New Leaf October 2018 Discussion • The House on the Strand by Daphne du Maurier

[Bookpossum]

I think there is a majesty to those words, which would be known to a Catholic, or of course to a non-Catholic like me who loves Elgar's Dream of Gerontius. Here's a recording of it being sung by Gerald Finley, for anyone who would like to listen to it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAbOgpcSEYg

So for me, it isn't overkill at all, because of that idea of setting the soul free.

[gmw]

Originally Posted by issybird

Dick didn't have to be Catholic to invoke this. I suspect it's like the unnecessary DNA reference, just authorial overkill.

I wonder what the associations were for DNA in 1968. As you pointed out, DNA was a relatively recent discovery and perhaps the associations of the time were such that using it as an explain-all was not as inappropriate as it seems now. Terry Pratchett makes jokes in his books about the answer (to just about anything technical) being "quantum", and lots of Sci-Fi tries to hide their magic wands behind quantum physics, black holes, dark matter, wormholes and so on. Might DNA have been seen (by the non-scientific public) in that light in 1968?

(My problem is not the use of DNA as the magic wand, it's that the nature of the magic wand seems to be in conflict with how the past is explored. It didn't worry me while reading, but it's apparent on review. Not a big deal, just one of those things.)


As for the absolution bit, I didn't find it overkill either. Dick would have been feeling quite overwhelmed with all he had learned, and all he was seeing, so I think it may have seemed strange if he had not found some way to express those emotions. That he might recall some relevant lines of prayer learned as a child did not feel at all inappropriate to me.

(Just a case of one person's "authorial overkill" being another's "nice touch". )

[Bookpossum]

It’s hard to think back to then. For the general community I think it would have been a term vaguely familiar, something to do with how our bodies are made, and that’s about it.

I expect that du Maurier tossed the term in because Magnus was a scientist, and it’s the sort of thing her audience would think a scientist might say, and which Dick would accept without questioning what it meant. It didn’t bother me when I was reading the book.

[issybird]

I like the "quantum!" analogy, which is think is exact.

I also think "tossed the term in" is right and reflects the times. But DNA as an explain-all is a head-scratcher for the modern reader.

[issybird]

One thing I meant to bring up and forgot until now: does anyone think that the shadowy figure reaching out a hand to Isolde in the snow wasn't Magnus? More importantly, was he there to lead Dick on or to prevent him from walking into the train?

[Bookpossum]

Ah, that's an interesting thought. I certainly thought the shadowy figure was Magnus wanting to help Isolda and losing his life doing so. Somehow, Dick sensed the danger and did not move to help her. He reflected on this:

One thing I knew, which no one else would ever know, and that was why he had died. He had stretched out his hand to help Isolda in the snow. If instinct had warned him otherwise he had disregarded it, unlike myself, and therefore showed the greater courage.

So I was accepting Dick's interpretation of what he had seen. I don't think Magnus was there as a temptation or as a warning to Dick; Dick was witnessing what had happened to Magnus.

And of course Dick needed to see this so that we, the readers, could also understand how the accident had happened.

[Bookpossum]

Another thought that I have had: I liked the way in which du Maurier demonstrated the way in which the drug increased its grip on Dick. In Chapter 7 he started confusing the present and the past, thinking he needed to clean out bowls following the death of Sir Henry.

Then more dangerously he told Bill about seeing Otto Bodrugan being drowned. Again, at the inquest he referred to the snow in giving his evidence, and it was on the day of the inquest that his fingers were numb and he dropped first his razor and then his coffee cup.

Most frighteningly, he returned to the past without taking another dose of the drug, and it was at the end of that episode that he physically attacked Vita, thinking she was Joanna.

[gmw]

Even before starting the next chapter and getting Dick's interpretation, I had assumed is was Magnus. I never had the impression Magnus was there for Dick, or even aware of Dick. My impression was that the figure was "shadowy" to Dick, and only visible to Dick, because of the overlap in times (the "real" past, Magnus's trip and then Dick's trip). It was an odd arrangement that I felt was there only to satisfy those readers that wanted explicit explanation for Magnus's fate. (This was my moment of seeing authorial overkill. )

[issybird]

Originally Posted by Bookpossum

So I was accepting Dick's interpretation of what he had seen. I don't think Magnus was there as a temptation or as a warning to Dick; Dick was witnessing what had happened to Magnus.

And of course Dick needed to see this so that we, the readers, could also understand how the accident had happened.

I'm simultaneously slapping my head and sighing. You're right; that's the explanation. But it seems to me that du Maurier is tweaking the rules, such as she's made any, with this and pulling something out at the last minute that didn't exist as a possibility earlier.

If the times are simultaneous as it seems they must be, wouldn't Magnus have been aware of Dick as a similar shadowy presence? It wouldn't have checked him? Well, we know it didn't.

If Dick was there to facilitate Roger's redemption, then we have to assume that the ether called for Magnus in a two-step process, don't we. There was some quality in Dick lacking in Magnus; Magnus was the means, but Dick was the agent.

[issybird]

Originally Posted by gmw

It was an odd arrangement that I felt was there only to satisfy those readers that wanted explicit explanation for Magnus's fate. (This was my moment of seeing authorial overkill. )

You beat me to that with our nearly simultaneous posts!

[Bookpossum]

I agree gmw - I interpreted the shadowy figure to be Magnus before we had Dick’s thoughts. It was probably unnecessary to explain to the reader exactly why Magnus had been killed, but I put that down to the book’s being almost 50 years old, when things were explained more than they are now.

issybird, as for Dick being the agent for Roger’s release: I continue to put that down to Dick’s being a Catholic. Even if he had lapsed, he had been well trained by the Jesuits in his youth.

[issybird]

I was about to toss out my notes when I saw a quote I hadn't cited and I can't resist quoting it now for its extremely obvious sexual imagery which implies that Vita has lost the sexual war for Dick:

[Vita] told me once, after a somewhat longer session than usual, when I had come home rather high about 2 a.m., that Magnus sapped me, and that when I returned to her I looked like a pricked balloon.

[Bookpossum]

Oh dear: how very deflating of her!

The relationship with Magnus was obviously such a close one, even if not a sexual one, that it’s surprising that Vita had managed to marry Dick. She was a determined woman.

[gmw]

I was just tidying up my Kobo annotations and found a few items to add to this thread. Things I highlighted as being of interest.

with a sharp expression which boded ill for those who crossed her.

du Maurier did this sort of thing a lot in this book - description foreshadowing behaviour - as if she didn't trust the reader to pick it up without being explicit. I found such apparent insecurity strange for so late in her career.

I was dead to her world. I might move about in it, mechanically, listening with half an ear as she peeled off her clothes and flung them on the bed, put on a wrapper, spread her lotions and creams on the dressing table, chatting all the while about the drive down, the day in London, happenings in New York, her brother’s business affairs, a dozen things that formed the pattern of her life, our life; but none of them concerned me. It was like hearing background music on the radio. I wanted to recapture the lost night and the darkness, the wind blowing down the valley, the sound of the sea breaking on the shore below Polpey farm, and the expression in Isolda’s eyes as she looked out of that painted wagon at Bodrugan.

Sometimes du Maurier's writing was almost disturbingly effective. No magical trips to the past are necessary to see this sort of disconnect between husband and wife as realistic. The chatter from Vita is there, showing us that this relationship was once a comfortable one, but Dick is now distracted, disconnected, and wanting to be somewhere else.

Roger would handle Vita to perfection. Her slightest whim obeyed. Juice of henbane whistled up from Brother Jean at the Priory to induce a restful night, and if that failed … I smiled.

A very nasty thought. It has potential to cast the almost-throttling-Vita event later in a different light. Should I see Dick as a more callous individual than I do? Or is this just one of those passing bits of nastiness that we see only because this is a first person narrative?

Magnus was dead; I should never see him again, never hear his voice, rejoice in his company or be aware of his presence in the background of my life, but the link between us would never be broken because the home that had been his was mine. Therefore I could not lose him. Therefore I should not be alone.

This seemed to me to tie to the drug and visiting the past. A similar sort of relationship, particularly with the house and Roger.

[astrangerhere]

Originally Posted by gmw

A very nasty thought. It has potential to cast the almost-throttling-Vita event later in a different light. Should I see Dick as a more callous individual than I do? Or is this just one of those passing bits of nastiness that we see only because this is a first person narrative?

I actually saw him as more of a potential casual wife-beater from the outset. He and Vita both seem to get roaringly drunk pretty frequently. There is also the implication that they might be swingers. And they both seem volatile enough that it would not surprise me if some physical abuse didn't come from both of them occasionally.