The Woman in White

I'm not quite sure how to rate this. I can see why it's a classic and it was an engaging read for the most part. But the conversations felt overly lyrical at times and I needed to be in the right head space for it. It wasn't as suspenseful as I had remembered it but a good story over all

Characters: 9

Atmosphere: 9

Writing: 9

Plot: 7

Intrigue: 9

Logic: 10

Enjoyment: 8

Avg: 10 = 5 Stars

As Wilkie Collins style, the book was full of narration. But the mystery didnt end till the end. Mysteries grew and grew ... and I read and read

This is the story of what a woman’s patience can endure, and what a Man’s resolution can achieve. If the machinery of the Law could be depended on to fathom every case of suspicion, and to conduct every process of inquiry, with moderate assistance only from the lubricating influences of oil of gold, the events which fill these pages might have claimed their share of the public attention in a Court of Justice. But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse; and the story is left to be told, for the first time, in this place. As the Judge might once have heard it, so the Reader shall hear it now. No circumstance of importance, from the beginning to the end of the disclosure, shall be related on hearsay evidence.

Having read another of Collins’s novels,

The Moonstone, a couple of years ago, I knew a bit of what to expect for

The Woman in White: both novels share a similar framing device, wherein each character has been asked to record their portion of the story, and each character’s voice is as distinct as their characterization (and Collins populates his novels with quite the colorful cast). Still, Collins surprised me with how gothic the story became, for better or worse, and how many twists and turns caught me completely by surprise.

Collins doesn’t pander to his readers, which I appreciate. The novel was full of surprises, but each was sufficiently foreshadowed to feel authentic; on the few occasions I had put enough clues together to uncover the twist before it was revealed, Collins would almost immediately reveal the trick himself and move the plot along. (The one exception being

the ancestry of the eponymous Woman in White, which is obvious as soon as Collins reveals that Laura resembles her father and that Anne’s father was likely not her mother’s husband

.) I think, in part, this is because the tropes of domestic thrillers, which I consider to be the closest modern equivalent of the Victorian sensation novel, were not so firmly established as they are today: we don’t expect

Anne to die at the midpoint, Sir Percival to die due to his own carelessness shortly into the third act, Count Fosco to be killed off-page by a random unnamed character, or perhaps most shocking of all the reveal that Anne was kind of crazy

, because none of those things would happen in a modern novel. At the same time, some elements seem surprisingly modern, like when Count Fosco tells Walter:

“I am thinking,” he remarked quietly, “whether I shall add to the disorder in this room by scattering your brains about the fireplace.”

I do think it was a mistake for Collins to

let Walter and Laura get married

around the 90% mark, as it really seems like the novel is about to wrap up and it seems like the last 10% is just being filler…and though it turns out that is emphatically

not the case, I think

their wedding

would have made for a nice ending.

That said: there was a definite slow spot in the middle of the book (for most of Marian’s narrative), as the story takes a heavy gothic turn. As this relates to the atmosphere, I thought it was fantastic (Blackwater is an incredible setting); as it relates to the plot, not so much. It calls to mind

The Mysteries of Udolpho and

The Castle of Otranto—albeit being much more competently done and much less melodramatic—with our heroines nearly powerless and in a constant state of terror as they try to protect themselves from the scheming villains. They remain active characters, and there are some great moments, but for the most part this section bored me. It just went on too long (honestly, probably somewhat true of the novel as a whole).

I think where Collins shines brightest is his character work. In fact, in his preface, he writes:

I have always held the old-fashioned opinion that the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story; and I have never believed that the novelist who properly performed this first condition of his art, was in danger, on that account, of neglecting the delineation of character—for this plain reason, that the effect produced by any narrative of events is essentially dependent, not on the events themselves, but on the human interest which is directly connected with them.

The main cast are competent: for all that her part of the story is kind of dull, Marian is a fantastic character whose intelligence and determination really carry the plot; Walter tends to get a bit overly sentimental, especially in the beginning, but he’s entertaining enough and is definitely the kind of character who’s easy to root for; Laura is sweet but kind of milquetoast (and is constantly kept in the dark about things because she’s too sensitive to handle it—we never get to hear from her directly). The side characters are the real standout. I found Pesca to be unbearably annoying, but he’s memorable. Mr. Fairlie is completely incompetent and unlikeable, but he steals every scene he’s in with his hypocrisy and selfishness and whining and bullying. Mr. Gilmore, whose narration is the one I wish went on longer, is fantastic and unintentionally hilarious as the exasperated lawyer. And then, of course, there’s Count Fosco: probably the most interesting character in the book, with his magnetic charisma and sense of refinement, strange pets, odd attachments, and difficult to discern motives.

All in all,

The Woman in White is an excellent sensation novel that also comments on the powerlessness women experienced under Victorian laws. It did feel a bit too long, but I otherwise enjoyed it.

Some favorite passages:

Thus, the story here presented will be told by more than one pen, as the story of an offence against the laws is told in Court by more than one witness—with the same object, in both cases, to present the truth always in its most direct and most intelligible aspect; and to trace the course of one complete series of events, by making the persons who have been most closely connected with them, at each successive stage, relate their own experience, word for word.

Our capacity of appreciating the beauties of the earth we live on is, in truth, one of the civilised accomplishments which we all learn as an art; and, more, that very capacity is rarely practised by any of us except when our minds are most indolent and most unoccupied.

Lulled by the siren song that my own heart sung to me, with eyes shut to all sight, and ears closed to all sound of danger, I drifted nearer and nearer to the fatal rocks.

The old felled tree by the wayside, on which we had sat to rest, was sodden with rain, and the tuft of ferns and grasses which I had drawn for her, nestling under the rough stone wall in front of us, had turned to a pool of water, stagnating round an island of draggled weeds.

She played unintermittingly—played as if the music was her only refuge from herself. Sometimes her fingers touched the notes with a lingering fondness—a soft, plaintive, dying tenderness, unutterably beautiful and mournful to hear; sometimes they faltered and failed her, or hurried over the instrument mechanically, as if their task was a burden to them. But still, change and waver as they might in the expression they imparted to the music, their resolution to play never faltered.

I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession.

When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal.

No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman.

The answer I wrote to this audacious proposal was as short and sharp as I could make it. “My dear sir. Miss Fairlie’s settlement. I maintain the clause to which you object, exactly as it stands. Yours truly.” The rejoinder came back in a quarter of an hour. “My dear sir. Miss Fairlie’s settlement. I maintain the red ink to which you object, exactly as it stands. Yours truly.” In the detestable slang of the day, we were now both “at a deadlock,” and nothing was left for it but to refer to our clients on either side.

There are many varieties of sharp practitioners in this world, but I think the hardest of all to deal with are the men who overreach you under the disguise of inveterate good-humour.

I attempted to gain time—nay, I did worse. My legal instincts got the better of me, and I even tried to bargain.

“Come, come! this contingency resolves itself into a matter of bargaining after all. What is the least you will take?” “The least we will take,” said Mr. Merriman, “is nineteen-thousand-nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine-pounds-nineteen-shillings-and-elevenpence-three-farthings. Ha! ha! ha! Excuse me, Mr. Gilmore. I must have my little joke.” “Little enough,” I remarked. “The joke is just worth the odd farthing it was made for.”

“You provoking old Gilmore, what can you possibly mean by calling him a man? He’s nothing of the sort. He might have been a man half an hour ago, before I wanted my etchings, and he may be a man half an hour hence, when I don’t want them any longer. At present he is simply a portfolio stand. Why object, Gilmore, to a portfolio stand?” “I do object. For the third time, Mr. Fairlie, I beg that we may be alone.”

“Whatever happens in the future, sir,” I said, “remember that my plain duty of warning you has been performed. As the faithful friend and servant of your family, I tell you, at parting, that no daughter of mine should be married to any man alive under such a settlement as you are forcing me to make for Miss Fairlie.”

The half-ruined wing on the left (as you approach the house) was once a place of residence standing by itself, and was built in the fourteenth century.

The water, which was clear enough on the open sandy side, where the sun shone, looked black and poisonous opposite to me, where it lay deeper under the shade of the spongy banks, and the rank overhanging thickets and tangled trees.

Far and near the view suggested the same dreary impressions of solitude and decay, and the glorious brightness of the summer sky overhead seemed only to deepen and harden the gloom and barrenness of the wilderness on which it shone.

And you, my angel,” he continued, turning to his wife, who had not uttered a word yet, “do you think so too?” “I wait to be instructed,” replied the Countess, in tones of freezing reproof, intended for Laura and me, “before I venture on giving my opinion in the presence of well-informed men.” “Do you, indeed?” I said. “I remember the time, Countess, when you advocated the rights of women, and freedom of female opinion was one of them.”

The hiding of a crime, or the detection of a crime, what is it? A trial of skill between the police on one side, and the individual on the other.

A white fog hung low over the lake. The dense brown line of the trees on the opposite bank appeared above it, like a dwarf forest floating in the sky. The sandy ground, shelving downward from where we sat, was lost mysteriously in the outward layers of the fog. The silence was horrible.

“Because silence is safe, and we have need of safety in this house.”

Any woman who is sure of her own wits is a match at any time for a man who is not sure of his own temper.

In my ordinary evening costume I took up the room of three men at least. In my present dress, when it was held close about me, no man could have passed through the narrowest spaces more easily than I.

“You have had a secret from me, Percival. There is a skeleton in your cupboard here at Blackwater Park that has peeped out in these last few days at other people besides yourself.”

Postscript by a Sincere Friend The illness of our excellent Miss Halcombe has afforded me the opportunity of enjoying an unexpected intellectual pleasure. I refer to the perusal (which I have just completed) of this interesting diary. There are many hundred pages here. I can lay my hand on my heart, and declare that every page has charmed, refreshed, delighted me.

It is the grand misfortune of my life that nobody will let me alone.

The moment I heard Miss Halcombe’s name I gave up. It is a habit of mine always to give up to Miss Halcombe. I find, by experience, that it saves noise. I gave up on this occasion. Dear Marian!

“I am nothing but a bundle of nerves dressed up to look like a man.”

and we three were as completely isolated in our place of concealment as if the house we lived in had been a desert island, and the great network of streets and the thousands of our fellow-creatures all round us the waters of an illimitable sea.

“Let me tell you the result of my experience on that point. When an English jury has to choose between a plain fact on the surface and a long explanation under the surface, it always takes the fact in preference to the explanation.

Dear and admirable woman, invite no dangerous publicity. Resignation is sublime—adopt it.

Is there any wilderness of sand in the deserts of Arabia, is there any prospect of desolation among the ruins of Palestine, which can rival the repelling effect on the eye, and the depressing influence on the mind, of an English country town in the first stage of its existence, and in the transition state of its prosperity? I asked myself that question as I passed through the clean desolation, the neat ugliness, the prim torpor of the streets of Welmingham. And the tradesmen who stared after me from their lonely shops—the trees that drooped helpless in their arid exile of unfinished crescents and squares—the dead house-carcasses that waited in vain for the vivifying human element to animate them with the breath of life—every creature that I saw, every object that I passed, seemed to answer with one accord: The deserts of Arabia are innocent of our civilised desolation—the ruins of Palestine are incapable of our modern gloom!

Through all the ways of our unintelligible world the trivial and the terrible walk hand in hand together. The irony of circumstances holds no mortal catastrophe in respect.

Besides, the allowance was a handsome one. I had a better income, a better house over my head, better carpets on my floors, than half the women who turned up the whites of their eyes at the sight of me. The dress of Virtue, in our parts, was cotton print. I had silk.

My hour for tea is half-past five, and my buttered toast waits for nobody.

So the ghostly figure which has haunted these pages, as it haunted my life, goes down into the impenetrable gloom. Like a shadow she first came to me in the loneliness of the night. Like a shadow she passes away in the loneliness of the dead.

Changed as all the circumstances now were, our position towards each other in the golden days of our first companionship seemed to be revived with the revival of our love. It was as if Time had drifted us back on the wreck of our early hopes to the old familiar shore!

It is my rule never to make unnecessary mysteries, and never to set people suspecting me for want of a little seasonable candour on my part.

Behold the cause, in my heart—behold, in the image of Marian Halcombe, the first and last weakness of Fosco’s life!

and I ask if a woman’s marriage obligations in this country provide for her private opinion of her husband’s principles? No! They charge her unreservedly to love, honour, and obey him.

Judge me by what I might have done. How comparatively innocent! how indirectly virtuous I appear in what I really did!

If we had been rich enough to find legal help, what would have been the result?

The gain (on Mr. Kyrle’s own showing) would have been more than doubtful—the loss, judging by the plain test of events as they had really happened, certain. The law would never have obtained me my interview with Mrs. Catherick. The law would never have made Pesca the means of forcing a confession from the Count.