A review of 'Armadale' by Wilkie Collins
Note: The following review was originally published at Amazon.co.uk on 18th. September 2015. Link to original review: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R3PEH6QOPPVIXP?ref=pf_ov_at_pdctrvw_srp
In my opinion, Wilkie Collins' 'Armadale' is the greatest-ever English language novel. It is not a perfect work, or the most perfect novel in the canon, but it is a novel that is unsurpassed for its melodrama, scope and sheer quality of writing. Running to 752 closely-typed pages, 'Armadale' is for the patient reader, but as with Collins' other lengthy masterpiece, 'The Woman In White', the reader's patience is amply rewarded with an epic journey through space and time.
One of the most intriguing distinctions of Collins' writing is the confluence of characterological realism with high melodrama. His characters seem somehow realistic and unformulaic, yet at the same time Collins' fictitious worlds are full of colourful episodes. Here we have the most powerful character written in Victorian literature - and perhaps in any literature - in the form of the villainess Lydia Gwilt (though she is perhaps more properly considered an anti-hero). There are also no less than four characters by the name of Allan Armadale. Typically of Collins, the story hangs on a number of bizarre and improbable coincidences and all sorts of intricate twists and turns, dream sequences and portences, an inheritance dispute, some lawyers, and plenty of sentimentality thrown in.
As with 'The Woman In White', what interests me about 'Armadale' is the way that Collins portrays women, which probably seemed quite innovative for its time and provided the sensationalism and human interest in the story.
One of the most intriguing distinctions of Collins' writing is the confluence of characterological realism with high melodrama. His characters seem somehow realistic and unformulaic, yet at the same time Collins' fictitious worlds are full of colourful episodes. Here we have the most powerful character written in Victorian literature - and perhaps in any literature - in the form of the villainess Lydia Gwilt (though she is perhaps more properly considered an anti-hero). There are also no less than four characters by the name of Allan Armadale. Typically of Collins, the story hangs on a number of bizarre and improbable coincidences and all sorts of intricate twists and turns, dream sequences and portences, an inheritance dispute, some lawyers, and plenty of sentimentality thrown in.
As with 'The Woman In White', what interests me about 'Armadale' is the way that Collins portrays women, which probably seemed quite innovative for its time and provided the sensationalism and human interest in the story.
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