bookshelves of doom

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore

I'm still behind, but I'll be caught up by the end of the week.  Obviously, spoilers follow.

The First Epoch: The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore (of Chancery Lane, Solicitor) 

I.  In which we meet Sir Percival Glyde.

•  I'm rather loving Mr. Gilmore -- his voice is very different from Walter's, and he's one that I can hear in my head.  I love that he seems to be one of those The World Is Not What It Was types -- but not without humor, as nothing seems to be What It Was... except Mr. Fairlie, who is, as ever, unchanged.  Oh, and I'm really glad that he threw this in, since he's writing it for Walter in the first place:

There are three things that none of the young men of the present generation can do. They can't sit over their wine, they can't play at whist, and they can't pay a lady a compliment. Mr. Hartright was no exception to the general rule. Otherwise, even in those early days and on that short acquaintance, he struck me as being a modest and gentlemanlike young man.

•  Sir Percival Glyde doesn't seem evil.  His explanation of the Anne Catherick situation is reasonable and sounds logic and plausible... but I'm continuing to keep it in mind that Mr. Gilmore (and, to a point, probably Marian) are "allow[ing] all due force to the high reputation of the gentleman who offered it".

• Sir Percival's insistence that Marian write to Mrs. Catherick (she's alive?) felt pushy and even a little threatening to me, but I might be reading too much into that -- and it's likely that an innocent, proud man would want it all cleared up with no doubts on anyone's part.  Ah, but later it's clear that she's still uneasy -- it was probably a good move for her to use her poker face.

•  AH HA!  BUT THE DOG HATES HIM!  GUILTY!  YOU ARE A BAD MAN.  AND he has an irritable temper!  Not good.  Somehow, I think, Mr. Gilmore, that your irritable temper is very different from Sir Percival's bad temper.

•  Mr. Gilmore is just wonderful:

I could see no cause for any uneasiness or any doubt, but she had made me a little uneasy, and a little doubtful, nevertheless. In my youth, I should have chafed and fretted under the irritation of my own unreasonable state of mind. In my age, I knew better, and went out philosophically to walk it off.

II.  In which Mr. Gilmore changes his mind.

•  You know, Laura seems young, innocent and unsure of herself -- but never silly.  It would be nice to know what goes on in her head -- and I noticed that while Walter often used the past tense in talking about her, Mr. Gilmore used the present in the last chapter.  So I still have no guess as to her fate.

•  It has occurred to me that it's possible that as Sir Percival addressed the letter, he could have directed it somewhere other than its intended recipient.  Or that Mrs. Catherick is not to be trusted, either.  Didn't we get that impression from the Woman in White?

•  Huh.  So Sir Percival said he'd give Laura up if she, herself, told him she wanted out?  But he's got to know that she'd never do that?  (I mean, unless she has a spine hidden under all of her blushes?)  I'm sticking with the dog.

•  Ha!:  "I liked to feel her hearty indignation flash out on me in that way. We see so much malice and so little indignation in my profession."  Mr. Gilmore is so appreciative of Marian.

•  I was not aware of this, and will have to watch myself in future times:  "When a sensible woman has a serious question put to her, and evades it by a flippant answer, it is a sure sign, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, that she has something to conceal."

•  If she hadn't been coddled and protected QUITE SO MUCH her entire life, she'd probably have less difficulty in just breaking the engagement, ESPECIALLY since Sir Dogs Hate Me said he'd let it drop.  Grrr.  Trying to not let my sensibilities cloud my reading of her actions, but it's HARD.  I do continue to feel sorry for her, though.

•  So Laura wants to leave all of her money to Marian.  And maybe a little something, I assume, to Walter, but she never said it because she was too busy having a meltdown.  And Mr. Gilmore is not immune to Laura's lovely weakness -- he's now on her side and hopes that the engagement will be broken.  (Man, all it takes is smiling through your tears?  I have GOT to remember this stuff!)

•  Mr. Gilmore is just as prone to making sweeping generalizations as Walter, but his are so much more amusing:  "No sensible man ever engages, unprepared, in a fencing match of words with a woman."

III.  In which there is much talk of the marriage settlement.

•  NOOOOOOO.  WHAT HAPPENED?  WHY DID LAURA FINALLY BREAK DOWN?  ... Wow.  I had no idea that I was so invested.  Oh, okay.  Marian will explain in the next section.

•  The settlement:  Once Mr. Fairlie dies (though I suspect he might be the I'm So Sick, I'm Dying, I'm Dying, Oh, Wait, I Just Celebrated My 147th Birthday type), and when Laura is of age, she gets the income from the land (and if she marries, her husband has access to that money through her).  If she marries and then dies, her husband gets that money for the rest of his life.  If she has a son, it passes on down to him. 

But there's also the matter of the twenty thousand pound fortune plus another ten thousand pound fortune -- Wait, there's a COUNT involved? Are Counts EVER not evil? -- if Laura dies before her aunt, the ten thousand goes to her aunt (and to the Count).  Now for the twenty:  Mr. Gilmore wants to set it up so that if Laura dies without an heir, the principal goes to Marian and whoever (Whomever?  Is 'whom' dead?  I keep seeing essays about The Death of Whom.) else Laura names.  Do I have that right?  (I wish he hadn't said this was important.  Now I'm all stressed out.)

• AH HA.  But Sir Percival won't accept that version.  He wants the twenty thou.  Yep.  I've officially made up my mind:  He's Evil, and he's Plotting.

•  Ha ha.  Lawyer snark:

The answer I wrote to this audacious proposal was as short and sharp as I could make it. "My dear sir. Miss Fairlie's settlement. I maintain the clause to which you object, exactly as it stands. Yours truly." The rejoinder came back in a quarter of an hour. "My dear sir. Miss Fairlie's settlement. I maintain the red ink to which you object, exactly as it stands. Yours truly."

•  Mr. Gilmore is WONDERFUL.  Not only is he hilarious:

There are many varieties of sharp practitioners in this world, but I think the hardest of all to deal with are the men who overreach you under the disguise of inveterate good-humour. A fat, well fed, smiling, friendly man of business is of all parties to a bargain the most hopeless to deal with. Mr. Merriman was one of this class.

...but he's also stubborn, and isn't backing down about the money, even though Mr. Fairlie told him to let it go.

•  Oh no!  Walter is a disaster!  Sad.  And is he the one Sir Percival's men are watching?  Judging by his paranoia, I rather think so.

IV.  In which Mr. Gilmore returns to Limmeridge.

• Oh, good.  Mr. Gilmore is all cranky.  I hope he rips into Mr. Fairlie.  Someone should shake that guy.

• GAH!!  Mr. Fairlie is such a MONSTER:

"Man?" he repeated. "You provoking old Gilmore, what can you possibly mean by calling him a man? He's nothing of the sort. He might have been a man half an hour ago, before I wanted my etchings, and he may be a man half an hour hence, when I don't want them any longer. At present he is simply a portfolio stand. Why object, Gilmore, to a portfolio stand?"

I am DESPERATELY hoping for a Crime of Passion.

• If I could reach through my book and throttle Mr. Fairlie myself, I would.  He's WORSE than a Plotting Villain.  Mr. Gilmore's frustration and indignation affected me much more emotionally than Walter's angst.  Interesting, that.  What a great parting shot:

"As the faithful friend and servant of your family, I tell you, at parting, that no daughter of mine should be married to any man alive under such a settlement as you are forcing me to make for Miss Fairlie."

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Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV

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Other reader/bloggers:

Gina at the Dickensblog
Ms Avery at The Degrassi Digest

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Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But I forgot it at work.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

SHOCKER: I'm behind!

Due to complete idiocy on my part (I scheduled two book groups for today, thus my weekend was spent with other books), my third Big Read post is going to be a day later.  (Grrr.)  Sorry about that.

In other news, I have a new favorite book.  And I broke out the Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book, too.  Winter is a time for eating.

Oh, and I had a minor freakout on Saturday and ordered a whole pile of crime novels set in China*.  (Well, one is actually in Tibet, but the detective is an exiled Chinese policeman.)  Yeesh, maybe I should join the China Challenge?

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*You want titles?  I think this is all of them:  Flower Net, The Skull Mantra, Playing for Thrills, The Eye of Jade and Death of a Red Heroine.  Got any recommendations?

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program: if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money.

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV

First Epoch:
The Story Begun by Walter Hartright (of Clement's Inn, Teacher of Drawing), Continued.

IX.  In which Walter confesses.

•  "At the first safe opportunity Miss Halcombe cautiously led her half-sister to speak of their mother, of old times, and of Anne Catherick."  See, they're treating Laura with kid gloves, like she's a child or an invalid -- while as far as I can tell, she's neither.  Is it just because she's Pretty and Gentle?  Or is it a cultural thing -- that Proper Victorian Ladies (which Marian is not, of course) shouldn't be exposed to That Sort Of Thing? 

•  While Walter's confession of love for Miss Fairlie comes as no surprise, the vehemence of his words, his feelings of guilt and shame, do:

Ah! how well I know all the sadness and all the mockery that is contained in those three words. I can sigh over my mournful confession with the tenderest woman who reads it and pities me. I can laugh at it as bitterly as the hardest man who tosses it from him in contempt. I loved her! Feel for me, or despise me, I confess it with the same immovable resolution to own the truth.

Does Laura turn out to be bananas?  Evil?  Does she die?  Is it something more simple -- his position as her teacher?  WHAT'S THE DEAL, WALTER??

•  Racy!:  "It was part of my service to live in the very light of her eyes—at one time to be bending over her, so close to her bosom as to tremble at the thought of touching it..."  I am so immature.  Sorry.

•  Poor old Walter.  This chapter is brutally honest, and in its own Victorian way, quite blunt:  "I had long since learnt to understand, composedly and as a matter of course, that my situation in life was considered a guarantee against any of my female pupils feeling more than the most ordinary interest in me, and that I was admitted among beautiful and captivating women much as a harmless domestic animal is admitted among them."

•  So Laura feels the same way, but it is a Bad Thing, and Marian is aware of it, and it is also a Bad Thing:  

Although not a word escaped Miss Halcombe which hinted at an altered state of feeling towards myself, her penetrating eyes had contracted a new habit of always watching me. Sometimes the look was like suppressed anger, sometimes like suppressed dread, sometimes like neither—like nothing, in short, which I could understand.

What's the anger all about, hmmmm?

•  So now, though nothing untoward has been said or done, the three of them are completely uncomfortable around one another.  But now Marian is going to tell Walter The Truth -- so maybe there is a Bigger Bad here than just a simple he's Not Good Enough.

X.  In which Walter learns The Truth.

•  Marian seems to be speaking in code at the breakfast table.  Or, at least, letting Laura know something without filling Walter in:  "I have seen your uncle this morning, Laura," she said. "He thinks the purple room is the one that ought to be got ready, and he confirms what I told you. Monday is the day—not Tuesday."  So someone is coming, clearly.  Wait!  Is Laura unhappily engaged or something?  Even the Cabbage's line about winter seems somehow prophetic:

"I suppose it is the change in the wind," said the old lady. "The winter is coming—ah, my love, the winter is coming soon!"

•  Marian's bossiness about Laura's letter isn't very cool -- but then again, it fits with the Delicate Flower treatment.  Could the letter be from the Woman in White?  The under-gardener said she was "well stricken in age", but he was described as a "mere lad".  Perspective matters.  Maybe I should just shut up and read, rather than doing all of this ridiculous speculating.

•  HA!  I WAS RIGHT!  (Granted, I did kind of cover all the bases, but still!)  Laura is engaged. 

•  Marian was so decent about asking Walter to leave -- it was nice that she threw in the bit about it not being a matter of social inequality.  She clearly felt terrible about the entire situation.  It all showed a lot of sympathy.  And empathy.

•  And of COURSE Laura's fiance is a Baronet.  But is he THE Baronet?  I'm going to take a huge leap here, and say... probably.

XI. In which Walter reads The Letter.

•  Walter does love being ominous:

Poignant as it was, the sense of suffering caused by the miserable end of my brief, presumptuous love seemed to be blunted and deadened by the still stronger sense of something obscurely impending, something invisibly threatening, that Time was holding over our heads

•  Ha!:  "...our neighbours are just the sort of comfortable, jog-trot acquaintances whom one cannot disturb in times of trouble and danger."

•  Again, poor Walter!  Now he's worrying that he might be going bananas.  On reading the letter:  "I began to doubt whether my own faculties were not in danger of losing their balance. It seemed almost like a monomania to be tracing back everything strange that happened, everything unexpected that was said, always to the same hidden source and the same sinister influence."

•  I rather like Walter's forthrightness.  It's hard and embarrassing for him to be so honest about his motivations, but he's continuing to do it -- it feels like this is a confessional/purging as well as the Documentation of a Crime.

•  I'm curious about Marian's refusal to make the leap that Walter did -- that she puts no stock whatsoever in the letter, when she is clearly so very protective of Laura.

XII.  In which Walter and Marian go to town and investigate.

•  Oh, good.  He's shaken off his gloom and his snark is back in effect:

Our inquiries at Limmeridge were patiently pursued in all directions, and among all sorts and conditions of people. But nothing came of them. Three of the villagers did certainly assure us that they had seen the woman, but as they were quite unable to describe her, and quite incapable of agreeing about the exact direction in which she was proceeding when they last saw her, these three bright exceptions to the general rule of total ignorance afforded no more real assistance to us than the mass of their unhelpful and unobservant neighbours.

Heh.

•  The schoolroom scene is hilarious, and I wouldn't have been surprised if Marian had jabbed the teacher (or poor Jacob!) with an umbrella (if she'd been carrying one).  Oh dear -- now I seem to be re-imagining her as Amelia Peabody (who also has a great figure).  I was surprised when, in anger, she pulled out the old The Town Should Be Grateful For My Family line.  She hadn't seemed like the type to do that sort of thing.

•  I'm a little disappointed that once again, Marian didn't make the leap -- Walter had to hint around before she thought that the ghost, the letter writer, and Anne Catherick might all be the same person.  (I still love her, though, and I keep reminding myself that this is Walter's take on things.)

•  And now Walter's off for his stakeout!

XIII.  In which Walter has his second conversation with the Woman in White.

•  This is great (and hideously depressing):

Although I hated myself even for thinking such a thing, still, while I looked at the woman before me, the idea would force itself into my mind that one sad change, in the future, was all that was wanting to make the likeness complete, which I now saw to be so imperfect in detail. If ever sorrow and suffering set their profaning marks on the youth and beauty of Miss Fairlie's face, then, and then only, Anne Catherick and she would be the twin-sisters of chance resemblance, the living reflections of one another.

•  Hey, Walter, here's a thought:  MAYBE SIR PERCY PUT HER IN THE ASYLUM.  Yeesh.  Come on, man.  Keep up.

•  Finally he figures it out.  It only took him, like, ten pages.

•  And we're back to Ominous Walter:

I looked after Anne Catherick as she disappeared, till all trace of her had faded in the twilight—looked as anxiously and sorrowfully as if that was the last I was to see in this weary world of the woman in white.

•  The shot of Walter watching Anne Catherick walking away kind of parallels the shot of Walter watching Laura walking away at the end of the last chapter, doesn't it?

XIV.  In which there are no real surprises.

•  I shouldn't be surprised that Mr. Fairlie writes about himself in the third person.  But, you know.  It still threw me.  Happily, he's just as hilariously awful on paper as he is in person.

•  Aaand, no surprise, Anne Catherick is gone. 

•  I'm glad that Marian has started to take this all seriously, but I still think it's frustrating that Laura isn't being at all included in any of this -- I mean, especially given that Sir Percival wants to get married sooner rather than later.  But maybe it's just that my modern sensibilities are causing trouble again.  Also, wow: 

"Is there any doubt in your mind, NOW, Miss Halcombe?"

"Sir Percival Glyde shall remove that doubt, Mr. Hartright—or Laura Fairlie shall never be his wife."

I get that Marian loves her sister, but A) she isn't her guardian, and B) it would be nice if Laura was given the opportunity to have some say in her own future.

XV.  In which there are many Longing Looks and Mournful Sighs.

•  Enter the violet glove-wearing lawyer, Mr. Gilmore:

A sanguine constitution and fair prospects to begin with—a long subsequent career of creditable and comfortable prosperity—a cheerful, diligent, widely-respected old age—such were the general impressions I derived from my introduction to Mr. Gilmore, and it is but fair to him to add, that the knowledge I gained by later and better experience only tended to confirm them.

•  Walter tortures himself by Wandering the Grounds and staring at the places where he Fell In Love, and then speaks with Mr. Gilmore, who is possibly the actual personification of the word 'affable', but who doesn't seem to think that the Sir Percival Situation will turn out to bear fruit.

•  During dinner, Mr. Gilmore says:  "Good bottle of port, that—sound, substantial, old wine. I have got better in my own cellar, though."  Good lord -- what sort of guest says something like that??

•  Sad.  The piano scene was the first time I really felt for Walter and Laura -- maybe because it's practically the first time he's actually given us a transcription of one of their conversations.  That said, I thought her tantrum-y moment drove home her child-like nature yet again.

•  This was quite the moment: "She caught me by both hands—she pressed them with the strong, steady grasp of a man—her dark eyes glittered—her brown complexion flushed deep—the force and energy of her face glowed and grew beautiful with the pure inner light of her generosity and her pity. "

•  I'm starting to feel a little weird about Walter's insistence that everything Laura does is artless and innocent:  "Oh!" she said innocently, "how could I let you go, after we have passed so many happy days together!"  Because, I don't know -- she loves him and knows that he loves her, so how could that line, coming from her, not have a double meaning?

•  Oh, Walter -- you totally had me, and then you wrecked it with the line about "her sacred weakness".  (Had me, as in, had me really genuinely feeling for the two of them.  I love him as a narrator, but I just can't respect his taste in women.)

The End of Hartright's Narrative.

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Previously:

The Reading Schedule
The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII

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Other reader/bloggers:

Bellezza at Dolce Bellezza
Gina at Dickensblog (reading and discussing)
Ms Avery at The Degrassi Digest (reading and discussing)
Jes at Yellow Inkling
Anastasia at Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

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Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But I forgot it at work.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

_____________________________________________________________________

I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money. 

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins The First Epoch: The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII

To those of you who haven't participated before:  the following is my commentary on the bit I (or we!) just read -- if you've written up a post, leave the link in the comments section and I'll compile a list. 

I'm actually a bit behind, but I'm hoping to finish up sometime today, whether it be at lunch or after work.

First Epoch:
The Story Begun by Walter Hartright (of Clement's Inn, Teacher of Drawing)

I.  In which the format of the book is explained.

•  First sentence:  "This is the story of what a Woman's patience can endure, and what a Man's resolution can achieve."

•  "But the Law is still, in certain inevitable cases, the pre-engaged servant of the long purse...".  And 150 years later?  I'm glad that he opened his story with a zinger about the entire justice system.

•  I thought this section read rather like the opening statement of a trial, which, considering the content of the section, was very appropriate.

•  Does anyone know the history on novels with multiple narrators?

II. In which Walter Hartright stands outside his mother's door.

•  Walter Hartright sounds like a Poe or Lovecraft narrator:  "...out of health, out of spirits, and, if the truth must be told, out of money as well."  "...the book which I was dreaming over rather than reading..."

•  So due to his father's forethought, Walter is a very comfortably well-off drawing master, despite his having to stay in town for the summer.

•  Walter Hartright loves his digression.  I'm concerned that pages later, he will still be standing outside his mother's door.

•  Oh, my.  Professor Pesca is quite the Foreign Caricature.  Yet so likable:  "...it never occurred to me that the art of swimming might merely add one more to the list of manly exercises which the Professor believed that he could learn impromptu."  Heh.  My Modern Sensibilities should not allow me to think this hilarious, but I do anyway:  "As soon as his chattering teeth would let him speak, he smiled vacantly, and said he thought it must have been the Cramp."

•  If not for Pesca:  "I should never, perhaps, have heard even the name of the woman who has lived in all my thoughts, who has possessed herself of all my energies, who has become the one guiding influence that now directs the purpose of my life."  Wow.

III.  In which Pesca breaks a teacup and brings Walter a job offer.

•  This made me happy:  "We both bounced into the parlour in a highly abrupt and undignified manner."  Up until now, his voice hadn't suggested anything playful in his nature -- but that makes sense, as writing this document is his version of a trial.  Unless he was just doing it to kind of mock Pesca.  But he doesn't seem mean like that.  So I'm going to go with playful.

•  It's odd that Pesca, with his love of All Things British, has a "constitutional contempt for appearances".  Why am I so obsessed with Pesca?  Moving on.

•  Like the bit about Money and the Law at the beginning, is Wilkie Making A Statement here?:  "Are we, I wonder, quite such genuine boys and girls now as our seniors were in their time? Has the great advance in education taken rather too long a stride; and are we in these modern days, just the least trifle in the world too well brought up?"

•  Sarah is AWFUL.  What a pill.

•  See?  I think I was right.  Pesca's bouncing and whatnot conflicts with this statement:  "It may be necessary to explain here that Pesca prided himself on being a perfect Englishman in his language, as well as in his dress, manners, and amusements."  I mean, doesn't it?  So is Walter trying to stick the Little Foreigner in an easily labeled box, or I am I thinking about this too much?

•  Wow.  Pesca's dialogue and flair for description (and asides) made me snicker -- and I liked getting little snippets of HIS view of the English.  I rather think he sees them as Foreign Caricatures -- the flipside to how Walter sees him.  "...as you English begin everything in this blessed world that you have to say, with a great O..." 

•  OOOOooo.  Walter is having a Vague Premonition and a (Possible) Uncomfortable Feeling of Future Doom in regards to the job offer:  "...no sooner had I read the memorandum than I felt an inexplicable unwillingness within me to stir in the matter. I had never in the whole of my previous experience found my duty and my inclination so painfully and so unaccountably at variance as I found them now."  Again with the Poe/Lovecraftian feeling.

IV.  In which Walter meets the Woman in White.

• So, Walter's making his way back to London in a very roundabout way, and Holy Cow, it's the WOMAN IN WHITE!  "There was nothing wild, nothing immodest in her manner: it was quiet and self-controlled, a little melancholy and a little touched by suspicion; not exactly the manner of a lady, and, at the same time, not the manner of a woman in the humblest rank of life."

•  "I trace these lines, self-distrustfully, with the shadows of after-events darkening the very paper I write on; and still I say, what could I do?"  As he promises to help her, I must assume that somehow, It All Goes Wrong:

As she repeated the words for the third time, she came close to me and laid her hand, with a sudden gentle stealthiness, on my bosom—a thin hand; a cold hand (when I removed it with mine) even on that sultry night. Remember that I was young; remember that the hand which touched me was a woman's.

"Will you promise?"

"Yes."

One word! The little familiar word that is on everybody's lips, every hour in the day. Oh me! and I tremble, now, when I write it.

That bit is so awesomely melodramatic.  You know, I KNOW I've read this book, but I don't remember a THING about it.

•  She makes mention of a Bad Baronet (or, at least, it seems clear that he's Bad), but she won't elaborate.

•  AH HA!  And she JUST SO HAPPENS to have spent time at Limmeridge House.  But that the Fairlie family she knew is dead.  And Walter doesn't mention that he's headed there tomorrow.  And then she hops in a cab and disappears.  (I mean, the cab drives away.  With her in it.)

•  Uh oh -- Walter just overheard two men tell a policeman that they're searching for a Woman in White!  Who has (according to them) just escaped from an Asylum!  But Walter doesn't say anything to them.  (Good job, Walter.)

V.  In which Walter tortures himself with Questions, and then heads off to Limmeridge.

•  "...my supper was awaiting me, in a forlorn manner, at one extremity of a lonesome mahogany wilderness of dining-table."  I always like that image.

VI.  In which Walter has breakfast and hardly gets a word in edgewise... except for spilling all about the Woman in White.

•  While I've been smiling tons, this was my first real laugh-out-loud moment:

She turned towards me immediately. The easy elegance of every movement of her limbs and body as soon as she began to advance from the far end of the room, set me in a flutter of expectation to see her face clearly. She left the window—and I said to myself, The lady is dark. She moved forward a few steps—and I said to myself, The lady is young. She approached nearer—and I said to myself (with a sense of surprise which words fail me to express), The lady is ugly!

•  I do not buy Walter's notion that beauty in a woman requires "gentleness and pliability".  Bah.

•  Well.  Marian Halcombe is just awesome.  And, wow.  She is not a fan of her sex. (I mean, she loves her sister.  But she doesn't think much of ladies in general.)

•  Ooo, now she wants to investigate the mystery of the Woman in White.  But while keeping her sister and her stepfather in the dark.  So is her appearance and manly behavior/bearing (in Walter's opinion) Wilkie's way of keeping her purely awesome self from taking over the whole book and/or becoming an obvious love interest?  If you changed her appearance a tad, she could totally be a Heyer heroine.

VII.  In which Walter meets his new employer.

•  Walter is so concerned with masculinity and femininity, and what are acceptable/attractive qualities in either sex!  On his new employer:  "Upon the whole, he had a frail, languidly-fretful, over-refined look—something singularly and unpleasantly delicate in its association with a man, and, at the same time, something which could by no possibility have looked natural and appropriate if it had been transferred to the personal appearance of a woman."

•  Huh.  "So glad to possess you at Limmeridge, Mr. Hartright..."  Have you run across 'possess' used like that before?  I haven't, so it seems strange and... kind of creepy to me.  But maybe it's just an older usage.

•  Mr. Fairlie is worse than Sarah.  Yeesh.  He'd be a good match for Mrs. Bennet (if he could cross decades and authors), but then again, her squawking would probably make his ears bleed.  Or make him think his ears were going to bleed.

•  Wow.  Walter's really letting his snark flag fly in his narration of this scene:  "As a practical commentary on the liberal social theory which he had just favoured me by illustrating, Mr. Fairlie's cool request rather amused me."  Later, Mr. Fairlie continues to exhibit his awesomely liberal social beliefs with this comment:  "...servants are such asses, are they not?"

•  Aha ha ha ha!  I had to read this bit out loud to Josh because it made me laugh so much:

"A thousand pardons, Mr. Hartright, I'm afraid I bore you." 

As he wearily closed his eyes again, before I could answer, and as he did most assuredly bore me, I sat silent, and looked up at the Madonna and Child by Raphael.

Walter Hartright, keep it up!  I love your bitchy side.

•  Man, Louis had better earn a decent wage.  It's been, like, two pages and I'm ready to bonk Mr. Fairlie upside the head with one of his portfolios.

VIII. In which Walter turns into a huge sap, and he and Marion make progress in their investigation.

•  Due to quotes like this, I'm starting to fall in love with Walter:  "Some of us rush through life, and some of us saunter through life. Mrs. Vesey SAT through life."  And "...it will always remain my private persuasion that Nature was absorbed in making cabbages when Mrs. Vesey was born."

•  I just knew Laura would be a knockout.  And that Walter would fall for her.

•  OH MY GOD, ALREADY.  I GET IT.  SHE'S THE AWESOMEST.

•  Huh.  "Mingling with the vivid impression produced by the charm of her fair face and head, her sweet expression, and her winning simplicity of manner, was another impression, which, in a shadowy way, suggested to me the idea of something wanting."  Like, something is missing...?

•  I find it interesting that in the letter, it was Laura who said she'd wear white forever, but Walter and Marion immediately seemed to attribute that to the Woman in White -- and all that while Laura was gliding back and forth in her white dress.  Or did I read that bit incorrectly?  [Why, yes, Leila, yes you did.  Just re-read that bit.  I did totally read that wrong last night.  It was Anne who said it.  Sorry.]  Also, are we going to have a love triangle on our hands?

•  AHA!  I thought we might have a secret twin/doppleganger situation...

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Previously:

The Reading Schedule

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Other reader/bloggers:

Elizabeth at The Leaky Dinghy
Bellezza at Dolce Bellezza
Sarah at what we have here is a failure to communicate
Gina at the Dickensblog (not posting, but lots of discussing!)
Jes at Yellow Inkling
Anastasia at the Birdbrain(ed) Book Blog

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Book source:  My local library.  Well, I was planning on using the library copy.  But I forgot it at work.  Thank goodness for Project Gutenberg and BookGlutton.

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I'm part of the Amazon Affiliate program.  Which I'd assume would be apparent by the ad in the sidebar, but assuming that you're bright enough to understand that is not enough for the FTC.  So, I will spell it out:  if you click through to Amazon and buy something, I get money. 

The Big Read V: The Woman in White -- Wilkie Collins

Holy cow, I can't believe I've gearing up for the fifth Big Read.  Although maybe I shouldn't count BRIV, as I totally bailed on it.  But I do count BRI, BRII and BRIII as complete successes.  And it would be confusing to use the same number twice.  So.

There was a bit of dissent, and I did give it quite a bit of thought.  Ultimately, I decided to go with my first choice. 

For The Big Read V, I (and any of you who would like to join me) will be reading Wilkie Collins' The Woman in White.

Why did I decide to go with it?  Two reasons.

First, I want to re-read it.  And, you know.  My house, my rules.  Second (and far more importantly), I'm kind of scared of CC.

So.  This is the schedule I'll be following:

January 6:  The First Epoch:  The Story Begun by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VIII

January 8:  Walter Hartright, Chapters IX-XV

January 11:  The Story Continued by Vincent Gilmore; The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe

January 13:  The Second Epoch:  The Story Continued by Marian Halcombe, Chapters I-V

January 15:  Marian Halcombe, Chapters VI-X; Postscript

January 18:  The Story Continued by Frederick Fairlie, Esq.; The Story Continued by Eliza Michelson

January 20:  The Story Continued in Several Narratives (This is a really short section, which will allow for any needed catching up.)

January 22:  The Third Epoch:  The Story Continued by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VI

January 25:  Walter Hartright, Chapters VII-XI

January 27:  The Story Continued by Mrs. Catherick; The Story Continued by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-VII

January 29:  The Story Continued by Isidor, Ottavio, Baldassare Fosco; The Story Concluded by Walter Hartright, Chapters I-III

If you'd like to read along with me, awesome!  If you'd like to blog along with me, even more awesome -- when you post, just let me know so I can compile a list of links as I've done in the past.

I'm going to use a library copy (or my own if I can find one up in the attic), but it's in the public domain, so it's available at Project Gutenberg and other places online, and I'm sure there are bazillions of used copies for sale at all of the usual places.

I'm looking forward to this one -- I hope there's a lot of conversation!