The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

A 5/8ths turn out for the review of the woman in White at the Fox and Badger in Wellow with comments received from others by email.

This was apparently the first example of what became known as a Victorian Gothic thriller penned by Wilkie Collins to be published on a weekly basis in a London Magazine. Hence everybody agreed that the writing style was designed to keep readers on the edge of their seat and was generally considered a "page turner" by the majority.

Collins rich  use of English was admired by all and the comparison made with succinct and thin descriptions used nowadays in an equivalent thriller. Interestingly it was pointed out that at the time there was no radio, television or even photography other than for the very few and therefore Collins as with many other authors of the time (Dickens) would use three pages to describe a character where this might be done nowadays in half a page. The reason being that the average reader had not had the experiences or visual stimuli that we all have today and that the author needed to describe everything in much greater detail to enable the reader to conjure up the scene in their imagination. This elaborate use of words was therefore admired by some who enjoyed  the detailed florid  descriptions and yet by others they became bored with the excess of descriptive phrases and just wanted the story to get to the point!

The were therefore two camps in the group: the minority who felt that the book was tedious, that it lacked depth and complexity and was at least 30% too long; with the majority enjoying the detailed use of English  and the depiction of social mores of the time.Everybody agreed that the story being told from the perspective of a number of different characters worked well in the book.

In particular the role of women in Victorian society and their treatment as the chattels of men was explored extensively - "a versatile and eloquent illumination of women's rights at the time"-and was the widest topic of discussion.The very fact that Laura considered that she was duty-bound to get married to Perceval because of an agreement that had been made by her father when she was a child is the basic premise to the story which nowadays appears laughable. Laura is consistently wet and really has no idea that she should even question the dastardly deeds that are going on around her and whilst her half sister-Marian  has much more backbone and in one sense is a modern woman who would not let this repression succeed but on the other when writing in her diary constantly refers to being of the weaker sex and needing Walter Hartright to come to the rescue.Most subservient in her role and also implausible is lady Fosco who is in fact the aunt of Laura but who allows her husband to pursue consistently evil stratagems against Laura simply because she has agreed to honour and obey her husband as his wife.

There was a consensus that that some of the characters such as Marion, Fosco and  to a lesser degree Perceval were vividly described and plausible whilst  Walter Hartright and the wet Laura lacked credibility and  depth. The love affair between Walter and Laura was not really plausible and based it appeared superficially on Laura's beautiful looks.(So what's changed?). Whilst amusing,Lord Fairlie was a rather overblown implausible character.
Most enjoyed the plot which for the time would've been extremely complicated with several unexpected twists to the tale.

This was a Victorian "page turner"  but the story never really built to the expected crescendo. The most that happened was that Perceval got burnt in the church after which the final third was a rather long debrief from each of the characters. Generally the feeling was that the book was too long but it was evident that this resulted from the fact tat the book was being published in instalments so the more words the more lucrative the book would become.

Other observations were just how reliant the characters had already become by 1850's not only on an efficient Postal Service between the Lake District and London overnight but also a highly efficient train service wherever they were in the country.

Note also how the whole basis of the story hinged around "The Secret" which at its most profound related to whether Perceval had been born inside or outside of marriage.His right to inherit the estate which he had claimed improperly from his cousin had to be concealed by him to justify his inheritance.

In conclusion this was not a complex or deep book but more a lightweight Gothic yarn with some good twists that was memorable more for what it tells about the times than about the story itself.