"Vera" by Elizabeth von Arnim

Well, that was... foreboding and dark and oddly mesmerizing.

Honestly, if von Arnim wasn't such a ridiculously good writer, I would not have finished this book.  It's very squirm-inducing, in that you KNOW the main character is making a terrible mistake, and you feel so helpless because you can't stop her.  Or at least, I did.

Vera is about a barely-of-age young woman, Lucy, whose father dies, leaving her protectorless for a few days.  Into this void steps Everard Wemyss, a capable and confident man who comforts Lucy and plans her father's funeral for her and generally takes charge of her affairs, all only a couple of weeks after his wife Vera has died in a fairly awful accident.

Everard gradually takes over Lucy's whole life, convincing her to marry him after only a few months.  It's not until after they're married that Lucy starts to see that Everard's complete control over every situation extends to complete control over her.  He insists on being obeyed, agreed with, coddled, and kowtowed to.  In fact, he is basically a two-year-old in a man's body, one that gets insidiously cruel when annoyed or irritated or contradicted.  

It's a chilling portrait of a casual sociopath who doesn't even realize what a monster his is, and who utterly hoodwinks most people into thinking he is an ordinary, even worthy, member of society.  Mostly because he believes himself that that's what he is.  Lucy realizes too late that Vera's death may not have been the accident Everard says it was, as she starts to understand what Vera's life must have been like, married to Everard for fifteen years.

I've read two really interesting things about this book that made me want to finish it even though it's a terribly unhappy book and I didn't like any of the characters.  (Not even Lucy, though I pitied her a lot.)  First, I read that von Arnim based this on her own deeply messed up second marriage to a similar man.  And, second, I read that this probably was an inspiration for Daphne du Maurier when she was coming up with Rebecca.  I can definitely see how this could have inspired du Maurier -- you can practically hear her reading it and saying, "Well, what if the husband was like this instead?  What if the second wife was like that?  What if the first wife was this kind of woman?"  That was quite fascinating to me, as a writer.

I expect it really would be very effective as a lesson on "what kind of person not to marry."  Or on "what kind of person not to become."  And I did have a lot of fun after I finished it by inventing a what-happens-next for it.  I gave Everard an unpleasant and well-deserved death, freeing Lucy to gradually recover from how shriveled and piteous she'd become.  That was a good time.

But I will never read this unhappy book again.

Particularly Good Bits:

You couldn't passionately protect Vera.  She was always in another room (p. 99).

The books people read -- was there ever anything more revealing? (p. 247)

If This was a Movie, I Would Rate It: PG-13 for a few mild cuss words and a lot of creepy behavior.

This is my 40th book read for my third Classics Club list, and my 17th book read from my TBR shelves for #TheUnreadShelfProject2022.