| Product: |
No Name - Wilkie Collins |
| Date: |
02/04/01 (105 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: <Crackle crackle swshswsh>
Disadvantages: ...you're breaking up.. hello?... hello?... I can't ....<beep beep beep beep>
I love Wilkie Collins. I do, I so do. I fell in love with him when I read “The Moonstone” (still one of my favourites) and our relationship was strengthened with “The Woman In White”. Beautifully written, with cleverly constructed plots and a suspense I have rarely found elsewhere, Collins knows how to charm his readers, especially when one of those readers is me.
However, “No Name” begins rather tediously. Mr and Mrs Vanstone and their two daughters, Norah and Magdalen, live a happy, ordinary life at their country home, Combe-Raven. Mr. Vanstone is an “easy, hearty, handsome, good-humoured gentleman, who walked on the sunny side of life” (personally, I found him a little too good to be true, but then he’s not with us for long). Mrs. Vanstone is a woman of intelligence, once beautiful and still retaining a “fair proportion and subtle delicacy of feature”. Their love for each other is still very much apparent, thus creating an atmosphere of serenity in which to raise their daughters. Norah, the eldest, takes after her mother, although more reserved and sullen in manner; while Magdalen is a wilful, spontaneous child of eighteen (who I found more irritating than endearing during the first act). Miss Garth, their governess, is a stern yet kind woman, who “lived on ascertained and honourable terms” with Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone, and is more of a friend than an employee now that the girls are older. In his wish to paint a picture of ordinariness, I feel Collins goes a little too far and instead creates a scene that is too rosy to be realistic. Still this also serves to produce a sense of foreboding; such contented days as these do not make a good story, and the implication of disaster to come adds to the interest.
Near to Combe-Raven lives Mr. Vanstone’s very good friend, old Mr. Clare: quick-tempered, cynical and only too keen to criticise his three sons whenever the opport
unity arises. Mr. Vanstone, almost completely opposite to Mr. Clare in all his views, never fails to defend the boys, and even went to the trouble of finding an excellent position for the eldest boy, Frank, by pulling strings amongst his contacts in London. At this stage I was almost entirely convinced that it is eccentric Mr. Clare who is unjust and harsh with his judgements. My advice to you is to wait and see.
The first event of importance is the decision of Mr. and Mrs. Vanstone to suddenly take a trip to London, shortly after receiving a mysterious letter from America. They remain vague about their reasons, although Mrs. Vanstone gives a short, unsatisfactory explanation to Miss Garth; they return, and life continues, with their strange trip almost forgotten by the others in the household. This apparent dismissal of the strange event will start the first stirrings of curiosity and frustration in you the reader.
Frank, Mr. Clare’s eldest son, suddenly and unexpectedly returns from London, having been let go from his position after a three year trial on the grounds that he “was not possessed of the necessary abilities to fit him for his new calling”. While he is at home, Magdalen persuades him to join her in some amateur theatricals being held at a neighbour’s house. This closeness encourages a mutual attraction to develop between them, much to the distress of Norah, who deems Frank unworthy of her sister’s affections.
A contact of Mr. Clare’s manages to find Frank yet another job in London, with excellent prospects. Reluctantly, Frank sets off again, but is sent back after three months for similar reasons as last time. Rather than terminating his contract completely, they offer him the chance to go to China for five years, with the possibility of returning to their London office if he has sufficiently developed his skills during this time. Dismayed by the thought of being apart from each other for su
ch a long time, Frank and Magdalen decide to get married. She tells her parents of her wish, and they give her their blessing, with the condition that Frank should prove his worth by going to China for just one year and marrying Magdalen immediately upon his return if he can justify the confidence they place in him. If ever there was an illustration of just how much things have changed since Victorian times, we have it here: Magdalen gratefully and joyfully accepts without question.
Mr. Vanstone then goes to see old Mr. Clare to discuss the matter. Upon his return he appears preoccupied and addresses a letter to Mr. Pendril, his solicitor, requesting him to come to Combe-Raven the following day. As soon as he has done this, he suddenly recalls an engagement that he had previously arranged for the same time, and decides to settle that business immediately so as to be quite free for Mr. Pendril. He sets off by train straightaway, intending to return that evening. Did you notice my choice of wording there?
Up until this point, I had found the book quite dull. It was beautifully written: eloquent, simple, precise. But dull. When I look back through the pages, I realise that this introductory “act” is quite short, and yet it seemed to take me forever to plough through. But then, suddenly, the Vanstones’ world is turned upside-down. From this point onwards, the book starts to become much more interesting. The characters develop, believably so, and for the better. I won’t go into the events that take place next, for the sake of leaving some mystery to be unravelled for yourself. But I’m not going to shut up just yet, because I haven’t even touched upon the main part of the book.
You only have to read the back cover to discover that the book is dealing with the subject of illegitimacy, namely that of the Vanstone daughters. I hope you won’t mind if I skirt around and skim over the plot because it really is
better when you don’t know what’s coming. Skimming and skirting, then: Mr. Vanstone’s inheritance goes to his brother (with whom he had fallen out a long time ago), his daughters are left virtually penniless, and the appeal made on their behalf to their uncle falls on deaf ears. While Norah resigns herself docilely to her fate, Magdalen is transformed by her grief and sense of injustice. She runs away from her sister and governess, and hatches a plot to get back what she believes rightfully belongs to her and her sister, in accordance with her father’s wishes.
The remainder of the book is absolutely gripping reading, almost wholly devoted to her scheming. She meets, through his own design, Captain Wragge, who is by far the most interesting and amusing character in the entire book. A rogue through and through, he is a professional trickster, a con man of his day, who will stoop to any depths to cheat and swindle his way through life, yet always with the most eloquent sophistication and finesse. Initially totally unpleasant, his cleverness and humour win you over until you are completely on his side, as he pits his wits against the equally wily Mrs. Lecount (Mr. Vanstone’s nephew’s housekeeper). The Wragge vs Lecount saga is my absolute favourite part of the whole book, a clever concoction of unashamed manipulation and conspiring.
Throughout this, we are also witness to Magdalen’s gradual subsidence into despair and mental breakdown, as she degrades herself further and further in her obsessive pursuit of what she sees as justice. But don’t be misled into thinking that her Purpose is about the money itself. Her sole object throughout is simply her blind desire to see her dear father’s final wishes respected and carried out.
The ending, although nicely told, is a little too far-fetched and hasty in some respects. However, in its favour, we are also treated to a very brief return of Wragge
, and we are afforded a tiny glimpse of humanity from that selfish creature that even he is unable to stifle, while keeping his character believable and true.
The main theme of the book is the shocking lack of provision for children born out of wedlock by the law of the era. Mr. Pendril, the lawyer, sums up his opinion of the law of England at that time quite well: “It visits the sins of the parents on the children; it encourages vice by depriving fathers and mothers of the strongest of all motives for making the atonement of marriage; and it claims to produce these two abominable results in the names of morality and religion.” Despite the changes in moral and social standards since the book was written, Collins transports us smoothly back to Victorian times and makes Norah and Magdalen’s position distressingly real.
The characters are strong and superbly developed; the storyline is believable and gripping; and Collins writes all this in a fluent style that anyone will be able to enjoy. There is a multitude of emotions and feelings waiting within these 600 or so pages. Sensation novel it might be, and flaws it may have, but I loved it.
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