It’s quite astonishing to me to think about the fact that The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins has been tantalizing readers for 162 years! Victorian readers of Charles Dickens’s magazine called All the Year Round got to read the first installment in 1859 in which they met Walter Hartright and ventured along with him on his moonlight walk through Hampstead Heath where he meets the mysterious woman in white for the first time. I can imagine the readers’ own shock as they got to this part:

…in one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me.

Imagine how utterly sensational this new style of writing and reading was to the Victorians. Collins had given them a brand new sensation novel that would knock at their own back doors and invite the criminal elements, intrigue and madness into their own homes and parlors where they believed the secrets could be safely concealed. Author Henry James described the sensation novel experience perfectly when he said that the book ”introduced into fiction those most mysterious of mysteries, the mysteries which are at our own doors”.

Collins expertly created a cast of characters centered around a plot that twists and turns and creates tension and uneasiness. Written in narratives from the perspectives of each person’s account of the happenings in question, the reader is provided with all the information plus countless ambiguities throughout and is then left to determine for himself what to believe. The reader wonders who is trustworthy in their account and who is only partially telling the truth. The intrigue, mystery, bribery, madness, ailments, espionage, secret societies, medical twists, conniving and curious characters, secrets, manic moments, and more sensationalistic events certainly kept this reader on the edge of my seat.

The Woman in White is a satisfying and thrilling read and one that will have you coming back to read more. Some of the most unforgettable characters were created here by Collins. Walter Hartright, the drawing master and protagonist has an undying sense for right and justice. Laura Fairlie is cast as the typical beautiful, devoted Victorian young woman while her half-sister, Marian Halcombe is presented as a plain, unattractive, poor yet intelligent and spunky spinster. The sister’s unbearable uncle Frederick Fairlie provides quite a humorous aspect as a whiny hypochondriac who has a nervous tendency. Sinister and secretive Sir Percival Glyde and his friend and companion, the cunning and curious Count Fosco with his cockatoos, canaries and mice he treats like children certainly provoke the awe factor.

My favorite character of all was Marion for her tenacity and loyalty, her ingenuity and her steadfastness. She has got to be one of the most unique and remarkable characters ever created by Collins.

Even after 162 years of readership, Collins’ original sensation novel still has the ability to wow readers with modern sensibilities and awareness.

Αιφνιδιαστικά συναρπαστικό!

Ο Ουόλτερ Χαρτράιτ προσλαμβάνεται για μερικούς μήνες στο Λίμεριτζ Χάουζ από τον κύριο Φέρλι για να διδάξει ζωγραφική σε δύο νεαρές δεσποινίδες, τη Λόρα Φέρλι και τη Μάριαν Χάλκομπ. Στο πρώτο μέρος του ταξιδιού του προς τα εκεί, σε έναν ερημικό δρόμο, μία η ώρα το βράδυ ο Ουόλτερ συναντά μια μυστηριώδη γυναίκα ντυμένη από την κορυφή μέχρι τα νύχια στα λευκά.
Και κάπως έτσι ξεκινάει για τον Ουόλτερ, τη Λόρα και τη Μάριαν μια δυσάρεστη περιπέτεια.

Αν και δεν έχω διαβάσει πολλά βιβλία της εποχής(19ος αιώνας) περίμενα να συναντήσω πολλές γλαφυρές περιγραφές, καθωσπρέπει κυρίους και ευαίσθητες δεσποινίδες που με την παραμικρή αναστάτωση να πέφτουν του θανατά. Αντιθέτως βρήκα αγωνία, μυστήριο, συνωμοσίες και βαθιά σκιαγραφημένους χαρακτήρες!

Δεν θέλω να πω κάτι παραπάνω για την υπόθεση μιας και πιστεύω πως είναι καλύτερα να ξεκινήσει κανείς ανυποψίαστος.
Θα πω όμως ότι από τις πρώτες κιόλας σελίδες του με κέρδισε με την ατμόσφαιρά του, αλλά και αργότερα μπαίνοντας όλο και βαθύτερα στην ιστορία καθώς με κάθε νέο στοιχείο που έρχονταν στο φως η αγωνία μου αυξάνονταν. Καθώς περνούσαν οι σελίδες όλο και πιο πολύ ήθελα να φτάσω στη λύση του μυστηρίου!

Θέλω επίσης να αναφερθώ στους δύο χαρακτήρες που μου έκαναν τη μεγαλύτερη εντύπωση: την Μάριαν Χάλκομπ, έξυπνη, γενναία, δυναμική, ένας εξαιρετικός γυναικείος χαρακτήρας που συμπάθησα πάρα πολύ, και από την άλλη μεριά ο κόμης Φόσκο. Ένας ιδιαίτερα ύπουλα κακός τύπος, του οποίου την πολυπλοκότητα του χαρακτήρα βρήκα συναρπαστική και πραγματικά απολάμβανα να διαβάζω γι' αυτόν!

Ιδιοφυές, ανατρεπτικό, συναρπαστικό, μου άρεσε πολύ!


n  n    B.R.A.CE. 2018: 4 βιβλία με ένα χρώμα στον τίτλο ή στο εξώφυλλοn  n(2/4)

Η γυναίκα με τα άσπρα (μπορεί να ήταν και με τα μπεζ δεν παίρνω κι όρκο, βλέπετε ο συγγραφέας ήταν άντρας).
Θυμάμαι το διάβασα το 2012 λίγες βδομάδες πριν την αποφοίτησή μου από το πανεπιστήμιο. Ήταν το μεγαλύτερο σε μήκος βιβλίο από συγγραφέα της Βικτωριανής εποχής που διάβασα, μέχρι εκείνη τη στιγμή.

Λίγους μήνες πριν μια φίλη μου μου είπε ότι το αγόρασε και της είπα ότι το διάβασα πριν 6 χρόνια, με παρακάλεσε να το διαβάσουμε μαζί και λόγω του ότι θυμάμαι ότι μ’ άρεσε και ήθελα να το θυμηθώ, και επίσης λόγω του ότι μια συνανάγνωση είναι πιο ζωντανή από την μοναχική ανάγνωση αποφάσισα, δειλά μεν, να το ξαναδιαβάσω παρόλο που ήταν 728 σελίδες.
Μέχρι να έρθει η Πρωταπριλιά και να το ξεκινήσουμε προστέθηκαν άλλα δυο κορίτσια. Και έτσι η συνανάγνωση από buddy read έγινε read-along (ομαδική).

Και έτσι δέκα μέρες μετά ολοκλήρωσα αυτό το βιβλίο που είχα βαθμολογήσει από την πρώτη ανάγνωση με 5 αστέρια. Και βγήκε δικαιωμένο. Ήταν με λίγα λόγια αριστούργημα.

Μπορεί να είναι Βικτωριανή Εποχή, η γλώσσα να είναι διαφορετική με λέξεις που τότε είχαν διαφορετικό νόημα:
society=παρέα
gay= εύθυμος
destroy= σκοτώνω
αλλά μπορώ να πω ότι οικειοποιήθηκα την αγγλική γλώσσα του 19ου αιώνα έτσι αυτό δεν αποτέλεσε πρόβλημα.

Διαβάστε τη συνέχεια στο μπλογκ μου, ΒιβλιοΑλχημείες

An intense story with incredibly unique characters, but it is FAR too long.

The Woman in White is an extraordinary book. It captivated the reading public of the time, and in parts is almost as breathlessly mesmerising and gripping to read now. Wilkie Collins professed the “old-fashioned” idea, that “the primary object of a work of fiction should be to tell a story”, and what a story he has given us here!

Any list of “the greatest novels of all time” will probably feature this one. When it was first published, it wowed the reading public, and manufacturers got on the bandwagon, creating “Woman in White” perfume and “Woman in White” cloaks and bonnets. There were “Woman in White” waltzes and quadrilles displayed in music-shops. “Walter” became a fashionable name for babies, and the names of other characters in the novel became popular too. Cats were named “Fosco” and instantly looked more sinister in their owners’ eyes. The poet Edward FitzGerald even named his boat, “Marian Halcombe”. It can truly be said that this novel was a sensation.

It is quite apt then, that The Woman in White is generally regarded as the first of the Victorian “sensation” novels. Not only did it establish a new genre, arising from melodramatic novels, gothic and romantic novels, and drawing on “penny dreadfuls” and fictionalised criminal biographies, but it immediately gave rise to many imitators. No longer would gruesome and spectacular crimes only happen in fantastic Medieval castles, but behind the doors of ordinary domestic environments. Virtuous women would still be menaced by dastardly cads, but the element of realism was key. Mrs Henry Wood’s “East Lynne” was published the next year in 1861, and Mary Elizabeth Braddon’s “Lady Audley’s Secret”, the year after (1862). And to top all this, The Woman in White is also considered to be among the first mystery novels.

Yet in 1860, at the time of publication, Wilkie Collins was still very much in the shadow of Charles Dickens.

Back in April 1852, the twenty-seven year old Wilkie Collins had already turned his back on convention. His father wanted him to become a clergyman, but after some agonising, Wilkie Collins went a different way, and trained to become a barrister. He completed his legal studies and was called to the bar in 1851, but never formally practised, instead deciding to become a writer. Wilkie Collins then began writing for his friend Charles Dickens’s weekly magazine, “Household Words”. Dickens, then forty years of age, was by now a literary phenomenon, with his fingers in lots of pies. Although Dickens himself earned over a thousand pounds per annum from his work on the magazine, Wilkie Collins was initially paid by the column. Four years later, in September 1856, he finally became a staff writer who would be paid the standard rate of five guineas per week. But he was still one of many in Dickens’s “stable”.

For Victorian readers, to read a novel in serial form was the norm, and quite a few of these serials have since become classic novels. Other major Victorian writers who also had their novels printed in serial form first, in Dickens’s magazines “Household Words” and “All the Year Round”, include Elizabeth Gaskell and Anthony Trollope. In fact The Woman in White was the very first novel to be published in Charles Dickens’s brand new weekly magazine “All the Year Round”, between 1859 and 1860.

That very first weekly issue contained the concluding installment of Dickens’s “A Tale of Two Cities” followed immediately by the opening installment of a new novel with no author credited, a sensational “novel-with-a-secret”, which was called The Woman in White. Sales immediately increased! Holding back the author’s name may seem incredible to us now, but Charles Dickens was very strict that no authors in his magazines were ever named, so that he could keep them as his “staff writers”. Incidentally, a later issue during the run of The Woman in White, also has the start of “Framley Parsonage” and “East Lynne”. What a treasure trove these Victorian readers had in their magazines!

Yet just two months after serialisation had started, Dickens was calling The Woman in White “masterly”, and later, Prince Albert admired it so much that he sent copies of the novel as gifts. Charles Dickens began writing his own sensation novel just months later, called “Great Expectations”. Both novels are thrilling even now, with a strong story line, gothic feel and complex plot. Both dealt with secrets, past and present, questions and doubts about identity and social position. Both made use of the ideas of suspect wills, forged documents, inheritances, secret marriages, and illegitimacy; themes very much in flux in the changing society in the Victorian era.

What makes these novels so appealing to us now is that they are both exciting page-turners, with suspenseful mystery at their heart, and twists a-plenty. The Woman in White is a complex tale, with an unusual narrative structure. It is told by several narrators, and different forms, either as reported action, or diaries, or letters. In a way it resembles an epistolary novel, as each narrator has a distinct narrative voice. They form a chain of “witness” statements which gradually unravel a cunning conspiracy by  two memorable aristocratic monsters, Sir Percival Glyde and his despicable companion, one of the most seductive villains in Victorian literature, the Italian Count Fosco. Switching between the different and diverse viewpoints, adds interest and depth to the story. We begin to wonder who is to be trusted, and who might be an unreliable narrator. We also see how some characters are vague, or naive, others are driven and passionate, yet others again are vain, or dissembling.

Wilkie Collins is very much in the driving seat throughout this novel, carefully rationing out little pieces of the jigsaw, and disclosing the secret like a series of Russian dolls. He also manipulates our feelings, controlling who we think we trust. The entire novel is deviously plotted. The original structure was geared towards a “cliffhanger” at the end of each installment, leaving us wanting more. Oddly though, reading in the novel form we now have available, this is not as evident.

Dickens’s serialised installments could all be chopped up neatly into between three and five chapters, but that was impossible with The Woman in White. The narratives varied in length from one page to, surprisingly, two hundred. Some are divided into parts, and sometimes an installment contained parts of one and part of another. One narrator even returns later. The only choice was to have a completely new structure for the novel itself: in three Epochs rather than Parts, and chapters of similar lengths sweeping across the original divisions completely independently. The chapter names are also slightly different, for instance this magnificent original narrative title:

“The Narrative of Isidor Ottavio Baldassare Fosco. Count of the Holy Roman Empire. Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Brazen Crown. Perpetual Archmaster of the Rosicrucian Masons of Mesopotamia. Attached, in Honorary Capacities, to Societies Musical, Societies Medical, Societies Philosophical, and Societies General Benevolent, Throughout Europe & & &”

has, disappointingly in the novel version, been reduced to merely:

“The Story Continued by Isidor, Ottavio, Baldassare, Fosco”

which hardly conjures up the enormous bombast and swagger of the character, whom I can imagine signing his name and illustrious titles with a satisfyingly sweeping flourish of his quill pen. These details so reminiscent of Dickens are sadly lost in most modern editions. Also, the suspense of the former endings of each installment are also lost, or rather subsumed into part of the action, but the whole flows just as well, and is just as addictive.

Wilkie Collins clearly understood people very well. He has created a wealth of wonderful characters. There is the faithful and angelic Laura Fairlie,  entrapped by  the sinister, secretive Percival Glyde; there is her impossible uncle, the effete connoisseur of the Arts, Frederick Fairlee, source of much of the humour in this book, with his monumental selfishness and exaggerated hypochondria. There is of course the wonderful Count Fosco, charismatic and cunning, with his cockatoo, his canary-birds, and his pet white mice, who run over his immense body, partnered by his overly dutiful, malevolently vindictive wife. There is at least one young protagonist for Wilkie Collins’s readers to identify with in Walter Hartright, a young man with a strong sense of justice. Another is the intelligent, and resourceful Marian Halcombe, one of his most powerful creations.

Some consider that with this mannish, eloquent character, Collins was attempting to create a positive portrayal of a lesbian woman, within the constraints of the time. This is possible, given Collins’s admiration of women, but it is all down to interpretation and subtext. Collins attacked middle-class hypocrisy, perhaps because he was himself so bohemian. Outwardly, he was a member of the Establishment. He belonged to the “Garrick Club” and to all outward appearances was a typical Victorian gentleman.

Wilkie Collins lived respectably enough with his mother for many years, whilst setting up his mistress, Caroline Graves, in a house nearby. But in 1858, defying public opinion, and much to Dickens’s disapproval, Collins began living with Caroline and her daughter Harriet. Charles Dickens too, was very much the family man in public. In fact although he and Collins both professed to be Christians, they had extraordinary lifestyles, and their views of marriage were very different from each other, for such close friends. Although we know of Dickens’s long-term relationship with Nelly Ternan, as a man of propriety, he had attempted to keep this a closely guarded secret.

Caroline kept a small shop nearby Collins’s home. She had married young, had a child, and been widowed. Wilkie Collins treated Harriet, whom he called Carrie, as his own daughter, and helped to pay for her education. The two stayed together for most of their lives although he refused to marry her as he disliked the institution of marriage. Extraordinarily for the time, Wilkie Collins also had another mistress, the working-class Martha Rudd, by whom he had three children, in a house just a few streets away.

The second installment of The Woman in White begins very melodramatically, to modern eyes, with a young man, Walter Hartright meeting a strange woman dressed all in white, in the mist. This dramatic meeting was rumoured to be how he first met Caroline Graves, on a night-time walk over Hampstead Heath. In The Woman in White Walter stops, every drop of blood in his body frozen still by “the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly” upon his shoulder. For us, for the first time, we meet the mysterious Anne Catherick, whom we know as The Woman in White.

But I shall not tell the story here. There are plenty of places where you can read a synopsis, should you want to, but wouldn’t that spoil all the twists?

After serialisation, The Woman in White was published in novel form in 1860, and also that year produced on stage, where it was a sensation. When serialised works from his magazines were published in novel form, or on stage, Dickens allowed the advertising to specifically name the authors of the novels. The poster, which was designed for booksellers’ windows for The Woman in White was a woodcut by Frederick Walker, and at last Wilkie Collins could have his name attributed to the novel.



The public loved The Woman in White, but contemporary critics were generally hostile. Now both critics and readers regard either this, or “The Moonstone” as his best novel, and it was certainly his own favourite. But at the time, he was very much viewed as an adjunct to Dickens, the two having collaborated on several articles and stories every year. 1857 had been a particularly fruitful year for the two, with the writing of three major works and the production of the play “The Frozen Deep”. Most recently Charles Dickens’s “The Haunted House” had included both authors, with Dickens’s stories framing stories by five others.

Interestingly, Dickens’s next novel was to be “Great Expectations”, the most gothic of all his novels. The two writers were clearly writing very closely together, and producing a very similar feel to their works. In fact reading parts of this, Dickens’s influence seems very clear at some points, especially in a few of the cameo roles. Wilkie Collins had a wry touch which was all his own, but some humorous passages jump out as being Charles Dickens’s irrepressible silliness. Also sometimes the sarcasm (for instance of Marian Halcombe) is very reminiscent of Dickens.

In 1862, the split finally came. Wilkie Collins resigned from Dickens’s staff, and the separation of Dickens’s and Collins’s identities as writers became more defined. Wilkie Collins was not to work with Dickens again until the pair collaborated on “No Thoroughfare” for the 1867 Christmas edition of the magazine. Immediately after this story came the first installment of “The Moonstone” in serial form, the novel that would finally establish Wilkie Collins’s reputation.

However he was in poor health. He continued to suffer from gout, and it now especially affected his eyes. Within a year, the laudanum he was taking for his continual gout became a serious problem.

Collins said of his early days with Dickens, “We saw each other every day, and were as fond of each other as men could be.” Wilkie Collins certainly suffered after the death of Charles Dickens in 1870. Some view Wilkie Collins as a draining influence on Charles Dickens, and it has even been suggested that the strain of mentoring Collins contributed to Dickens’s death. Perhaps the consequent loss of Dickens as both a friend and a literary mentor, partly caused Collins’s increased dependence upon laudanum. He certainly never bettered the novels he published in the 1860s.

Wilkie Collins’s later novels contained more social commentary, and were not as sensational. This one and “The Moonstone” represent the best, the most intriguing, and most enduring of his career. With their themes of jealousy, murder and adultery, these thrilling tales are as electrifying, horrific, suspenseful, and intricately plotted as any Victorian classics you are likely to read.

"We dont want genius in this country, unless it is
accompanied by respectability." Collins packs wit into
a mystery that Smart Aleck Woollcott called one of the best
written. He surely appreciated the teasing ironies.
Meantime, there's delicato Laura w odious husby and his
nasty accomplice Count Fosco who want to rob her of
property and destroy her identity. If only Laura's
tenacious couz Marian had a cellphone...

Altogether, a stately instance of monstrous romance/deception that salutes the mask without the face behind it.

Υπέροχο βιβλίο,συναρπαστικό και εξαιρετικά ευκολοδιάβαστο.Παρά τον όγκο του το τελείωσα σε λίγες μέρες αφού με έκανε να μην θέλω να το αφήσω πριν φτάσω στη λύση του μυστηρίου.

The Woman in White, Wilkie Collins, First Published 1860.

'In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop... There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth, stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white'

The Woman in White famously opens with Walter Hartright's eerie encounter on a moonlit London road.

Engaged as a drawing master to the beautiful Laura Fairlie, Walter becomes embroiled in the sinister intrigues of Sir Percival Glyde and his 'charming' friend Count Fosco, who has a taste for white mice, vanilla bonbons, and poison.

Pursuing questions of identity and insanity along the paths and corridors of English country houses and the madhouse, The Woman in White is the first and most influential of the Victorian genre that combined Gothic horror with pyschological realism.

Matthew Sweet's introduction explores the phenomenon of Victorian 'sensation' fiction, and discusses Wilkie Collins's biographical and societal influences. Included in this edition are appendices on theatrical adaptations of the novel and its serialization history.

Characters:
Walter Hartright,
Marian Halcombe,
Anne Catherick,
Sir Percival Glyde,
Count Fosco,
Frederick Fairlie,
Laura Fairlie,
Madame Fosco,
and Mr. Gilmore.

عنوانهای چاپ شده در ایران: «زن سفیدپوش»؛ «بانوی سفیدپوش»؛ «سفیدپوشی در لیمریج»؛ نویسنده: ویلکی کالینز؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش روز دوم ماه دسامبر سال1998میلادی

عنوان یک: زن سفیدپوش، نویسنده: ویلکی کالینز؛ مترجم: نودهشتیا، نوع فایل: پی.دی.اف، در524ص؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسنگان بریتانیا - سده19م

عنوان دو: زن سفیدپوش، نویسنده: ویلکی کالینز؛ مترجم: آذرمیدخت کاوه‌خوری‌، پروین قائمی، ناشر ت‍ه‍ران، ن‍ش‍ر ق‍طره‌، تاریخ اثر سال1376، در733ص، شابک9645958482؛

عنوان سه: بانوی سفیدپوش، نویسنده: ویلکی کالینز؛ مترجم: علی‌اکبر دستمالچی، ناشر تبریز، مولود، تاریخ اثر سال‏‫1387، در736ص، شابک9786009025899؛

عنوان: زن سفید پوش، مترجم: نسرین زارع؛ نشر وصال، سال1383، در128ص؛ شابک9648010048؛ فهرست: مقدمه؛ فصل1: «زن سفید پوش، ص13»؛ فصل2: «والتر به لیمبریج میرسد، ص18»؛ فصل3: «هشداری به لورا، ص23»؛ فصل4: «در قبرستان کلیسا، ص27»؛ فصل5: «ان کاتریک ناپدید میشود، ص32»؛ فصل6: آقای گیلمر وارد عمل میشود؛ ص35»؛ فصل7: «آقای پرسیوال توضیح میدهد، ص40»؛ فصل8: «مقدمات ازدواج، ص46»؛ فصل9: «لورا برای ازدواج آماده میشود، ص50»؛ بخش دوم: فصل1: «در بلک واتر، ص57»؛ فصل2: «آقای مریمن پیغام میآورد، ص61»؛ فصل3: «آقای پرسیوال عصبانی است، ص65»؛ فصل4: «سایه کنار دریاچه، ص69»؛ فصل5: «قرار ملاقات به تعویق میافتد، ص73»؛ فصل6: «ماریان حرفهای عجیبی میشنود، ص77»؛ فصل7: «خواهرها جدا میشوند، ص82»؛ فصل8: «مرگ ناگهانی، ص87»؛ فصل9: «بازگشت به قبرستان کلیسا، ص90»؛ بخش سوم: فصل1: «در تیمارستان، ص95»؛ فصل2: «والتر نقشه ی عملی طرح میکند، ص101»؛ فصل3: «خانم کاتریک رازی را فاش میکند، ص106»؛ فصل4: سند جرم، ص110»؛ فصل5: دومین مرگ، ص115»؛ فصل6: «والتر پاداش میگیرد، ص120»؛ فصل7: «پایان ماموریت، ص123»؛

مقدمه کتاب: (این داستان، بازگو کننده ­ی آن چیزی است، که در بردباری یک زن، می­گنجد؛ و مصلحت اندیشی یک مرد، آن را میسر می­سازد؛ اگر میشد به عملکرد ماشین قانون، در کشف موارد مشکوک، اعتماد کرد، و رسیدگی به پرونده­ هاییکه، برای بازجویی ارجاع می­شوند، اگر قابل کنترل بود، امکان داشت، با استمدادی اندک، از تاثیر و نفوذ طلا، که هر امری را، تسهیل می­کند، و مثل روغن گریس، هر چرخی را، به راه می­اندازد، وقایعی را که، در این کتاب، بازگو می­شوند، در دادگاهی علنی مطرح، و کلی هم مشتری، و بیننده ی پروپاقرص، برایش دست و پا کرد.)؛ پایان نقل از مقدمه کتاب

داستان، شیوه ی روایتی جالبی دارد، هر یک از شخصیت­های داستان، قسمتی از رویداد را، از دید خویش بازمی­گویند؛ «زن سفید پوش»، تنها یک داستان عاشقانه، یا جنایی نیست؛ بلکه تلفیقی از ماجرای عاشقانه ی «والتر هارترایت»، و از سوی دیگر، شخصیت مرموز «سِر پرسیوال گلاید» است، که دل خوانشگر را، در فراز و نشیب داستان، میرباید؛ دلپذیرترین اثر «ویلکی کالینز» است؛ رمانی، پر از تعلیق، که راوی داستانش، جوانی هنرمند است، به نام «والتر هارترایت»، که برای تدریس نقاشی، به دو دوشیزه ی اشراف‌زاده، «لندن» را، به مقصد دهکده ­ی «لیمریج»، ترک می‌کند؛ در جاده­ ی «لندن»، زنی سفیدپوش و مضطرب، از «والتر»، یاری می‌خواهد، زن در گفت و شنود، از خانه‌ ای می‌گوید، که مدرس جوان، قرار است، به آنجا برود؛ «والتر» پس از اقامت در «لیمریج»، دلباخته­ ی «لورا» (یکی از دوشیزگان) می‌شود؛ اما پس از چندی، درمی‌یابد که قرار است ایشان، با نجیب‌زاده‌ ای ازدواج کند و.....؛

تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 15/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 27/08/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی

«Η γυναίκα με τα άσπρα» γράφτηκε το 1850 και θεωρείται το πρώτο βαθιά αισθηματικό λογοτεχνικό έργο μυστηρίου και αγωνίας.

Είναι ένας θησαυρός Βικτωριανής κουλτούρας με άψογη και πρωτότυπη τεχνοτροπία γραφής.

Άριστα δομημένοι χαρακτήρες, κοινωνικές συνθήκες και τρόποι συμπεριφοράς, κρυμμένα κίνητρα, άθλιοι ήρωες, ηθικές, εκκεντρικές και καθόλου αφελείς ηρωίδες.
Αυτά είναι τα κύρια συστατικά με τα οποία ο συγγραφέας ξεκινάει να διαμορφώνει τη δημιουργία του.

Η μεγαλοφυΐα και η ικανότητα του συντελούν στην εκπληκτική εξέλιξη και πλοκή προσώπων και γεγονότων για ένα αποτέλεσμα που ανατρέπεται συμπερασματικά ως την τελευταία σελίδα.

Δεν χρειάζεται να φανταστείς τους χαρακτήρες, την οπτική τους παρουσία, τα ενδότερα πνευματικά και ψυχικά τους στοιχεία, ούτε καν τους τόπους, τα μέρη, τους χώρους που διαδραματίζονται όλα.
Η περιγραφική του πένα σου αποκαλύπτει εξαιρετικά και σε πραγματικό χρόνο ό,τι μπορείς ή δεν μπορείς να φανταστείς.
Το στυλ του ξεκάθαρο, σαφές, συνοπτικό, χωρίς υπερβολικές καταγραφές, εύκολο και τρομερά ενδιαφέρον.
Προσελκύει εθιστικά την ανάγνωση και τραβάει όλο και πιο βαθιά σε αγωνία και απρόσμενες αποκαλύψεις απο το ένα κεφάλαιο στο άλλο.
Διατηρώντας παράλληλα χαρακτήρες και πλοκή σε μια ουσιαστική ροή χωρίς σύγχυση.

Τα βικτωριανά μυθιστορήματα φημίζονται για την εξέλιξη των χαρακτήρων τους και το συγκεκριμένο δεν αποτελεί εξαίρεση, αποτελεί μια εκπληκτική πορεία δράσης όπου τα φαινόμενα πάντα απατούν και ανατρέπουν δεδομένα που ίσως να ήταν αυτονόητα.

Πολλοί αφηγητές που πήραν μέρος στην ιστορία μυστηρίου και αγάπης εξιστορούν ο καθένας απο την δική του οπτική γωνία πως βίωσαν τις καταστάσεις σε προσωπικό και κοινωνικό επίπεδο.

Οι αφηγήσεις τους δεν είναι σε σωστή χρονική σειρά πάνω στην πραγματική ιστορία, μα ειναι διαδοχικές απο πρόσωπο σε πρόσωπο κι αυτό ειναι ενα ακόμη στοιχείο μη αναρρωτικής αγωνίας.

Έχουν περάσει 168 χρόνια απο τη στιγμή που δημοσιεύτηκε κι όμως, αυτό το τεράστιο χρονικό διάστημα δεν είναι πουθενά αποτρεπτικό.

Η βικτωριανή εποχή ενισχύει τους σπουδαίους χαρακτήρες οι οποίοι με τη σειρά τους είναι τόσο πραγματικοί που μπαίνουν σε συγκριτικά με ανθρώπους της σημερινής εποχής.

Δεν θα αναφερθώ στην ιστορία του βιβλίου, αυτό πρέπει να το βιώσει ο κάθε αναγνώστης ως προσωπική εμπειρία.
Ωστόσο απο τους ήρωες ξεχώρισα και θαύμασα την προσωπικότητα του Κόμη Φόσκο.
Πόσο ιδιοφυής πρέπει να είσαι για να χτίσεις έναν τέτοιο πρωταγωνιστή.
Ο Φόσκο είναι ένας κακοποιός που αποτελεί μια απο τις πιο θαυμάσιες λογοτεχνικές δημιουργίες.
Μια μάζα αντιφάσεων ουσιαστικά και μεταφορικά.
Ένας άψογος ραδιούργος, αριστοκρατικά τοποθετημένος στην αστική τάξη που τον ενισχύει σε κάθε επιδίωξη του.
Ο Κόμης Φόσκο, ένας άνδρας με αξέχαστη φυσιογνωμία, οξυμένη αντίληψη, πνευματώδης, καταρτισμένος, θύτης ανηλεής και θύμα ερωτικής κρίσης.
Βρίσκεται πάντα ενα βήμα μπροστά απο τις ενέργειες των ηρώων και φαινομενικά μπορεί να ειναι δισυπόστατος σε ψυχή και σώμα.

Είναι ο κακός που αγάπησα, ο αδυσώπητος και σκληρός τυχοδιώκτης που λάτρεψα. Πραγματικά μέχρι το τέλος δεν κατάφερα να τον μισήσω όσο κι αν προσπάθησα.
Σε αντίθεση με τους καλούς χαρακτήρες που με άφησαν συναισθηματικά αδιάφορη.

Σε ολόκληρο το βιβλίο - δεν παίζει κανεναν απολύτως ρόλο ο όγκος των σελίδων - ξέρουμε πως συμβαίνει κάτι πολύ κακό... μα σε αντίθεση με τα παραδοσιακά μυστήρια των βιβλίων που αναζητάμε τον ένοχο, εδώ έως το τέλος ψάχνουμε όχι μόνο το ποιος το έκανε, μα και το «τι έκανε».

Ένα διαβολικό παραμύθι με τραγικές εξελίξεις που ακούγεται απο διάφορες και διαφορετικές φωνές.

Μια κλασική αναγνωστική εμπειρία, μια μαρτυρία χτισμένη με αγάπη, φιλία, καλές και κακές οικογενειακές σχέσεις, τρόμο, μυστήριο, προδοσία, ψυχολογικά παιχνίδια, πίστη, συμπόνοια και έντονη γοτθική αίσθηση. Απόλυτα ισορροπημένα και εναλλασσόμενα ώστε να μη φθείρονται μέχρι τέλους.

Το απόλαυσα, το θαύμασα. Με αντάμειψε, χαρίζοντας μου πολλά περισσότερα απο ό,τι μπορεί να υποσχεθεί ένα μυθιστορημα.


Χρόνια Πολλά!!!

Καλή ανάγνωση.
Πολλούς ασπασμούς.

One of my all-time favorite books. I believe I have finally worn out this copy. The pages are yellow and falling out. Time to shop for a new one :)

Originally published in a weekly periodical between late 1859 and 1860 as a serial story, this is believed to be the first English crime detection novel. This is Victorian fiction that combines romance, mystery and Gothic horror with a psychological twist.


The story opens with an eerie encounter, in the dead of night on a moonlit London road.


In one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop… There, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth…stood the figure of a solitary woman, dressed from head to foot in white.

Collins had me at hello. This is the story of what a woman’s patience can endure, and what a man’s resolution can achieve. I loved the fly on the wall perspective of events as revealed through a series of narrators, starting with Walter Hartright, drawing master of the time and place, who introduced me to Marian Halcombe thusly;

The instant my eyes rested on her, I was struck by the rare beauty of her form, and by the unaffected grace of her attitude. Her figure was tall, yet not too tall; comely and well developed, yet not fat; her head sat on her shoulders with an easy, pliant firmness; her waist, perfection in the eyes of man, for it occupied it’s natural place, it filled out its natural circle, it was visibly and delightfully undeformed by stays. She had not heard my entrance into the room; and I allowed myself the luxury of admiring her for a few moments, before I moved one of the chairs near me, as the least embarrassing means of attracting her attention. 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!

Marian knows who she is, personally and as a woman in Victorian society. She reflects these qualities and embraces society’s expectations with elegance and grace, deftly, slowly, surely and quite successfully disarming her male audience and the reader with her charming, disarming, demeanour that both mirrors and ever so subtly mocks those expectations. Never have I been so invested in a character. I adore and applaud her. She is simply one of the most deftly drawn, beautiful and complex renderings I have ever encountered in the written word.

Without a doubt it is Collins characters that both support and propel this story, each in their own unique voice, of which Marian is but one. All brilliantly drawn and cleverly revealed as time goes by. It is a classic, therefore it is wordy, with long drawn out, highly descriptive sentences that go on and on and on as they slowly, persistently tug you forward.

No matter! I lapped up every word.

Wilkie Collins, a polyamorous laudanum addict, invented a genre called the sensation novel with Woman in White. He took Gothic stories away from their ghost-filled castles and directly into what he called "the secret theatre of home": "Collins and his fellow sensationalists [Mary Elizabeth Braddon, Ellen Wood, Charles Reade and Rhoda Broughton] re-mapped the 'knowable communities' within which writers such as George Eliot, Elizabeth Gaskell and Margaret Oliphant plotted their fictions as territories that were unknowable, or at least dangerous to know" (Penguin Read Red intro). Unsurprisingly, this has been a big hit with generations of people who dislike their spouses.

And it's a terrific book. The titular woman shows up almost immediately to hook you in; after a brief slow-down to set the stage, around a third of the way in the tension ratchets up and never lets go again. It's incredibly gripping, and there are no plot holes. It features several brilliant characters: Miss Halcombe, the brains of the affair (and also, as Collins tells us at considerable length, the ass*); the hypochondriac Fairlie; and, of course, the illimitable Fosco, one of the most memorable creations ever.

It's set up as an unusual epistolary: testimony from a number of sources, as if for a legal proceeding. The switching of narrators allows Collins to play a bunch of daring tricks: at one point a character suddenly intrudes in another's diary, confessing that he stole and read it, and commenting on her version of events.

And, of course, it lets Collins experiment extensively with the idea of the unreliable narrator. At least three passages are overtly untrustworthy (Fairlie, Mrs. Catherick and Fosco are also the most entertaining narrators); and since Collins obviously meant for us to understand that, might it not follow that the rest of the narrators are equally untrustworthy? Major spoilers: Hartright takes forever in his attempt to save Percival's life. Is it possible that he was stalling? Was it really impossible for him to go to the police? Does he bear some responsibility for Fosco's murder? In each of these cases, Collins gives him an excuse: no townspeople thought of better ways to save Percival; Mr. Kyrle insists that he has "not a shadow of a case"; the scarred man picks up on Fosco's identity as Hartright does. I'm not convinced that we're supposed to believe Hartright is lying to us, but I do think we're supposed to think about it.

*Collins was wonderfully against corsets, and unapologetically an ass man: "I too think the back view of a finely formed woman the loveliest view." (Letters of Wilkie Collins, Vol. II, p. 534; ganked from an endnote in my edition)

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Edition review: the Penguin Read Red edition is fantastic. Great intro and great endnotes. The Kindle version I bought did a superb job of linking to the endnotes (something often neglected in Kindle editions), and it's only $4.75.