In Praise of Daphne du Maurier<br />And here I am, only a silly sheltered girl in a dress, knowing nothing at all — but Nothing.”<br />But how far du Maurier ended up traveling, how deep she takes us into the strange cities and foreign lands within ourselves, into those emotions<br />that stay coiled out of view — our envy and resentment.<br />But to women — some women, my kind of women — this book is something more, not merely beloved or popular but foundational.<br />Few writers have watched and captured women with such conspicuous pleasure as<br />du Maurier — the way they walk and wear coats and unscrew their earrings.<br />Do you see what I mean?”<br />The trouble with walking in Venice, according to a character in du Maurier’s “Don’t Look Now,” is<br />that it becomes compulsive: “Just over the next bridge, you say, and then the next one beckons.” So it is with du Maurier.
