To Read & To Write

I don't think I've ever eaten as much while reading a novel as I did while reading Daphne Du Maurier's classic Rebecca, first published in 1923. Classic novel it is. Rightly so. Like the unnamed main character, I bit my by fingernails (my right pinky nail, specifically) down to the quick as I thrust pages onto the next in nervous suspense. Down went my crackers, sandwich, cookies, fried rice, chips, and dip. Down went plenty of tea, and much too much coffee, which is what is allowing me to write at this very moment when it typically is bedtime for me.  To me, Du Maurier has captured in this book not just an excellent story but a superb example of what it may be like to be borne unto the world. A birth into the first part of the 20th century, in Britain, to be sure, but a birth nonetheless. The phrase coming-of-age is much to trite for this novel. The birth is a terrible one, of shock and disbelief. The narrator is a kind of still-born (for lack of a better metapho...