August 2012: The Gable Faces East by Anita Stansfield

overall thoughts

What are your thoughts of the book?

Love triangle

How did you feel about the love triangle? Did you feel that Jess and Alexis were fair to Richard? Or that he was really okay with it? Thoughts???

Convenient Deaths

I have said before that some of her books have convenient deaths- so the person can be with the other person they are meant to be with. Did you feel like it was natural?

Ending

How did you feel about the way the book ended?

July 2012: The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

Opinion

In her Introduction to this Modern Library edition, Anne Perry asks, “What is there in The Woman in White that transcends the change in culture from 1860 to the present, and beyond?” How would you answer this question?

Laura

 Laura is presented as an ideal of Victorian womanhood, obedient, respectful of social conventions, and willing to sacrifice her own wishes for others. How does her double, Anne Catherick, illuminate the dark side of that ideal?

Marian and Fosco

Why is Marian so mesmerized by Fosco, who she says "has interested me, has attracted me, has forced me to like him"? Why is Fosco able to see Marian, despite her physical unattractiveness, as a "magnificent creature"?

Narratives

The use of multiple narrators was one of Collins's favorite storytelling techniques. What qualities does each narrator bring to the story? How does each change our view of the characters? Could the story have been told from a single viewpoint, and if so, whose?

Genre

Wilkie Collins has been hailed as the creator of the “sensation novel”. Citing examples from The Woman in White, how would you define this Victorian literary genre?

Experiments

In his preface to the 1860 edition of The Woman in White, Collins wrote, “An experiment is attempted in this novel, which has not (so far as I know) been hitherto tried in fiction. The story…is told throughout by the characters of the book.” Was the experiment a success? What is gained and what is lost in telling the story exclusively through first person narratives?

Vivid portraits

Collins has been widely praised for his fully drawn portraits. Which characters stand out as the most vivid, and why?

Foreshadowing

Throughout the novel, how does Collins use premonitions, coincidences and dreams to foreshadow key events?

Mrs. Catherick

Why does Mrs. Catherick allow her own daughter to be placed in an insane asylum, and how does she justify her actions?

Weakness

In his concluding narrative, Count Fosco describes “thefirst and last weakness” of his life. What is the nature of Fosco’s self-described “deplorable and uncharacteristic fault”?