Well, I’ve finished my fourth RIP selection. The Woman in White was a good story. However, I must say that reading it at the same time as Kristin Lavransdatter must have colored my response to the Collins book, especially my response to the characters in the book. About a fourth of the way through the book I was hoping the female love interest, Laura, would die and get out of the way so that her much more interesting half-sister could get the guy. Did anyone else find Laura to be annoyingly weak and helpless? Is she really a type of the ideal Victorian woman? If so, give me a medieval woman any day.
Laura marries a man she doesn’t love because her dead father planned the marriage, and she doesn’t think anyone would condone her marriage to her true love, the art teacher. Kristin Lavransdatter, on the other hand, breaks her betrothal to her father’s choice of a husband, and then she prepares to run away with her own lover and thereby forces her father to approve the marriage. So Kristin’s behavior is disrespectful, dishonorable, and unwise. At least, she has a mind, and she lives with the results of her decision. Laura, on the hand, Lady Glyde as she becomes, glides through her life, letting others move her around like a pawn on a chessboard.
The villain of The Woman in White is, however, a consummate evil genius. Count Fosco is worthy of joining the list of Best Villains. He’s large and dark and hypnotic and smooth and deceptive and ultimately slimy. If I wrote a book with a villain, I’d want Count Fosco to make an appearance at least as tutor to my own villainous creation.
The plot has a few holes. Why does Laura marry such an idiot? Why does her husband put up with Laura’s half-sister coming to live with the married couple even though she interferes with his plans? Why does the WOman in WHite keep floating in and out of the story without ever doing anything significant? Can two people (not identical twins)look so much alike that they can be mistaken for one another even by their own family members? Still, while reading the book, I held these and other questions in abeyance; I just wanted to know what would happen next. I especially wanted to know what would happen to the magnificently nasty Count Fosco.
Read it and find out. Step over the holes carefully.
Not reading this because I am still reading the book myself but wanted to congratulate you on finishing book 4!!!
Great review!
This is entirely off-topic, but could you send me your e-mail ASAP for the Middle Grade Judging Category of the Cybils? I can’t seem to find it through this blog. I appreciate it. Just send it to Ramseelbird at hotmail dot com. Thanks!
I finished the book last night and waited to read this post until I was done with the book. I didn’t want Marian and Walter to end up together but I did think it would happen. Which, of course, it didn’t. I figured the book would end happily but I never guessed how it would take place. I solved none of the mysteries of the book. I was even wrong about Anne Catherick’s father; I guessed it to be Laura’s uncle. I loved the book and am glad it is PG so I can pass it along to my daughter, who loves a good mystery.
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I did think Laura and Anne had to have been related somehow and suspected Anne’s father. I liked Laura generally but Marian was definitely stronger – I wondered if perhaps Marian and Walter might end up together after all. I do think Laura is kind of a Victorian heroine – submissive, pretty, and in need of rescue. I didn’t like Fosco but do agree he is a good villain. I had an inkling the similarity between Lura and Anne would come into play and thought Anne might voluntarily exchange places with Laura since she knew she was dying. That didn’t play out as I had thought but the basic idea did, that they changed places.