:: woman in white ::

back in december I bought the woman in white at barnes & noble because I remembered really liking it. it took me a while to get around to ACTUALLY reading it because, y'know, life, but I managed to get a chapter in here and there and I have finally finished it. WOO.

first impression: I liked it just as much as I did the first time. maybe more. 

second impression: I really don't like laura fairlie.

the woman in white is a huge, sprawling novel that takes several narrators and lots of explanations to convey the plot. the story is basically this: walter hartright, a struggling painter, takes a situation in the country -- teaching two young women to draw -- that promises good pay. the night before he leaves london, he meets with a mysterious woman who needs his help. the incidence would have been forgotten, except for some chance happenings (and a striking resemblance) once he's installed in his position that make him wonder if there was more to her than a poor mental patient -- and if there is more to this family's history than they know. 

    so walter, with the aid of the older sister, sets out to discover what this woman's story is, finding more questions along the way (and, in all honesty, more answers than he'd bargained for). oh, and if you didn't guess it, he falls hopelessly in love, but of course you guessed it. what would a victorian story be without a little star-crossed romance??

it's pretty thrilling, and it's a sort-of gothic-but-actually-not drama. as the introduction says, "a novel we may have thought, given its evocative, potentially spooky title, would be a Gothic tale of supernatural terrors and pale wraiths turns out to be a novel simply of sensational plotting, family treachery, and absolutely nothing paranormal."
   what I really incredibly enjoy about this story is the unpredictability. sure, there are some more or less predictable characters or occurrences (guess what? marian is the strong woman character, and she is all the way through the book), but the pith of the story -- what is sir percival's secret?! -- isn't your run-of-the-mill petty scandal. when I first read woman in white, I assumed that his secret was an affair or something like that; oh, he embezzled some money, and now he's afraid he'll go to jail. the twist was fresh and pretty inventive; that's what I really appreciated.

on to laura fairlie. let's begin with walter hartright's description of her.

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. At one time it seemed like something wanting in her; at another, like something wanting in myself, which hindered me from understanding her as I ought. … Something wanting, something wanting -- and where it was, and what it was, I could not say.  

 that's it? that's IT?? what is this woman, a puppet?? again, the introduction.

For Laura, of course, the incompleteness rests in in her lack of control over her own destiny; for the reader, however, it lies in the partial development of her character, a lack of volition, a lifeless complicity to play pawn in others' plans for her, no matter what they may be. 

TRUTH. she spends the entire book vapid and lifeless, making no decisions, having no opinions of her own. she relies solely on her half-sister (and walter, later on), apathetically submitting to injustice and essentially enabling her victimization. the one time she shows any spark of life is when… a character... tries to force her to sign something. 

'Scruples!' he repeated. 'Your scruples! It is rather late in the day for you to be scrupulous. I should have thought you had got over all weakness of that sort, when you made a virtue of necessity by marrying me.'
      The instant he spoke these words, Laura threw down the pen -- looked at him with an expression in her eyes, which throughout all my experience of her, I had never seen in them before -- and turned her back on him in dead silence.

the rest of the book, she is a passive, obedient observer, with few emotions and really no character. she is the exact opposite of marian halcombe, who has all the resolve and resolution of a man, and whom I actually like. in fact, marian is my favorite character in the whole book, and her distinct unlikeness to laura might say something about the kind of characters I like. ones who do something.
    
    laura fairlie is a small complaint, though. as I consider the rest of the book, it might turn out to be a positive thing; a symbol and a layer of meaning I've missed in a shallow overview. like, anne catherick's insanity gives her resolution; her foil laura is technically sane (though she can't even prove that) and cannot make her own decisions. laura and marian are opposites in everything: looks, money, personality, character. marian is more masculine, laura is more feminine, to the point where one marries and the other does not. 
    …you know, this is fascinating. I'll keep thinking about it.

the rest of the characters -- count fosco, his wife, sir percival, mrs. catherick, marian halcombe, even pesca -- are complex and fascinating. the different narrators are interesting (although some pose a believability problem: how the heck did you get him to write this?), and the varied points of view drive the story on. 
    I might be coming back with more on woman in white. for now, all I can say is -- it's a great story. read it.