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weaselweader 's review for:
The Woman in White
by Wilkie Collins
“The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps – and I said to myself, …”
“… The lady is young. She approached nearer – and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!”
Marian Halcombe’s unbecoming features and distinct lack of beauty are offset with wit, intelligence, strength of character, bravura and courage, shrewdness, and loyalty. Laura Fairlie, her half-sister, by contrast, suffers a frail disposition and a weak, self-effacing, retiring personality but possesses a comely figure and undeniable facial beauty. Potential readers will not earn any insight points for guessing which one Walter Hartright falls in love with.
Late night on the road to Limmeridge House to undertake a contract as a drawing master, the previously mentioned Walter Hartright first encounters Anne Catherick, the eponymous woman in white, whom the reader learns is a mentally challenged young woman recently escaped from her commitment in an asylum. When he meets Laura and Marian, his student charges, the next day, Walter is shocked at the resemblance between Laura and the woman he had met and helped the previous night under such bizarre circumstances. Of course, notwithstanding their difference in class and Laura’s previous engagement to a wealthy local landowner baronet, Sir Percival Glyde, not to mention her melodramatic propensity for swooning, her heaving bosom and her Victorian tears, her sniffing at cologne and smelling salts, and her suffering from “back of the hand to the forehead” female illnesses, weaknesses, and bedroom confining headaches, Walter and Laura fall in love with each other. To avoid the likelihood of a certain scandal and the loss of reputation that would entail for Laura, Marion advises Hartright to leave Limmeridge House before the completion of his employment contract and he complies.
Shortly thereafter, Sir Percival Glyde, accompanied by his close friend, the outgoing, obsequiously charming, and spectacularly fat Count Fosco, (and his unaccountably surly and always subservient wife) arrives at Limmeridge House seeking to set a date for his contracted marriage to Laura. That arrival is overshadowed by the receipt of an anonymous letter warning Laura not to marry him under any circumstances. The plot begins to thicken quickly and one wonders whether a youthful Sherlock Holmes might have used his oft-repeated aphorism for the first time, “The game is afoot”!
If THE WOMAN IN WHITE were a modern novel (abundant servings of Victorian melodrama and sensation notwithstanding), it would be characterized as a psychological thriller based on criminal identity theft for financial gain. Gain to the tune of £30,000 to be more exact, which was an enormous fortune at the time. Walter Hartright’s and Marian Halcombe’s astute investigations to undercover the nature of the theft and its motives, and their legal machinations to restore the stolen identity to its rightful owner are exciting and compelling. Add in some thematic overtones of greed, misogyny, satire and political commentary on women’s legal rights in the mid-19th century, international spycraft, murder, fraud, adultery, and good old-fashioned criminal skullduggery blended with character development that is simply masterful in its depth and completeness, and it’s no wonder that THE WOMAN IN WHITE, first published in 1860, consistently ranks as one of the best English literature novels ever written and has never been out of print.
Highly recommended, I have no hesitation in adding THE WOMAN IN WHITE to my list of lifetime favourite novels.
Paul Weiss
“… The lady is young. She approached nearer – and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!”
Marian Halcombe’s unbecoming features and distinct lack of beauty are offset with wit, intelligence, strength of character, bravura and courage, shrewdness, and loyalty. Laura Fairlie, her half-sister, by contrast, suffers a frail disposition and a weak, self-effacing, retiring personality but possesses a comely figure and undeniable facial beauty. Potential readers will not earn any insight points for guessing which one Walter Hartright falls in love with.
Late night on the road to Limmeridge House to undertake a contract as a drawing master, the previously mentioned Walter Hartright first encounters Anne Catherick, the eponymous woman in white, whom the reader learns is a mentally challenged young woman recently escaped from her commitment in an asylum. When he meets Laura and Marian, his student charges, the next day, Walter is shocked at the resemblance between Laura and the woman he had met and helped the previous night under such bizarre circumstances. Of course, notwithstanding their difference in class and Laura’s previous engagement to a wealthy local landowner baronet, Sir Percival Glyde, not to mention her melodramatic propensity for swooning, her heaving bosom and her Victorian tears, her sniffing at cologne and smelling salts, and her suffering from “back of the hand to the forehead” female illnesses, weaknesses, and bedroom confining headaches, Walter and Laura fall in love with each other. To avoid the likelihood of a certain scandal and the loss of reputation that would entail for Laura, Marion advises Hartright to leave Limmeridge House before the completion of his employment contract and he complies.
Shortly thereafter, Sir Percival Glyde, accompanied by his close friend, the outgoing, obsequiously charming, and spectacularly fat Count Fosco, (and his unaccountably surly and always subservient wife) arrives at Limmeridge House seeking to set a date for his contracted marriage to Laura. That arrival is overshadowed by the receipt of an anonymous letter warning Laura not to marry him under any circumstances. The plot begins to thicken quickly and one wonders whether a youthful Sherlock Holmes might have used his oft-repeated aphorism for the first time, “The game is afoot”!
If THE WOMAN IN WHITE were a modern novel (abundant servings of Victorian melodrama and sensation notwithstanding), it would be characterized as a psychological thriller based on criminal identity theft for financial gain. Gain to the tune of £30,000 to be more exact, which was an enormous fortune at the time. Walter Hartright’s and Marian Halcombe’s astute investigations to undercover the nature of the theft and its motives, and their legal machinations to restore the stolen identity to its rightful owner are exciting and compelling. Add in some thematic overtones of greed, misogyny, satire and political commentary on women’s legal rights in the mid-19th century, international spycraft, murder, fraud, adultery, and good old-fashioned criminal skullduggery blended with character development that is simply masterful in its depth and completeness, and it’s no wonder that THE WOMAN IN WHITE, first published in 1860, consistently ranks as one of the best English literature novels ever written and has never been out of print.
Highly recommended, I have no hesitation in adding THE WOMAN IN WHITE to my list of lifetime favourite novels.
Paul Weiss