The Woman in White

I'd almost totally forgotten about this blog. It's been an incredibly busy nine months, from which I've emerged as a fully fledged and qualified English Teacher.

Not much pleasure-reading has gone on as a consequence.

However, since finishing approximately 2 weeks ago, I've read a novel I've been wanting to read for ages: Wilkie Collins' Woman in White. The only Wilkie Collins book I'd read in the past was The Moonstone, which is a sort of classic detective type of story and which I really enjoyed at the time. But The Woman in White is considered his masterpiece.

I must admit I was slightly disappointed. I felt the mystery 'Woman in White' was exposed far too early in the story and turned into a pathetic, rather than a mysterious or entrancing figure. I found most of the characters irritating rather than sympathetic. We have to remember that Victorian novels describe a time increasingly distant from our own, but I kept getting the 'Hardy feeling': that urge to step into the novel and shake the characters really hard.

I also felt it was over long. By the end, I had virtually ceased to care about the various intricacies of the plot, the central one of which is extremely underwhelming by modern standards of morality.

All that said, it was still a largely satisfying read, and I can see why it has achieved classic status. I think it would have been better read before The Moonstone, however, and shortened by 200 or so pages. Particularly the parts which describe the married life of central character Laura Fairlie.

The novel is told by several different narrators who cover different aspects of the plot (as is often the case, this is said to be in the interests of veracity and precision by using the witnesses to the 'real' events). I felt that this was actually underused. One of the most interesting parts of the novel was where the narrative voice changed rapidly for 100 or so pages. In reality, well over half the book is told by Walter Hartright, a character I found to be self-righteous and whiny.

The book is sometimes posited as an example of detective fiction, but being an avid fan of early detective fiction (Sherlock Holmes and the excellent detectives created by Edgar Allen Poe spring to mind) I thought this one of the novel's major weaknesses. The development of this area of the plot was extremely uneven. Tiny details were stretched too thinly over tens and tens of pages while passages of rapid action or discovery are squashed into a few short lines. This gives the novel an unpleasantly breathless feel and makes for unsatisying read.

Wilkie, I give you 6.5/10.

My First Blog

As everyone has a blog these days, and since I enjoy spouting rubbish, and since my best friend has a superior make-up/fashion blog I decided to start one of my own.

And what might it concern, I asked myself. Well, Alice, I said (to myself) what are your hobbies? Smoking, eating, and reading, I answered.

So, books it had to be. I have a degree in English and I read rather a lot, so it was my natural choice. Be warned, however, my other hobbies (as above) may well make an appearance.

I'm about to start teacher training, so some of my choices may, by necessity, be absurd or predictable.



I'll start with what I'm currently reading:

'Collected Poems' by Roger McGough.

Despite always loving English at school, poetry has never really done it for me. Oh how I dreaded poetry lessons, and later lectures and seminars. To be technical, I always saw it as a load of wank. I put it down largely to my poor attention span: no plot makes poetry harder to follow and understand and my lazy-arse mind just wasn't getting it.

I certainly haven't had a brain-revolution where poetry is concerned, but I think I've finally found a poet I can truly say I enjoy (actually, not quite true, I enjoyed Blake in the past). Roger McGough is on the English National Curriculum and I can certainly see why. His poems are witty, original, accessible and are placed in a context to which I can easily relate (despite being born 50 years and 250 miles apart from him).

As the book I have is a collection from various other collections, the one thing it really lacks is a clear theme or direction. This is an advantage in some ways if you're new to his poetry (as I am) as it gives a comprehensive oversight. However, it does mean that the index/contents are bewildering- there must be two or three hundred poems in there. Some of them are also a little..(forgive me, Roger) filler-ish. But these are relatively minor concerns. When Roger is good (I'm sure he won't mind me calling him Roger) he's really, really good. He seems to write a lot about old age, and these poems are some of my favourites, despite my tender(ish) years. I think perhaps my Grandfather's recent decline means they are striking more of a chord with me than might be usually be the case.

The poems also seem to be quite Liverpool-centric, unsurprising when you consider this is where Rog comes from, and is a place with which he is inextricably associated. This might be offputting to some, I suppose, since some of the place names or turns of phrase might need referencing. For me, though, that's all part of the fun. I'm fascinated by my national Geography in particular and can now say for certainty where one might find Bootle.

I'll finish by relaying one of my favourite Roger McGough poems for my as-yet-non-existent readers to give anyone unfamiliar with him a taste of his style and concerns.

Near to You

America's the land of milk and honey
Australia's healthy and continually sunny
The living in Sweden is clean and sleek
The food in France is gastronomique

Japan's got geishas and the fastest train
China's got oodles of chicken chow mein
If you want noodles you can't beat Hong Kong's
Brazilian's samba on beaches in thongs

Africa looks to a future exciting
Spain's got sherry, el sol and bullfighting
Eskimos are tough and used to roughing
Turkey is full of chestnut stuffing

The Belgians invented the Brussels sprout
Germans lieben lederhosen und sauerkraut
Greece abounds in classical ruins
Russia's violinists play the loveliest tuins

In Bermuda it's swaying palm trees and foam
In Switzerland it's gnome sweet gnome
Italian girls make a di fantastic lovers
Danes are mustard under the covers

From old Hawaii to New Nepal
Foreigners seem to have it all
So if everything abroad is as good as they say
Why do we Britons in Britain stay?

The answer is (and I'm sure it's true)
That all of us want to be near to you