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    The House on the Strand
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    The House on the Strand
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    The House on the Strand
    Audiobook (abridged)4 hours

    The House on the Strand

    Written by Daphne du Maurier

    Narrated by Michael Maloney

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Dick Young stays in his friend Professor Magnus Lane’s house in Cornwall, on the understanding he will be a guinea-pig for a new drug that Magnus has developed. As a result of the experiment he is transported back to fourteenth-century Cornwall. With each ‘trip’ he becomes more and more involved with Medieval intrigue, adultery and murder. Is it merely hallucination; a subconscious escape from his own complicated life, or a real journey into the past? He becomes obsessed with the world he visits, and past and present eventually become inextricably and perilously mixed.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherNaxos Audiobooks
    Release dateMay 1, 2005
    ISBN9789629545253
    Unavailable
    The House on the Strand
    Author

    Daphne du Maurier

    Daphne du Maurier (1907–1989) has been called one of the great shapers of popular culture and the modern imagination. Among her more famous works are The Scapegoat, Jamaica Inn, Rebecca, and the short story "The Birds," all of which were subsequently made into films—the latter three directed by Alfred Hitchcock.

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    Reviews for The House on the Strand

    4/5

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    • 2/5
      Take a fairly mediocre story about the middle ages, combine it with a somewhat-but-not-very interesting story about a couple whose marriage is taking a few hits, and what do you get? Disappointment. I have wanted to dive into Daphne du Maurier’s work, and this book made itself available. The good news is that I will not hold this one against her; I will continue to explore. The bad news is that this book will make that voyage a little tougher to undertake.The story is about Dick Young, an Englishman who will be spending some time, along with his wife and two stepsons, at his friend’s (Magnus Lane) estate. There are decisions to be made about the future – there’s a job offer in the states. But, before his wife arrives (and the discussions can ensue) Dick becomes a part of Magnus’ experiments with a strange drug. This drug allows him to go back to the 14th century and experience what is going on in that area.What ensues is Dick’s growing addiction to visiting that time clashing with the arrival of his family. And that begins one of the problems with this story. It appears Dick is not really that enamored with his life. He really doesn’t want to go to the states, and it is really unclear how he feels about his wife. One minute he seems to have no use for her, the next he cannot live without her. I believe this is meant to show the ambiguity that can exist in any relationship, but here it just comes off as meanspirited on his part. He is a broken man (or at least a breaking man.) And, unfortunately, his being broken just isn’t that interesting. We root for no one.And then there is the medieval story. I cannot even give much of a synopsis as I just couldn’t get interested in what was going on. Suffice to say there was intrigue and death and other medievally stuff. For some reason it fascinates Dick, and is the cause of his addiction to returning to that time.But I’ll tell you right now, based on the experience of reading what occurred, I would neither return to that 14th century, nor to Dick’s current life.The telling of the two stories just doesn’t work. As I’ve noted, neither story is compelling. And, whenever the modern story began to look like it might have some life (one small beep in the flatline), we find ourselves back in the 14th century…not caring.Two stories not worth telling, brought together to not be worth telling. In this case, the whole equals the sum of its parts. Sadly, that whole is not worth it.
    • 4/5
      Wonderfully creepy book.
    • 2/5
      tiresome people
    • 5/5
      Daphne du Maurier has created a stunning story of two worlds existing side-by-side. On vacation at an ancient manor house in Cornwall, a young man takes an experimental drug that transports him 600 years into the past, while leaving his body in the present. The story was well-written and a great time-travel adventure. All the characters were well-developed and Daphne du Maurier makes you feel like you are experiencing everything along with them. The plot is rather complex as Professor Magnus Lane and Richard 'Dick' Young travel back in time to the 14th century and experience historical events first hand - but were not able to influence them. They soon become addicted to the experience which has drastic affects on the rest of their lives. The moral of the story seems to be that you should stay in the present time and not spend too much time thinking in your head or daydreaming regardless of how compelling it is. I look forward to reading another of du Maurier's books and I highly recommend this book to those who love time-travel books.
    • 4/5
      I love this book!
    • 3/5
      It took me a long time to get into this book, but I'm not sure why. The main character takes a drug that causes him to hallucinate that the is seeing what happened six hundred years before and he becomes more interested in these people than in what is going on in his current life. From there, it's a struggle between the past and the present for his attention. About halfway through the book, I found the past story more interesting as well and from then on it was a good read.
    • 1/5
      I read this novel some time ago, and it has to rank as one of the most boring implementations of time-travel in all of fiction. First, the main character doesn't go anywhere. He just "sees" the past while still in the present; this eventually ends up as you might expect. Second, nothing really interesting happens in the past. Third, the relations between the past and the present are not interesting, either. The story just meanders on, showing the main character becoming increasingly obsessed with a past that means little to the reader. And the ending -- geez -- you can see it coming a mile away. I'd never read Du Mare and this book convinced me that he was a writer of singularly uninteresting, unemotional prose. But if you need to get to sleep, this is your book.
    • 5/5
      Time travel - with a twist! Rather than the typical story, where a historic character gets transported to the modern world, (or vise versa)...this one involves a drug that makes the user see what's A happened in the past, while he is still physically in the present. There are complications to this version of time travel too! Well worth a read!
    • 3/5
      Daphne du Maurier was probably incapable of writing a bad book. Rebecca was one of the best ever written and a harsh yardstick to use but the truth is that this falls really a long way short.There is no one to excel du Maurier when it comes to overlaying an ordinary domestic scene with a tint of menace but there is nothing of the sort here.Briefly, Dick Young is an old college friend of Professor Magnus Lane. In return for the use of his Cornish home as a summer retreat for Young and his family, Lane has prevailed upon his friend to test a new drug that appears to have the effect of enabling the user to witness events of the past at first hand. In Young's case, this proves to be the 14th Century. So we follow the progress of his stay in Cornwall in the present day, interleaved with what he witnesses in the past.Of course, it is a device of du Maurier's to tell a straight-forward story and then throw a box of spanners into the works. In "The House on the Strand", though, the use of alternating narratives leads to this first stage being dragged out too long and the whole thing proceeds at a snail's pace for better part of two-thirds of the book. The novel desperately needs some of that trade-mark du Maurier menace; without that tension, it starts to drag, badly.In the last hundred pages, when the spanners hit, the pace picks up and we get some tension and something altogether more like we've been expecting from du Maurier.In fact, the tale ends quite well - not very well, but quite well - but I suspect that many readers will have consigned the book to the jumble sale box long before they get that far.
    • 4/5
      Dick Young goes to Cornwall to stay in a home belonging to close friend and scientist, Magnus. He is persuaded to experiment with a drug the Professor has concocted which takes him back in time to the 14th Century. His fascination for this previous time is not without consequences.I enjoyed this story more having recently visited the area in which it was set. Although I found it difficult to relate with Dick and found his character somewhat shallow. Not one of my favourite du MAurier books.
    • 4/5
      As usual Daphne does not let me down. This is a timeless story that could have been written this year, not in the late 1960s.The story is of a time travelling potion which allows the main character to travel back in time to visit his local area. The two times blurr for the character with profound consequences. The story was intriguing and ingenious. Well worth a visit.
    • 5/5
      "We are all bound, one to the other, through time and eternity". While vacationing at the Cornwall home of old chum Magnus, Richard Young is convinced to act as guinea pig for his friend's latest experiment - a drug that enables the mind to travel into the past - although the body stays in the present. Richard's "trips" take him to the 14C where he is soon so wrapped up in the past that it becomes as addictive to him as a drug - or is it the drug itself that is addictive? Are the lives of those in the past so much more important that his wife and step-sons become a hindrance to his journeys? Did these people really exist or do they only exist in Richard's mind? Although Richard's mind is in the 14C while on the drug, his body is not and as he walks in the footsteps of those in the past it leads him into some very close calls when his mind returns to the present. He could be standing anywhere - the middle of a road, on private property or in the path of an oncoming....... Nope, I'm not telling and to say much more gives the whole thing away - half the fun is the guessing and unexpected twists in the story. Although the segments in the 14C were well written they were a bit confusing to me at times, but don't spend too much time trying to sort those relationships out. IMO they were mostly background and the main focus were the parts in the present day. Du Maurier is superb and understated as always, and this one will definitely leave you guessing all the way to the very last page and beyond.
    • 3/5
      I found this book rather disappointing. The premise is really fascinating: the main character travels in time by taking a drug that unlocks a sort of collective memory in his brain, and he hallucinates about events in the 14th century. I really like this idea of time travel, and the complications it causes: he moves around in the contemporary world while he hallucinates about the 14th century, so he will be suddenly jarred into the present when he bumps into a modern building or almost gets hit by a car.But this isn't really a book about time travel. It's a book about drug addiction. The narrator enjoys his time travel, despite some of the horrible physical side-effects. He behaves like a typical drug addict: he lies to his wife, is very secretive about his activities, is very jealous of his opportunities to take the drug, and spends all of his time looking forward to his next trip. He eventually endangers his family, and continues to endanger himself despite the obvious risks involved. The medieval storyline isn't very interesting - not much happens, and there is nothing particularly compelling about any of the medieval characters (although one of the reasons the narrator keeps traveling to the past is that he has a crush on one of the medieval women). There is decent closure to the medieval storyline, but the focus of the book is really the narrator's drug addiction and its dangerous effects. Unfortunately, it's hard to sympathize with his addiction: he is so obviously destructive to himself and his family, and the medieval storyline hardly seems worth the risk.
    • 5/5
      I'm struck by how much more I liked this book upon a second reading. It's even more surprising given the lack of truly empathetic characters.The story and structure are well-executed, and I suppose it is additional research and study that has helped me to appreciate the writing so much more.
    • 4/5
      The concept was intriguing, but the chapters in which the narrator went back to the 1300's were pretty boring. I simply did not care what was going on with those characters. Lord So-and-So was cheating on Lady Whoever etc. etc. It was difficult to track the relationships. The thing that kept me reading was the sub-plot set in the narrator's real life. The increasing tension between the narrator and his wife, and his increasing addiction to the time travel drug, were well written.
    • 4/5
      A fascinating story about time travel under the influence of drugs between 1960s Cornwall and early 14th century in the same places, greatly changed over the intervening centuries. The narrator becomes more and more involved in 14th century life, finally getting confused between details and personalities in that century and his own. It has some shocking consequences, especially the implied final event. Very good, with some of the same air of mystery as Rebecca, albeit very different in many respects. Only slight criticisms are that the characters are a bit cliched and some of the description of the landscape drags a bit. But the author clearly loved her Cornwall.
    • 5/5
      First read when I was all of 12, I still love the imagination that sparks this book.
    • 4/5
      Well, "Rebecca" this aint!

      Richard, in between jobs and trying to decide whether to remain in England or move to the US with his wife, spends the summer holiday in the childhood house of his friend Magnus. A Biophysicist, Magnus has been working on a new drug, which he persuades Richard to try on himself. Richard is taken 600 years in the past, following a steward called Roger and the intricacies of large families and politics with land etc.

      The side effects of the trips become worse, and add to the already taught relationship with his wife, all the time becoming more addictive.

      Live other reviewers I did find all the 1300 relationships a little confusing, but this was certainly a different book to read, and well worth the time!

    • 5/5
      This is a terrible cover, but this is probably my favourite book by Daphne du Maurier so far.

      The plot is about a guy who travels to his friend's old manor house and takes a drug that allows him to travel back in time to medieval France, or something similar. This novel is about his obsession with that time, with the drug, and how his own faults and flaws affect his family.

      I adore this book. It's powerful, it's incredibly well-crafted and it has an incredible ending. du Maurier's writing is incredibly atmospheric, as always. The environment is a character, the house is a character and an incredible feature in the novel.

      I really like the relationship between the two male friends - it's complicated, it's layered, there's a little bit of tension, too.

      I loved the texture in this novel, I love how easily and seamlessly du Maurier creates tension. If you like suspenseful, nouveau gothic literature with a touch of homoerotic tension, The House on the Strand is the book for you. c:
    • 1/5
      Have enjoyed every one of du Maurier’s books that I’ve read but couldn’t keep track of the characters in this one. Might try it again one day.
    • 4/5
      I really liked this, such vivid description and I honestly felt like I was travelling with Dick and feeling the confusion of our two world at once!
    • 5/5
      A great story. Loved this since childhood. Awesome that it can be listened to in audiobook format
    • 4/5
      England, ca 1970.Richard Young har lånt et hus af sin gamle ven Magnus Lane, der har opdaget et stof, der tilsyneladende sender en på rejse tilbage i tiden. Magnus er professor i biofysik, så han eksperimenterer lige på kanten med sit heksebryg. Richard prøver stoffet, i begyndelsen modvilligt, senere villigt og gerne, for han er blevet fascineret af det indblik i en 1300'tals familie af aristokrater, han tilsyneladende får.Richard venter egentlig på at hans kone og stedsønner kommer fra Amerika, men da de endelig kommer, er han nærmest blevet afhængig af sine trips tilbage i tiden. Der er nogenlunde konsistente regler for tidsrejsen: man kan ikke ses, men kun se og hvis man rører noget - enten i fortiden eller nutiden - vågner man. Hvis man bevæger sig fysisk rundt i fortiden, bevæger ens krop sig også rundt i nutiden, men uden at man har styr på om man går ud over en kløft eller ud i vandet eller ud på en vej så det er ikke ufarligt.Magnus har også taget stoffet og han kom tilbage til samme tidspunkt og de samme personer som Richard har set. Tiden går i begge systemer, men ikke nødvendigvis i samme takt. Magnus finder spor af personerne i gamle dokumenter, så noget taler for at man faktisk kan se tilbage i tiden.Richards kone og stedbørn dukker op tidligere end forventet, men han bliver ved med at tage trips, så det giver en del forklaringsproblemer med hvor han har været henne og hvorfor hans tøj er forrevet og vådt.Stoffet i sig selv virker heller ikke ufarligt, for han får et blodsprængt øje på et tidspunkt og begynder af og til at blande fortid og nutid.I fortiden dukker han altid op i nærheden af en Roger, som er hushovmester ved Sir Henry Champernoune. Denne dør imidlertid og det er ret sikkert fordi hans kone og Roger har forgivet ham. Richard følger vha trips Roger i flere år, selv om der kun går dage og uger i nutiden. Stedets topografi var meget forskellig i 1300'tallet i forhold til nutiden og alle bygninger fra dengang er for længst væk, så det er svært for Richard at orientere sig.Magnus Lane kommer med toget for at besøge Richard, men står af på en anden station for selv at tage et trip. Det ender brat, da han bliver ramt af toget og bliver dræbt.Raymond arver overraskende huset, men han har også en flaske tilbage af stoffet. Som i eventyrene var der oprindeligt tre flasker. Af den sidste flaske tager han en dosis og finder sig igen i 1300'tallet, hvor han oplever en familiedrama der er så oprivende at han blander sig og forsøger at kvæle Joanna Champernoune. Som forventet vågner han af rusen ved dette, men opdager at han er i færd med at kvæle sin kone.Lægen bliver tilkaldt og Raymond bliver nærmest holdt bedøvet i dagevis til han er blevet sig selv igen. Lægen er den eneste fortrolige Raymond har haft efter at Magnus døde. Et sidste trip ender ikke på nogen god måde for Raymond.Glimrende gyseragtig fortælling, der faktisk formår at være mindst tre fortællinger vævet ind i hinanden..
    • 3/5
      The House on the Strand by Daphne DuMaurier takes the reader to 14th century Cornwall, England where Dick Young travels with his family for a holiday at his dear friend Magnus’s house. While at the home, Dick serves as Magnus’s ‘guinea pig’ to experiment with some secretive, hallucinogenic drugs, of which transport Dick to another spellbinding time in history. Dick becomes so enraptured by the intrigues occurring in 14th century England, that he is unable at times to distinguish between his present day life and medieval England, so that he erringly nearly chokes his wife in misunderstanding rage. Although DuMaurier presents page after page of superbly descriptive historical text, I was at times disengaged and confused with the characters presented in medieval England. (In reading a review, some reference was made to a chart included with the novel, presenting the characters and their relationships to each other, but such an aid was not available to me in the Kindle version). Without giving too much away, let me say that a minor character earlier on in the novel, Dr. Powell, plays a major role in the story’s resolution. Dick resorts to a final transport in time to satisfy his obsession of seeing how events have transpired. But with history’s finality, I was still unclear about how Dick Young might proceed with his drone and rather dissatisfying present day life.
    • 4/5
      Set in the atmospheric landscape of Cornwall, "The House on the Strand" concerns a young man's experiments with hallucinogenic drugs and resulting "time travel" back to mysterious characters and events in the 14th century. Set in the 1960's, our protagonist, Dick Young, becomes increasingly drawn (perhaps "addicted" might be more accurate) to the past, which he finds far more interesting than his current life with his wife Vita and young stepsons. Daphne du Maurier, a skilled hand at suspense, has crafted a compelling story with keen psychological insights. The characters are well-developed, particularly Dick and Vita, whose banter and interactions realistically reflect martial tension and conflict. I will confess that I generally found the chapters concerning the 14th century events quite baffling in their complexity, and the numerous similar-sounding characters and place names equally exasperating. Consequently, I merely skimmed those sections; but Dick's subsequent recaps in the present day adequately summarize all the reader needs to know. The open-ended surprise twist perfectly caps the tale.
    • 5/5
      An incredible book! Historical fiction and time travel, with a poignant personal narrative surrounding the main protagonist tying the two together. Has du Maurier ever written anything else like this? I ask because I've not read very much of her other work, and so it's quite possible that long-time fans of Daphne du Maurier will simply hate this book. Seems inconceivable to me, but I mention the possibility just so as not to raise expectations unduly. I would think that if nothing else, it's worth reading even for du Maurier aficionados just as a change of pace, and just to see how (well) she handles this (these) different form(s).
    • 4/5
      The House on the Strand is a historical-time travel mystery by Daphne du Maurier. Dick, a disillusioned book publisher with a shaky marriage goes to his friend's house in Cornwall for summer holiday. The friend is a research scientist who persuades Dick to take an experimental drug, with the effect of transporting him back to the 14th century, where, as an onlooker, he becomes passionately involved in the lives of the people he observes. The mystery is not so much whodunnit, but what's going on here? Although there is murder and plotting going on as well. An unusual book, The House on the Strand did not end the way I expected it to, and the ambiguous ending still has me puzzling. As a side note, I think this would make a terrific movie. Read in August 2014 for the MysteryCAT challenge.
    • 4/5
      "At a crossroads in his life, Dick Young agrees to experiment with a new drug his friend Magnus is developing---a drug that offers him an extraordinary escape route from his own unsatisfactory world. Transported to the fourteenth century, Dick witnesses the vivid life of the Cornish manor of Tywardreath: its intrigues, adulteries, and violent deaths seen through the eyes of the strangely compelling Roger. Increasingly obsessed by Roger and the magnetic Isolda Carminowe, he resents more and more the time he must spend in the modern world... Despite Magnus's warnings and the shocking example of the tragedy, Dick escapes more often and more recklessly into this other reality---and, in a final, defiant risk, throws his whole life into the balance."Though I absolutely LOVED this story, it didn't turn out at all how I'd hoped! Du Maurier is one of my very favorite authors and this book combines the greatness of her Cornish tales with exciting historical England and a great time travel story. I will definitely keep it in my permanent collection. Read below for more...but beware, spoilers ahead!***spoilers ahead!!***I was really hoping that Dick really was being transported---that it wasn't all in his mind. I wanted his final "trip" to be one where he was able to stay forever and interact with the people of the past and they with him. I hoped that bottle C was the experimental drug that would allow that to happen and was so very disappointed to find out that it was all just in his head after all! I later read a biography of Du Maurier that discussed the places in this book as being significant to her in her actual life. Interesting!
    • 3/5
      Six-word review: Time traveler becomes addicted to past.Extended review:From the perspective of decades, du Maurier's 1969 novel about a secret drug that transports the user to a hypnotically attractive other world seems to be a cautionary comment on the tune-in-turn-on-drop-out culture of the 1960s.I don't know enough about du Maurier and her social environment to know if she'd have been moved to deliver a warning about the seductive dangers of inhabiting an alternate life through the use of mind-altering substances. What is more likely, perhaps, is that the author was exploring once again the experience of a relatively innocent protagonist plunging into a life of someone else's creation and struggling to find his or her way in it. This is a theme I recall from both Rebecca and The Scapegoat, the only other two novels I've read by this author.Unfortunately for me, I found the world of the novelist's creation even more disorienting than did her character, Richard Young. The fourteenth-century setting created by du Maurier and intermittently visited by the disembodied presence of her twentieth-century protagonist is fraught with unnecessary navigational difficulties. I'm always a little wary of a novel that includes a multigenerational family tree in its frontmatter. In the present case, I stuck a Post-it on the chart and referred to it many times, sometimes repeatedly in the course of reading a single page, and I still couldn't keep the characters straight. Not only are there two unusual three-syllable surnames beginning with C (Champernoune, Carminowe) and two important secondary characters beginning with O (Otto, Oliver), there are three Joannas and three Henrys. I'm afraid the amount of blurring caused by this much visual confusion detracted considerably from my enjoyment of the story.It seems, indeed, that the author was a little confused herself at times. One clear entry in the genealogy, for instance, shows a family with a son named William and his two siblings. In the text we are told that the family consists of two boys and a girl; moreover, the younger two are referred to as William's brother and sister. And yet the chart shows the three as William, Elizabeth, and Katherine.I also had some trouble tracking the geography and topology. In the immediate and historic vicinities we have Tywardreath, Treverran, Trenadlyn, Trevenna, Trelawn, Trefengy, Tregest, and Treesmill. So many of the comings and goings sounded just alike that I pretty much gave up trying to hold the locations and relationships in my head.Further complicating the chronologic movements of Richard Young was the fact that different sensations accompanied his leaps in time--sometimes a smooth transition, sometimes a jarring and even sickening jolt--and I thought we were supposed to perceive or at least look for a pattern in these effects. If they had any significance, however, it was never explained, so I was paying attention to an element that was given emphasis without meaning.And finally, the aspect that was probably the most unsettling to me was not spatial or temporal but emotional. Richard Young struck me as a pretty cold-blooded character. Despite his protestations of affection, he seemed to feel no particular warmth for his wife and not much for his two stepsons. He clearly disliked his wife's best friends. And he didn't even seem to have much of a reaction to the loss of an important relationship; his main concerns seemed to be pragmatic. Consequently I found it hard to believe that his supposed romantic attachment to one of the fourteenth-century women was anything more than a one-sided physical attraction to a woman whose chief allure was unattainability. In sum, what promised to be a suspenseful yarn featuring a trippy Jekyll-and-Hyde magic potion and depicting the sinister side of addictive hallucinogens was instead a sort of narrative muddle that led me on to a disappointingly unresolved ending. I usually enjoy time-travel tales, no matter how implausible, but this one was simply unsatisfying.
    • 5/5
      With DuMaurier, you don't realize until it's too late--you're being enchanted. It's been a long time since I read a book I couldn't put down, but this was it. It wasn't the characters so much but the place, the atmosphere of it I kept wanting to return to. And DuMaurier's pacing is expert. I loved "The House on the Strand."