One Christmas Eve, a gentleman’s family amuses itself by telling ghost stories. He freaks out and wanders off by himself, then, encouraged by his infinitely patient wife, decides to write down the ghost story that has cast a pall over his entire life. Then he tells us about it, The End.
As a fan of Wilkie Collins generally, ghost stories generally, gothic fiction generally, and The Woman in White in particular, I was looking forward to this book. My hope, needless to say, was misplaced. What a boring non-event this novel is. The frame narrative is perfunctory, which means the meat of the story feels arbitrary, and the whole thing is over in the time it takes to wonder why you bothered. It reads like an exercise assigned by a creative writing workshop to a person whose entire experience of gothic fiction was reading a Wikipedia entry, and who had a date later that weekend.
Look. I rarely complain that a book is not long enough. My main impression of Anna Karenina, which I have read twice just to make sure, was on both occasions not its luxurious sensuality contrasted with the strict and hypocritical morality of Russian society, but that it took 1000 pages to say what could have been conveyed in 500. (I would also have taken a red pencil to the last 40 or so pages of War and Peace, but I don’t think this is exclusively a Tolstoy problem, and I had no quarrel with it up until that point, so back off.) My point is that this is one of those rare cases where a novel needed a little fat on its bones. Gothic fiction is not renowned for its brevity, though obviously there are some exceptions. It’s supposed to be a luscious and immersive reading experience. You need to take the time to create an atmosphere. This is like if Mrs Danvers gave the second Mrs de Winter a haughty sniff and then du Maurier jumped straight to the boat being dredged up. It’s like if Heathcliff gave one brooding look and then announced, “You know, the branches scratching at the window on this cold and stormy night sound just like when the ghost of Cathy turns up to remind me about our mutual poor decision-making and lack of communication skills. Let me dim the lights and tell you about them.”
I’m not an unreasonable snob*, so in defence of this novel I’ll freely admit that the setting is an A+ choice: a spooky house formerly inhabited by a now-dead old lady, situated in the middle of a misty swamp and accessible only by a causeway that’s underwater except at low tide. The close-lipped villagers who clearly know more than they’re saying are also appropriately infuriating. There’s a dog, which I liked. End of list.
*I’m a totally reasonable snob.
Trigger warning: child death.