Daphne Du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn -The Toast

Daphne Du Maurier’s Jamaica Inn

ByDaniel Mallory Ortberg

on December 1, 2015 in Books

MARY YELLAN: my name is Mary and I think being a girl is worse than genocide
JEM MERLYN: women are terrible but you absolutely have to kiss them
MARY YELLAN: I’d rather be a ship rat or on fire or a pile of greasy rags named Scumface than a girl

JOSS MERLYN: Mary don’t ask me why I’m the landlord of Jamaica Inn
MARY YELLAN: fine
JOSS MERLYN: ill fucking never tell ANYONE why
MARY YELLAN: all right
JOSS MERLYN: unless I get drunk
then i’ll tell any body
MARY YELLAN: noted
JOSS MERLYN: so don’t let me get drunk Mary
MARY YELLAN: I honestly don’t even want to know
I just want to take my Aunt Patience and get out of here
JOSS MERLYN: MARY IM DRUNK
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ALL THE SECRETS OF JAMAICA INN
MARY YELLAN: I –
JOSS MERLYN: I murder people for money and then I sell all their stuff
MARY YELLAN: still better than being FEMALE
JOSS MERLYN: MARY WHY DID YOU LET ME GET DRUNK AND TELL YOU ALL MY SECRETS

JOSS MERLYN: if I wanted to have sex with you I would
MARY YELLAN: seems unlikely
JOSS MERLYN: the only reason we’re not having sex is because I’m too busy
but rest assured
if I wanted to give it to you
ugh you’d just
you wouldn’t even be able to disagree with me ever, because of how much sex liquefies women’s brains
JEM MERLYN: Mary it’s true
the same goes for me too, if you slept with me
MARY YELLAN: shows how much you know
I’ll never have sex or wear a dress
I’m just going to run all over the mountains by myself

SQUIRE BASSAT: Mary you saved Cornwall
thank you for helping us stop these murders
please consider living with us as our ward and participating in our rich, full lives
MARY YELLAN: thank you but I cannot
I must go back to my farm and support myself
a quiet life of self-sufficiency is all I require after this season of chaos
I shall live at peace content in my own skin
JEM MERLYN: no but Mary
Mary
what if instead you followed me around and did my laundry and I promised to never take care of me
MARY YELLAN: no I want to be alone
JEM MERLYN: Mary
Mary
Mary tho
MARY YELLAN: I –
JEM MERLYN: but Mary you’re a woman
MARY YELLAN: good point
JEM MERLYN: leave your dreams in the trash and cook me dinner and sometimes I’ll waggle my dick at you
MARY YELLAN: women are trash

FIN

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

Comments (43)

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+16 Vote up Vote down

mpohlig 134p · 487 weeks ago

Now I'm thinking about Charles Laughton, which is not something I ever want to be doing.

9 replies · active 486 weeks ago

+33 Vote up Vote down

malloryelis 142p · 487 weeks ago

Charles Laughton brought us Ruggles of Red Gap AND Night of the Hunter, you shut your mouth.

+22 Vote up Vote down

mpohlig 134p · 487 weeks ago

I forgot about Night of the Hunter! It's just his pale mushy face. It's like a sweaty mushroom.

+25 Vote up Vote down

NicoleCliffe 145p · 487 weeks ago

KOOL-AID MANNING IN

is someone talking shit about chuck laughton?

+10 Vote up Vote down

NicoleCliffe 145p · 487 weeks ago

Oh, no, Mallory, remember what Scotty Bowers said about him?

+7 Vote up Vote down

mpohlig 134p · 487 weeks ago

I just googled it. I may never sleep again. (AND he was married to Jessica Marbles from "Murder by Death".)

+5 Vote up Vote down

damskdrednwhite 110p · 487 weeks ago

oh god that is the worst buzzfeed article i never wanted to read
...but also the best

+1 Vote up Vote down

WallisWallyOlly 110p · 486 weeks ago

I love Murder By Death and the fact that you have seen it, too, means that we're best friends now

+6 Vote up Vote down

malloryelis 142p · 487 weeks ago

I believe it 100%, but he still made Night of the Hunter, so

+10 Vote up Vote down

Chase · 487 weeks ago

PLEASE DO A RUGGLES OF RED GAP POST!!

would also not be opposed to some My Man Godfrey or Ninotchka content...

+30 Vote up Vote down

deleted7541601 123p · 487 weeks ago

I've never read Jamaica Inn, and now I feel that it would be a mistake. I'm sure your version is more to the point.

2 replies · active 487 weeks ago

+47 Vote up Vote down

malloryelis 142p · 487 weeks ago

It is half great and half disappointing, which equals out in my mind to be worth reading. There's a lot to like about it!

+9 Vote up Vote down

redheadedwolf 115p · 487 weeks ago

You didn't tell us any of the great parts.

+21 Vote up Vote down

KravMagda · 487 weeks ago

I read the book a few years after visiting the actual Jamaica Inn and running all over the mountains there. At the time I didn't really appreciate it, though. I was much more excited about visiting Tintagel and Stonehenge because I had just read The Mists of Avalon (I was 13 during that family vacation).

2 replies · active 486 weeks ago

+13 Vote up Vote down

OncoMouse 121p · 487 weeks ago

I visited the real place after rereading the book just for that vacation and it was wonderful. The Daphne du Maurier slash smuggling museum was fun.

+46 Vote up Vote down

sigaloenta 120p · 487 weeks ago

So, I read "the Daphne du Maurier slash smuggling museum" as "the museum about the smuggling of Daphne du Maurier slash" and had a moment of utter confusion combined with utter excitement.

+24 Vote up Vote down

anthemyst 125p · 487 weeks ago

I always meant to read more Du Maurier after Rebecca, which I loved in an "Oh God" kind of a way, but other than a couple of short stories I never did. How do people feel about one vs. the other?

9 replies · active 487 weeks ago

+8 Vote up Vote down

FewerDahlias · 487 weeks ago

I don't remember Jamaica Inn one way or another, but The Scapegoat is pretty fab...

+7 Vote up Vote down

Roman · 487 weeks ago

seconding the Scapegoat rec! It also has an adaptation available on Netflix starring Matthew Rhys (of the Americans etc).

+15 Vote up Vote down

OncoMouse 121p · 487 weeks ago

I am a huge fan of My Cousin Rachel as a Rebecca chaser.

+9 Vote up Vote down

Marmite Soldier · 487 weeks ago

Indeed, for more brooding Cornishmen. Frenchman's Creek was the only other one I have bothered with, which I remember as less brooding, with a spirited heroine and more high-cheeked bone pirate action.

+4 Vote up Vote down

cheekypinky 85p · 487 weeks ago

It is DELICIOUS and was absolutely foundational to teenage Pinky's sexual awakenings. Most of my fanfic in high school was devoted to stories of pirates and bored, wealthy women who dressed as men.

+11 Vote up Vote down

LadyWoman · 487 weeks ago

Agreed with OncoMouse on My Cousin Rachel. I spent most of the book just annoyed as hell by the main character and yet I plowed through it and overall enjoyed it anyway.

I've read a few of her short stories and am working on more. I've been sort of 50/50 on them, but I'll tell you this, The Birds is fab. I didn't realize the movie was based on anything so was delighted to see it was Du Maurier. I found the story super unsettling. Literally spent days thinking up bird contingency plans. A good time was had by all.

+9 Vote up Vote down

OncoMouse 121p · 487 weeks ago

Oh, yes. Having recently reread it, I'm convinced that you're supposed to hate the main character because he's so stupid and annoying.

+1 Vote up Vote down

cheekypinky 85p · 487 weeks ago

Masterpieces of the Macabre is a collection of her short stories (she wrote "The Birds"!), and they are dark and shuddery in the best way possible.

+4 Vote up Vote down

PomoFrannyGlass 104p · 487 weeks ago

I dug Jamaica Inn but yeah, it is ridiculous (Mallllory I love you and this but it needed more mocking of what a pathetic sniveling creature Aunt Patience is!). My Cousin Rachel is excellent, and the short stories -- The Birds is even creepier than the movie, and Don't Look Back (yessss the basis for the movie of the same name!) is perfection.

DDM 4 eva

+23 Vote up Vote down

seventhjen 124p · 487 weeks ago

Well. I've never read this book. But this description sure has triggered a fantasy of burning down a house full of unwashed laundry and uncooked dinners. And dicks that should have remained unwaggled.

Ha, "literature probably." Can this book go on Solnit's list of things women should not read? My favorite line: "I understand there is a writer named Jonathan Franzen."

+10 Vote up Vote down

erinpage 28p · 487 weeks ago

So... Rebecca/My Cousin Rachel book club is in the making? (wishful thinking)

The show "Most Haunted" did an excellent episode at the real Jamaica Inn where (if I recall correctly) the resident medium was possessed.

+27 Vote up Vote down

PonyAlong 102p · 487 weeks ago

JOSS MERLYN: ill fucking never tell ANYONE why
MARY YELLAN: all right
JOSS MERLYN: unless I get drunk
then i’ll tell any body

I thought it was just me who did this. Good to know, friends, good to know.

1 reply · active 487 weeks ago

+21 Vote up Vote down

lrljhnsn 114p · 487 weeks ago

same!

MARY IM DRUNK
DO YOU WANT TO KNOW ALL THE SECRETS OF JAMAICA INN

literally me.

+33 Vote up Vote down

typewriterandgramophone 124p · 487 weeks ago

Poor Aunt Patience gets at least a paragraph in my upcoming memoir, "How Tempestuous Fiction Taught Me Heterosexual Marriage Is a Terrible Idea." You will lose your bloom worse than any old maid.

+10 Vote up Vote down

OncoMouse 121p · 487 weeks ago

Just when I thought the Toast couldn't possibly be more perfectly tailored to my interests.

+22 Vote up Vote down

Smug_the_Dragon 140p · 487 weeks ago

Some take away points from Jamaica Inn
1) Never marry beautiful men, because they will decay and become bitter.
2) Cornwall is full of Murdering and Smuggling, even on the moors, where you are at least 25 miles from the coast, on a good road. (Which is frigging ages by horse, at night)
3) If you do murders, don't get drunk and blab your mouth.

I have taken all this advice to heart.

+37 Vote up Vote down

elsajeni 114p · 487 weeks ago

There's something about the names JOSS MERLYN and MARY YELLAN, like they have just enough letters and rhythmic features in common to confuse and upset my brain and now I'm all cross-eyed and half-convinced that they're the same person and Jamaica Inn is about a woman arguing with herself while switching between two different wigs.

2 replies · active 485 weeks ago

+13 Vote up Vote down

viviennestreet 106p · 487 weeks ago

It is not just you. Though I thought they were siblings and was very surprised how much they were talking about sexing each other.

+3 Vote up Vote down

Sophia McDougall · 485 weeks ago

I literally couldn't cope with even the name Mary Yellan, it's like she wants to be called Mary Ellen but is being weird about it.

+18 Vote up Vote down

LadyWoman · 487 weeks ago

Joss Merlyn's drunken flip-flopping on his secret is just delightful. That's basically my exact same summary of Pet Sematary.

JUD CRANDALL: Louis, don't ever bury anything out there, it'll go badly.
LOUIS CREED: Well ok. I mean, my cat/kid/wife died, but...
JUD: Well let's go on up and get digging!
LOUIS: Um, ok. So now that that's done what should I--
JUD: WHY DID YOU DO THAT!?

+17 Vote up Vote down

rosemarynotroses 126p · 487 weeks ago

That BBC adaptation tho. All the people who complained they couldn't understand the actors are NARROW-MINDED PETTY OBSTACLES to GENIUS, and love of the show has nothing to do with the fact that it featured a scene where Lady Sybil from Downton Abbey cross-dressed as a Victorian boy.

+10 Vote up Vote down

frankie0darling 140p · 487 weeks ago

JOSS MERLYN: if I wanted to have sex with you I would
MARY YELLAN: seems unlikely

mennnnnnnnn

+4 Vote up Vote down

hlmorris85 108p · 487 weeks ago

I was going to read Jamaica Inn but then I decided to be lazy and just watch the miniseries instead...god that was the most depressing thing ever.

+4 Vote up Vote down

halloweenjack64 115p · 487 weeks ago

Jem's in this? Sweet. How about Pizzazz?

+7 Vote up Vote down

Sophia McDougall · 485 weeks ago

I could never get on with this book, so I don't know how true it is to the series last year in which everyone mumbled all the time. My main impressions were:

MARY: Well, I invited myself here, no one seems to want me, and it's awful and I hate it. I will definitely stay.
SOPHIA: Mary, I know it's the 1830s, but I feel you have other options.
MARY: Ah, what a tough, foolhardy, headstrong young girl I was then. In the way I put myself in a shitty situation then passively tolerated it for no real reason.
MARY: Well, I've been threatened overtly and covertly with rape, manhandled and now there's been a murder, and I have no real ties keeping me here. But jobseeking's tough, so.
MARY: Also since my mother died I have no way to support myself except hanging around with violent criminals in the middle of nowhere.
SOPHIA: Your mother was an adult woman who somehow supported herself AND YOU, a fellow adult woman, why can't you do... whatever she was doing?
MARY: No, I absolutely have to sulk here in this murder pub.
SOPHIA: Mary, it is the industrial revolution, Mary, they are hiring in Manchester, Mary, we will help you with your CV.
MARY: Nah.

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