Group Read, November 2013: The Woman in White

Here's the thread for our November Group Read.

I started yesterday and I'm enjoying the locations and characters.

I've already read this book twice (it's a favorite of mine!) but I'll join in the discussion after everyone's done.

I've also already read it, but I'm looking forward to seeing what everyone has to say.

I got stuck halfway a few years ago, I wonder if I can just pick it up and continue from there...?

I got a sneaky head start last week so am about 20% into it. I'm really enjoying it so far! This is my first Collins so I didn't know what to expect but he has such a pleasing writing style.

I've read the book 3 years ago, but will happily follow the discussion.

I'd like to give a warning however: don't read the Boxall entry, at least not the one in the 2008 edition!!

When I was reading the book (and enjoying it very much) I read up the entry, I just wanted to know why the novel was listed. The entry gives away most all of the twists, and in such a way that you can't avoid reading it. It pretends to give you only the start situation and then in a subordinate clause casually tells the main secret. This immediately took away all the excitement. The rest of my read in consequence was an endless drag because I knew what was going to happen. In some cases reading spoilers doesn't take away the fun, but here it did.

I've since become very careful with the Boxall and often only read the entry once the book is finished.

So for those interested, here's the explanation for the listing:

"This book defined the sensation novel of the 1860s. Wild and uncanny elements of gothic fiction are transported into the everyday world of the upper-middle-class family, appealing directly to the nerves of the reader and exploiting modern anxieties about the instability of identity."

I just started this book and I'm already really enjoying it! I need to finish a few other books but I'm having trouble putting this one down.

I'm just at the start of the Third Epoch (2/3rds of the way through the book). It is a most enjoyable read with twists and turns aplenty (particularly in the last chapter I read). I like the narration being sourced from a number of observers, including some reluctant ones the reasons for which are yet to be shown. Characters are mainly black or white, but Count Fosco's motivation's are likely more complicated than currently revealed. While there are certainly Gothic elements to this (old crumbling country houses, "the woman in white") they are thankfully restrained - a few wild eyes, but no one falling senseless to the ground.

Will good triumph over evil? Read on....

I just finished the First Epoch and am loving the book so far. I like the way Collins writes and am intrigued by the story. I haven't read Boxall's entry, fortunately, and have no idea in which direction the book is leading. The fact that the story has multiple narrators is definitely adding to the suspense, being built by I don't know what exactly. I am looking forward to the next part by Walter Hartright, but am also enjoying Marian's point of view.
Last point for now: I like it that Laura is actually the least interesting character in the book! Smart!

I've just made it through the first epoch and am absolutely loving this book. Such a great choice for the group read!

My only complaint is about the edition I'm reading, which has very tiny type. So I keep having to put it down when my eyes start to ache, even though I'm dying to know what is going to happen next.

I do so hope this encourages the reading of Collins's other works. I'm a huge fan of his books but the only ones anyone seems to have heard of these days are The Woman in White, The Moonstone and occasionally Armadale. Many of his other novels are no longer available in print but they are all (with one possible exception I've so far been unable to find) available in e-books, usually free. What many readers of W.I.W. fail to realise is Collins's interest in women's issues, especially the ways in which their status depended entirely on that of their husband or father and how reliant they were on the good behaviour and charity of the men in their lives.

Finished the book this morning. Difficult to discuss much without giving the game away.

#7 Have now read the Boxall summary - thanks for the warning! I often refer to the Boxall summary before or during my reading, but usually restrict myself to the start and conclusion of the entry as the mid portion commonly summarises the plot (if there is one!)

#12. He does make the women in this story fairly helpless. Even confident and independent Marian is largely restricted to domestic duties during the main action.

I really enjoyed this novel. It was well paced with enough mystery to keep you hooked. The twists were for me unexpected, and The Woman in White's big Secret not what I anticipated. The structure of the novel in the form of confessional narratives from various players was original and entertaining. Some aspects of the plot were not completely credible, but this is a minor quibble in an excellently told story. 5/5

# 12 The fact that women have to rely on the behaviour of the men in their lives is definitely an important theme in the book. In Epoch 2, which I now have finished, this becomes painfully clear.
I am racing through this book, it is so different from the books I have read lately, I enjoy it very much.
Other novels by Collins are already waiting in my Amazon stopping basket!

Question: my library doesn't have a copy, so I'm considering purchasing one. Can anyone say, is any edition any better than others? With any extra, helpful notes or background or, you know, that sort of thing? Or is one as good as the next?

# 15 The Collins Classic version is good, with a short intro, an index of classic words and phrases (which you don't really need) and a good font and lay-out.

I've just finished it this morning and really enjoyed it. As puckers says above it's hard to discuss much until the majority have finished reading it so I'll hold my thoughts until later.

There was a section in the middle which I felt it started to drag with too much simple monologue expostition (Walter visits x, they tell him some stuff, Walter visits y, they tell him some more stuff etc etc) but this was a minor irritation that didn't last long and the end picked up brilliantly.

I also finished it. One of my absolute favourites this year. I am anxious to know what you think of it, but as Jonny says, we'll have to hold our thoughts for now.

I also finished it yesterday and loved it. So glad it was picked for the group read, as it wasn't on my radar at all.

SPOILER ALERT

As no-one else has joined the conversation for a while I thought I might raise one thing.

(If you are still reading the book read no further!)

I started off reading the book thinking that the Secret would be that the Woman in White was Glyde's wife and the fact he is responsible for locking her up out of harms way tended to support that (Jane Eyre etc). LT also disingenuously links this novel with Lady Audley's Secret which I read earlier in the year, and Lady Audley's Secret is that she is in a bigamous marriage.

The Secret turns out to be that his father and mother had never been formally married, and therefore he couldn't be the heir to the title and estate. Shocking maybe to Victorian readers, but in these days I suspect as his parents had lived together for many years, and he was the child of that long relationship with no other lineal heirs, he would have been the legal heir to the estate, if not the title, and all his lifelong skulduggery would have been unnecessary.

The not so shocking Secret tends to date the novel, but I still thoroughly enjoyed it.

I wanted to jump in with a comment even though I am not going to read the book until my 2014 challenge.

Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White was being published in serial form during the investigation of Road Hill House Murder. The detective in the story, Walter Hartright, often seemed to be in the same situation that Scotland Yard Detective Whicher was facing in the real-life case, and he used the techniques in fiction that Whicher employed in real-life.

The Woman in White was the epitome of the 'sensation' novel and Collins' The Moonstone became the foundation of the modern detective novel. And at the center of that literary period was the Road Hill House Murder.

I'm in. Starting tomorrow. (Looks around.) I've only read The Moonstone. I've been meaning to read this book forever.