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manwithanagenda 's review for:
The Moonstone
by Wilkie Collins
mysterious
reflective
relaxing
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
Unlike other books featured on 'Wishbone', this episode did not stick with me at all other than some detective snooping and drawing room gasps. As a result, the plot of 'The Moonstone' was entirely fresh and I enjoyed it a lot. From other reviews I expected a great deal more repetition and a great deal more of the meanderings and mutual compliments that made 'The Woman in White' a bit of a chore.
I found nothing of the sort here. 'The Moonstone' was a Victorian novel, and long, but Collins had learned something about how to move a compilation narrative along in the 12 years between those two books. I enjoyed the commentary between the various "authors", especially the asides of the pamphlet evangelical cousin Miss Clack and the credulous to a fault Betteredge and his copy of 'Robinson Crusoe'. From a sociological perspective I appreciated the sympathetic treatment of the Indians who had the diamond stolen from them in the first place. Women get a hard deal, especially the very intriguing Rosanna Spearman, but you can't get everything. Collins was a product of his era blah-de-blah so women are fundamentally flawed and foolish creatures in his eyes.
A great deal is said and much of it, if we wanted to be spoil-sports about it, says absolutely nothing about the mystery, but the relations of the characters and the world they live in strike me as absurd, grim and yet better-balanced (thus imminently more plausible) than the charming in other ways narratives of, say, Dickens and Trollope.
I'm no great shakes at guessing mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown often gets the best of me, but I enjoy guessing and wracking my deeply unsleuthy brain for the solution to the riddles of mystery plots. Collins drops a lot of information in 'The Moonstone' and reveals several facts of the case throughout the novel's many narratives without once jeopardizing the reveal. It fairly stumps one of the greatest detective minds in fiction. Fair by Victorian standards anyway. Seriously, you'll never guess.
I found nothing of the sort here. 'The Moonstone' was a Victorian novel, and long, but Collins had learned something about how to move a compilation narrative along in the 12 years between those two books. I enjoyed the commentary between the various "authors", especially the asides of the pamphlet evangelical cousin Miss Clack and the credulous to a fault Betteredge and his copy of 'Robinson Crusoe'. From a sociological perspective I appreciated the sympathetic treatment of the Indians who had the diamond stolen from them in the first place. Women get a hard deal, especially the very intriguing Rosanna Spearman, but you can't get everything. Collins was a product of his era blah-de-blah so women are fundamentally flawed and foolish creatures in his eyes.
A great deal is said and much of it, if we wanted to be spoil-sports about it, says absolutely nothing about the mystery, but the relations of the characters and the world they live in strike me as absurd, grim and yet better-balanced (thus imminently more plausible) than the charming in other ways narratives of, say, Dickens and Trollope.
I'm no great shakes at guessing mysteries, Encyclopedia Brown often gets the best of me, but I enjoy guessing and wracking my deeply unsleuthy brain for the solution to the riddles of mystery plots. Collins drops a lot of information in 'The Moonstone' and reveals several facts of the case throughout the novel's many narratives without once jeopardizing the reveal. It fairly stumps one of the greatest detective minds in fiction. Fair by Victorian standards anyway. Seriously, you'll never guess.