The Woman in White

When I was in high school and college, I had an extended flirtation with Victorian art. Prose, in the form of Thomas Hardy and Thomas Love Peacock, poetry in the form of Alfred Lord Tennyson and painting in the form of the pre-Raphaelites. I left that behind when I got married and went to grad school.

With that background, I read a favorable review by Facebook friend Steve Pick of “The Woman in White” by Wilkie Collins and was intrigued enough to add it to my “books to read” list. The Woman in White is a mystery written in 1959 and is set in 1849-50 England. Stylistically, the prose is very Victorian. Structurally, the novel is unusual in that it is organized as a series of narratives written by different characters describing events as they saw them. Collins does a great job with the distinct voices of the narrators.

The book is quite slow to start. As accustomed as I am to Victorian writing, I found the first 20% or so (this was an ebook, so the progress is measured in percent, not pages) somewhat ponderous and hard to engage. By about 30%, I found myself drawn into the story, and by 50%, I was finding it hard to put down. It’s been a long time since I’ve read a genuine “page turner” novel.

I’m not going to give away the plot here, other than to say that it trades on mistaken identity and, through the plot device of different narrators, incomplete information. Some of the plot resolution at the end depends on deus ex machina, which modern readers may find a bit facile, and the final bit, while satisfying, was predictable. Nevertheless, I found this a ripping good yarn, and I’m grateful to Steve for calling it to my attention.