WomanInWhitealong readalong 2022/3

[Piggywaspushed]

After several years of Dickensalongs, we have decided to ring the changes and read The Woman in White together. All welcome - old faithfuls and newcomers!

This was published in 40 instalments which is a bit much!

So I have tried to split it via the various voices as follows -

The First Epoch :
June - The Story begun by Walter Hartright
July - Vincent Gilmore
Marian Halcombe
The Second Epoch:
August - Marian
September - Frederick Fairlie
Eliza Michelson
October - The Story continued in several narratives : Hester - Walter (takes us up to end of second epoch)
The Third Epoch :
November - Walter
December - Mrs Catherick ; Walter
January 2023 - Fosco ; Walter

Eight months in total.

I hope all the editions match this. The Collins has these parts clearly marked at the beginning - in amongst all this are chapters so it is touch confusing and the Penguin edition is less clear. I tried to do something with original instalments but some of them ended mis chapter (as Collins changed his chronology in 1861!) . My instalments do vary quite wildly in length.

We begin this month so grab a copy and join me!

Thanks, Janina. That's really interesting to read of the stigma around illegitimacy.

Earlier in the book it was suggested that Percival's behaviour was rather brutish and that he was very short-tempered. Fosco had to keep him in check. That made me wonder if he was an imposter and if he was acting the role of a gentleman, but I think it was his nature and he revealed his true colours once he married Laura. It had nothing to do with the circumstances of his birth, I don't think.

I gt that illegitimacy was a huge stigma, what I don't get is the whole story about his childhood and his father, Felix and his mother told earlier in the section. Is it literally all made up? His father's apparent physical disability threw in some nice casual Victorian disablism too...

I'm assuming that all the detail about his childhood, parents etc was true - but he was illegitimate. So he wasn’t who he purported to be. He couldn’t be 'Sir' Percival at all though he was representing himself in that character. He wasn’t an upright and honest gentleman in the eyes of his peers. He was, in fact, a cad and a rotter.

Pressed post too soon - I meant he wouldn’t be an honest and upright gentleman to his peers once they knew the truth. So it had to be kept secret.

So in a way, he was an imposter.

Hi, just popping on to say sorry for missing last month. I was unwell and finding the first section a bit of a slog, Walter can be a bit earnest can’t he. But I loved the action in the second part and will definitely be caught up by next week.

got to dash now, my buttered toast waits for no one.

Oh, I hope you feel better. Buttered toast sounds the tonic.

Hope you're better and you enjoyed the buttered toast ;)

Just bumping. I am now on final chapter of our section and feel the need to dig out my O grade history notes on Italian reunification. I literally only remember that Garibaldi is a person not just a biscuit and there was a chap called Mazzini.

Piggy 😂 You're one up on me. Who is Mazzini? 😬

Where are we supposed to be up to? I've got to the end of Chapter Two, Mrs Catherick.

Oh Lord palegreenstars, how crashingly dim of me! I just got your buttered toast reference! I thought at the time 'illness has gone to her head, using quaint old fashioned turns of phrases.'

We should resurrect ' hot buttered toast'. It sounds so tempting.

As for Mazzini - either Garibaldi's bestie, or his arch enemy. Forget which!

We are to read up to the bit before we read Fosco's account of events, after Walter.

Ah yes, Cavour, Garibaldi and Mazzini - all pro unification republicans. They'd be TeamPesca, it seems. Although it's not a team I'd fancy being on much. But dodgy what with tattoos and death pacts and stuff.

@Piggywaspushed i was going to let you know that I’m not really a Victorian Busybody but thought you might not have got that far

Ah okay. I've another bit to read so. Don't know why I'm finding it so hard to keep track of the schedule this time round 😊

Cos I changed it ... my bad.

As Mrs Catherick would not say.

I think we’re all developing a hive mind, I’ve just been reading it too. And I’m definitely in favour of that hot buttered toast!

<wanders towards kitchen>

I’ve been absent for such a long time (busy at work) that I assumed I was so far behind and that we’d probably finished. So, I have actually finished.

I have thoroughly enjoyed reading section but section, but the urge to read on at times has been huge!

I’ll sit on my hands until we’ve read Fosco - who is just one of the most fantastic literary creations in the English language.

Thank heavens for 8 hours of commuting this week to catch up 😉

Good to see you again, StColomb!

I know lots has evolved this month but I wanted to begin with the way the venomous Mrs Catherick sings off her letter, which I may save for future emails :
‘My hour for tea is half past five and my buttered toast waits for no one’
It only struck me when I went back to it that the buttered toast reference by palegreenstars was a deliberate one that I was too dim at the time to notice!!

I also think Collins needs another word for ‘viperish’ but enjoyed Fosco threatening to scatter Walter’s brains around the fireplace. Crikey.

The business of bodies in the Seine is a thing of Collins’. He explicitly uses this plotline in A Terribly Strange Bed, which is set in Paris in the post- Napoleonic Era. The Seine is full to the brim with the off-bumped, it seems.

This section was rather context heavy with the stuff about spies and Italians. So much of nineteenth century life was very political and internationally dangerous. I think now the Victorians are just taught as ‘the Industrial Revolution’ without much thought to wars, spying and intrigue perhaps and via doing A Christmas Carol .

Very interesting points, Piggy.
I agree. It sounds* *a most turbulent time and I know nothing about it (Italian unification) beyond the bare facts in my history book from school, long forgotten now. It is proper cloak and dagger stuff altogether.

The tragedy of Anne Catherick's story was fully laid bare in Mrs Catherick's narrative when it was made clear that she knew nothing about Glyde's secret, but was shut away as a precaution to ensure his safety. It seems that Mrs C did try and defend her, but to no avail. It's one point in her favour that she tried to save her, although she didn't seem like a caring mother at all.

I enjoyed her narrative. There were some great lines (including buttered toast!) and this one; 'The dress of Virtue in our parts was cotton print. I had silk'. Mrs C didn't admit to having an affair with Philip Fairlie. How dare Walter! I think this was posturing on her part. We will have none of that kind of talk in this house.

When I was reading the account of Fosco spying on Marian and tailing her, it brought to mind a cartoon character squeezing his bulk behind lamp posts and pillar boxes, trying not to be seen. He's very nimble for a man of his size!

Mrs Fosco is terrifying in that utterly chilling ruthless way. 'Viperish', 'venomous' and 'vindictive' describe her so well and her one statement to Walter; 'If I had been in HIS place-I would have laid you dead on the hearthrug'. No doubt about it!

Finally, looking to the Count's narrative, I find it amusing that one of his names contains the letters B-A-D-A-S-S 😁

Ha!

I liked the idea of Victorian virtue being acquired by doing 'virtue signalling'. Mrs Catherick put on her virtue clothes and is terrified to be defrocked. This seemed a very Dickensian theme.

Definitely! Totally agree.

We appear to have no one else to discuss with...

Helloooooooo.... anyone out there???