4+

Λίγα λόγια προς το παρόν και θα εξηγηθώ περισσότερο, μόλις τακτοποιήσω τις σκέψεις στην κεφάλα μου.

Για να διαβάσεις και να απολαύσεις ένα καλό αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα, πρέπει να είναι αστυνομικό. Εμ διόρθωση! Γράψε λάθος.

Για να διαβάσεις και να απολαύσεις ένα καλό αστυνομικό μυθιστόρημα, πρέπει να μην είναι αστυνομικό. Εμ διόρθωση! Γράψε λάθος.

Ένα καλό μυθιστόρημα που μπορείς να απολαύσεις και να στοχαστείς πάνω σ' αυτό, να μαλώσεις με το συγγραφέα του και τον εαυτό σου, ανήκει στην Τέχνη και τον άνθρωπο, είναι τέτοιο που σαν τα μαλλιά του Έζρα Τζένινγκς, περιπλέκονται ακανόνιστα η Λογοτεχνία με τη Ζωή. Ένα κακό μυθιστόρημα έχει το γνώρισμα να ανήκει σε είδη και σε τύπους, το έχουμε ανάγκη για να μπορεί να ταξινομηθεί και να αξιολογηθεί με ένα τρόπο, διαφορετικά θα κατέληγε σαν όλα εκείνα τα βιβλία που γυρνούν αξιοθρήνητοι τύποι για να τα πουλήσουν μόνοι τους στα βιβλιοπωλεία και τα σπίτια, σαν τους παλιούς πλασιέδες, για μια υστεροφημία που τους έχει κοστίσει περισσότερο σε χρήμα και λιγότερο σε ουσία. Το καλό βιβλίο ακόμα και όταν σε προκαλεί να αντιδράσεις, δεν έχει ανάγκη να το πουλήσει κάποιος, πουλιέται μόνο του.

Ας πούμε αυτό: κόλλησε πολλές φορές, το παράτησα, έκανα άλλα πράγματα, χάζεψα άλλα βιβλία, όμως δεν το άφησα. Δε θα συγχωρούσα στον εαυτό μου να παραμελήσω ένα συγγραφέα που μου άνοιξε πολλούς δρόμους με το Άρμαντεϊλ και επιβραβεύτηκε η προσπάθεια. Είναι ένα καλό και ποιοτικό μυθιστόρημα ψυχαγωγίας. Δε θα το συγκρίνεις ποτέ με ένα απ' τα έργα που ανήκουν στην Υψηλή Φιλοσοφία, όπως χαρακτήρισε ο Καμύ, μια ειδικού τύπου κατηγορία Λογοτεχνίας, που δεν έχει καμία σχέση με τα χαρακτηρισμένα ως φιλοσοφικά αφηγήματα, ή φιλοσοφικές παραβολές. Πέρασα απ' τα 2 αστέρια, στα 3,5 και από 'κει στα 2,5, ώστε να καταλήξω στο 4+. Λυπάμαι που η επιμέλεια της Μέδουσας ενώ ήταν τόσο προσεκτική, υπήρξε τόσο άτσαλη στο ορθογραφικό χτένισμα.

Κάτι ακόμη πριν κλείσω αυτές τις πρώτες σκέψεις: Για όποιον το έχει διαβάσει, ο δεύτερος πρόλογος του συγγραφέα, δεν είναι προσπάθεια για να εισπράξει συμπάθεια, ή οίκτο. Ο Κόλλινς δεν είχε τέτοια ανάγκη. Αυτό που δηλώνει είναι πραγματική υπερηφάνεια που τα κατάφερε στην υπερπροσπάθεια του και ειλικρινή κι ασυγκράτητη ευγνωμοσύνη που ο κόσμος αγάπησε το αποτέλεσμα. Υπήρξε μια εποχή που δεν υπήρχαν Enbrel ή Humira, δεν ήταν καν διαδεδομένη η χρήση της κορτιζόνης με τέτοιο εντοπισμό, που μοιάζει αυτή η περίοδος με κάθε περίπτωση που δεν έχει γίνει διάγνωση κι ακόμη είσαι στο έλεος μεσοβέζικων μέτρων, ακινητοποιημένος κι ανεπαρκώς αυτοεξυπηρετούμενος. Γι' αυτό και έργα σαν αυτό και τη Χαρά της ζωής, του Ζολά στέκονται σε μια περίοπτη θέση.

Και ακόμη αυτό, 150 χρόνια πριν, 30 αφού γράφτηκε το Die Traumdeutung, 35 αφού γράφτηκε το Drei Abhandlungen zur Sexualtheorie, 44 αφού γράφτηκε το Zur Einführung des Narzißmus κάνει το Φρόϋντ να μοιάζει με παιδί που έβαλε το χέρι του στο τάπερ, πριν αποφανθεί ότι έχει μέσα κουλουράκια.

Και επίσης, απ' όσο γνωρίζω είναι η πρώτη φορά παγκοσμίως που έγινε αναφορά σε εκείνη την αρνητική επίπτωση του καπνού στην οποία βασίζεται η κερδοφορία των καπνοβιομηχανιών.

Επιπλέον, είναι ο πρώτος και μάλιστα στην πουριτανή Αγγλία, που γραπτά αναγνωρίζει αυτή την κατηγορία αντρών, που στην εποχή μας χαρακτηρίστηκαν ως metrosexual.

Εκπληκτικές ψυχογραφίες και αντιδράσεις πιστά αληθοφανείς. Ειδικά για την περίπτωση της Κλακ κρίμα που δεν πρόλαβε να τη διαβάσει ο Σοπενάουερ, αλλά μάλλον την είχε υπ' όψιν του ο Νίτσε. Με αυτό δεν υπονοώ κανενός τύπου αντιγραφές, αλλά τη συνέχεια στην παγκόσμια τοιχοποιία. Και ο τρόπος που ο συγγραφέας απ' το ρόλο του Μπέτερεντζ, του ευγενικού αυτού οικονόμου που πιστεύει με όλη του την ψυχή πως μόνο για όσο η καρδιά υπερισχύει της λογικής οι δεσμοί διατηρούνται, περνάει στην ψευδεπιφατική θρησκόληπτη και κατά βάση νιχιλίστρια Κλακ, είναι σχεδόν συγκλονιστικός. Με την περίπτωση του Φράνκλιν ο συγγραφέας δίνει τη δική του ερμηνεία στο γιατί ρεαλισμός και όχι νατουραλισμός. Με την κουτσή Λούσυ βρίσκουμε την ωραιότερη υπεράσπιση που θα μπορούσε να υπάρξει, σε όλους εκείνους τους ανθρώπους που τους απέρριψαν και εισέπραξαν αδιαφορία και συμβατικότητα, στους τρόπους των άλλων. Έστω κι αν αυτό δεν ήταν αληθινό. Στα δε εξωτερικά χαρακτηριστικά του Έζρα Τζένιγγκς κανείς δε μπορεί να αρνηθεί ότι ο τρόπος που σμιλεύονται, αιτιολογεί το λόγο της αυθόρμητης αντιπάθειας των άλλων ( δεν εννοώ το χρώμα της επιδερμίδας ).

Δεν εντόπισα κανένα απ' τα δεδομένα εκείνα που θα έλυναν ένα γρίφο, αλλά έκανα αυτό που μου ζήτησε ο συγγραφέας, χρησιμοποιήσα τα πρώτα δέκα κεφάλαια για να καταλήξω στο ποιος είναι τι και αυτό αρκεί, γιατί πραγματικά τα γεγονότα εξαρτώνται απ' το ποιόν εκείνων που επενέργησαν.

Και κάτι ακόμη εξ' ίσου αν όχι περισσότερο σημαντικό από άλλα: Πριν μερικά χρόνια, ένας πολύ δραστήριος φίλος μου, αρκετά μεγαλύτερος αλλά ντούρος, αθλητικός, κινητικός πέρασε ένα δριμύ επεισόδιο αποπληξίας. Η πρώτη φορά που συναντηθήκαμε, υπήρξε σοκαριστική για 'μενα. Δε θα μπορούσε να περιγραφεί καλύτερα και να ζωντανέψει στα μάτια μου απ' τον τρόπο που αναδύεται το σκηνικό της συνάντησης του Φράνκλιν με τον Κάντυ.

Θα μπορούσα να γράψω πολλά ακόμη, θα ήθελα να βάλω κάποια υπέροχα αποσπάσματα, νομίζω όμως πως τελικά δε θα το κάνω και ότι δε θέλω ούτε να συμπληρώσω άλλα πράγματα. Ίσως μόνο αυτό, ο συγγραφέας γίνεται τόσο πειστικός μέσα στους ρόλους που είναι πολύ εύκολο να νομίσεις ότι οι απόψεις και οι θέσεις και στάσεις είναι δικές του και τελικά να χρειαστεί να γυρίσεις πολλές σελίδες πίσω, όταν πια έχεις μπει μέσα σε ένα άλλο χαρακτήρα, για να αναθεωρήσεις κάτι. Κι ίσως αναγνωρίσεις την ευφυία αυτού του ανθρώπου, που για το ποιόν του συγγραφέα σου μιλάει κάτω απ' την επιδερμίδα και αφήνει τους χαρακτήρες να αλληλεπιδρούν. Θα του αναγνωρίσεις επίσης πιστεύω, ότι αποφεύγει την αχρείαστη δραματικότητα.

Τέλος, όπως στο πρότυπο του Γκαμποριό, οι αστυνομικοί δεν διακρίνονται σε έξυπνους ιδιωτικούς και βλάκες δημοσίους υπαλλήλους, αλλά σε παρατηρητικούς, δραστήριους και επιμελείς αναλυτές των εμπειριών τους και σε βιαστικούς υπαλλήλους του βιβλίου. Αυτό δεν τους κάνει απαραίτητα πρωταγωνιστές, αλλά τουλάχιστον ακόμη κι αν μας παρασέρνουν στα λάθη τους, το κάνουν γοητευτικά και με αληθοφάνεια.

Το κύριο μέλημα του συγγραφέα είναι να μας χαιρετήσει με την άποψη πως η Λογική και το Συναίσθημα δε μπορούν να είναι μονόδρομοι, αλλά δυο πλευρές του εσωτερικού διαλόγου, στις οποίες αναγνωρίζεται ίση μεταχείριση κι όταν η μια γίνεται υποκειμενική, η άλλη αναπόφευκτα πρέπει να είναι αντικειμενική, για να συνεχίσει να είναι ο κόσμος, ανθρώπινος κόσμος κι όχι κόσμος των ατόμων.

While storms have raged, while at high tide waves have hit the sea wall with such force that the house shook, I have been spending the dark evenings re-reading ‘The Moonstone’, secure in the knowledge that out house was built not long after the publication of Wilkie Collins’ wonderful book and so it has survived many storms and was so solidly built that it should survive many more.

I think that ‘The Moonstone’ is pitched at the perfect point between crime fiction and sensation fiction, and it makes me wish that I could have been a Victorian reader, so that I could have read it when it was new, original and innovative, and so that I could read it with my mind uncluttered by more than a century of books that have come since then, and a few that I can think of that clearly have been influenced by this wonderful tale.

I am sure that Conan-Doyle read this book; I suspect that Victoria Holt had it in mind when she named her novel ‘The Shivering Sands’; and I am quite certain that Hercule Poirot’s retirement to the country to grow vegetable marrows was a tribute to Seargeant Cuff and his wish to see out his days growing roses ….. but I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’m not sure that ‘The Moonstone’ has stood the test of time as well as some of Wilkie Collins’ other work, but it is still a fine entertainment, and among the most readable of classics.

The moonstone – a fabulous Hindu diamond – is seized – some would say stolen – during the storming of Seringapatam. The taker of the diamond believes it to be cursed, and takes serious steps to ensure his own safety and the safety of his jewel. In his will he leaves it to his niece, the daughter of his estranged sister. And so the moonstone is given to Rachel Verinder on her 18th birthday. That night the moonstone disappears. The case is investigated by Seargeant Cuff, of the new detective force, and an extraordinary sequence of events will unfold before the truth of what happened that night, and the fate of the jewel, is made clear.

The tale is told by a series of narrators, because this is an account of the moonstone compiled some time after the events it describes by an interested party. He brought together family papers and accounts of events that he asked those who were best placed to report, to create a continuous narrative.

That device works wonderfully well, controlling what the reader knew without the reader having to feel manipulated, and adding depth to the characters by viewing them through different eyes. Fortunately the narrators are nicely differentiated. I loved Gabriel Betteredge, the indispensable steward to the Verinder family, a man of firm opinions who was nonetheless a model servant, who believed that all of the answers to life’s problems lay in the pages Robinson Crusoe. But I heartily disliked Miss Clack, a pious, sanctimonious cousin, blind to the feelings and concerns of others, but insistent that they must read her tracts. And I was fascinated by Ezra Jennings, a doctor who had been dragged down by his addiction to opium, but who was grateful for the chances he had been given and ready to play his part in uncovering the truth. And there were others; every voice, every character, was utterly believable.

Even more interesting than the narrators though were two women, at opposite ends of the social spectrum, who both chose not to speak out. Rosanna Spearman was a servant, and though I had reasons to doubt her, I could see that she was troubled and I feared for her. I nearly dismissed Rachel Verinder, as a spoilt madam, but in time I came to see that I had misjudged and underestimated with her.

The atmosphere was everything I could have hoped for, and the settings were wonderfully created. I especially loved the scenes set out on the treacherous ‘Shivering Sands’. And the story twisted and turned, and sprang surprises, very effectively. I remembered that broad sweep of the story from the first time I read ‘The Moonstone’, many years ago, but I had forgotten just how events played out, but even when I remembered it didn’t matter. Wilkie Collins was such a wonderful, clever storyteller that I was captivated, from the first page to an afterword that was absolutely perfect.

I loved almost everything, but I do have to say that the story is a little uneven, and that no character is as memorable as Marion Halcombe and Count Fosco in ‘The Women and White.’ But then, few characters are.

This is a very different pleasure. maybe a more subtle pleasure. And definitely a rattling good yarn!

In the preface to another edition of this book, the author informed his readers that it was his intention with The Moonstone to trace the influence of character on circumstances instead of what he usually did in his stories, which was to trace the influence of circumstances on character. To quote him: "The conduct pursued, under a sudden emergency, by a young girl, supplies the foundation on which I have built this book." In short, this is a character driven novel. He also conveyed that when he was at the one-third mark in the weekly serialization of this story, he suffered two blows that nearly did him in--his mother was near death and he was in excruciating pain due to rheumatic gout from which he was uncertain if he would recover. But the thought of his readers waiting for the next installment of his story spurred him on and allowed him to keep writing by dictation for a time while bedridden. He practically held his breath to learn the results of his efforts at the end when it was published, the overwhelmingly positive reception from readers around the world gratifying him. I wish I could show Mr. Collins my own five star review, however inadequate it is, and however impossible it is since the author passed in 1889.

Speaking of holding one's breath, it's something I always do when starting a classic since I'm uncertain if the language will be archaic or the story dated. There is also the length of such books to consider with my "to read" pile growing daily. It took me two weeks to read this book and it was worth every minute I spent on it. Yes, it was long, which I sometimes complained about, but never was it too long for the story it told. Not a word was wasted on anything that didn't advance the story or the development of the characters driving it forward. Because as Mr. Collins had hoped to achieve, the characters are at the heart of this story and they are the story itself, which has a little bit of everything for just about anyone. There's a fine mystery, a gothic influence, suspense, a bit of the supernatural, romance, humor, tragedy, pathos, and philosophy, among many other things, including revenge and redemption. And no worries about it being dated. It's highly readable and amazingly contemporary in style. It is recognized as the first full length English mystery novel, the one that started it all and influenced those following in its footsteps.

The story begins dramatically in 1799, in a remote region of India, with horrific bloodshed and a priceless yellow diamond known as The Moonstone stolen, not from a single person, but from an entire people who have used it for religious purposes for centuries. The thief is an Englishman in the military whose actions forced the actions of others. Three Brahmins, and eventually their descendants, go in pursuit of the sacred Moonstone. It passes out of the thief's hands into the hands of his own descendent in 1847 in the guise of a gift which might just be a curse instead. And when the priceless diamond then disappears from the hands of its new owner, a young woman eighteen years of age, that's where this story really begins, from two years into the future, the multiple narrators looking back on their part in the mystery when trying to solve it. But the catch is--and this is where Mr. Collins showed his genius--each narrator may only relate firsthand knowledge of what was happening at the time, even if he now knows more. It's the ultimate set up of withholding information from the reader without teasing or manipulating him. It made for a fine mystery that slowly unraveled with each new tug by each narrator.

If you're anything like me, I love memorable characters. For me, they often make or break a book. In this book, there was no shortage of great ones, all highly individual and flawed. My favorite was Gabriel Betteredge, house steward to the woman whose daughter inherited the Moonstone. He lightened my heart with his wit, his presence of mind, his loyalty, his addiction to tobacco and Robinson Crusoe, a book he read like other people read The Bible. My second favorite narrator was Ezra Jennings, a medical man and virtual outcast from society, trying to escape a past not his own. He broke my heart more than once, as did another outcast, Rosanna Spearman. To the other extreme, my least favorite narrator was Miss Clack, an obsessive compulsive religious fanatic and do gooder. But again, Mr. Collins showed his genius by presenting such a character as perfectly rational and righteous, if only in her own mind. The reader can't help but pity her even while wishing her away.

I see I've already gone on too long about this book without even mentioning that besides being entertaining, it raises some deep and troubling subjects such as xenophobia, chauvinism, the plunders of war being fair game regardless of their sacred value, among many other thought provoking ideas. This is also a morality tale without any preaching. It merely presents choices every single character made which either made that character admirable or not--at that point in time. Because the characters in this book are all very fluid, same as people are in real life. It added to the story's suspense since the reader couldn't ever be quite certain how a character would react and possibly cause a twist to events.

So after reading this mystery over the course of two weeks, did I guess who did what and why? No, not exactly, but I had my suspicions. And in the end, it wasn't as important "who done it" as how it was done, the very sequence of people and events colliding to lead to what happened. So if you enjoy mysteries that will have you thinking forward, backward, and in circles, and if you enjoy wonderful characters, and you haven't read this book yet, I recommend that you do. It's going onto my favorites shelf.

Favorite quotes:

"I am now somewhere between seventy and eighty years of age—never mind exactly where!"

"It is one of my rules in life, never to notice what I don't understand."

"We had our breakfasts—whatever happens in a house, robbery or murder, it doesn't matter, you must have your breakfast."

"Your tears come easy, when you're young, and beginning the world. Your tears come easy, when you're old, and leaving it. I burst out crying."

"People in high life have all the luxuries to themselves—among others, the luxury of indulging their feelings. People in low life have no such privilege. Necessity, which spares our betters, has no pity on us. We learn to put our feelings back into ourselves, and to jog on with our duties as patiently as may be. I don't complain of this—I only notice it."

"This is a miserable world," says the Sergeant. "Human life, Mr. Betteredge, is a sort of target—misfortune is always firing at it, and always hitting the mark."

"Crime brings its own fatality with it."

"I have merely been mistaken for somebody else. I have only been blindfolded; I have only been strangled; I have only been thrown flat on my back, on a very thin carpet, covering a particularly hard floor. Just think how much worse it might have been! I might have been murdered; I might have been robbed. What have I lost? Nothing but Nervous Force—which the law doesn't recognise as property; so that, strictly speaking, I have lost nothing at all."

I was torn between giving two stars and three stars to Wilkie Collins's "The Moonstone," a book T. S. Eliot called "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels." "Longest" is perhaps the operative word here, reminding one of Samuel Johnson's comment (speaking, in his case, of Milton's "Paradise Lost") that none ever wished it longer. "The Moonstone"'s length, in the end, is its chief and perhaps only major failing. Large chunks of the novel seem to drag on and on with few advancements being made to the plot in the process. The latter parts of the section narrated by Gabriel Betteredge, chief servant to the Verinder household, and almost all of Drusilla Clack's section really could have used some judicious editing.

I suspect, though, that long after I forget what a slog much of "The Moonstone" was to get through, I'll remember its many charms. Betteredge is a particularly fun narrator, given his obsession with Daniel Defoe's "Robinson Crusoe" -- a book he treats as a cross between the Holy Bible and Nostradamus's "Prophecies" -- and his jaundiced eye toward male-female relations. Collins also must have had a ball making Drusilla Clack one of the most judgmental, grating Christian evangelists in English literature. Particularly priceless are the passages in which she wanders around the Verinder household and strategically places religious tracts in spots where family members, she hopes, would just happen upon them, instantly putting her relatives on the path to salvation.

Betteredge and Clack are so compelling that almost every other character in "The Moonstone," with the possible exception of opium addict Ezra Jennings, pales in comparison. Rachel Verinder -- despite being at the book's center as the recipient of the Indian diamond known as the Moonstone, the theft of which the plot revolves around -- isn't as fully drawn as the other characters, perhaps because she never takes over narration of the story. This, in a way, actually demonstrates one of Collins's chief skills as a writer: as each narrator takes his or her turn telling the story, that section of the book really becomes more about him or her than about the plot.

And that, ultimately, is what makes "The Moonstone" an interesting book. Despite being such an early and influential mystery novel -- it predated Arthur Conan Doyle's introduction of Sherlock Holmes by almost two decades -- it's really more about the characters themselves, their view of the world, and the decisions they make than it is about solving the mystery of the diamond's disappearance. It's a shame that more of today's mystery novelists haven't learned that lesson from "The Moonstone."

In retrospect, I realize I'm perhaps making "The Moonstone" sound like more of a four-star book, but trust me: the long, drawn-out sections of the book really are incredibly long and drawn out. I cannot overstate just how much this book tests the reader's patience, and for scores of pages at a time.

THE MOONSTONE is one of those books that I put off reading for a long, long time. Yes, it is a very famous mystery story, but for someone who has grown up loving the detection tales of Sherlock Holmes, the cozy mysteries of Agatha Christie and modern writers who have turned the regaling of criminal exploits into thrillers, the idea of settling down with a mystery of such length seemed extremely daunting. Besides, having read so much of Charles Dickens and his masterful character creation, could protégée Wilke Collins hope to compare?

Yes, indeed.

THE MOONSTONE was a delight from beginning to end. (Well, there was that sojourn with Miss Clack who was quite tedious. However, all of the other characters in the book found her to be so, too!) In fact, when I finished the novel today, I was quite surprised that I'd reached the end already.

So far, the only works of Wilkie Collins that I've read have been his theatrical productions written in association with Charles Dickens. Truth to tell, I found only one of those worth reading. While I had initially assigned the fault to Mr. Collins, I've since come to the opinion that the writing of plays wasn't Mr. Dickens' forte. And, even though THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD wasn't finished, it quickly became apparent that Collins was more adept at mystery stories, too.

When I read Bram Stoker's DRACULA, I found that the relating of the story through various narratives of different diaries and other source material was often a bit of a slog. So, noting from the chapter headings that Collins used something of the same technique for THE MOONSTONE (although it was written decades before the famous vampire novel), I approached the book with some trepidation.

That was unfounded.

Like Dickens, Collins was adept at creating characters for which I had immediate empathy. They were endowed with traits so readily their own that I felt I would be able to easily identify them should I encounter them at a gathering. I also appreciated how Collins turned one of Dickens' techniques on its head, taking a character whose name and appearance clearly indicated someone who shouldn't be trusted, and then making that character very empathetic.

Although I had accurately guessed how the book would end, that didn't diminish the joy of "getting there" at all. I was especially pleased when I was completely wrong about a technique that was used to come up with the solution to the crime. My initial thought was, "Oh, no! He's not going to use that tiresome ploy, is he?" Well, no, he was not. I very much appreciated the inventiveness.

This was a most worthwhile reading experience. I will be exploring more of the works of Wilkie Collins.

I greatly enjoyed reading this story which was told through various characters and I liked them all with the exception of miss Clack since I found her character unsympathetic to say the least.
The narratives which I enjoyed most were Betteredge's, Mr. Bruff's and Fraklin Blake's.
The narrative given by Betteredge was the one which amused me at many points and I found his relationships with the family members, his daughter and his employees very endearing and I liked his personality!
The most intriguing narrative was for me the one from Franklin's point of view and he was the character I liked most!
In the story we encounter many different characters that provoke the reader's sentiments each for different reasons like Rosanna with her past and unrequited love or Rachel Verinder with her sacrifice to protect a person she cares about or Ezra Jennings that despite his misfortunes who remained a wonderful person!
The mystery is also very intriguing and the resolution in my opinion very clever.
All in all I really loved the story as a whole and can't wait to read another story written by Wilkie Collins!

I loved the reading experience on this reread - a really intriguing novel, with some fantastic characters and twists and turns. I'm still deciding how I feel about Wilkie Collins but I do love his writing an awful lot.

Although I'd read a couple of Collins' short stories, prior to opening this classic novel (one of two the author is best known for) I'd never encountered any of his long fiction. But I'd long regarded this book as a must-read; so the occasion of a group read of it in one of my Goodreads groups provided a welcome impetus to finally read it. It proved to be a thoroughly satisfying reading experience, and hopefully won't be my last from this author, since I have two more of his novels on my to-read shelf.

I've shelved this both as "general fiction" and as "mystery-crime fiction." In many respects, it's a typical Victorian classic novel of manners, with many stylistic characteristics in common with other 19th-century British authors, especially Dickens (who was a great friend of Collins). The study of human character and human relationships is similar in feel and quality to what the reader would find in other well-written novels of the day. But the central strand of the plot concerns an unusually large, yellow-tinted fictional diamond (the titular "Moonstone"), supposedly sacred to the Asian Indian moon god, and plundered from his temple by medieval Moslem conquerors. In the novel's Prologue, we learn how this jewel was supposedly stolen again, from the treasure vault of a Moslem sultan, by a shady British army officer at the real-life conquest of Seringapatam by the East India Company in 1799. Our main story takes place ca. 50 years later, in England in 1848-49; and we learn on the first page of that part that there the diamond disappeared yet again, under mysterious circumstances. How and why will be the central question of the book, making it, as one reviewer described it, a "proto-mystery," published before the mystery genre was a book-trade thing, but a recognizable influence on the genre novels and stories of the later 1800s and beyond.

Collins was definitely a writer of the Romantic school, like Dickens, and like such writers as Doyle, Mary Elizabeth Braddon, and Dostoevsky, all of whom he perhaps influenced. Exotic elements and frank appeals to an array of emotions abound here. But the novel also has a real vein of humor, sometimes satiric humor of the Juvenalian sort. It's written in the epistolary style --that is, as a succession of memoranda, journal entries, and letters written by various characters (the prologue is also a letter); the diction is convoluted, in Victorian and Romantic fashion, with no shortage of big words, and the speaking style of the characters in their dialogue tends to be formal, as it actually was in the upper and middle class speech of that day. Some modern readers find these features off-putting (though I'm not among those that do). But the characterizations (both of characters you like and those you detest!) are masterful and enormously lifelike, and the crafting of the plot is perfect (or, as Dorothy Sayers said of the novel as a whole, "...about as near perfection as anything of its kind can be"). The mystery is a genuine puzzler; I guessed part (but only part!) of the solution fairly early on, and other aspects of the problem eventually had me completely mystified. (And even at times questioning everything I had believed about it up to that point!)

It can fairly be said that this is not a deep novel of ideas, in terms of messaging and thought content. Some reviewers profess to discern an anti-imperialist or anti-colonialist message here. Personally, I don't. Collins certainly finds it morally objectionable, and even criminal, to murder Indian natives and steal their sacred objects; but all of the decent English characters here agree with him, even if they have no apparent problem with forcibly conquering and dominating the same natives' country. There are aspects of the tale that cast Victorian class snobbery in an ugly light; but I think this is a perception that modern readers bring to it, rather than one that Collins is trying to create. An important character, Miss Drusilla Clack, is a mercilessly depicted religious zealot who thinks that she and her own ultra-ascetic, censorious ilk are the only true Christians; but I don't think Collins agreed with her on that, and I honestly don't think he intended to use her to attack Christianity, or religion as such, but rather just to pillory distortions of Christian faith. I do think there is ultimately a positive racial message here; but it's relatively subtle. So this is perhaps not a Great Novel, in the sense that some classic novels with deep moral and spiritual content are. But it's certainly a very, very good one, that I'd recommend unhesitatingly to any readers who enjoy older fiction, or who would like to start exploring it.

Note: The Dodd Mead Great Illustrated Classics edition that I read is enhanced by several black-and-white plates that reproduce paintings or drawings of Collins at various stages of his life, or illustrating scenes from the novel, and also by a number of excellent black-and-white drawings of scenes in the tale done by William Sharp, and copyrighted in 1944 (apparently for an earlier printing by Doubleday). It has a short (a bit over four pages) Introduction by Basil Davenport that mostly just summarizes Collins' life and writing career; it touches on the features of the real-life Saville Kent case that suggest aspects of this novel, but doesn't really present spoilers as such. (Davenport makes one major blooper here, though, where he confuses a "bloodstained nightgown" with a paint-stained one!)

I finished this book several days ago but couldn't motivate myself to add it to my goodreads shelves or write a review. It's as if the weight of the tons of words in the text has paralysed me. What's more, I knew what I was getting into. I read The Woman in White just before this one and it left me with a similar lethargy. The only thing I was able to do after finishing it was pick up The Moonstone as if my mind had been taken over by a rabid Wilkie Collins fan. Today, I'm beginning to emerge from the stupor, and I feel able to make a guess at why Collins's writing bewitched me enough to make me read two of his books yet numbed me so much at the same time.

The stories in the two books are told in the same long-winded way: each book traces the exact history of a series of mysterious events by making the characters who were most closely connected with each stage of the events, narrate their experience, word for word.

Word for word really means word for word in Wilkie Collins land. The many narrators outdo each other in the care they take to tell every single thing they observed while at the same time not revealing anything that they learned after the period which their part of the narrative covers. It's all very artificial and more than a bit painful. The narrators also specialize in adding extra details according to their particular brand of whimsy, and some of them are very whimsical indeed. The details in many cases have nothing to do with the central mystery of either book. What's more, the mysteries when finally revealed hardly merit all the time and effort spent on recording them so painstakingly...

Two days later.
I didn't finish writing this review the other day because I fell back into a stupor. I think it was the very fact of describing why I'd fallen into a stupor in the first place that caused it to descend on me again. I've read a book by a different author in the meantime—though not before I'd read a page of a third Wilkie Collins book I'd downloaded while my mind was still in the control of the Wilkie Collins fan. Fortunately I saved myself in time and deleted it from my kindle before it got hold of me.

Well, the refreshing book I've finished since has cleared the fog in my brain somewhat (though I'm still prone to moments of utter blankness) and now I'm able to explain why I was bewitched enough to read two Collins books. It's because of a few of the narrators: Frederick Fairlie in The Woman in White is so obnoxious yet so funny that he manages to relieve the ridiculous seriousness of that book, which is no small achievement; Sergeant Cuff in The Moonstone is amusing too, as is Miss Clack—when she isn't quoting from her huge fund of religious tracts. And then there's Gabriel Betteridge who really does know how to tell a story—I just wished he had a better story to tell. I wondered if his storytelling ability came from the fact that he'd read Robinson Crusoe so often he knew it by heart? It was impossible not to warm to a character who loved reading as much as Gabriel Betteredge did.

This is supposedly one of the first mystery novels ever published and is believed to introduce the prototype for the English detective hero character. It is also the first book in the Tyler-and-Kate Book Club; I will always love it because it's one of the only books Tyler and I could decide on to read together and it was wonderfully absorbing and provided us with lots of grand characters and interesting plot twists to enjoy—and the mystery to ponder!

It's certainly very long and often verbose—I usually find a fast-pace to be more appealing in a mystery—but I believe this was more a character-driven story than a plot-driven one (in his preface, Collins says that means to "trace the influence of character on circumstance") and the mystery (though it was deep and fascinating) was second to the characterization since the tale is told in Narrative form from some half-dozen characters. I feel as if I have befriended Betteredge and his dog-eared and beloved "Robinson Crusoe," suffered through an acquaintance with Miss Clack and her hideous pamphlets, sniffed roses beside Sargent Cuff and felt some of the deep love and longing of Ezra Jennings. Kudos, kudos, Mr. Collins!

I'd also like to point out that this is an excellent mystery for those who prefer a more intellectual and thought-process sort of mystery, rather that one focused on murder.

That was a long journey, but it was worth it. I always feel discouraged when I start reading a long novel, thinking it might be too long for its own good, and I couldn't have been more wrong. It was a masterpiece, truly a masterpiece. It's filled with adventure and twists. Also, what I liked most about it is that the story is told from the perspective of several characters (multi-narration), which made it more interesting and more thrilling.

This novel (as the title suggests) is a rare gem, and I recommend it to any mystery fan.

Damn those heathen savages trying to get back their stolen sacred stone from them sahibs!

Mildly spoilerish
To my utmost disappointment The Butler, didn't do it :(
Considering that this book was written wayyy back in the 1840-1850s, one needs to ignore
a) the methods of solving a supposed crime and mystery behind certain unexplained events
b) the "oriental" tenor of describing certain ahem races/nationalities (using the term loosely here)
c) the obscure experiments providing confounding astounding and accurate results! (to solve the aforementioned, unexplained events)
d) the multiple POVs (half of which imho added nothing to the story, except for making almost 60% of the content of the book)

Continuing with d) I wish the author had not made this such a lengthy story. Had been it been just the first 15% and last quarter of the book, it would have been a fast paced thriller.
So weighing the likes/dislikes, frustrations and fun that I had while reading this book.
I'l rate it 2.25 stars

It was not TOO bad.
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P.S. I was immensely pleased that the natives got their stolen stuff back ;)
Readers Bias! I have a right to it.

P.P.S: somewhere the book mentions the Indian god Moon with four arms riding an antelope.

My search on the world wide web lead me to this link;
http://www.victorianweb.org/art/illus...
Borrowing the images here
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Top: The American serial's 4 January 1868 Headnote vignette showing the Brahmins and the idol of the Hindu Moon God. Centre: An expanded version of the same illustration, The Idol of the Moon God in the Peter Fenelon Collier edition (1900). Bottom: An expanded view of the original 1868 vignette, The Diamond and the Ganges (1874, second edition, Chapter 11, p. 90.)
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I would love to get my hands on those illustrated versions!