George du Maurier
Imagine spending all of your time with Derren Brown. It’s
kind of intriguing, but a little daunting. Would you be wondering if you were
carrying on of your own free will or under some strange hypnotic suggestion?
Maybe you wouldn’t realise you were being manipulated and go about your
business in the same carefree manner as always. Why am I asking you this? Well,
I recently read a book called Trilby and it kind of made me think a lot about
the power of hypnosis. If the hypnotist is truly a hypnotist then he would be
like a puppeteer controlling your every move.
I don’t really fancy that but there’s more than one way to control
somebody.
In this gothic novel, Trilby O’Ferrall is a foot model. She has very exquisite feet that are,
sculpted and painted. Unfortunately the
poor girl can’t sing a note until Svengali the evil hypnotist gets a hold of
her and manipulates her into becoming a great opera singer with the voice of a
nightingale. Unfortunately, when her master dies, she’s so exhausted that she
also kicks off and sadly never knows of her fame.
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| Plaque, 91 Great Russell Street, London |
The writer responsible for this masterpiece is George du Maurier. You might remember I blogged about his
granddaughter Daphne earlier this year. Anyway, George was born in Paris in 1934. Due
to his lineage, George learnt French and English at the same time and in the
book Trilby, there is a little French so if you can’t understand what you’re
reading, you might want to have Google translate open when you pick up the
book. George never graduated due to a failed Latin paper so the family uprooted
and headed for London so that he could continue his chemistry studies. He wasn’t
really one for chemistry though so after his father died, once again the whole
family accompanied George as he relocated back to Paris to continue his
studies. This time his focus was art and after studying in Europe, du Maurier
returned to London and started to make a name for himself as an illustrator. He
continued this work, but also produced three novels.
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| The gothic novel, Trilby |
The novel Trilby caused a type of mania with the public and
there were all sorts of products relating to the leading lady on the
market. These ranged from pins to
sausages and it’s also interesting to learn that this is where the Trilby hat
got its name. I guess this popularity was probably like that of The Beatles for
the book geek.
When George du Maurier passed away he was only sixty two and
he died of heart failure just like his evil hypnotist Svengali. When I took the
picture of the blue plaque in Great Russell Street, I imagined him strolling
along tipping his Trilby to all who passed by, but when I discovered his grave
in Hampstead, it was kind of a little more sombre for me. Sixty two is no age and I know that there
would have been more novels because of his incredible talent.
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| The resting place of George du Maurier, St John-at-Hampstead |
So back to my question at the beginning of the blog, like I
mentioned, there’s more than one way to control someone and I don’t need to
spend time with a hypnotist to fall into a trance, I just open a book. The
world could do a somersault and monkeys could fly past my window and I probably
wouldn’t notice. It just goes to show that when you’re truly engrossed in something,
the hypnotic power of the engagement envelops you and life kind of passes you
by just like it did Once upon a time in this gothic novel and believe me, we
haven’t seen the last of that hypnotic power.
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