lucidalumina 's review for:

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

4.5

dark mysterious tense medium-paced

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"Who cares for his causes of complaint? Are you to break your heart to set his mind at ease? No man under heaven deserves these sacrifices from us women. Men! They are the enemies of our innocence and our peace - they drag us away from our parents' love and our sisters' friendship - they take us body and soul to themselves, and fasten our helpless lives to theirs as they chain up a dog to his kennel. And what does the best of them give us in return?"

I officially have a new favourite classic! The above quote is one of the many things I loved about this book, so sit tight because I can tell this is going to be a long review. For anyone who understandably does not want to read an entire essay about a book they might not read, just read the next paragraph.

This book is the epitome of all that is good about Victorian literature. It features the romance and gothic elements of a Brontë novel, but also the discussions of social reform seen in Dickens' work. The author balances suspense and tension with moments of comic relief and everyday life. His use of imagery is unbelievably vivid considering the novel is largely epistolary and has the tone of a criminal trial. With this, Wilkie Collins popularised the 'sensation novel' and created what would later be called detective fiction. This was the most amazing buddyread with Cassidy! Our buddyread thread had more comments than any other I've been in before because the book is so rich and practically made for discussion. I would urge any lover of classics to give this book a try!

I want to start my more detailed review of the book by looking at its genre. It employs multiple tropes of 19th-century Gothic literature, including disguise (I can't go into more detail without spoiling) but is actually regarded as a sensation novel, which became popular in the 1860s (this book was published in 1860). Gothic novels were often set in distant settings (either location-wise or time-wise), but sensation novels hit right at the heart of contemporary issues, suggesting that the crime and depravity of Gothic fiction was not as far from home as readers might think.

It is also a mystery novel, which I'm usually not a fan of, but Wilkie Collins does it in a way I adored.  The epistolary nature of the book was popular in Gothic literature, and he combines witness statements, diary entries and letters in a way that maintains interest. There are so many secrets and contrasting opinions which unravel over the course of the book in the best way. The reveals are fantastic.

The book has such a large cast of characters, a few of which are only there for a few pages, but each character is so distinct and memorable that I was sometimes in awe. Despite this, he also somehow manages to maintain a consistent tone, and the book never loses its structure or plot threads. We find comic relief in Mr Fairlie and Count Fosco, discussions of social mobility in Walter Hartwright, heartbreak and dramatic irony in Anne Catherick. Every character has their place, with even the most insignificant perspectives contributing to the overall narrative. The book also has a lot of pairs, many of which act as foils to one another: two sisters, two prospective partners, two antagonists, two lookalikes, two maternal figures, and even two Italians (I laugh every time I think of the Italians, I don't know why).

I love how the author's personal experiences were brought into the book. He studied law, and though he never became a lawyer, his knowledge shows. One of my favourite themes of crime and law, showcasing the legal system's many limitations in achieving justice. Collins was very critical of the institution of marriage, and he uses the book to highlight how marriage and inheritance law in particular disadvantaged women. He also links the status of women to how asylums were used to incarcerate vulnerable women who did not fit into conventional society. Asylums were a major point of discussions around social reform at the time, coinciding with the beginnings of the women's suffrage movement.

The Victorian social anxieties around class are so apparent throughout the book. Victorian Britain saw the beginning of discussions around social mobility and social responsibility, with the Industrial Revolution allowing people to gain wealth in Britain's developing industries. Collins attacks upper-class characters who do not contribute to society, such as Mr Fairlie. There are also suggestions of the contemporary debates around issues such as the rights of servants, with some pushback against their dehumanisation.

This review could genuinely be longer but I need to have lunch and also my brain is tired from having more than a single thought so I will end on a negative. The Victorian period was a time of great change, but it also included the largest expansion of the British Empire, and it does show a little in the book with the xenophobia. There is a small part where a character goes to Central America and is attacked by natives (though it isn't described in detail). Two of the characters are Italian, and there is xenophobia towards them, probably exacerbated by how the unification of Italy hadn't happened yet. There is also egregious fatphobia that shocked me and Cassidy perhaps even more than most other elements in the book. If you're used to classics, none of this will surprise you, but I do think everyone should look at the content warnings before deciding to read this book anyway.