Book review : Daphne du Maurier's short stories.

After reading « Rebecca » one feels somewhat on a “high”. The short stories bring you down to earth, reminding us that even a great writer is not always in top form. This being said, who would not be mighty proud to have written just one of these stories ? Oddly enough, the most famous one, “The Birds” is also the one I found most disappointing. It has no proper ending, or to put it another way, it finishes with one foot in the air. In another short story, the dark, brooding tale of a haunted tree is quite gripping. Daphne du Maurier keeps saying “she” and “her” when mentioning the tree. Since the owner of the tree wants to chop it down, and since the murder of a wife by her husband is one of Du Maurier’s recurring themes, this choice of pronouns gives the story a particularly chilling tone.  Great stuff indeed !