows that Rachel is no saint and yet, you don’t want to put the noose over her head just yet. The feverish curiosity that du Maurier’s writing invoked in me rendered me pretty much incapable of playing detective. I had sort of surrendered myself to become a mere witness to the series of events without becoming the judge. I read the whole book with a mixture of burning curiosity and a paralyzing helplessness.