Book 2: The Woman in White, by Wilke Collins

 Date finished: January 16

This book, published in the 1860s, is the work of British Victorian writer Wilkie Collins, a personal friend of Charles Dickens and author of Moonstone as well.

I have a strict policy that if anyone ever says to me, "That's my favorite book!" I buy it and read it. I was in a used bookstore a few months ago, buying a bunch of British classic literature books. I had made a list of 20 books for my 10th graded Brit Lit students, from which they were instructed to choose 4 for personal projects. I had not actually read all the books on my list, however, and after my most recent attempt to read 1984 before putting it on the class list (which I had to put down because I couldn't endure the scenes of torture), I decided I should read all the books on the list so I could in good conscience recommend them. 

Anyway, I was getting off the phone with my foster dad, explaining to him why I had to run, and a customer overheard my conversation. She said, "Have you read The Woman in White?" I hadn't. Then she said the magic words. "It's my favorite book in the whole world." 

That's all it took. I had selected a copy of The Woman in White before she left the store, and carried it to the register, perched precariously on top of my stack of Dickens, Bronte, Forester, Burroughs, and Lewis. 

I find that the more I read Victorian literature, the easier it gets. I also find that progressive English Lit majors (and professors) read all kinds of things into a book that I don't think are there. So I stayed away from online summaries and proclaimed themes until I'd read the book for myself. Actually, I'm still in the after-glow of that book, and I still haven't read any analyses. I might just keep it that way. 

Collins' literary voice is, in typical Victorian style, excruciatingly exact, thorough, and often effusive. He has a way of laying out a scene in vivid detail, which, once the reader gets used to it, has its own pleasantness. One has to mentally exhale, sink into the comfortable, plush story, and not hurry along. 

This mystery is incredibly absorbing and has much to teach Sir Arthur Conan Doyle about plot twists. There are so many parts and pieces of this mystery, it's more like 20 or so mysteries. The plot moves along, answering mysteries fairly quickly, rather than presenting a long rising action to a climax, and then resolving everything afterward. Oh, there's plenty of that. But delightfully maddening little twists and turns dot the path along the way. And he does it all in different points of view, all told in the first person. This is much harder on the author, but much more intriguing for the reader, for no single character knows everything.

This story is told tenderly, carefully, and artfully. It is now one of my own favorite books in the world. It is such a satisfying book that I bought a copy for my own mother, who's winding her way through it now.