The Moonstone: Readalong!

 

It was on the suggestion of fellow readers that I decided to tackle The Moonstone: A Romance, by Wilkie Collins. I'm sorry to say that I'd never heard of either this book or the author before it was put forward for a readalong, one of my reading blind spots (I have many). Having done some background research, I have high hopes that this will be a fun novel. 

Wilkie Collins seems to have been a multi-talented man. Born in Britain and living for a time in Italy and France with his family, he was fluent in French. His painter father wanted him to become a clergyman, but he rejected this and pursued legal training. Called to the bar, he didn't work in the legal profession, but apparently his legal knowledge served him well in his writing. Writing was clearly his passion, and I was interested to learn of his partnership with Charles Dickens. They co-wrote plays, and even acted in plays together with Dickens' amateur theatre company. Apparently, Collins didn't like the idea of marriage, and lived with two different women over his lifetime. He had a difficult case of gout, and struggled with laudanum addiction. 

The Moonstone was published as a serial story in Dickens' magazine All the World Round between January and August 1868, and simultaneously in the American Harper's Magazine. It is an epistolary novel, and is considered one of the templates for the modern detective/police procedural novel. And remember the gout? Apparently, Collins suffered a bad episode while writing this novel, and several portions were written while high on opioids. The novel had good critical reception, and has stood the test of time, with several adaptations. 

So buckle up! This should be fun. 

***

The Readalong Plan: I'll be reading this over four weeks, and updating my blog with brief daily comments and quotes. 

Day 1: Prologue-1st Period Ch. III:

First of all, let me just say: I think this is going to be an engaging book. 

The beginning is a quick and easy to follow set up for a mystery, and I'm already engaged. I love Gabriel Betteredge, steward extraordinaire. I feel as if I must read Robinson Crusoe immediately. 

"I have tried that book for years-generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco-and I have found it my friend in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad-Robinson Crusoe. When I want advice-Robinson Crusoe. In past times when my wife plagued me; in present times when I have had a drop too much-Robinson Crusoe." 

As to Betteredge's criterion for picking a wife, this made me chuckle: "See that she chews her food well and sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all right." 

As to the nephew of the family, Mr. Franklin Blake, he seems much beloved, but I can't get past this phrase, which hints at a weakness: "The more money he had, the more he wanted; there was a hole in Mr. Franklin's pocket that nothing would sew up." 

Day 2: Ch. IV-VI:

Mr. Betteredge's little asides show his pretty good opinion of himself, and reveal his character, even if sometimes he may protest a bit too much. Like yesterday, when he noted that he felt compelled to tell us that he's "the last person to distrust another person because he happens to be a few shades darker than myself." Today, he tells us that (with respect to Nancy, the kitchen-maid, a "nice plump young lass"), "When she looks nice, I chuck her under the chin. It isn't immorality-it's only habit." Fortunately, he decides against taking the older servant Rosanna onto his lap to comfort her, even though, "When you want to comfort a woman by the shortest way, take her on your knee." I've got to shake my head a bit at Mr. Betteredge, but I still enjoy his (somewhat cringey) character.

I'm wondering about this "horrible quicksand," also known as the Shivering Sand. I'm betting something or someone will have to be swallowed up by this terrible place. 

"'Do you know what it looks like to me?' says Rosanna, catching me by the shoulder again. 'It looks as if it had hundreds of suffocating people under it-all struggling to get to the surface, and all sinking lower and lower in the dreadful deeps!'"

Meeting Franklin Blake today and him laying out the basis of the mystery felt like reading Agatha Christie, somewhat. There are many characters, a precious diamond, murky motivations, and danger lurking nearby. I can see already how this book lays the basis for the modern detective novel. Though I must say I kind of side with the Indian guardians at this point! 

Day 3: Ch. VII-IX:

I'm getting more of a sense of Mr. Betteredge's personality, as fussy as he is, and as condescending as he can be sometimes. But so likeable for all that, and Collins' way of writing him is personable and conversational. Most tellingly today, I quite enjoyed the passages where Mr. Betteredge wrote about the idle upper class and how they mess everything up in an effort to keep busy. 

"Gentlefolks in general have a very awkward rock ahead in life-the rock ahead of their own idleness. Their lives being, for the most part, passed in looking about them for something to do, it is curious to see-especially when their tastes are of what is called the intellectual sort-how often they drift blindfold into some nasty pursuit. Nine times out of ten they take to torturing something, or to spoiling something-and they firmly believe they are improving their minds, when the plain truth is, they are only making a mess in the house."

He compares this to the honest working man, for whom he has much respect: 

"But compare the hardest day's work you ever did with the idleness that splits flowers and pokes its way into spiders' stomachs, and thank your stars that your head has got something it must think of, and your hand something that they must do." 

Mr. Betteredge is a bit superior in his self-regard, but this is probably a reaction to his place in the household. He's a servant of the idle rich, and values his role but must feel slightly resentful while he watches Rachel and Franklin spend their days painting a door, his daughter Penelope sickening while holding the painting supplies! 

As for the new character today, the philanthropic new-monied barrister and would-be suitor of Miss Rachel, this made me laugh: 

"...she had a photograph of Mr. Godfrey in her bedroom; represented speaking at a public meeting, with all his hair blown out by the breath of his own eloquence, and his eyes, most lovely, charming the money out of your pockets." 

Day 4: Ch. X:

I often find dinner party narratives interesting interludes, and Collins' chapter recounting Miss Rachel's birthday party is no exception. Mr. Candy, the local doctor is a jokester, but an inept one. "In society, he was constantly making mistakes, and setting people unintentionally by the ears together." Fortunately, he's a more prudent doctor. Mr. Murthwaite, a "celebrated Indian traveller...who, at risk of his life, had penetrated in disguise where no European had ever set foot before," is super interesting, and I hope he plays a bigger role in the story. 

The dinner is a dud, and Mr. Betteredge plies the guests with wine, and encourages the guests to eat the rather unpopular dishes, but laments: 

"Looking back at the birthday now, by the light of what happened afterwards, I am half inclined to think that the cursed Diamond must have cast a blight on the whole company." 

As to that, the three jugglers and the boy show up to entertain the guests, and Mr. Murthwaite suspects they are the high-caste Brahmins vying to get the Moonstone back. He offers his opinion of the danger these men pose: "If a thousand lives stood between them and the getting back of the Diamond...they would take them all." Despite that, Mr. Murthwaite maintains that the Indians "were a wonderful people," when Mr. Betteredge expresses his opinion that they are "murdering thieves." 

Of course, I see a solution: to give the Moonstone back to the Brahmin...but that would make for a boring mystery. 

Here is the cover of the book from Project Gutenberg, but I can't find what year this edition was originally published. It shows the three Brahmin. 

Day 5: Ch. XI:

I can't help but read these chapters with a view to any clues that may be laid out for the reader to see. The difficulty here is that I don't want to give spoilers...or rather, to interfere with any clues or suspicions that anyone else reading may have picked up. I'll just say, though, that Rachel's behaviour seems pretty odd. Also, I'm ever more curious about the relationship of Rosanna Spearman to Franklin Blake. I'm loving the exactness of the details that play into the mystery: the time the doors are locked for the night, and the dogs' silence that preclude people sneaking around outside.  

As to the authorities jailing the Indian jugglers: "Every human institution (justice included) will stretch a little, if you only pull it the right way." 

Mr. Betteredge's commentary today spoke volumes about his dealings with and views on women, particularly those of the servant classes. 

"...they took to whispering together in corners, and staring at nothing suspiciously, as is the manner of that weaker half of the human family, when anything extraordinary happens in a house." 

"When there's a mess of any kind in a house, sir, the women-servants like to look at the gloomy side-it gives the poor wretches a kind of importance in their own eyes. If there's anybody ill, trust the women for prophesying that the person will die. If it's a jewel lost, trust them for prophesying that it will never be found again." 

Day 6: Ch. XII-XIII:

Bring on Sergeant Cuff! Mr. Betteredge's initial impressions are underwhelming, a "grizzled, elderly man, so miserably lean that he look as if he had not got an ounce of flesh on his bones in any part of him." It's neat that he starts with a tour of the rose garden:

""If you will look about you (which most people won't do),' says Sergeant Cuff, 'you will see that the nature of a man's tastes is, most times, as opposite as possible to the nature of a man's business. Show me any two things more opposite one from the other than a rose and a thief; and I'll correct my tastes accordingly..."

(This puts me in mind of a book I just read, called Orwell's Roses by Rebecca Solint, which has the author discussing Orwell's love for roses as a counterpoint to his political writing). 

Sergeant Cuff is this book's Hercule Poirot, on first meeting him. "In all my experience along the dirtieset ways of this dirty little world, I have never me with such a thing as a trifle yet." This, of the paint smear that everyone has so far discounted. 

I'm eager to hear more from Rachel and Rosanna in the coming chapters.