The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins

The Woman In White by Wilkie Collins

Read by Ian Holm

Published in 1859

Summary: 

The Woman in White is an intricately plotted story, organised as a chain of 'witness' statements from a wide diversity of characters designed to unravel a cunning conspiracy against innocent women by a duo of memorable aristocratic monsters, Sir Percival Glyde and his devilish companion, the Italian Count Fosco. The theme of identity is explored in great depth in The Woman in White. In fact, the question of identity drives the story from beginning to end: The narrative starts with the appearance of a strange woman in white whose identity is discovered only near the end of the book.

My Thoughts: 

I've had this book on my TBR for years for two reasons - it's a classic and  I was told it was great. Which is my way of telling you that I had no idea what it was about when I picked it up and was under this impression, from the title, that it was a bit of a creepy read. Which is also my way of telling you that this book was not at all what I was expecting...but also exactly what I was expecting. 

Why it's considered a classic: 

• It was so popular that it's now considered to be the key book in establishing sensation fiction - intricately plotted novels that combined morals, melodrama, and just the right amount of gruesomeness. Sensation fiction fused Gothic romance with a realistic novel.
• It's also an early example of detective fiction, with Walter Hartright, our hero, using a number of sleuthing techniques. 
• It highlights the inequality of women at the time and the misuse of what were then called "lunatic asylums." This wouldn't be particularly noteworthy in a novel written today, but it keeps this novel relevant. 

I must admit that, while this one had me happy to return to classics, and the details and history they include, in the end, I wasn't entirely sure I was happy with the way it finished. Oh yes, when it drew to a close, it ended exactly the way I expected it to end. But the climax came out of nowhere for me and I couldn't help but wonder if Collins hadn't known, as he was writing this novel that was initially serialized, how he was growing to end it. After percolating my thoughts for a few days, I'm still not entirely sure I like the climax but I respect the incredibly intricate plotting it took to get the novel to that point. I listened to this book, which means that I wasn't giving it my full attention (much to the delight of the other drivers around me). It needed my full attention. Collins gave readers plenty of clues (and some out right statements not to trust certain characters); but even with those, readers will not be able to figure this one out for themselves (at least not entirely). I would certainly have liked to have been able to go back and reread certain passages to understand how it all fell together in the end. 

So was it exactly the creepy Halloween-ish read I was expecting? No, not really. But was it the dark, mysterious tale I was expecting? Yes, yes it was. Which makes it just what I needed right now. 

This House Is Haunted by John Boyne

This House Is Haunted by John Boyne
Published: October 2013 Other Press
Source: checked out from my local library

Publisher’s Summary:
This House Is Haunted is a striking homage to the classic nineteenth-century ghost story. Set in Norfolk in 1867, Eliza Caine responds to an ad for a governess position at Gaudlin Hall. When she arrives at the hall, shaken by an unsettling disturbance that occurred during her travels, she is greeted by the two children now in her care, Isabella and Eustace. There is no adult present to represent her mysterious employer, and the children offer no explanation. Later that night in her room, another terrifying experience further reinforces the sense that something is very wrong.
 
From the moment Eliza rises the following morning, her every step seems dogged by a malign presence that lives within Gaudlin’s walls. Eliza realizes that if she and the children are to survive its violent attentions, she must first uncover the hall’s long-buried secrets and confront the demons of its past

My Thoughts:
I know it’s weird to read a haunted house story in December and I could have added it to my “save for later” folder on my library account. But I’ve read so many great books this year and I want to make sure I end the year the same way. I felt certain I could count on Boyne to help me do that. He kicked it off with a bang and set the tone:

“London, 1867 - I blame Charles Dickens for the death of my father”

When her already sickly father and Eliza attend a reading by Dickens on a rainy day, her father takes a rapid turn for the worse and shortly thereafter dies, leaving Eliza an orphan who soon realizes that the place she has always called home isn’t actually owned by her father, effectively leaving her homeless. How very Dickensian! Boyne even throws in some social commentary on prison conditions, religion, and the place of women in society to further parallel Dickens’ writing (although, let’s be honest, Dickens never really worried himself over the inequalities that women faced). Dickens isn’t the only author Boyne calls to mind: there are hints of Wilkie Collins, the Bronte sisters (orphaned girl forced to become a governess), and especially Henry James (think The Turn of the Screw). There’s even a paragraph about Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice.

Boyne went so deep into trying to make this a Gothic mystery that the language often felt stilted (there were a lot of phrases like “answers there came none”) and the descriptions sometimes went on over long, as writers of that time tended to do. Unfortunately, that’s not the extent of my issue with this book. Boyne really ratchets up the violence toward the end of the book, culminating with an actual battle scene that feels more in line with the violence level of a modern thriller than a Gothic one. And where Eliza had been a protected, contented, not over intellectual young woman when the book began, later I often found it hard to believe she was only twenty-one.

Don’t get me wrong – I raced through this book. Even though much of what happens is straight out of the Gothic horror writing textbook, it’s still Boyne. There’s still some humor: “It had been hanging on that wall for so long that perhaps I never really notice it any more, in the way that one often ignores familiar things, like seat cushions or loved ones.” And there are plenty of secrets to be revealed and an ending that you might see coming but I sure didn’t. So should you read it? Sure. It’s not Sarah Water’s The Little Stranger but it’s still a fun read, especially if you read it at near Halloween.

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson

We Have Always Lived In The Castle by Shirley Jackson
Published 1962 by Amereon LTD
Source: bought for my Nook

Publisher's Summary:
Alone since four members of the family died of arsenic poisoning, Merricat, Constance and Julian Blackwood spend their days in happy isolation until cousin Charles appears.

My Thoughts:
How's that for a succinct review? The problem is, this summary doesn't really give you a feel for this book. How about the first paragraph instead?

"My name is Mary Katherine Blackwood. I am eighteen years old, and I live with my sister Constance. I have often thought that with any luck at all I could have been for a werewolf, because the two middle fingers on both my hands are the same length but I have had to be content with what I Had. I dislike washing myself, and dogs, and noise. I like my sister Constance, and Richard Plantagenet, and Amanita phalloides, the death cup mushroom. Everyone else in my family is dead."

Guys, I have no idea why I haven't read We Have Always Lived In The Castle. And now I'm kind of sad that I can never read it again for the first time. It is an amazing blend of darkness and light. Jackson toys with her readers as Merricat, and her Uncle Julian, slowly reveal the Blackwood family history. The writing is incredibly vivid - the Blackwood home, the land around it, and the nearby village itself all become characters in the book.

"All of the village was of a piece, a time, and a style; it was as though the people needed the ugliness of the village, and fed on it. The houses and the stores seem to have been set up in contemptuous haste to provide shelter for the drab and the unpleasant and the Rochester house and the Blackwood house and even the town hall and been brought here perhaps accidentally from some far lovely country where people lived with grace. Perhaps the fine houses had been captured - perhaps as punishment for the Rochesters and the Blackwood and their secret bad hearts? - and were held prisoner in the village; perhaps their slow rot was a sign of the ugliness of the villagers. The row of stores along Main Street was unchangingly grey...whatever planned to be colorful lost its heart quickly in the village."

Merricat might be called precocious; she is certainly childlike in many ways. But there is a depth and a darkness to her the kept me wondering about her throughout. She is certainly one of the most interesting characters I've read in a long time and I think she's going to stay with me quite a while. She has an innate awareness of imminent peril, a belief in unnatural powers, a deep appreciation of the land around her, a profound love for her sister, and desperate need to maintain order and ritual.

I don't often reread books (almost never, actually) but I'm seriously thinking that this book needs to be reread every year about this time. I can't read it again for the first time but I'll still be happy to pick it up and savor Jackson's story again.