Poor Miss Finch: Wilkie Collins

[poliphilo]

The narrator is the widow of a South American revolutionary, the heroine is blind, the hero and villain (but which is which?) are a pair of twins- one of whom has a blue (literally blue) face. Supporting characters include an eccentric German doctor with a thing for mayonnaise and a venal priest with fourteen children. Everything about this novel is extreme and extravagant and funny peculiar. 
 
Did Wilkie lose it after The Moonstone? No he didn't. Poor Miss Finch - a fairy story pretending to be conventional three-decker Victorian novel- is the work of a man who has achieved a kind of perfection (The Moonstone is very nearly a perfect book) and is now letting rip and doing exactly as he pleases. Magic realism starts here. 

Comments

[sovay]

The narrator is the widow of a South American revolutionary, the heroine is blind, the hero and villain (but which is which?) are a pair of twins- one of whom has a blue (literally blue) face. Supporting characters include an eccentric German doctor with a thing for mayonnaise and a venal priest with fourteen children.

Yeah, I'm surprised this wasn't published last year, probably by a small press.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

For someone who died in 1889 Collins is remarkably modern.

[sovay]

For someone who died in 1889 Collins is remarkably modern.

I love finding people like that. Everything is always earlier than I think.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Sometimes I think he's just pretending to be a Victorian.