The Woman in White (Penguin Classics)
by Wilkie Collins
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Book Reviews of The Woman in White (Penguin Classics)
Book Review: The Woman at White is a Victorian Novel which will keep you up in the wee hours of the morning!
Summary: 5 Stars
Wilkie Collins (1824-1889) was a good friend of Charles Dickens. Dickens asked him to contribute a serial to the journal "All the Year Round" of which he was the editor. This all occurred in 1859. The result is one of the first of the so-called "sensational novels" so fetching to middle class Victorian readers.
The Woman in White takes gothic elements and entwines them into a mysterious web of intrigue set in a middle class typically English landscape of nineteenth century life.
The book is told using the multiple narration method. Most of its over 600 small print pages is told by the artist Walter Hartright. Walter is hired to teach drawing to two half-sisters at an estate in Cumberland. He falls in love with the blonde Laura Farlie while he becomes good friends with the plain sister Marian Halcombe. Laurie disappears one night and is placed in an insane asylum by her evil husband Lord Percival Glyde. The motive is to receive Laura's sizable inheritance. Glyde is assisted in his evil plot by Count Fosco an Italian aristocrat. Fosco is one of the most fascinating bad guys in English Literature. He is witty, well-educated, rotund and has several exotic pets such as white mice, a cockatoo and canaries. Laurie is kidnapped and replaces the mad Anne Hathrick in the asylum where she is eventually rescued by Walter. Walter weds Laura and Marion remains a spinster.
The plot is very complex featuring forged marriage records, abduction, duplicity and murder
Twos are important to Collins. There are two evil men in Fosco and Glyde; two good women in Marian and Laura and two estates-Limmeridge in Cumberland and the sinister Blackwater Park the residence of Percival Glyde.
The book also has many interesting minor characters presnting a realistic portrait of life in upper middle class British society. The plot will keep you guessing and the various narrators keep the reader alert. Not all the narrators tell the truth!
The dullest person in the book is Laura! Walter is, in my opinion, a ninny for not marrying the much brighter and more loving Marian Halcombe.
Collins style is similar to Dickens and his novel will give you many hours of reading pleasure.
Book Review: Another gem from Collins
Summary: 5 Stars
Similar to Wilkie Collins other masterpiece, The Moonstone, various characters narrate sections of The Woman in White and the story is told as the characters look back on what has already happened. This method of building a mystery is fantastic because we, as readers, also become sleuths in the mystery that takes place. Collins ability to get into characters heads enhances the level of suspense, and gives it a sense that we are right there with them.
In The Woman in White, Walter Hartright decides to take a job as a drawing instructor at the Fairlie House, where Laura Fairlie, Miriam Holcombe, and Laura's uncle reside. Once there, Walter is enchanted with the beauty of Laura, but discovers that Laura's uncle has already arraigned a marriage between Laura and Sir Percival, a diabolical man whose interests lay mainly in greed and deception. While there, Walter has a few strange incidents, one of these being an encounter with a mysterious woman in white who appears to have run away from an asylum. Walter is a little distraught after this encounter, wondering why she appeared and what she could have wanted from him. Things get more extraordinary as this random encounter seems to propel Walter into the Fairlie family secrets, and a villainous scheme by Laura's husband Sir Percival and his accomplice, the equally ruthless Count Fosco. Walter finds himself right in the middle of Sir Percival's plan, which is to not only take the Fairlie fortune but "rid" himself of various individuals one way or another. Walter, with the aid of Laura and Miriam, tries to foil this plan.
Collins has an extraordinary method of creating plot, tying all loose ends, all the while having intricate and complex narratives and twists. Moreover, he is a suburb storyteller, and although some may not like his deeply detailed methods, I feel that these give credence to character and story depth. There is a dark Gothic kind of feel to The Woman in White; it is a perfect read for a cold, rainy, thundery night. Heroes, villains, deception, twists, turns, secrets revealed, and supernatural elements: The Woman in White is a page turner despite its daunting length.
Book Review: Thank you Matthew Broderick
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't mind admitting that I discovered this book because I had read that Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker named their child Wilkie after Wilkie Collins, an author I had never heard of. I am a huge a Dickens fan, and when I read of his and Collins' connection after doing a little research, I bought the book, and I'm so glad I did. The reading experience I got from this book was off the charts. This work of art must rank--in its intricate plot, jaw-dropping language, and overall perfect execution--with Dickens' best and even the Russians. Certainly this book doesn't have the philosophical ambition of War and Peace, but, you know, who said genius and entertainment are mutually exclusive? While reading the book I stopped several times to close the book and look at the cover and just marvel at the experience I was having, savoring the pleasure and admiration I had for such a brilliant, brilliant piece of literature. Many paragraphs of the book I re-read dozens of the time and were better written than most books I'll read in a year. And when Count Fosco appeared in the heroine's journal, I was genuinely frightened. It was as uncannily like the moment in Rear Window when Raymond Burr finally looks up and sees Jimmy Stewart--and me, the viewer--for the first time. I wish The Moonstone had been as good, a book which is strangely more revered and famous than this one. But for anyone out there who enjoys the act of reading and stories told in beautiful language, I just can't say enough about the experience you are going to have. Every single note is so, so, so perfect. If you're not swept up in the first ten pages, well, send your copy to me and I'll read it again myself.Book Review: Engaging and verbose... perfect
Summary: 5 Stars
As an English professor who finds excellent vocabulary usage a thing of the past, this book provides the ultimate language high. The words, strung together like lights on a Christmas tree, give exuberance and thought to a novel that reads exquisitely. Reading many of the sentences over and over again to give myself the pleasures not often able to be achieved in this time period, I became lost in London, then at Blackwater Park, and everywhere in between. A true Anglophile and bibliophile's dream.
Because the book is written from the various persons involved in the drama, the reader is able to gain insight into each's personality, and oftentimes I found myself a little too sympathetic to characters who I felt may not deserve such recognition. (Count Fosco, for one...so revolting yet at the same time his enamor of Marian and his obvious detail to the care of his "pets" gave the reader a sense of humanity in an otherwise disgusting and subhuman man).
It took me a long, long time to read this book. However, I relished it like the final bits of cake... slowly and methodically, savoring every moment. On the one hand, the ending of the book would provide me with the answers I so emphatically desired, yet that would also determine the finality of the enjoyment of each word and sentence I came to treasure throughout the hours I spent curled in my bed, late into the early hours of the morning, drifting off to the picture of a dark lake surrounded by trees and a boathouse, with the whispering voices of the ghosts of all who live in the book.
A tremendous, tremendous joy to read. All hail Wilkie Collins.
Book Review: Brilliant!
Summary: 5 Stars
Collins spins a web of intrigue among the fascinating characters he creates and develops so intricately that they spring to life. He sets them in fascinating places, and with his imagination and blazing talent, he paints the setting perfectly. He has created an immensely compelling work, and it delivers at every setting.
This was written in installments, and one can but wonder how eagerly the next segment must have been anticipated back in the time of Dickens, his good friend. Thankfully, the installments are all gathered together and presented as one.
The wonderful thing about a book of this length is that, if done well (and IT IS!!), the characters are intricately detailed, and can be known in depth. And what characters!! Mr. Hartright, Miss Fairlie, Miss Halcombe, Anne Catherick, and the uncle Fairlie still linger, as if old friends and acquaintances. Even the minor characters, such as the lumpish maid at Blackwater, is so perfectly detailed and used that she made a lasting impression. Sir Percy and his entourage will linger in memory, as well.
This work made Collins very famous, and it has put him on my wall of favorites. Way up at the top!