The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins
Read for: Obris Terrarum Challenge and 1% Well Read Challenge
I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to read this book! It was a slow read, but for the most part, I couldn’t put it down. The story is told by serveral different narrators and each narrator had his/her own voice, which authors don’t always do when they are switching from narrator to narrator.
The story begins in the voice of Walter Hartwright who is walking home late one night and is startled by a woman in white asking for directions to London. She refuses to tell him her name and just as quickly as she appeared, she is gone. I can’t even try for a plot summary because there is just too much happening right from the very beginning of the book. And it never stops happening until the very last page.
There are unexpected twists and turns and although the language and style of the prose are similar to Jane Austen, the story line couldn’t be more different. The mystery that surrounds the woman in white and her secret hatred of one of the main characters carries the story, but once that is discovered, there’s still more mystery and intrigue!
I would definitely recommend this book and I would give it a 8.5/10.
Tags: England, Wilkie Collins
July 28th, 2009 at 7:33 pm
Wasn’t this book great? I read it with some friends a few years ago, and we all loved it. I was super-impressed with Collins’s sympathetic depiction of “mannish” Marian Halcombe, given that usually in Victorian fiction any mannish women are villains. Walter was a dolt for preferring Laura. Marian was so much more interesting.
July 28th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
I’ve been wanting to read this book for awhile since someone recommended it to me as a good gothic mystery. I’m glad to hear it’s good from other people too.
July 31st, 2009 at 2:22 am
Sold. I’m totally reading this, I’m rather taken with your description.
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