The Big Read V: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins - Walter Hartright's First Divulgement

Firstly, this book is fabulous.  My expectations were fully justified. It's got a bit of mystery, a bit of love and even times of spine-tingling suspense.  I've decided not to go into a long dissertation about all that struck my fancy, or irked me, for that matter.  Instead, each week, I'll share some nifty little drawings (in honor of our fearless, and somewhat silly narrator) I was inspired to make - most have little significance to the overall story and most will probably be food, since I'm preoccupied by it - along with a few comments that just wouldn't leave my head.

Walter, our first narrator. I have mixed feelings about Walter.  This guy - well, let's just say we probably wouldn't be the very best of friends. It has nothing to do with him being an artist, as I am married to one that I adore, but rather his unbridled sappiness.  I just can't do sappy.  When Marian is reading through her mother's letters and has found that one single letter to connect the Woman in White to Limmeridge House and - what does he do?  He's distracted by Miss Fairlie, the reading of Mrs. Fairlie's letter being interrupted five times.  I swear, I wanted to smack him; his attention span was not what I wanted it to be.

And I do want to add, that looking back to the beginning of the book, it's funny that Walter seems so silly to me now.  For Pesca was such an over the top character (I imagined him like a leprechaun bouncing around, knocking Precious, Delicate things to the floor) that I think Collins was trying to contrast Walter with Pesca, painting Walter as the Level-Headed perfect gentleman of the time, all the while at Limmeridge House he was just sap sap sap.  Or maybe Collins was going for that real men cry, too thing.  And age is no excuse for sappiness. (Gosh, I sure am a grumpy thing this morning.)

Marian Holcombe, my heroine.  As soon as Marian came into the picture, I was overjoyed. I knew from the sentences, "Shall we shake hands?  I suppose we must come to it sooner or later - and why not sooner?" that I would love her and see myself in her. (Wait - did I just admit that I love myself?)

I identify with her annoyance toward her own sex.  Her strong handshakes.  I don't hate or even dislike dear Walter, but when Marian started talking I couldn't wait to read her part of the story.  What did she have to say about all this?  In her own words, not through Walter's breathy, glassy-eyed talk.

Marian may even come off as protective, but bossy (another something that I identify with).  Her insistence that Walter leave Limmeridge House amiably - "leave us like a friend, break bread with us once more" - is admirable.  Here I would also like to digress for a minute: food.  Yes, I know you were waiting for it.  The symbol, here, of friendship is breaking bread, dining together.  I nearly Walter-swooned myself when I read this.  How wonderful to know that my heroine believes, as I do, in the power of food, in the power a meal can have when fellowship happens around it.  But, let's get real, that meal was a strained one.  Walter admits the sacrifice Miss Fairlie has to go through to keep up her Lovely facade.  And yet - it is probably this meal and the fellowship thereafter that makes the almost bitterless, content good-bye possible.

Miss Fairlie, the normal girl covered in glass. I don't like or dislike her.  I feel she is a very normal, healthy, girl that has been made delicate by the people around her.  I suspected this from the beginning, but was sure when she dropped her hands down in anger after "her fingers wavered on the piano; she struck a false note; confused herself in trying to sit it right."  This girl is not a precious china doll, but rather, a real person.

The Woman in White, hmmmmm.   My instinct so far tells me nothing except: psycho.  Walter relates her Dark Side: "A most extraordinary and startling change passed over her.  Her face, at all ordinary times so touching to look at, in its nervous sensitiveness, weakness, and uncertainty, became suddenly darkened by an expression of manically intense hatred and fear, which communicated a wild, unnatural force to every feature."  Two syllables: psy-cho.  And that's probably not very nice of me to say - especially if she was forced into a private asylum with sketchy practices.  More on her later, I'm sure.

Mrs. Vesey,

(That's my rendition of one of our cabbages here at WHRI.)

Comments

[Gina]

I understand how you feel about Laura. I don't feel the hatred toward her that a lot of people seem to; she seems like a sweet young woman, who, through no fault of her own, constantly gets handled with kid gloves. Hard to tell what Wilkie was going for here. It's not like he was a conventional Victorian, so why write such an exaggeratedly conventional Victorian heroine? As I said at Leila's blog, even Dickens wrote stronger heroines.

Oh, and nice drawings!

[Anastasia]

I think what annoys me about Laura is that only has she been made delicate by the people who love her, but that she doesn't do anything to change it. I feel like there should be some deep anger somewhere, you know? That's just waiting to burst out. I feel like Laura should have a fit, or something. It's just weird (and kinda creepy) to me that she lets herself be pushed around all the time.

However, it DOES make more sense, psychologically, that she's just letting herself be coddled-- because what else does she know? And it's more Properly Victorian Lady-ish as well. With Marian, I don't think she knows how to NOT coddle Laura, and so they're stuck in this cycle.

But I do agree with Gina that I wish Laura had been more unconventional. It would have been less boring. (This is probably why I want Laura to snap. I want excitement!)

[Leila]

I feel really, really bad for Laura, for all of the reasons everyone has mentioned. That said, I think she might be pretty realistic for the time (which is also somewhat depressing), and if that's true, that would explain the lack of frustration/anger on her part.

Then again... Could something have happened in Laura's past to make other people treat her like she's delicate? (I obviously haven't finished it!) I mean, her mini-tantrum at the piano suggested (to me) that maybe there are some roiling emotions... Maybe she's got more in common with the Woman in White than her appearance?

[Jes]

Yes, I too, am wondering if something happened to Laura in the past. She definitely depresses me a bit, but mostly because I don't see a way out for her to break her glass shell. I mean, as mentioned, I see a 2010 way, but maybe not a mid-19th century way. I, too, wish she was less conventional and almost always feel that depressing/boring feeling creeping up on me when she enters the scene - although I'm hoping that something exciting is yet to happen! An yes, my drawings. Thanks! I'm super professional. ;-) It's fun to draw, as wonky and wrongly-scaled the drawings may turn out.