The Woman in White (1860)

It's easy to think that cultural sensations like Game of Thrones or Harry Potter are unique to 21st century life, but The Woman in White, a serialized Victorian novel published in 1860 was just as much of a cultural phenomenon in its day. And I'm here to tell you that it holds up! This story of greed, chance, look-alikes, madness, forgery, complicated British inheritance laws, thwarted love, murder, and a couple of truly amazingly drawn Italians (one good, one so wonderfully bad) is just as much of a page turner 160 years after its publication. Collins tells his story as a kind of a legal disposition with characters stepping into to tell their memories or share their diary entries surrounding the tragic and compelling story of Anne Catherick, the woman in white herself, and Laura Fairlie, a wealthy and innocent young woman who bears a strong resemblance to Anne. This technique helps highlight Collins' knack for creating characters with unique voices, while also letting certain unreliable narrators be as unreliable as they want without an omniscient narrator stepping in to straighten things out. It's hard to do any justice to the plot of this 500+ page novel in (and to avoid any spoilers) in a summary, so I'll just encourage anyone with a love for Victorian sensationalism to dig in. My only real criticism is that the book loses some of its drive as we reach the conclusion: in part this is a natural side effect of needing to tie up all the loose ends, but it is also a result of losing the amazing voice of Marian Halcome, Laura's devoted half-sister, in the third volume of the book. More Marian and more Fosco! ( )

I guess there's something wrong with me. I rather liked this book. I'm not literary enough to classify it, but I think it might be a kind of mixture of gothic and romance novels. It is decidedly Victorian in outlook and does go on a bit. But even so, it was entertaining and engaging. I was looking for excuses to find extra reading time, unlike the previous book I'd read, The Martian, when the exact opposite was going on.

Basically, something bad has happened, or is about to happen, or something. It's not at all clear in the beginning. This book is a series of reports by various witnesses to the evil that may, or may not, or may not yet have occurred. It is organized in chronological order, so we don't know exactly what happened to get the reports going. We have to read on to find out. Interestingly, it's rather compelling.

The primary protagonists are an drawing instructor, Walter Hartright, and two half sisters, Marian Halcome and Laura Fairlie. Just before he is to head off to Cumberland to tutor the two half sisters, Walter meets a woman dressed all in white, in the middle of the night. She asks his help in getting to London. It turns out she has just escaped from an insane asylum. Hartright learns that she has a particular aversion to some unnamed baronet, and a particular fondness for the woman who used to be mistress at the house where Hartright is going to tutor the young ladies. In fact, the "woman in white's" benefactress is none other than the late mother of the two half sisters.

When Walter gets to the estate where the two half sisters live, he discovers that Laura bears an amazingly strong resemblance to the "woman in white", i.e. the asylum escapee. Laura is about to be married to a baronet, but shortly before her wedding, she receives a letter from an anonymous person warning her away from the baronet. Walter suspects the letter writer is the "woman in white" and eventually tracks her down.

Well, things continue, bad things happen, scoundrels appear, a Jekyll-and-Hyde, evil baronet woos and wins Laura, and so forth. We read reports from Hartright himself, Marian Halcome, their housekeeper, a lawyer or two, some maids, and so on. Eventually, we get to the crux of the matter, find out what happened, and ultimately get some resolution.

The one part I didn't much like was that Walter falls madly in love with Laura, who is beautiful, but otherwise kind of a light weight. Her half sister, is ever so much more competent, but isn't so fair of face. Well, when you're stuck with someone for life, better a good companion with wit and intelligence, than a bubble headed bit of eye candy. In a few years, the eye candy will fade, but the wit and intelligence will still be with you. Of course, I don't really know this for sure, because I not only married the most competent of four sisters, but also the best looking one.
( )

It was an okay book. I had trouble getting into it, but after around 50 pages I got used to the book.
That doesn't mean I like it a lot. The writer uses too many words for that. For some reason the text is woolly to me, many sentences to describe sonethibg that could have been done in less. ( )

This book is a Victorian "mystery" told by multiple narrators. It is a great read, albeit long. 1005 pages ( )

'The Woman in White' was something of an ordeal. The plot is excellent and the characters were well-formed, but it was a struggle to get through the extended baton-passing that greeted the shifts in narration, from Hartwright to Gilmore especially. I don't need to be reminded that the previous narrative has ended and another will commence with that kind sir's permission and the knowledge that that gentleman will add more at a later date. Readers needed different methods of reassurance 150 years ago I suppose. ( )