I was thrilled to find a class that was teaching Wilike Collins' The Woman in White this semester because I had been reading about it forever (at least it seemed that way to me). And the description on the back of the book got me even more excited when it said the novel was "the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with psychological realism." Great, right? Right?
Well my friends, it was great. Excellent in fact. The narrative structure copies a criminal investigation. The first character we meet is Walter Hartright, a romantic character who has a strange encounter with a creepy woman in white on the road. She seems different, perhaps not quite insane but there is definitely something wrong with her. And why is she dressed all in white? He doesn't know it at the time, but this woman is going to change the general course of things for everyone he meets. He is on his way to new place of work, a drawing master for Laura Fairlie. When he meets Laura Fairlie he is pleasantly surprised to see how beautiful she is, but later finds out that she is already engaged to someone else. Sir Percival Glyde.
We lose Walter fairly quickly and the bulk of the novel is narrated by my favorite character, Marian. Marian has the body of a goddess and the face of mole, but she is extremely intelligent and observant. Her ugliness truly buys her freedom, as no man would want to marry that. She watches Sir Percival Glyde and his friend Count Fosco. She want to trust Percival since he is marrying her half sister, but she just cannot bring herself to do so. She is also pulled in by my other favorite character, Count Fosco, but she realizes Count Fosco tricks people easily and tries not to succumb to his powers. Fosco is a strange man. He is enormously fat, sweet to his wife in public, and is constantly eating sweets. He also knows exactly how to make people listen to him which makes him a humongous threat.
So who is the woman in white? What is the relationship between Count Fosco and Sir Percival Glyde? Why did Sir Percival want to marry Laura? These and many more questions pop up along the way in this book. It truly is a thrilling read. So why a B you might ask. The reason for the B is basically that I thought the ending was too neat and tidy, although I realize this would have been the preferred ending by most people in the book's day. I don't always like perfect endings though, and I wish this one would have ended differently. But it is certainly a must read!
This novel earned a B.
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