is my second time around with The Woman in White and I think my first impression was basically the same as this one.
The first/of the book is boring as hell, It's fullup with a lot of Walter pining for Laura, Laura crying into her handkerchief, and Marian pushing everyone into doing the right thing.
It's not only a bunch of class nonsense that separate our lovers, but it's chock full of silliness like people suffering a shock and nearly dying from it, or keeping insane promises to dead parents to their own detriment.
ltno parent wants that!
It was overdramatic bullshit and it made it very hard for me to stick with the story,
The middle of the book kind of picks up the pace, You arent biting your nails or anything, but you are fully involved with the drama,
Better. Much better.
The last part of the book makes it all worthwhile, Colins does not skimp on doling out the secrets or wrapping up loose ends, You find out not only whodunnit but why they dunnit,
You also get a fantastic ending for these characters that youve been on an emotional roller coaster with for such a long time, Well done, sir.
This was serialized in a newspaper,
Which means two things to me, One, this was a book made for the sweaty peasants, so it has a good chance of being quite a bit more fun than whatever shit was published for the intellectuals of the day.
Two, it's going to read like a television series instead of a movie, In other words, the story is going to be less concise because it was meant to last longer and therefore will ramble a bit to pump up the page count.
Prepare yourself accordingly.
Bottom line for me is that if you can make it through the really dull bits in the beginning, you'll probably really like the way Collins manages to bring everything full circle and wrap it up.
However, even with a wellnarrated audiobook, I had to stop after a few hours of this and go listen to a trashy romance novel because I was just drifting off due to boredom.
I eventually made myself sort of gut it out, and I'm glad I did, but I can honestly see why several of the people I've talked to never managed to finish this one.
I'm giving itbut that's an overall grade that hinges on the last half being very well done, You really have to knuckle down and get ready to slog through a lot of dull garbage on the front half to get to the payoff.
I know that this one is more well known, but I actually thought sitelinkMoonstone was a better overall book,
Newest review:
./stars.
This was a reread and I enjoyed it immensely, So much so that Im raising my rating of it from,to.stars.
First review:
,/stars.
This was a really amazing book that takes you on such a journey! I started it four days ago, and now after having finished it I feel like I've returned back home safely after having been gone for a long time.
I don't know if that makes much sense, but that's how I feel :
Now, this was my first book by Wilkie Collins and all I knew was that it was supposed to be a Victorian, scary read.
It was in the beginning, and also slightly in the middle, but I was sad to realize towards the end that this turned more into a detective novel.
I'm not fond of detective novels, and therefore that slightly decreased my reading experience and my fondness of this book,
That being said, I loved how this book is constructed through diverse narratives that are all pieces in a big puzzle, The narratives allowed for me to connect with the characters on an intimate level, and the characters were simply amazing! They stuck to my mind and followed me around when I wasn't reading, and I think that they are the best part of this story.
Even though I did find some of the things happening too convenient for my taste, I can't neglect the fact that this is a beautifully crafted piece of work that leaves an impression on you.
I was contemplating betweenandwhile reading, so in the end I decided to go for,. I loved the book despite its weaknesses, I just would've hoped for more Victorian eeriness and less of a detective novel, sitelinkClick here to watch a video review of this book on my channel, From Beginning to Bookend,
sitelink
A mysterious tale spun by a writer with a penchant for drama and a lawyer's practicality, The Woman in White will tickle readers who enjoy books where the truth lies hidden beneath the biases of characters who deliver their version of the story through a firstperson narrative.
Walter Hartright a struggling drawing teacher, is walking at midnight back to Victorian London after visiting his widowed mother and sister at their cottage, in the suburbs to say goodbye, a quiet trip nobody around, the road empty everything's still, not even the leaves on the trees flicker in the blackness, nothing only his moving steps are heard, thinking about a lucrative job in a faraway county of England, that he reluctantly took he has a bad feeling about because his friend Professor Pesca, a dwarf from Italy arranged it.
Shock, something touches him out of the darkness, . . a ghostly, sick looking woman dressed all in white appears from the shadows, impossible this creature cannot be real, . . it speaks. A story unfolds, a young woman with a secret put in an insane asylum without being insane , a conspiracy to steal not only wealth but identity.
Anne Catherick The Woman in White strangely resembles Laura Fairlie, one of two young ladies Mr, Hartright has been hired by her rich, unsocial invalid uncle Fredrick Fairlie, to teach watercolor painting, never mind that she and her halfsister Marian Halcombe have no talent, they need something to pass the time.
Laura is very pretty, her sister is very intelligent but plain, but both are devoted to each other, a lonely life at Limmeridge House in Cumberland by the sea.
Their uncle rarely sees them, quite fearful of his health a sick hypochondriac, kind of funny not a man of feelings, A sudden love between Walter and Laura, ensues, the teacher and the student but her older wiser sister Marian doesn't approve, Laura is engaged to Sir Percival Glyde,years her senior, a gentleman of seemingly good manners and taste a baronet, who her late father insisted she marry men could do that then.
Mr. Hartright is forced to leave the premises early, later traveling to the jungles of Central America to forget but doesn't, by Marian a event that she greatly regrets soon, and Laura more so, his three month employment shortened to two, Mr.
Fairlie is not happy, why the puzzled man thinks can't people keep their promises anymore The extremely obese, brilliant and mysterious Count Fosco, an Italian nobleman he says and good friend of Sir Percival, arrives with his wife Eleanor, she is the icy aunt of Laura and sister of Uncle Frederick, without any family affections.
The Count loves animals but isn't fond of people, his pets are his best friends birds and white mice, he plays with, they adore him too.
The Woman in White, sends an anonymous letter to the miserable Miss Fairlie, the future bride warning her that Glyde is not a good person, Anne is creeping about in the neighborhood, the Count and the Baronet are nervous , why But the unhappy wedding day comes between Laura and Percival, that nobody wants but Sir Percival, he has a motive not love but wealth, she has money he has none.
Predictably the couple travel across Europe, see many fascinating things on their long honeymoon and hate each other, . . Back in sweet England at the home of Sir Percival's, Blackwater Park, an appropriate name for the estate, in need of repairs the conspiracy goes forward, Laura and Marian are alone to battle him and the Count and his faithful wife, Eleanor the lurking Anne is still floating about, by the dismal lake nearby, something has to give soon.
A wonderful novel from long ago, quite a mystery to be unraveled and one of the first written, still a superb read for fans of the genre, make that great literature.
A buddy read on the side with the Noncrunchers hold the pants,
Hark! This book is overyears old, but, still, spoilers be us,
Selling English by the pound,
This book has a lot going for it a wellwrought plot, humor, some of literatures more enduring characters Marian, Fosco, crazy Uncle Frederick, but it could have been cut down by a third and been one finetuned literary machine.
I understand the book was serialized and that Wilkie Collins was probably being paid a tuppenceperword and was best buds with the great Charles Dickens, who was a prodigious author in his own write heh!, but, sir, you are no Stephen King, you should have trimmed this puppy down.
The woman in white
Although Collins doesnt give her a lot of page time, her presence permeates the book like that uncle of yours that slathers on Brut.
He might be in another room, but you know hes still on the premises somewhere,
This book was written as a series of first person entries by a number of characters and divided into three epochs,
Epoch the first
Walter Hartright, is a sieve as a character and an artist, who lands a gig teaching art of all things to a pair of sisters.
He falls in love with the cute, vapid one and despite some of the most achingly emoboy prose youll ever read, has to keep it in his pants, because the cute, vapid one is betrothed to another.
So he runs away to Central America where he sends her lots of sketches of what looks like a Honduran anaconda jumping out of
a bush.
Epoch the second
I love Marian Halcombe, shes smart, shes got spunk, shell stand up for her family and friends, shes got a fine bod, but Collins went ahead and gave her a face only a depraved, corpulent, balding, old, sociopathic, Italian Count Fosco would love.
Plus, she apologizes for being a woman in Victorian society about,times for page:
If I wasnt a woman, Id cut that bitch, Countess Fosco,
If I wasnt a woman, Id kick Sir Perceval in the family jewels,
If I wasnt a woman, Id get stinking drunk and jump the gardener or the maid,
Epoch the third
This is an olde type book so you wont find a trail of bodies or Walter Hartright going ninja or a gangsta turf war, but it plays out in satisfactory way.
So if you love the classics and havent gotten around to this one, Id recommend it,
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