No Name

[chickenfeet]

I have just finished listening to the BBC Radio version of Wilkie Collins' No Name. I now know why I and countless other readers are only familiar with The Woman in White and The Moonstone. It is really awful. That said, I think it could serve as an ideal text for a mid 19th century English lit course. It would obviate the need for any other text whatever as it contains every implausible plot device ever used(1) by Dickens and his contemporaries wrapped in a good thick gooey layer of sentimentality and sensationalism.

(1)Including madness, idiocy, disinheritance (multiple), implausible sudden deaths (multiple), illegitimacy, faithful servant, crusty admiral, sleep walking, love at first sight (multiple), improbable coincidences, servant impersonating quality, quality impersonating servant, recognition by moles etc etc.

Comments

[adjectivegail]

Years and years and years ago, I read The Woman In White. I loved it to pieces and couldn't put it down, it completely sucked me in. A few months later I couldn't have told you what happened, beyond some vague feeling of something to do with madness and possibly inheritances. I think. Maybe. I couldn't remember anyone's name, and maybe there was some unrequited love? I think? So I tried to read it again and found it such heavy going that I gave up within a couple of chapters. I still don't quite understand what happened there!

[shezan.livejournal.com]

For one instant I thought they had trained moles used as physiognomists...

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I would not have been surprising if they had

[anneth.livejournal.com]

I am impressed you finished No Name; I certainly couldn't, for all the reasons you listed.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

Train wreck syndrome. I just had to know how the thing was going to resolve itself.