It was a familiar jealousy, though our experiences are different.

A sulky, petulant young man, Philip convinced me of his feelings, until I could completely see his concerns and stand on his side. And what if they have children? That will mess up Philip’s sole inheritance of Ambrose’s 500-acre estate. When Philip first learns of Rachel and Ambrose’s marriage, Philip pictures some woman at the estate, telling him what to do.

Rachel Weisz as Rachel in the 2017 movie.Sam Claflin as Philip in the 2017 movie.Du Maurier’s use of first-person is wonderfully used to build tension and confusion. The same happened with Philip: since he’s the first-person narrator, it’s easy to get lost in his feelings and concerns. Thus, as I explained to Emily, reading Lolita was a strange experience because I recognized how Humbert Humbert was building an argument to put the reader on his side and justify his abduction of a teen-age girl - and because he was in the driver’s seat, I went along with his argument. I’m the kind of reader who allows herself to get pulled into a narrator’s story, to the point where I forget my physical body and surroundings. I love the way we read certain aspects differently. It’s too late: Ambrose is dead and Rachel is gone away with all of Ambrose’s things.Įmily Literary Elephant and I read My Cousin Rachel at the same time so we could discuss it together, and as soon as we were both done, the text messages flew hard and fast. Ambrose’s last claim, that Rachel is his tormentor, sends Philip to Italy to save his adopted father. While there, Ambrose meets a distance cousin named Rachel, a thirty-five year-old widow, and soon a letter arrives for Philip stating the couple has been married.Īlthough this turn from bachelorhood to married man in his forties delights everyone on Ambrose’s estate, Philip is more concerned with the way Ambrose’s handwriting grows ragged in the letters that come sporadically those eighteen months he is away.

But when he gets into his forties, Ambrose recognizes that he suffers from the cold, wet weather of Cornwall, England, and heads to Florence, Italy, for the winter. The two led a wonderful, masculine life with none of the fuss of women who would tell them to redecorate the rooms and get their boots off the table. Philip Ashley was orphaned at age eighteen months, so his bachelor cousin Ambrose Ashley, at the age twenty-five, adopted Philip as his own son.

My cousin rachel novel