usullusa | The Woman in White (Reply)

I finished The Woman in White today. I had originally been keeping up with the The Big Read V, but then life happened. Oh well. It's only been a week.

It's a fun detective sort of story. Young Laura Farlie marries the seemingly perfect Sir Percival Glyde according to her late father's wishes. Sir Percival (of course) turns out to be a right beast and just wants Laura for her money. So he and his partner in crime, Count Fosco, orchestrate an elaborate plan that involves faked deaths, misplaced identities, a dark secret regarding more than one person's parentage, and a secret society. I'm being purposefully vague because it's impossible to sum up the book without giving away a lot of spoilers. The beginning is a bit slow going, but it picks up about a third of the way through. It's told from several points of view, though Walter Hartright, Laura's beloved, and Marian Halcombe, Laura's half-sister, are the primary narrators. It's written as if the entire story was pieced together from the various accounts of all that were involved. Sometimes pieces are told by side characters, or in the form of letters, or in brief "statements".

Personally I thought it dragged on in certain passages in the way that 19th century novels sometimes do. I can tolerate that sort of thing. Some people hate it though. So it depends on what your cup of tea is.

I don't always have a favorite character, but I definitely had one here. Count Fosco is the big baddie and he's damn good at it. He's so smart and sickly sweet and conniving. I kept on wanting him to turn out to be good so I wouldn't feel bad for liking him. But he was an asshole right to the bone. It's a testament to Collins' skill that Fosco is supposed to be irresistibly charming, even if you can tell something is off, and it works on the reader too. Or at least it worked on me.

I wasn't a big fan of the romance plot line between Walter and Laura. Pah, Laura the delicate flower. I was rooting for Marian and Walter, but we're told she has an ugly face while Laura is beautiful. Of course the ugly girl always ends up the doting aunt and never the one in a loving relationship. Also, I was so happy Pesca came back at the end. I had been upset at Collins' bad storytelling because he'd spent some time on Pesca in the beginning only for him to play a minor role and disappear. But no he comes back! And he is awesome!

I don't know how I feel about the pacing. Sometimes I couldn't put the book down and other times I was bored as hell. There are a lot of threads that need to come together and some of them don't get introduced until quite late so I occasionally had the feeling Collins had lost sight of the goal. It all comes together in the end though if you stick with it.

Obscure tidbit: In the new Sherlock Holmes movie Mary mentions she's a fan of Wilkie Collins.