The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, at least according to the critic of The Guardian (I think it was this outlet), although on The Greatest Books of All Time site, we find this work at 4231, notwithstanding this, you do see Rebecca in 64th place…incidentally, there are more than five thousand reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other pages, together with notes on films from The New York Times Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html if you please

 

The Parasites by Daphne du Maurier is one of The 1,000 Novels Everyone Must Read, at least according to the critic of The Guardian (I think it was this outlet), although on The Greatest Books of All Time site, we find this work at 4231, notwithstanding this, you do see Rebecca in 64th place…incidentally, there are more than five thousand reviews of magnum opera from the aforementioned and other pages, together with notes on films from The New York Times Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other lists on my blog and YouTube channel https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html if you please

 

 

8 out of 10

 

I have found Rebecca exhilarating https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/07/rebecca-by-daphne-du-maurier-glorious.html both the original chef d’oeuvre and the adaptation, here I think that the one with Sir Laurence Olivier is the memorable one, a later perspective, was it with Armie Hammer, the cannibal thespian(?) was less enticing

 

Alas, this may have created a problem for The Parasites, in that one tends to come with high expectations, when one has a had a great joy in reading this author, and then we could experience the ‘regression to the mean’, Daphne du Maurier may have created this spectacular work, but it is difficult to keep to the same zenith

Daniel Kahneman https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/06/thinking-fast-and-slow-by-daniel.html explains regression to the mean in his fundamental Thinking Fast and Slow – The Parasites are the Delaney siblings: Maria, Niall and Celia, the first two are not related, while  Celia is the legitimate offspring of Maria's father and Niall's mother…it is Sir Charles Wyndham who has a few lines on why they are parasites

 

The latter is the husband of Maria- we get this decree at the start of the novel, but we will jump back in time, Meet the Parents (not De Niro though) Pappy was a famous singer and Mama a celebrated dancer, rather pompous, they benefit and abuse the status of celebrities, when they move in a place, they require extravagant changes

She does not like the curtains, they will have to be changed and so much more in the same vein, the children inherit talents, hence Charles accuses them of profiteering from these genes (maybe I will quote at the end the exact words he uses) Maria will become an excellent actress, although she performs in a rather bad play at some stage

 

Somehow, these characters made me think of the The Dreamers https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/11/the-dreamers-based-on-novel-by-gilbert.html directed by Bernardo Bertolucci, and starring the fabulous Eva Green, for some reason I thought that this movie might have been adapted from The Parasites

When I entered Parasites, the edge search engine listed first Parasite, the South Korean master work of a few years ago…there are fragments that I remember and demonstrate that Maria was a sort of Parasite – and so am I for that matter – she has this baby who cries and doesn’t know what to do, she calls Niall and they drive

 

The relationship between the two would be called incestuous, except they are not related, Niall stops a stranger and asks her is she knows what to do with a baby, the woman is upset by this approach and says she may call a policeman, eventually, the inept mother stops at a store and gets a comforter for the infant to suckle

The thespian from Point Counterpoint Point https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/11/point-counter-point-by-aldous-huxley.html by Aldous Huxley comes to mind – at one point, friends come to see her, only to be met by the maid, repeatedly, until they realize that the actress had taken the role into her life, what is now called ‘method acting’

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – I am on Goodreads as Realini Ionescu, at least for the moment, if I keep on expressing my views on Orange Woland aka TACO, it may be a short-lived presence

Also, maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the benefits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

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