Oh, Those British Authors!
I don’t think anyone can get through an American high school, even now, without being exposed to Brit Lit. Shakespeare and Dickens among men; Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters among women.
But once we get past the greats, who are other Brit voices worth reading?
Noel and I are at a stage in life where almost everything we watch on television and perhaps 25% of our reading is British. Among the “lesser” writer voices, I am learning to appreciate Daphne du Maurier. She began writing in the early 20th century and died in the 1980’s. She wrote the novels on which the movies The Birds and Jamaica Inn were based.
I have read her novel Rebecca and am currently reading My Cousin Rachel. Both are romances but not conventionally so. Rebecca concerns a man, Max de Winter, who marries the narrator after his first wife Rebecca dies. My Cousin Rachel concerns the fascination of a young man for his older cousin’s widow. So both are sort of love triangles with one person dead. Rebecca is a man and two women; My Cousin Rachel is a woman and two men. And notice, du Maurier gives her title women Old Testament names!
Both novels have an underlying suspense dealing with the depravity of man. Both involve a potential murder, going back and forth between guilt and innocence. Rebecca kept me guessing till the end and My Cousin Rachel does, too. But isn’t that part of what makes a novel worthwhile—looking into it and getting a glimpse of our own potential sinfulness without Jesus? Human motivation is complex and hard to figure out and novels that underline this fact can be truly great.
There are hundreds of British writers who are not taught in Brit Lit courses. As Noel and I discover the best among “normal” British voices, we will pass them along.
