Монте Верита

by Daphne du Maurier

В книгу `Монте Верита` вошли рассказы английской писательницы Дафны Дю Морье (1907-1989), широко известной своими загадочными и утонченными романами.
С легендарными `Птицами` в сборнике соседствуют малоизвестные новеллы, объединенные между собой мистической темой.

В `малом жанре` знаменитая писательница поистине отшлифовывает свое мастерство: атмосфера тайны не оставляет читателя равнодушным от начала и до конца книги.
Содержание
Птицы (Автор: Дю Морье Дафна, Переводчик: Ставиская Азалия Александровна). Рассказ.
Отец (Автор: Дю Морье Дафна, Переводчик: Ставиская Азалия Александровна). Рассказ.
Монте Верита (Автор: Дю Морье Дафна, Переводчик: Ставиская Азалия Александровна). Рассказ.
Не оглядывайся (Автор: Дю Морье Дафна, Переводчик: Тихонов Николай Николаевич). Рассказ.
Ганимед (Автор: Дю Морье Дафна, Переводчик: Тихонов Николай Николаевич). Рассказ.
Крестный путь (Автор: Дю Морье Дафна, Переводчик: Тихонов Николай Николаевич). Рассказ.

Genres: Mystery, Fiction, Short Stories, Horror, British Literature, Drama

400 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1952

About the author

Daphne du Maurier was born on 13 May 1907 at 24 Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park, London, the middle of three daughters of prominent actor-manager Sir Gerald du Maurier and actress Muriel, née Beaumont. In many ways her life resembles a fairy tale. Born into a family with a rich artistic and historical background, her paternal grandfather was author and Punch cartoonist George du Maurier, who created the character of Svengali in the 1894 novel Trilby, and her mother was a maternal niece of journalist, author, and lecturer Comyns Beaumont. She and her sisters were indulged as a children and grew up enjoying enormous freedom from financial and parental restraint. Her elder sister, Angela du Maurier, also became a writer, and her younger sister Jeanne was a painter.

She spent her youth sailing boats, travelling on the Continent with friends, and writing stories. Her family connections helped her establish her literary career, and she published some of her early work in Beaumont's Bystander magazine. A prestigious publishing house accepted her first novel when she was in her early twenties, and its publication brought her not only fame but the attentions of a handsome soldier, Major (later Lieutenant-General Sir) Frederick Browning, whom she married.

She continued writing under her maiden name, and her subsequent novels became bestsellers, earning her enormous wealth and fame. Many have been successfully adapted into films, including the novels Rebecca, Frenchman's Creek, My Cousin Rachel, and Jamaica Inn, and the short stories The Birds and Don't Look Now/Not After Midnight. While Alfred Hitchcock's films based upon her novels proceeded to make her one of the best-known authors in the world, she enjoyed the life of a fairy princess in a mansion in Cornwall called Menabilly, which served as the model for Manderley in Rebecca.

Daphne du Maurier was obsessed with the past. She intensively researched the lives of Francis and Anthony Bacon, the history of Cornwall, the Regency period, and nineteenth-century France and England. Above all, however, she was obsessed with her own family history, which she chronicled in Gerald: A Portrait, a biography of her father; The du Mauriers, a study of her family which focused on her grandfather, George du Maurier, the novelist and illustrator for Punch; The Glassblowers, a novel based upon the lives of her du Maurier ancestors; and Growing Pains, an autobiography that ignores nearly 50 years of her life in favour of the joyful and more romantic period of her youth. Daphne du Maurier can best be understood in terms of her remarkable and paradoxical family, the ghosts which haunted her life and fiction.

While contemporary writers were dealing critically with such subjects as the war, alienation, religion, poverty, Marxism, psychology and art, and experimenting with new techniques such as the stream of consciousness, du Maurier produced 'old-fashioned' novels with straightforward narratives that appealed to a popular audience's love of fantasy, adventure, sexuality and mystery. At an early age, she recognised that her readership was comprised principally of women, and she cultivated their loyal following through several decades by embodying their desires and dreams in her novels and short stories.

In some of her novels, however, she went beyond the technique of the formulaic romance to achieve a powerful psychological realism reflecting her intense feelings about her father, and to a lesser degree, her mother. This vision, which underlies Julius, Rebecca and The Parasites, is that of an author overwhelmed by the memory of her father's commanding presence. In Julius and The Parasites, for example, she introduces the image of a domineering but deadly father and the daring subject of incest.

In Rebecca, on the other hand, du Maurier fuses psychological realism with a sophisticated version of the Cinderella story.

Reviews

[Paul Ataua · Rating 3 out of 5]

An old man looks back on his life to an incident in his younger days. A good friend of his with whom he went on many climbing trips gets married to a young and alluring woman. Sometime later, this friend and his young wife go climbing on Monte Verità. It is probably not the best of Du Maurier’s short stories, but it is one that is so atmospheric that I found myself totally caught up its sense of foreboding and mystery. It certainly merits a read and did leave me thinking about the story’s deeper meaning.

[Chari · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me ha gustado mucho, junto con No mires ahora, que me resultó de lo más perturbador, y dejando aparte sus novelas, que me encantan, son de mis relatos preferidos de du Maurier, una gran escritora con una prosa impecable con la que logra atraparte desde las primeras páginas te cuente lo que te cuente y hacerte visualizar sus historias, todas tan diferentes e interesantes y que se merece mucho más reconocimiento.

[Masteatro · Rating 5 out of 5]

Para mí Daphne du Maurier es definitivamente la combinación perfecta entre calidad literaria y tramas que enganchan al lector y no lo sueltan hasta la última página. Esto hace que lo quiera leer todo de ella. en algún momento me defraudará alguno de sus escritos pero hasta la fecha, eso no ha ocurrido.

Aquí nos encontramos ante una novela corta de poco más de 100 páginas en la que el suspense es uno de los elementos fundamentales. ¿Qué esconde el Monte Verità? ¿Por qué tantas mujeres se sienten atraídas por él y no vuelven nunca más a su vida de siempre? Con un magistral dominio de la tensión y de la creación de atmósferas perturbadoras, Daphne vuelve a hacer de las suyas y nos sumerge en su universo sin que podamos parar de leer.

Eso sí, quien no guste de los finales abiertos será mejor que elija otra de sus historias o novelas.

[Oscar · Rating 3 out of 5]

‘Monte Verità’ (1952), de Daphne du Maurier, narra los recuerdos del protagonista, lo que le aconteció a su amigo Victor y a su esposa Anna. Todo comenzó a principios del siglo XX, cuando Victor desea inculcar a Anna su pasión por las montañas y el montañismo, y deciden visitar el Monte Verità. El narrador, que también comparte esta pasión, no puede acompañarlos, y tiempo después se entera de la tragedia: Anna desapareció en las montañas, y Victor está gravemente enfermo. Es aquí donde sabremos lo que pasó, la extraña atracción de Anna por las montañas, como si de un vínculo se tratase. Pero Anna no murió en ningún accidente, sino que decidió quedarse en un misterioso monasterio que parece reclamar a ciertas mujeres del lugar cada poco tiempo.

La nouvelle está magníficamente escrita (o traducida), y no entra en explicaciones innecesarias. Tiene cierto suspense y deja las interpretaciones al lector.

[Lesincele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me gusta mucho como escribe la autora y esta no ha sido una excepción. Si es cierto que de lo que he leído no es mi favorito pero aún así me ha gustado mucho. Es una historia corta de la que me hubiera gustado saber más porque me tenía atrapada.

[Patricia Gonzalez · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book/novella- when I was ten years old. I try to reread it at least once a year. The person reviewing the story says it is based on the Monte Verita resort in Switzerland. While I am aware that there is a Monte Verita in Switzerland, I was under the opinion that the resort is not nearly as high in altitude as the peaks in the story. I read that Daphne conceived the idea for the story at a time when she and a friend were camping outside in her beloved Cornwall. They attempted to climb a nearby hill, and were unable to do so. Thus the idea of Monte Verita was conceived.

The hero falls in love with the fiancee of his best friend. Many years later he meets his friend and asks him about "Anna" his wife. She was taken, he says, to the peaks of Monte Verita, a high mountain somewhere in Europe, never to be seen again. He used to visit the mountain yearly but now goes no more. The hero then arrives a village at the base of Monte Verita and starts to climb.

You will just have to read the rest of the story. The enchantment of seeing an unreachable mountain peak glistening in the moonlight will haunt you. I love Daphne du Maurier and wish I could write that well, then think to myself, well maybe someday. You will love the story.

[Tabuyo · Rating 3 out of 5]

No es de las mejores novelas de Daphne du Maurier, pero me ha gustado. La ambientación misteriosa que tiene te atrapa pero lo que es la historia en sí va dando bandazos temporales y creo que le restó fuerza.

Reseña: http://contandoteunlibro.blogspot.com...

[Jorge García · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al igual que "Los pájaros" y otros relatos de Du Maurier, "Monte Verità" admite muchas capas de lectura (fantásticas, históricas, psicológicas, etc.). Sin querer desentrañar mucho, podría decirse que este relato de montaña es una mezcla confusa del "Siddharta" de Herman Hesse y "El corazón de las tinieblas" de Joseph Conrad. Una escritora de relatos sobresaliente.

[Yasaman A · Rating 2 out of 5]

کتاب یه کم منو یاد فرزند پنجم "دوریس لسینگ" می نداخت. فضاش موهوم بود و آخر بعضی از داستانا رو نمی شد پیش بینی کرد. اما در ‌کل هیچ کششی نداشت و اینکه یه عمر طول کشید تا تمومش کنم، گواه همین موضوعه

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very suspenseful and hauntingly beautiful.

[gonza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not to be dramatic, but this is one of the the greatest stories I've ever read.

[Madame Mim · Rating 4 out of 5]

4,5/5

-"𝐌𝐎𝐍𝐓𝐄 𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐀" 𝐝𝐞 𝐃𝐚𝐩𝐡𝐧𝐞 𝐃𝐮 𝐌𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐢𝐞𝐫-
.
Monte Verità es una apasionante y evocadora novela corta, escrita por de la autora de "Rebeca", y publicada en 1963. Esta contada en presente por un narrador, de nombre desconocido, desde un pasado lejano.
.
El narrador nos cuenta como él y su amigo Víctor, son dos jóvenes que tienen en común su afición a la montaña, pero que en sus vidas personales, llevan caminos diferentes. Así como mientras el narrador es un alma viajera y libre, Víctor lleva una vida acomodada.
.
En uno de los reencuentros entre los dos amigos, Víctor le cuenta al narrador que se ha enamorado de Anna, una joven etérea y misteriosa, por cuyo halo místico el narrador, al igual que el lector, siente una gran fascinación.
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Al principio Anna se resiste a acompañarlos en sus escaladas, pero acaba sintiendo una fuerte atracción por la montaña, y aficionandóse a ella.
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En una de esas escapadas, Víctor y Anna pretenden escalar un pico de algún lugar del Sur de Europa: el Monte Verità, un lugar envuelto en la leyenda, en el que se dice que tras oir "la llamada" mujeres jóvenes desaparecen, para recluirse en un santuario misterioso que oculta el pico de la montaña. Y como era de esperar, un día, Anna desaparece.
.
Pero...¿Qué se oculta exactamente en el santuario de Monte Verità?, un grupo de intelectuales, una secta feminista, un movimiento hippie, magia, brujería quizás...
.
Lo cierto es que hubo de verdad un Monte Verità en Europa, cerca de la ciudad  suiza de Ascona, donde a finales del  siglo XIX  y principios del XX, se juntaban grupos de personas, con el punto en común del inconformismo y el rechazo a la sociedad imperante, promulgando la defensa de la naturaleza y de una vida mucho más simple.
.
Un relato de inquietante belleza, y escrito de manera sublime, y al que os animo a acercaros, para sacar vuestras propias conclusiones, y descubrir que se esconde realmente en el Monte Verità.

[Melissa He · Rating 4 out of 5]

Just like The Birds and The Old Man, my curiosity takes the blame for the reason why I read this book. ...Okay, that and because I quite enjoy Daphne du Maurier's works. But enough about why I read this story (although this whole review is somewhat based on my "why"), let's focus on what I thought about the plot:

du Maurier was quite successful at making the story mysterious and attractive. I was intrigued and chilled at the thought of being in a cult in a mountain, and I felt sorry for the main character because of his attachment to a woman that joined the cult. This cult is apparently reserved only for young women, and it irrevocably (I regretfully admit that I learned this word through Twilight) took them away from existence, which explains my sympathy for the main character. At some point in the story, it felt as if I had become the protagonist, and I started to value the same things he did: the woman. Like the protagonist, I wanted to know what had happened to her, why and how she disappeared, and why the cult refused to reveal itself.

If you want to read it at this point, then you'll probably be surprised and saddened by its unfortunate end. If you still don't want to read it at this point, then there's nothing I can do for you, except tell you to read this story. ...Go read it.

[Ella · Rating 5 out of 5]

I first read this book when I was eight years old, as I found it in the warehouse in an old and ragged condition. I'm not sure how deeply I understood the meaning of what I was reading at the time, but after I finished the book, I lost someone I loved. And the book turned into a kind of memorial of that person for me.
I couldn't get to read it for two decades until last week when I found it again in the attic. I have to confess that the second experience was as fresh, appealing, and startling as the first one. However I think any details to mention about the storyline may spoil the whole, so maybe you need to discover the meaning yourself. I believe we all have a mountain that seems inaccessible, but if we don't intend to reach the impossible, we won't get the chance to find the truth.

[Lucy Fisher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of the most chilling stories I have ever read. A young woman's life becomes increasingly ascetic. She insists on sleeping on a camp bed with all the windows open in winter. She, her husband and a friend go mountain-climbing near the mysterious Monte Verita, supposedly inhabited by the "sacerdotesse" who steal young girls who are never seen again. It sounds like folklore.

Do the sacerdotesse exist? What is their secret?

I won't say more, but the only comparison is the novel Shangri-La.

[Alma Lectora · Rating 4 out of 5]

un libro con una gran atmósfera. Con una desaparición pero con ese misterio siempre palpable en toda la historia que no se acaba de tratar ya que el personaje principal no comprende el por qué de la decisión de querer irse o retirarse. Me ha gustado mucho esa forma de la autora de saber contar tanto en tan poco

Más sobre mi opinión en la reseña del blog
https://almalectora.blogspot.com/2018...

[زهرا نجاری · Rating 3 out of 5]

جزء کارهای ضعیف دو موریه محسوب میشه اما همچنان معانی عمیقی رو توی خودش داشت.

[Aracne Mileto · Rating 5 out of 5]

*4.5

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the author's prose, and for a short story written decades ago I loved it

[Julia Puig · Rating 4 out of 5]

«Monte Verità» (1952) se lee como una novela de misterio, y puede que lo sea; o puede que, si vas más allá, cuente una historia sobre la búsqueda de ese algo más que siempre se nos escapa, sobre el anhelo irrefrenable de encontrar esa verdad que sabemos que está ahí fuera y que buscamos —cada uno la suya— incansablemente, sobre las oportunidades de ser felices que en ocasiones dejamos pasar, sobre el centro podrido que a veces se esconde en el interior de las cosas perfectas y sobre cómo siempre terminamos llegando a los lugares que son para nosotros, aunque a veces lo hagamos demasiado tarde.
*
Dice Roger Dobson en la contraportada que "al decir algo sobre Monte Verità para abrir el apetito del lector se corre el riesgo de arruinar sus fascinantes efectos". Concuerdo. Es mejor llegar a esta novella —que como sólo tiene 126 páginas se puede leer de una sentada— completamente a ciegas y sin expectativas.
*
Cuando leí Rebecca en 2018 me fascinó la mente de Daphne du Maurier. Recuerdo leer, ese mismo año, su cuento «Los pájaros» en la playa, tumbada en mi toalla mientras mi hijo jugaba en la arena, y sentir tanta inquietud que tuve que refugiarme debajo de la sombrilla. Me gusta mucho cómo Daphne sabe crear una atmósfera inquietante y opresiva sin causar miedo propiamente dicho, simplemente insinuando, contorneando a lápiz, sin cruzar la fina línea de lo obvio, respetando el juego de sombras que le da vida al misterio. Hacía tiempo que no leía nada suyo y ahora quiero seguir con otro ♡
(si no has leído Rebecca es casi obligatorio empezar por ahí).

[Silvia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una historia muy desconcertante, de las que hacen pensar y dar vueltas a lo leído. Lo que más destacaría es la atmósfera y lo enigmático que resulta todo.

[Jennifer]

Not rating; <100 pages

This second short story in the collection I read gave a lot more to chew on than The Birds.

I'm finding it interesting how in these first two tales we remain entirely in the mind of a man of the early 20th century. The woman in this story, however, has far more depth and presence than the wife of the man in The Birds. She feels to me like the true main character, that we are as disappointed as our narrator is that we must follow his story instead of hers.

This tale is about near misses, about being too attached to our lives and the humdrum they bring, and beyond that too detached from the relationships in our lives. He goes twenty years without speaking to what is ostensibly his only friend. He feels love for a woman but not deeply or intensely enough to do anything about it, not even really realizing it until it's far too late.

I found it fascinating that the lore of the Monte focuses on the women being called and spirited off by this community, despite clear indications that men can also be summoned. Perhaps it's to show that if only men disappeared, leaving society to take on their own fate (going to war, shipping off to America to work work work) no one would care at all, but when a woman decides to eschew her lot for something unladylike and untouchable by man, then their men rebel and destroy it.

Beyond that, I'm not sure why Victor is shut out despite being far more devoted than our narrator. Perhaps so he can keep his dream and his ideals, his clean and simple life -- and importantly, his romantic love -- rather than throw off the shackles and ascend. Maybe for him, the paradise was knowing that he could keep his love -- both the feeling and the woman -- as they are, untouched, while our narrator, despite his intellectual capacity for worship and the divine, lacks the devotion to stake much meaning from his life.

I quite enjoyed this one and really love the way du Maurier writes. I look forward to the other stories, and to re-reading Rebecca as an adult.

[Gary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Every now and then I like to read a novel by one of the classic writers and they don't come much better than Daphne du Maurier. Author of one of my favourite books of all time 'Rebecca'. She wrote so well and her stories were perfectly paced and the characters came to life.

Monte Verità is a story told by a man looking back at events that happened much earlier in his life. As a young man he and his best friend Victor were keen mountain climbers. When Victor announces his engagement to the beautiful Anna their friendship is changed. When Victor and Anna decide to climb the mountain peaks on Monte Verità a big decision is made that will change all their lives.

An intriguing story that is a delight to read from one of the literary greats.

[James · Rating 2 out of 5]

An interesting book by Daphne du Maurier. Beautifully written, very vivid in its description, but, overall a very poor story. Similar in make up (NOT in story line) to Bram Stokers ‘Lair if the white worm’, in the way you have a start, middle and, ‘kind of end’. Is it Science Fiction or Mysticism?

The story revolves around three friends, two (Anna and Victor) are married. They are avid mountain climbers until an incident around a convent takes Anna a2ay from Victor who defends into madness. How did the Covent come into being, why take women, what’s its purpose? Too many unanswered questions.

The love story side was kind of sweet though.

[Román Aldrete Olvera · Rating 5 out of 5]

La mejor Traducción que he leído hasta ahora de esta novela corta. Contrario a lo que se sugiere en la contraportada de esta edición, no encuentro nada perturbador en la historia y en el desarrollo de la misma; desde mi perspectiva, "Monte Verità" es misteriosa, pero entrañable. Su final puede resultar igual de inesperado como el de "No mires Ahora". En pocas palabras, es una novela genial que conviene y merece ser leída más de una ocasión.

[Pamela Therrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this story in a book of DuMarier’s short stories. I absolutely love her style of writing. Very colorful and she brings the reader into the storyline with curiosity! She is my favorite author. Also, she was the author of ‘The Birds’, which Hitchcock appreciated and from which he created the film.

[Csilla Kiss · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wonder if in the end the main character is the narrator himself (and Anna, of course, but I feel the narrator is more important here than I expect in such a setting) and the whole story is about his unconsummated love affair with his best friend's wife.

[Susana (ohsuzy_q) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Me está encantando esta mujer. La forma que tiene de escribir te atrapa totalmente hasta que, cuando te quieres dar cuenta, ya te has acabado el libro

[Cien mariposas literarias · Rating 5 out of 5]

increible que este me gustara tanto, pensé algo diferente cuando lo inicie pero supero mis expectativas es agobiante en buena forma, y muy muy inquietante

[Piesito · Rating 5 out of 5]

<3 Cundo termina he leído las primeras paginas y es un librito redondo <3