Now she could live without a plan, without a decision, taking the days as they came, rising at noon if she had the mind or at six in the morning, it did not matter, eating when hunger came upon her, sleeping when she wished, in the day or at midnight. “So the first day passed, and the next, and the one after, Dona exulting in her new-found freedom. At the opening of the novel, she leaves London for Navron, her husband’s estate in Cornwall. She is beautiful, reckless, and enjoys flouting social conventions, but underneath the froth and frivolity, Dona admits to herself that she is bored with and ashamed of her hollow flirtations and outrageous pranks. Columb, is the toast of Restoration London. Originally published in 1941, Frenchman’s Creek features the coast of Cornwall as the setting for a romantic novel featuring an English aristocrat and a French pirate. Would rereading the novel confirm my youthful opinion or uncover a different experience of Daphne du Maurier’s adventure? I was intrigued to revisit Frenchman’s Creek because having last read it in high school, I retained only a faint memory of dissatisfaction with its ending, but found I was unable to recall the specifics of the story. Add a hazy recollection of major plot points and you are approaching a fresh canvas rather than a reproduction of a familiar portrait. Revisiting a classic novel years after first reading it can yield surprises.
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