Dear Serial Readers,
So Gabriel Betteredge's narrative comes to an end! I wonder how Miss Clack (who sounds like a character piece from the board game CLUE) will proceed. I'm intrigued that we're prepared for the next witness (and Betteredge tells us that we're in effect judges, the narratives are testimonies) whom we've barely seen (one of the guests at Rachel's birthday dinner), rather than a more predictable witness, like Lady Verinder or Franklin Blake.
Collins mines the lengthy reportage in newspapers of court trials. What do you make of this scheme where the novel itself is the trial proceedings, the narratives the testimonies, and we readers the judges? Julia mentioned this structure, in relation to the question of what details to include, what to omit, and how Collins's allows Betteredge to "wander"--something not permitted in a courtroom testimony. Those of you who've read Collins's THE WOMAN IN WHITE may remember this style of interlocking witness-narrators. And, as Josh points out, and ReaderAnn echoes, these wandering details (like GB's fondness for Robinson Crusoe) illuminate the effects of character on circumstance (or on relating events).
But one difference here is that there is no master narrator (like Walter Hartright), or at least, we don't know who is telling Gabriel Betteredge to tell his version, to stick to his "own experience," not to wander, not to be "too familiar." And how has he heard that "you are likely to be turned over to Miss Clack"?
This mix of the personal with the impersonal, the up-close character-narrator with the abstract editor more distanced, imprecise, reminds me too of Franklin Blake's mini lecture on the different ways of reading the mystery of the missing Diamond: what he calls "the Objective-Subjective view," which encompasses both reading "from the inside-outwards" (the Subjective) and, presumably, the outside-inwards. Like Josh said last time, we're fed bits of information and clues, enough to keep us craving more--that "detective-fever" which Gabriel B. also calls an "infection."
So, if you have caught this fever, and want your cure to come fast, how do you stop reading ahead? Or does the slow reading/curing approach to this infection have some pleasures too?
Any thoughts about Rachel's financial needs that might motivate her to raise money on the Moonstone? Actually, she's been quite an enigma throughout, yet, like Rosanna, seems susceptible to passionate moods or mood swings. I'm reminded how women, especially uneducated, working-class women, were often regarded as conducive to seances and spiritualist contacts in the Victorian craze for such things, around the time Collins is writing. So with this gender binary (women are guided by feelings, men by reason), I'm curious to see how our female narrator Miss Clack will address the question of the Disappeared Diamond. Certainly Betteredge's emotions surface often in his narrative, especially his disdain/admiration for Cuff. I'm also amazed by all the details of the household staff, how many servants appear in the pages of GB's narration, from the gardener and cook to page boys and the different levels of housemaids--a vast and hierarchical structure, to be sure.
Finally, it occurs to me that there's a parallel between Cuff as the private detective and Betteredge as house-steward: both are privy to family secrets, to information regarding this "family scandal."
Next time, Miss Clack's Narrative: chaps. I-V. For the week after next, I'd be grateful if one of you would mind taking the lead post? I'll be traveling that week and am not likely to be able to post in a timely fashion! Just let me know here or by email.
Yours in serial secrets,
Susan
3 comments:
I can't wait to read Miss Clack's perspectives! I expect her to think about prunes and prisms, to recall the unpleasant Mrs. General--I don't thin there will be a repeat of that amazing character, but I expect some pursed lips.
I disagree with Susan somewhat that Reason is male and Emotions are female. For one thing, it's often Penelope who wants Betteredge to write a more direct story--and I still wonder about the purposes of all his wandering! And he proclaims himself "constitutionally superior to reason" as his his Lady (ch. 21). And when he insists that men should ask women for their reasons for action, it's not because he thinks they don't use Reason, but because they rush in to action too quickly.
It is true that Sgt. Cuff calls Betteredge's persistent loyalty to Rachel in the face of "facts" to the contrary (really all circumstantial evidence and not as compelling as that Holmes would have found) an "infirmity," but it's an infirmity that Cuff sees as "human" rather than gendered.
I am quite in suspense, not so much about what happened to the diamond as why. But I just don't read ahead, which in a way helps me focus more on character, narrative technique, etc. And to attempt to do some other work!
I didn't mean to suggest that I think Reason is male and Emotions are female! Nor do I think Collins supports this cliche in the novel (I mentioned G Betteredge's strong feelings). But really I meant more about Rosanna's dreaminess and the Shifting Sands, about hints here and there of other ways of knowing, of the Subjective-Objective as the important mix of these different ways!
To me objective/subjective means—at least for Betteredge’s part—the recounting of events and the recounting of what he thinks, how he feels about events and the associated people. I find his account full of feeling. Most of the time, how he responds to his feelings is very disciplined. I enjoy the tension there. I love his observations of Cuff’s and the gardener’s disagreement over the dog rose (as if two mutts were tugging for ownership of a bone). I love his indignation and I continue to love his asides to readers, though we hadn’t had one in many pages until he asked pardon for his insertion about the dog’s ear.
To the extent I’ve caught “detective fever,” it still has less to do with whodunit than with Betteredge’s voice and character and the viewpoint of his observations—everything from his love-hate of Cuff to his references to Crusoe.
I share Kari’s suspicion of Franklin. Not sure why.
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