"And I don't like books which are full of name dropping"
About this Quote
A novelist’s side-eye can land harder than a review, and du Maurier’s does it with almost throwaway precision. “I don’t like books which are full of name dropping” isn’t just a readerly preference; it’s a small manifesto against a certain kind of literary social climbing. Name-dropping in prose is the shortcut that tries to buy authority with borrowed glamour: look who I know, look where I’ve been, look how cultured my characters are. Du Maurier hears the hustle in it.
The line works because it frames the offense as aesthetic, not moral. She isn’t scolding the writer for being shallow; she’s registering the deadening effect on the page. When a book leans on famous names, it stops doing the harder work of conjuring atmosphere, class tension, or credibility through observation. It’s the difference between actually building a world and plastering it with recognizable labels like designer logos.
There’s also a quiet class critique embedded here. Name-dropping is often a performance of proximity to power - aristocratic, metropolitan, “in the know.” Du Maurier, who moved fluently among such worlds yet made her name on moody psychology and setting, is suspicious of status displayed as currency rather than texture. Her best novels don’t need to gesture at importance; they manufacture it through dread, desire, and environment.
Read as craft advice, it’s bracingly practical: if the reference is doing the emotional labor for you, it’s probably doing the writing’s job, too.
The line works because it frames the offense as aesthetic, not moral. She isn’t scolding the writer for being shallow; she’s registering the deadening effect on the page. When a book leans on famous names, it stops doing the harder work of conjuring atmosphere, class tension, or credibility through observation. It’s the difference between actually building a world and plastering it with recognizable labels like designer logos.
There’s also a quiet class critique embedded here. Name-dropping is often a performance of proximity to power - aristocratic, metropolitan, “in the know.” Du Maurier, who moved fluently among such worlds yet made her name on moody psychology and setting, is suspicious of status displayed as currency rather than texture. Her best novels don’t need to gesture at importance; they manufacture it through dread, desire, and environment.
Read as craft advice, it’s bracingly practical: if the reference is doing the emotional labor for you, it’s probably doing the writing’s job, too.
Quote Details
| Topic | Writing |
|---|---|
| Source | Help us find the source |
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