This book has long been on my (imaginary) List of Books I Ought to Have Read But Haven't. It's a classic in and out of its genre and I assumed it must have influenced much of what came later, but I never got to it until I pulled it off the library shelf on a whim last week. Little did I know just how far this book would exceed my expectations:
"An experiment is attempted in this novel, which has not (so far as I know) been hitherto* tried in fiction. The story of the book is told throughout by the characters of the book. They are all placed in different positions along the chain of events; and they all take the chain up in turn, and carry it on to the end...it has afforded my characters a new opportunity of expressing themselves, through the medium of the written contributions which they are supposed to make to the progress of the narrative." (Wilkie Collins, Preface to the 1860 edition of The Woman in White)
It's all told in letters and diary entries. How many novels have you read that are told in multiple first-person narratives? I mean, Meg Cabot, people. And this was the first time somebody tried this? Way to change modern literature.
And the plot. Is so. Crazy. Insane asylums, dark Secrets, forgeries, crumbling mansions, secret societies, kidnapping, poisoning, love affairs, and on and on. I really do have to read on to find out what happens next, and I've gotten pretty darn good at predicting the paths of mystery novels. Collins seems to have written this story for the sheer fun of it, and oh it shows. No wonder this book is the one mentioned on his tombstone. I read The Moonstone a while back and it was fine, but not NEARLY this dark and twisty and entertaining. My copy of The Woman in White is over 600 pages, but it still reads fast.
Also, Marian? She's smarter than most of the people in this book and reportedly has a bombshell body sans corsets (W.C. gets points for thinking that corsets are stupid), but apparently her face is "ugly" and she's all spinstery because she's all of 23 or so. She basically runs the household at Limmeridge and takes care of her pretty but bird-brained sister throughout the rest of the book, though it's hard to see what she gets out of it all. For a minute there I thought Walter might put down the torch he carried for Laura and figure out that his real partner-in-justice was really Marian. But I suppose that would be a just too much for Victorian England. The violence and corruption they could handle, but our hero falling for a smart, marginally attractive spinster? Never.
*how great a word is "hitherto"?
Vaguely Related:
2D Goggles: Quasi-Victorian steampunk-ish hijinks
Pretty chart! For some reason it does not mention The Woman in White, but The Moonstone appears in the area devoted to the Gothic Novel. Maybe I should go back to that book after all...
Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a musical based on this book. I heart musicals, but I can't help feeling that this one is better off staying on the page. Also, why is it marketed as a "ghost story?"
"An experiment is attempted in this novel, which has not (so far as I know) been hitherto* tried in fiction. The story of the book is told throughout by the characters of the book. They are all placed in different positions along the chain of events; and they all take the chain up in turn, and carry it on to the end...it has afforded my characters a new opportunity of expressing themselves, through the medium of the written contributions which they are supposed to make to the progress of the narrative." (Wilkie Collins, Preface to the 1860 edition of The Woman in White)
It's all told in letters and diary entries. How many novels have you read that are told in multiple first-person narratives? I mean, Meg Cabot, people. And this was the first time somebody tried this? Way to change modern literature.
And the plot. Is so. Crazy. Insane asylums, dark Secrets, forgeries, crumbling mansions, secret societies, kidnapping, poisoning, love affairs, and on and on. I really do have to read on to find out what happens next, and I've gotten pretty darn good at predicting the paths of mystery novels. Collins seems to have written this story for the sheer fun of it, and oh it shows. No wonder this book is the one mentioned on his tombstone. I read The Moonstone a while back and it was fine, but not NEARLY this dark and twisty and entertaining. My copy of The Woman in White is over 600 pages, but it still reads fast.
Also, Marian? She's smarter than most of the people in this book and reportedly has a bombshell body sans corsets (W.C. gets points for thinking that corsets are stupid), but apparently her face is "ugly" and she's all spinstery because she's all of 23 or so. She basically runs the household at Limmeridge and takes care of her pretty but bird-brained sister throughout the rest of the book, though it's hard to see what she gets out of it all. For a minute there I thought Walter might put down the torch he carried for Laura and figure out that his real partner-in-justice was really Marian. But I suppose that would be a just too much for Victorian England. The violence and corruption they could handle, but our hero falling for a smart, marginally attractive spinster? Never.
*how great a word is "hitherto"?
Vaguely Related:
2D Goggles: Quasi-Victorian steampunk-ish hijinks
Pretty chart! For some reason it does not mention The Woman in White, but The Moonstone appears in the area devoted to the Gothic Novel. Maybe I should go back to that book after all...
Andrew Lloyd Webber wrote a musical based on this book. I heart musicals, but I can't help feeling that this one is better off staying on the page. Also, why is it marketed as a "ghost story?"
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