The Moonstone Read-a-Long Half-way Check In

I'm actually writing this a good few days before the official check-in because I want to write it when I'm actually at the halfway point and I don't want to stop reading and wait patiently for the right check-in point.

The Moonstone is just so good! I'm not sure what I was expecting, but I've completely and totally fallen in love with it. THERE ARE SPOILERS below, but only up to the end of Druscilla Clack's narrative.

So off we go.

First off, this is where Frizinghall is:

And this is where I live:

Obviously this is not actually my house. Gawd.

Do you have any idea how happy this makes me? The Moonstone, in all it's awesomeness, is set 1.4 miles away from where I live. It's in walking distance, people.

I know, I know... I'll talk about the actual book now very soon. I just had to check where Wilkie Collins lived first, just in case OH MY GOD HE LIVED IN MY HOUSE IN MY BEDROOM I SEE A WILKIE GHOST! or something.

He didn't. Sadly. But his Wikipedia entry is quite snide: '...the quality of his writing declined along with his health.' Ouch. Someone's resentful.

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Sorry, I'm here now, away from the amusements of typing Wiki Wilkie into Google.

So I picked up The Moonstone and almost put it straight back down again. That's not a good prologue. I understand that some form of introduction is necessary so that we know exactly why the Indians are chasing after the Diamond in the first place, but it sounded very adventure novel-esque to me, something akin to King Solomon's Mines. 

It didn't take me long after the story actually began to get hooked though. I didn't realise it at the time, but the story is told by changing narratives. The basic premise is that one of the key characters decides in the future to compile a complete account of the Moonstone affair by asking several witnesses to send him the details of what they saw at the time.

It starts off with Mr Betteredge, the head servant at the household in question. The best way I can sum him up is 'Bless him!' He's an old man, very traditional and very set in his way. He bumbles quite a lot - mentioning something insignificant and then saying, 'But it is relevant - I'll tell you later!' when sometimes you wish that actually, maybe he could tell you now?

Being a 24 year old, female, newly-qualified barrister I am very obviously completely for the equality of women (and races, classes, ages... etc). Yet there's something almost adorable about old men in 1850s novels. I want to pat him on the head and go 'Aww!' when he's being his charming sexist self, even though anybody who spoke to me like this in the real world would shortly receive a Blackstones Criminal Practice to the face. 

It is a maxim of mine that men (being superior creatures) are bound to improve women - if they can. When a woman wants me to do anything (my daughter, or not, it doesn't matter), I always insist on knowing why. The oftener you make them rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable you will find them in all relations of life. It isn't their fault (poor wretches!) that they act first, and think afterwards; it's the fault of the fools who humour them.

Poor wretches indeed.
 
To avoid all doubt, I like Mr Betteredge. I shouldn't, because he's everything that usually annoys me in a fictional character, but I really do. Perhaps it's because in my HeadMovie he's played by William Hartnell, the first Doctor. Who knows!

(see what I did there? Who knows!?  Cause he was Doctor Who! Yeah, it's late. Sorry.)

He's very self important and arrogant, but again it's rather charming and I don't know why. 

I am (thank God!) constitutionally superior to reason... Profit, good friends, I beseech you, by my example. It will save you from many troubles of the vexing sort. Cultivate a superiority to reason, and see how you pare the claws of all the sensible people when they try to scratch you for your own good!

Sorry, Betteredge. I'm too busy rummaging my own mind for a reason - I just don't have time to be superior to it as well.  

 At this point I didn't understand the whole changing narrative thing, and I had to check to make sure I wasn't holding an omnibus of Wilkie novels or something. There was just so much of the damn book left and I didn't see anywhere else it could go. Then we switched over to Druscilla Clack, who is possibly my favourite literary character ever, and it all kind of fell into place.

Miss Clack is awful. She's just a very, very misguided human being who tries so damn hard to be useful, in the least useful way possible. She's a masterpiece. I really hated her, but I loved her narrative. She's amusing, without ever actually making you vehemently angry.

She's very religious and is desperately trying to 'save' pretty much everybody. She rejoices in the bad fortune of others because it means she can help them turn to God and tells a girl who has just lost her mother that she probably hasn't gone to heaven. She hides tracts in people's bathrooms despite their active refusal to read them. She's awesome.

I bookmarked literally seven quotes from Miss Clack, just because she amused me so greatly. Again, she's the kind of character that I'd normally loathe in a book and avoid in real life. What is it about these characters that make them so endearing!?

Some persons, hearing what I now heard, would have been probably
overwhelmed with astonishment. For my own part, knowing Rachel's spirit to have been essentially unregenerate from her childhood upwards, I was prepared for whatever my aunt could tell me on the subject of her daughter. It might have gone on from bad to worse till it ended in Murder; and I should still have said to myself, The natural result! oh, dear, dear, the natural result! The one thing that did shock me was the course my aunt had taken under the circumstances. Here surely was a case for a clergyman, if ever there was one yet! Lady Verinder had thought it a case for a physician. All my poor aunt's early life had been passed in her father's godless household. The natural result again! Oh, dear, dear, the natural result again! 
"The doctors recommend plenty of exercise and amusement for Rachel, and strongly urge me to keep her mind as much as possible from dwelling on the past," said Lady Verinder.
"Oh, what heathen advice!" I thought to myself. "In this Christian
country, what heathen advice!"

The changing narrative actually works very well. I like how one person can fill in the gaps of another character's account and how they usually have their own opinion on the person preceding or following them. Both Betteredge and Clack (and presumably everybody after them) know what really happened to the Moonstone, but they've been forbidden from saying what that actually is. They do keep dropping hints though (or in Miss Clack's case, bitching about the prohibition).

This is more-or-less the halfway point so I'll leave you to it. Come back and find my second update in a fortnight, although I'll probably have actually finished the book before this post is even due!

Are you reading along too? Have you read The Moonstone before? Tell me what you thought below!