Rule Britannia

by Daphne du Maurier

In this ominous novel of the future, Daphne du Maurier explores the implications of a political, economic, and military alliance between Britain and America. Emma wakes one morning to an apocalyptic world. The cozy existence she shares with her grandmother, a once-famous actress, has been shattered—there’s no mail, no telephone, no radio, and an American warship sits in the harbor. As the two women piece together clues about the “friendly” military occupation on their doorstep, family, friends, and neighbors gather to protect their heritage.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Dystopia, Science Fiction, British Literature, Mystery, Historical Fiction

322 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1972

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

[Mary Durrant · Rating 5 out of 5]

Daphne never fails, engrossed from the first page.
This story is so relevant to today and what is happening with Brexit.
Cleverly written and what an insight to how things would change if we were taken over by another country.
Makes one think!
Especially loved the snippets of Folly the Dalmatian who appeared throughout the novel.

[Mark · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmmmm. Not Daphne's best ever. Weirdly contorted historical 'what if' in which US invade, though seemingly initially invited by the British Government, and by their high handed approach and attempt to 'americanize' Britain it all goes horribly wrong.

The concept, once again, could have been enthralling and in the hands of the normally unfaltering du Maurier should have been but the whole story was just unconvincing. Not so much the overall theme which was, after all, a flight of fancy but just the characterizations and the oddly jarring historicity which sat awkwardly.

As I write the review the stresses and strain of the Euro zone and the naughtiness of the have they/have they not debate of the US bugging the snap chats and facebook updating of Mrs Merkel is fairly centre stage so ironically this book addresses some quite interesting questions. Nevertheless it is a disappointment. If it was the first Daphne du Maurier I had tried it would probably have been my last.

[Maureen · Rating 4 out of 5]

daphne du maurier gifted us with a strange last novel, and i wouldn't expect anything less from her. it is a macabre satire with murder and mayhem, and coloured by the politics of du maurier in her last years. she asks, what if britain had joined the european common market only to be bankrupted by it, and saw no other alternative but to unify with their once rebellious sons in north america, and form a new country, the USUK?("you suck" seems intended, especially with the potential currency, the ducat, remarked upon for its "unfortunate rhyming associations" suck it? fuck it? i couldn't decide -- du maurier allows herself the luxury of profanity in this book more than any other) but as soon as the american troops land to help manoeuvre the country into the new coalition, things begin to go awry. someone gets murdered and things get weird, and weirder, and rightfully so, when the main character is an almost eighty-year old actress named "mad" whose household includes a twenty-year old granddaughter who narrates the action, a dotty housekeeper named dottie, a decrepit old dog, and six unruly adopted sons who won't be ruled by anyone but mad. mad and her crew recruit the neighbours, and other good folk of cornwall in thwarting what seems more to them an american occupation than a union.

i think the ending isn't very effective: a tad trite and a little more than convenient (and confusing - there are still a few things that don't make abundant sense to me). i also think du maurier hopes you know that she knows that she is joking, and i'm not sure that's always readily apparent, and perhaps her tongue is barbed a little more sharply that what is generally palatable (and sometimes i think she worries too much and tries to point out to us that she is using stereotypes for a reason). i also wish she'd taken a page from philip k. dick and placed the action of the book in an alternate reality of England rather than trying to entrench it too much in our current timeline: the contemporary references date and defuse the book. but i really liked it, too. a lot of the time it is sheer lunacy and some scenes in this book quite shocking for their matter-of-factness so sometimes laughter was tinged with anxiety. it is an entertaining book. it is also a book that does ask very good questions that impact us today: what happens in the face of capitalism's decline? and how far people will go to serve whatever ends they choose to pursue? but then of course, she has to tell her prince philip joke twice. :)

i'm wavering between three and four here.

[Natalie Richards · Rating 4 out of 5]

She never fails to impress and entertain me. This was written in 1972 and Daphne, with her brilliant imagination wrote a story about Brexit and the US joining forces with the UK... USUK.... everytime I read that it was in my head as YOUSUCK! A real pageturner.

[hawk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this novel, and think it's quite brilliant, despite a few flaws. it felt, above everything, a kind of coming of age novel - the transition from childhood into early adulthood.

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it has a slow, gentle start... the house containing a couple generations of women, and a generous handful of adopted/foster children... the day starting, but not quite as usual...

"this didn't belong to the world she knew, this was nightmare".

I really like the household led by women, and the perspectives that brings, the way they approach the situation.... 🙂

an absent father and son, appears by telephone every now and again 😉 and is pretty absent even when he's briefly there in person 😆

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I liked the exploration of adult and children's reactions and different understandings...

adult responsibility for children's actions...

adjustment to death... to taking a part in it...

trauma, especially the trauma that children carry...

in moments, the novel made me think to JG Ballard's writing, especially 'Empire of the Sun'.
I wondered about when each of these two authors were living and writing, wrt any shared experiences and impacts of their times... 🤔

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and now the possibly of the UK as one large tourist attraction... 🤣
(also made me think of how there's some romanticism of the UK by some of/in the USA)

I found alot of subtle/wry humour in the novel 🙂😁
as well as a sensitive approach.

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there's a fair bit of internal monologue, used to expose the characters feelings under the surface of what's overtly going on... used to enhance the complexities and ironies of the situations. I also think it contributes to the humour 🙂

and the novel features alot about acting and performance 🙂 with the grandmother matriarch of the family (Mads) having made her career on stage, and the villagers supposed submission/compliance with the US invasion of UK being a performance, and how the young women have to manage the unwanted interests of the men/US soldiers, feigning interest up to a point...

"he squeezed her arm, she prayed for patience and for courage too..."

tho this latter does bring in both the position women were/are frequently placed in wrt unwanted male interest, and how sometimes survival depends on feigned interest and a degree of compliance, and the balance is precarious.

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I liked the delicacy observed around the dignity of the beachcomber 🙂 tho I was mildly troubled by the nicknaming of him (both for the class, and English, entitlement).

I enjoyed the easy alliance between the Cornish and the Welsh, Celtic allies against the English 😃

there was later mention of both Wales and Scotland giving more resistance to USUK, civil disobedience, striking... 😃
and I enjoyed 'Taffy' picking up Welsh broadcasts about what's going on... and contributing in Welsh and Cornish. I enjoyed that Welsh and Cornish were used as languages of subversion and resistance 😁 I also liked the presentation of the lesser known Cornish nationalist movement (lesser known compared to the Welsh and Scottish, tho I think generally absent from alot of English awareness).

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I enjoyed how the narrator was increasingly the young woman Emma, and/or she became increasingly solid as a character.
I don't know much about the authors life to know who she could represent 🤔 it felt like she could be an aspect of herself? 🤔

also Mad and Dotty as women's names - this had to be deliberate wrt how women and their opinions are treated/viewed 😆

and Vic (Victor, the winner) the father is well drawn as completely entitled and opinioned, expecting the world to revolve around him and his ideas/opinions 🙄

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I thought the novel was interestingly prescient - brexit, it's economic consequences, xenophobia...
and the particular Christianity of some states of the USA being brought into school lessons...

rationing, and hoarding...

"..and although all the toilet rolls will come in handy, you can't eat them can you" 😉

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the novel is not without faults - I think it's very much of its time, and/or the preceding time - some of the gendered norms and racism. while at the same time it's likely broaching subjects (women led households, mixed race families) that weren't readily done at the time, in a kinda subtle roundabout way. possibly what is subtle and not enough now, was more explicit and quite alot for the time it was written? 🤔

there were also definite class divisions that for a long time weren't directly critiqued, tho were hinted at, with the narrating household being more affluent and connected and at least upper middle class at a guess. tho later in the novel there was abit more obvious class related conversation 🙂

politically I thought there were some socialist politics in places too, a nice sense of community spirit and mutual support, as well as the rising up of the Celtic nations (Kernow/Cornwall included) 😁

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the ending... everything kinda goes back to normal and yet is forever changed. an indescribable sense of pathos, and a real mix of emotions - a child with confident adult awareness, siblings reunited but interacting differently, the pigeon being let go... 💔♥


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accessed as an RNIB talking book, pretty unevenly read by Micheal De Morgan (whose American accent isn't especially good, and his Welsh accent was as bad 😬)

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marines at Manderley

The entry into Europe was a flop, a disaster… So what happened? A general election with the country hopelessly divided, then a referendum, and finally the Coalition Government we have today, which has seized on the idea of USUK as a drowning man clutches at a straw.

Frankly, Daphne du Maurier's final novel is a minor work, probably only three stars for most readers. Yet to me personally, it rises to four stars going on five. It was published in 1972, the year I moved to America from Britain, yet I well understand the context of its diametrically opposite theme, the takeover of Britain by America. And, as my quotation shows, it has a curious contemporary relevance in the immediate aftermath of Brexit.

Du Maurier once had a family home at Menabilly on the south coast of Cornwall. In her most famous novel, Rebecca, it is called Manderley. Here it is reborn as Trevalan, home to an aging retired actress known only as Mad, her granddaughter Emma, six boys of different ages that she has adopted, and her former dresser Dottie, who acts as cook and housekeeper. This particular day dawns, however, to the sound of airplanes and helicopters overhead, a total communications blackout, and US Marines securing the streets of the nearest village, Poldrea. The economic fallout from this early Brexit has been so bad that the government has sold Britain lock, stock, and barrel to the United States, forming a new entity that someone with a deaf ear has decided to call USUK. The historic reunion is to herald a glorious era of mutual prosperity, not to mention the provision for American tourists of what amounts to a vast historical theme park. There are just a few pockets of misguided resistance to be neutralized first.

An absurd premise, of course, yet highly productive for a satire, since it has more than a glimmer of truth. There has always been a strong resentment of the American presence in Britain, despite gratitude for their role in the Second World War, exacerbated by increased commercialization and Britain's awareness of its own decline. In 1972, American intervention had got a particularly bad name from the debacle in Southeast Asia, not least for their failure to win the hearts and minds of the people they had come to help. In 2016, whatever the justification and successes, we need look no further than Iraq and Afghanistan. To British eyes, the clean-cut courtesy of the US Marine could appear as much a threat as a gesture of friendship.

At the beginning, du Maurier is writing within a familiar trope: the feisty inhabitants of a small community, generally on the Celtic fringe, who successfully oppose the attempts of some central authority to undo their traditions; an example might be the 1947 Compton Mackenzie novel Whisky Galore or the movie made from it. Certainly, the cast of characters who might come out of the TV series Doc Martin fits totally into this tradition: the homespun farmer whose sheepdog is the first casualty of the invasion, the local fisherman, the recluse with a checkered past who lives in a shack near the beach, and of course the six boys, aged three to eighteen, each with a particular handicap, each with special reserves of loyalty and skill. And the portrayal of the Americans is in a similar vein, such as the portrait of Martha Hubbard, chair of the Cross-Cultural Committee, "a pleasant-looking woman of about forty-five with a rush of teeth to the head." She shows up, smile and all, a few days later teaching a demonstration Bible class at the local school; Jesus, it appears, is now to be part of the curriculum.*

But then a real death occurs, and suddenly we are in quaint comedy mode no longer. Du Maurier's style does not greatly change, but now she has a new literary model: that of the WW2 Resistance novel. Not that the Marines are equated to Nazis, but there is the familiar pattern of punitive overreaction that only further polarizes the local population. And du Maurier also escalates further—much further—to the point where it seems impossible for her to bring the book to an appropriate conclusion. Of course she does end it, and the ending seems the right one. But it is very sudden; we learn what happens, but not how it happens. This, more than anything else, is what would have sent me down to three or even two stars, if my historical and stylistic interest in the book had not risen to four or five.

======

*
Which seems a curious misreading, doesn't it? Not of American culture, where evangelical Christianity was presumably as strong a force then as now, but of its constitutional separation of Church and State. The Supreme Court ruling on the unconstitutionality of Bible readings in public schools came only in 1963, so perhaps du Maurier was working from earlier experience of the country. More likely, though, she was portraying the situation as a kind of extra-territorial Guantanamo where "American values" might be promoted without the tiresome restrictions of a Constitution.

[S. ≽^•⩊•^≼ I'm not here yet · Rating 4 out of 5]

کتاب ماد با نام اصلی Rule Britannia با نام غول ماورای اقیانوس نیز شناخته می‌شود. ماد را انتشارات کیان با ترجمه‌ی عنایت‌الله شکیباپور منتشر کرده است.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

So this was awesome but also had way more potential than follow-through. It basically just introduced a ton of cool ideas and characters but didn't go further than that. I love the premise (so timely) of Britain facing bankruptcy after pulling out of Europe and the US taking advantage by swooping to the rescue and enacting a takeover that pretends to be benign but is of course menacing and hostile. I love that the plan is to make the UK a historical theme park for Americans. The bit where shocked Cornishmen are shaking their heads wondering what ducats and doubloons are! Oh, Brexit Britain is this what you are after?

Another hilarious bit was Mad identifying collaborators by their sudden abundance of Californian Wine! THE HORROR!

Mad was basically a life-goals kind of character - 80 year old ex-actress dressing like General Mao (when the mood takes) having adopted a handful of Byronic orphans to lead into the revolution. In contrast, Emma of course had to be the sensible one, but she was almost annoyingly conservative and unobservant and she felt like the kind of character who could grow into someone awesome eventually but the book just didn't really give her that kind of an arc.

So there was lots of sparkle but overall, I felt it fell a bit flat.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Utterly wonderful venomously anti-American final novel from one of Britain's greatest writers. An alliance with the US results in the unwelcome imposition of an American military base in Cornwall. Local elderly eccentric rouses the nation to send the whole bunch of fascists packing.

Rousing stuff which is essential reading in the current political climate of right-wing rhetoric and bleating Orwellian sloganising. Yes, it's dated (technology has moved on since then) but the message is there and I challenge any Brit with a heart not to feel the need to wipe a warm patriotic tear.

Americans, of course, will hate it, as will those of a busybody nature (e.g. the reviewer above who gave it 1 star because of the irresponsible effect it will have on children. Laugh? I almost ...), but Real Britishers will feel it strike a chord. YANKS GO HOME - AND STAY THERE!

[Cphe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall I enjoyed the story but the ending felt incomplete, unfinished. I liked the premise of the novel a David and Goliath theme, a story of resistance against overwhelming odds.
There were pockets of humour, stereotyping of some characters and also some "cringeworthy" scenes/themes used that aren't acceptable today.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is very much a book whose time has come. The premise of the book is that after a short relationship with the European Community, and after a divisive national referendum, Britain decides to leave Europe. Things then readily go downhill, leading to the merging of the US with the UK to form a new nation: USUK. However, the merger isn't really a merger. It's a take over, including a military occupation. What could go wrong?

Quite a lot as it happens. The merger was brokered by a distant elite, in a society of growing inequality, who didn't really care about the views of ordinary citizens. It was from these people who had been left behind that the resistance first emerged. Starting with a few purile pranks and a few murmors of discontent, the US Marines, fresh from defeat in Vietnam, did what we could expect them to do - they over-reacted. At that point, matters did start to spin out of control.

The book is about the early stage resistance. We weren't told how it all ends up, just how it all began. It has a combination of the arrogance of the occupier combined with the defiance of a community accustomed to running things their own way and it moves in from there. What I did find interesting was the general lack of confidence in government, and a reversion to community based organisation when things became difficult. It was also interesting to note how peaceful resistance and non-compliance made this little part of the country ungovernable.

It is hard to remember that this book was first published in 1972, and describes life as it was at that point. We had none of the technology that we now take for granted. The principal means of communication were the radio, television, and the telephone. A land line at that! Yet within this framework, the novel is achingly contemporary. As we struggle through Brexit, a deeply divided and unequal country, with the centre dominating the periphery, one wonders from where the author derived her foresight? So much of it was bang on the money, and that, in itself, recommends this book.

[Jason Pettus · Rating 3 out of 5]

2023 reads, #84. Like a lot of people, I've only recently become a fan of Daphne du Maurier, through modern movie adaptations of her early hits Rebecca and My Cousin Rachel that allow us through 21st-century norms in sex and violence to show just how subversive, dark, and downright modern this literary innovator was, often overshadowed in her prose itself because of so much of her earlier work being written way back in the 1930s, at an age when prose was much fussier and more flowery. Today's book, however, is actually the very last one of her career, way ahead forward to 1972 when du Maurier was in her mid-sixties, and with much more modern prose to match; and although that finally allows us to see "du Maurier Unchained" so to speak, it's unfortunately in service of a much weaker story, so is just sort of a tradeoff at best from her early work, that was so hobbled by the mores of the Edwardian Age but that were so delightfully evil nonetheless.

This book in fact has been getting a lot of contemporary notice again recently, because her premise here is that one day in the near future, Europe comes together as a single union of nation-states (don't forget, the European Economic Community was already up and in full force in this book's times, precursor to the modern EU), but that after bad economic times, a far-right group takes power in Parliament and convinces Britain to pull out of this proto-EU; then after their economy continues to tank, the right-wing government blames it on "shadowy outside forces," then in secret makes a deal with the far-right government in place in America at the same time, to join together the US and UK into one political entity (literally now known as the USUK), for the purpose of essentially creating a global police state that rules over much of the English-speaking world and about half the planet's nuclear weapons.

That's brilliant of du Maurier to correctly predict way back in the early '70s, getting clues for this coming catastrophe only through events of those times like the Nixon administration, the US's gleeful atrocities committed in Vietnam, the CIA's global reach by then, etc., and this book should be considered special just for that alone. And I also like that du Maurier (an infamously beautiful yet aggressive tomboy-punkgirl-flapper-possibly-bisexual type in her youth) continued to be so fiery all the way to the end of her life, seeing the coming storm earlier than most and refusing to lie still for it. The problem, however, is that she doesn't really have much to say about the subject, or much of a plot to hang off this delicious concept; by around page 50, we're now aware of the far-right union and the fascist US troops that have taken over the small Cornwall town where our story is set, but even by page 350 at the end, really the only thing that's happened is that the same stuff we knew about on page 50 has gotten worse, du Maurier's point seeming here to be, "You can't imagine it could happen here, but here it is, happening here! Hah? HAAAAHHH?"

Rebecca-era du Maurier would've had the union announced on page 50, the current end of the book only happening one chapter later, then would be right on to an action-packed, surprise-filled plot that takes us to crazier and crazier places from the original conceit. So that's kind of disappointing, that late-age du Maurier either couldn't or wouldn't do that; but, you know, that's often what happens with artists as they get older, as they get to the point where they've now actually told all the stories they've wanted in their hearts to tell, and a slower lifestyle and slower brain combines with this to put out books that are simply okay, instead of insanely great like at their earlier, more youthful height. That easily explains why this book has largely fallen into obscurity at this point, because it's okay du Maurier but not great du Maurier; and except for a handful of authors over the entire course of history, most writers are fated to be remembered by history (if they're remembered at all) through just a small handful of their greatest books, the other ones' existences largely forgotten like has happened with this one. Unless you're doing a completist look at du Maurier's entire oeuvre, you can safely skip this book despite its prescient forecasting of our times, and stick to her most famous pieces like the ones mentioned, or her Hollywood-friendly short stories like "The Birds" and "Don't Look Now."

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF at page 137
Emma has grown up in Cornwall with her grandmother, Madam, who also adopted 6 troubled orphan boys. The boys (aged 3 to 17) run rampant around the house, and Madam (nicknamed Mad) does little to control them, instead allowing their imaginations to run free and joining in their wild and violent games. When the USA and UK declare a merging of their governments, American Marines set up blockades on the road and cut the telephone service, basically setting up martial law for an undetermined period of time while the government transitions. Mad is furious, and she encourages the boys and all the townsfolk to rebel against the new government.

This book was so awful on so many levels. Everyone in the whole household is insane. Madam's nickname is literally "Mad", and the housekeeper's name is Dotty. There are tons of references in the plot that give you a hint that they are all deranged in some way. Emma is the only one who seems somewhat normal, but as she sees the rest of them engaging in more and more violent and irrational behavior, she decides to just accept it and join in because she loves them all. So toxic and gross.

There is some profanity, but what was really disgusting was that the older boys taught the youngest 3-year-old child to say curse words. And there is quite a bit of violence and descriptions of guts and blood. An 11-year-old child commits murder, and Mad and the rest of the family hide the body. The child shows no remorse. He is proud of his "first kill." This book is so messed up.

To see all the descriptions of violence and profanity, check out the book on the Screen It First website! https://screenitfirst.com/book/rule-b...

[denudatio_pulpae · Rating 3 out of 5]

Po referendum w sprawie odłączenia się od Europy, Wielka Brytania postanawia połączyć swoje siły ze Stanami Zjednoczonymi, tworząc związek USUK. Unia ta była trzymana w tajemnicy do samego końca i mieszkańcy Wielkiej Brytanii nie zostali o niej poinformowani, po prostu pewnego dnia naszych bohaterów obudził huk samolotów, radio przestało nadawać, a w zatoce… zacumował amerykański okręt wojenny. Oczywiście wszystko za zgodą władz, i z jak najbardziej przyjaznym nastawieniem ze strony Marines. Przynajmniej w teorii, ponieważ wraz z tą przyjacielską wizytą, pojawiły się od razu pewne utrudnienia, a następnie restrykcje. A gdy pojawia się ucisk, budzi się sprzeciw.

Pomysł ciekawy (a w kontekście Brexitu był dla mnie nawet zabawny), ale akurat w naszym kraju wizja ruchu oporu przeciwko okupantowi, raczej nie zrobi na nikim większego wrażenia. Nie chcę za bardzo wchodzić w szczegóły, żeby nie zdradzać fabuły, ale bardzo niepokojące było dla mnie to, że jedna z największych afer opisanych w tej książce, została wywołana przez dziecko, a autorka opisała to, jak gdyby nie stało się nic wielkiego, po prostu trzeba było „posprzątać”. To było naprawdę dziwne.
6/10

[Peter Herrmann · Rating 2 out of 5]

Far from her best. Glad this wasn't her first that I read or I wouldn't read any more. A slog. Ironically, in 3 weeks from now a British Brexit referendum will decide whether Britain stays or leaves the EU ... ironic, because this novel, from the early 70's, is premised upon the consequences of a (fantasy) British decision, back then, to leave. The consequence was a sort of anschluss (US 'takeover' of the UK, falsely promoted as voluntary - sort of like Germany's takeover of Austria back in the 30's). That part is fantastical. Although not completely, in that the US has been deeply involved in foreign incursions -both overt and covert - since at least Teddy Roosevelt's day, if not earlier. Always for the good of the locals (....ahem). This novel shows the US face to be very unpleasant, and analogizes the occupation of her part of Britain (Cornwall) to the WWII occupation of France by Germany. Easy to see how du Maurier developed a sense of distrust and dislike of the U.S., reflected in this novel. Hopefully, if Britain chooses Brexit, du Maurier's nightmare of U.S. opportunism will not become fact. But, the dialogue in this book was weak, characters not well portrayed, scenery .. often her strong point ... not overly interesting. Seemed more of a polemical artifice rather than a real novel.
POSTSCRIPT: 6/24/16 - Yesterday the UK did, in fact, vote to leave the EU. Some foreboding parallels to 'Rule Brittania': Russia is gloating .. anticipating an EU breakup (and opportunity for more Russian incursion and aggression in Europe); Donald Trump, America's would-be Hitler, is also gloating. Scotland & N. Ireland are now laying plans to exit the U.K. Easy to envision that if Trump gets into the White House he and his pal Putin (they both say complimentary things about each other) will repeat the Hitler-Stalin pact (remember Trump is the 'great deal maker' ) with the U.S. taking over 'Little' England in exchange for Russia reoccupying the old Soviet Empire. Could happen. Hope not.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some of my favourite classics have been written by Daphne Du Maurier but this one didn't excite me.
Great language but the plot was a little bizarre. 😲

[Krystal Marsh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very, very weird read. It reminds me of a piece of ephemera, in that I truly felt as if I were placed squarely within issues the UK was facing in the mid 1970s. This means this book isn't cleanly a "Brexit" book as I expected it to be, and instead what I found here was much stranger.

"Rule Britannia" is trying to make out what it means to be British in a world more interested in globalism, but it doesn't come to any specific conclusions about issues of nationalism, isolation, or community. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it means that it is a tonally complex book that doesn't follow a clear, legible ideology. Even though we get strong portrayals of evil Americans, quaint coastal British life, and a chaotic political atmosphere, how all of these disparate elements work together is never directly addressed, making the reading experience more speculative and ponderous.

However, even with all this uncertainty about how to *feel* by the end of this book, it is a deeply compelling read, and I thought it was a real page turner. I absolutely loved Mad as a character in particular, and the subtle themes of performance and theater throughout the text (especially as it relates to how global relations work in the 70s) was lovely to explore.

I can imagine this being a book that I think about for a long while, and I would recommend giving it a read if the subject matter is interesting to you. In other words, if you're here because you like Rebecca, I think you might be disappointed. The writing is incredibly rich and lush when we're working through Emma's complex, inquisitive emotions, which gives me big Rebecca vibes, but its project seems ultimately quite different from her magnum opus.

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I started reading 'Rule Britannia', it seemed very firmly in the 'cosy catastrophe' sub-genre. It is set in rural Cornwall during the 1970s. After a period of economic chaos, the UK suddenly forms a political union with America, which to the book's characters manifests itself as a very unwelcome military occupation. The tale is told by Emma, a spirited but rather directionless young woman of twenty. She lives with her grandmother, an eccentric retired actress, and her grandmother's six adopted sons.

For the first eighty pages or so, the narrative gently and amusingly introduces the characters and bucolic setting. From then on, the story becomes a lot darker and quite gripping. It asks interesting questions about the practicality and morality of resistance to occupation, making it clear that there are no easy answers. This is the first Du Maurier novel I've read and I liked the combination of frivolity and thoughtfulness in her writing. The characters were entertaining but retained a certain depth and ambiguity. Even Emma's apparent naivety was well tempered by the strength of her protectiveness towards her family, even in extreme circumstances. In fact, the unconventional family unit rang very true to me, especially the conversations between Emma's grandmother and her father in which they constantly talked over one another.

'Rule Britannia' isn't a dystopia, but it leans slightly in that direction. I would still place it in the 'cosy catastrophe' sub-genre with a side of family drama. Nonetheless, it has a darkness about it as well, which kept me reading avidly.

[Nicolas Chinardet · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's the 1980s, there is a coalition government and, following a referendum, the UK has left Europe. As the story begins, US troops take up position in a small Cornish village. The UK, on the brink of bankruptcy, has formed a union with the US, and more widely with the main English-speaking nations. It's called USUK ("you suck"?!) and very quickly it turns out that the UK is being invaded, destined to become a sort of historical leisure park.

The main characters of the book, seen mostly through the eyes of a 20 year old woman, Emma, live in a big house in said Cornish village. Madame (known to Emma, her granddaughter, as Mad) is a retired famous actress, possibly modelled on Josephine Baker, who's adopted a brood of 6 boys. Together they, more or less unwittingly, foment the start of a rebellion.

This is a very strange book. It reads like a more grown-up, and slightly disappointing version of a Famous Five adventure, though it is never very clear where it is going and it seems to peter out rather suddenly and unconvincingly at the end.

With the obvious Brexity undertones, I was expecting something a little more political and meaningful, if I'm honest. It is moderately entertaining but the reader doesn't get much out of it. This last novel (published in 1972) is possibly not Du Maurier's best...

[Deborah Sheldon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This begins as a rollicking, Scooby-Doo-crossed-with-Enid-Blyton kind of lighthearted adventure. Then a shocking crime (which I didn't see coming) makes the story switch gears into much darker territory. And yet the final act doesn't quite satisfy... An odd, though entertaining novel, with interesting parallels to real-life Brexit issues.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

So prescient

Lovely book to read. Who would have thought that she would have foretold the ructions of the current day all the way back then.

[Geertje]

I want to be that person who has read every book by du Maurier. The trouble with that, though, is that there are two books (this one, and Castle d'or being the other) that I want to have read but that I don't want to read.

I've started this one a few times and never progressed beyond the first 30 pages. It is probably unfair to review a book after less than 10%, hence why I do not put a star rating on this one. However, I feel as if this one and I are just not going to agree with each other. The quality of the writing feels very different, somewhat subpar, not at all what I am used to with du Maurier. Add to that that I generally don't enjoy British anti-Americanism (and I don't care for Peter Pan, either, which this book clearly takes some inspiration from) and you basically have a recipe for a book I am just not going to enjoy. Why do that to myself?

I shall give Castle d'or a shot at some point, although I shall make sure it shall not be the final du Maurier novel I read.

[Jaclyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Daphne du Maurier's "Rule Britannia" was one of my favorite books in high school. I recently reread it and didn't find it quite what I remembered. Still funny, but not quite as funny (except the character of Ben; he was just as funny as I remembered). Still witty, but not quite as witty.

The story begins when twenty-year-old Emma awakens one morning to find no telephone service, a warship in the harbor of her peaceful Cornwall town, and US troops walking the streets. Great Britain has pulled out of Europe and in order to avoid a financial and political collapse, has joined forces with the USA in a new coalition government, USUK. Emma's father, a financier, and the majority of Britons are in favor (or so they say) of the union. But Mad, Emma's eccentric grandmother, says it looks more like an invasion than anything else. Mad starts agitating and encouraging her six adopted boys (as a retired actress, she has shades of Mia Farrow) to play practical jokes on the US troops. The jokes escalate into sabotage, the sabotage spreads across Cornwall, and the future of USUK is in jeopardy. Mad and Emma aren't particularly sad about that.

On this most recent reading, I didn't adore this book as much as I did when I was 17. Maybe it's my more mature (ha!) perspective as a reader. Or maybe it's the fact that US forces occupying another country and calling it friendship rings a little too true lately... but I'll try not to get political. Either way, it was still a fun read and I enjoyed it. Three stars.

[Sarah Jasmon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was the first du Maurier I ever read. I was 14, and I found it on a hotel bookshelf on a family drive down through France. We were only at the hotel for one night, so I just took it with me because I loved it so much. Some books you can revisit at a later stage of life and they're just as good. Some you can't.

Rule Britannia is alternate history. It's set in Cornwall, and opens with the US army arriving to 'protect' us following a merger/takeover. Britain is to become the USUK, and operate largely as a giant interactive theme park.

Mad, a once-famous actress, now lives on the Cornish coast along with her 18 year-old granddaughter, Emma, and a brood of adopted, troubled boys. She spearheads resistance to the USUK, triggering a movement which will spread, by the end of the novel, to all corners of the country.

The characters are lovely, and I was still drawn into the beautifully evoked setting. I really cared about the boys, and there are some excellently funny moments. The US soldiers, though, aren't convincing and neither is the idea that the US would want to create this sort of bond with the UK. There's a moment when Taffy, a wild Welshman living in the woods with an illicit ham radio, announces that the Princes have landed as part of the resistance movement. That vision hasn't aged well. Can you imagine Princes Charles and Andrew doing anything so very active?

Interesting as an historical piece, but nothing like as satisfactory as, say, Frenchman's Creek.

[William · Rating 3 out of 5]

The peace of a small Cornish fishing community is shattered without warning by the announcement that Great Britain has withdrawn from the European Union and partnered with the US in a new, bi-located entity called USUK. As part of this, US marines appear as an "administrative" occupying force. All politics are personal and here the unfolding of these political events are witnessed by an eccentric household populated by Mad (short for "Madam"), an imperious former actress on the cusp of 80, her 20 year old grand-daughter Emma, and her five adopted sons, who range from 3 to 19. The family does not take kindly to occupation and thus begins a grass-roots resistance movement, led by Mad, that escalates into tragedy, with the sheltered and ambivalent Emma acting as witness and surrogate for the reader. It's unclear where Du Maurier was going with this work, her final novel: is it a celebration of the human spirit? An experiment in dystopia? A jaundiced prediction of Britain's fate in the economic climate of the early 1970s? Certainly in the wake of Brexit, the novel has gained new resonance.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the story of Emma (English region in Cornwall) who wakes up one morning to discover that the world is completely upside down: there is no correspondence, telephone and radio do not work, a warship is docked in the port and there are American soldiers advancing toward the house. What happens is that the action of the novel takes place in the future, a future in which Britain withdrew from the European Common Market, is on the verge of economic collapse and concluded that his only salvation lies in a political, economic and military with the United States. Theoretically it is a union where there is equality between the parties, but for some people it starts to look more like an occupation.
Even if this book is controversial, it has Dame du Maurier unique style of writing since it's a mixture of science fiction, history with a lot satyrical historical points of view both from Cornwall people and the American "invaders".

[Shopgirl · Rating 5 out of 5]

J'ai rarement terminé une lecture aussi retournée ...

Ce dernier roman emporte le lecteur aux côtés de Mad et de sa tribu qui vivent un Brexit avant l'heure : en 2000, l'Angleterre a quitté l'Europe et forme une fédération avec les USA qui envahissent le pays et particulièrement ce coin de Cornouailles où leur installation tient rapidement de l'occupation ...

Au fil des pages, Daphné propose une réflexion intéressante et non dénuée de sens sur le monde et la politique mais aussi la vie. A travers le personnage d'Emma, le lecteur s'interroge et accompagne ses quelques jours qui vont tout changer dans la vie de la jeune fille.

Mad semble être le double de Daphné et on ne peut s'empêcher de refermer le livre, ému. Comme si elle savait qu'il serait le dernier ...

[Pat Camalliere · Rating 3 out of 5]

This may be the only book by du Maurier that I haven’t loved. It begins interestingly enough, when the author places the setting in late 1970s England, in an alternate world where Great Britain and the U.S. have agreed to merge into a single country to achieve a stronger world position. A young woman, Emma, is in charge of an oddball household that includes her grandmother, a former outrageous actress, and six adopted boys, ages varying from 3 to 19. Right away they decide the merger will not work and start fighting it. I love this scenario, but I don’t think the events would happen as the story unfolds. Too much of it is just unbelievable, and the ending just seems rushed. 4 stars for originality and unpredictability, but only 3 stars at best for the overall book.

[Jane · Rating 3 out of 5]

As a now confirmed fan of Daphne du Maurier after discovering her work for the first time this year, and after reading six of her books and not being disappointed with any of them (in fact, up to now four of them have made it into my top five reads of the year list and one of them has been my favourite book read (so far) this year!) so it was with a sense of eager anticipation that I started reading this story. This book was her final published work, back in 1972 and borrows heavily from the unfolding political events of that time, and the timeframe for it is what was then the near future.

It is set in an alternate universe, where Britain has voted to leave the Common Market (the forerunner to the European Union). There was indeed a referendum in the early 1970s to leave the Common Market but back then the country voted to stay in. The fictitious ramifications of this decision result in a story which is totally bizarre but also compelling and for the most part highly entertaining. It has to be said that it is also very relevant to the world we find ourselves in now, over 50 years later and the Britain we live in post Brexit, when as a country we did indeed vote to leave the European Union. With current world events becoming ever more unbelievable it is surprising perhaps that Daphne Du Maurier’s final novel - which I don’t believe was received too well at the time and considered too outlandish and unbelievable, almost ridiculous with its premise, is now almost strangely prophetic, especially with the hindsight of Brexit, with the rise of right wing populism and the polarisation of the nation. To be clear though, I didn’t interpret this as a dystopian story as such, although the tone of it does turn quite bleak at times. On the whole though it is too downright eccentric for that but that underlying bleakness does make you stop and wonder what life would be like being occupied by another country who were there at the invitation of your own government.

This book was basically Daphne Du Maurier’s last hurrah and in a way, she followed form by producing something completely different to anything else she had written. It was also a story where she used it to poke fun at everyone. That much is obvious from the outset with the new name for the country! It could be construed as anti-American, but I interpreted it as everyone, no matter what side they are on is fair game in this story, where Du Maurier’s talent for creating readable stereotypes is used to the maximum. It is satire and for its time it is very biting satire. However, having said that, the mickey taking does sometimes move more towards mocking and bitter contempt. I will also add that there are some parts which are quite uncomfortable to read, with modern sensibilities. For example, there is some rather racist dialogue which while common and widely accepted at that time has certainly not aged well.

It’s undoubtedly not one of her best novels. I wouldn’t say it disappointed me but it’s not one of her stories which I will rave about to anyone who will listen, which has been the case for all the others I have read this year. It is really a very simple easy to read story. There is the main plot and its characters. There isn’t any real subplots and no intricate backstories to her characters, and there is no real depth to it. It starts and moves in a straight line to its conclusion, an ending which is ambiguous and leaves the reader to decide exactly what has happened. Despite all its obvious faults and the fact, it really was quite outlandish and bizarre at times it was still quite entertaining and it is still far better than a lot of novels that pass for literature these days, as Du Maurier’s undoubted talent for story telling came through and for the most part I enjoyed it.

[Nick Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, there is rather a lot to unpick here.

Apparently Daphne du Maurier wrote a comic dystopian novel about the terrible consequences of leaving the EU. She wrote this is 1970 before we had even joined the EU's predecessor, the Common Market. To be fair she doesn't actually call it the EU, using the terminology of the time instead, but considering the level of prescience in the rest of the novel she might as well have done.

I discovered this novel during a late lunch at Jamaica Inn (for those who only know the novel, yes it is a real place) while travelling into Cornwall. As a bit of a tradition when visiting Cornwall I like to drink Cornish beer, put jam on my scones before the cream and read something associated with the county. This year I settled on du Maurier.

The novel tells of a UK facing bankruptcy following departure from the Common Market and forced into an alliance with the USA. The Americans, being somewhat heavy handed about it all and with a chip on their shoulder the size of Texas following their rejection by the last country they tried to help (yes, she does mean Vietnam) do not find favour with the Cornish, nor, as we learn toward the end of the novel, with the other Celtic nations, Wales and Scotland.

While it is tempting to read this as a pro-remain novel 50 years ahead of its time I rather suspect that du Maurier was as sceptical about the Common Market as Mad, her apparent surrogate in the novel, is about USUK, preaching instead self -reliance and helping out neighbours and local communities, rather than wider international groupings; sentiments here put into the mouth of a pre-teen adoptee. From the mouths of babes indeed. The only character to spout anything remotely like a contemporary Remain argument is Mr Libby, the pro-USUK publican who believes that trade with the Americans should be unrestricted and not be affected by a few spoilsports, and Mr Libby is very clearly the hometown villain.

Threaded through all of this is du Maurier's belief in Celtic independence, even going so far as to make and shoot down oft quoted arguements about the evils of nationalism. She also goes so far as to have the two eldest princes of the British royal family landing in Wales and Scotland in true medieval fashion to rally the people of these nations against the American overlords, much against the wishes of the government and elder royals. Even though only referenced in a single throwaway comment a certain future Duke of York comes off far better here than he has any right to, highlighting the dangers of speculative and counterfactual fiction which references actual living people.

This is a wonderful piece of political satire equalling the works of Orwell and Swift, and which deserves to be as widely read and studied. So, you know what to do.