Recently, I had been browsing through Good Reads searching for an interesting book when I accidentally stumbled upon 'the Moonstone'. Being a fan of detective novels; I wondered myself as to how I did not chance upon this book earlier. Written in the Victorian Era, this book is widely believed to be one of the first detective novel in English. Being a big fan of Sherlock Holmes, I did not waste much time running down to the library which luckily had a copy of this book among the other classics.
The moonstone is a large diamond associated with the Hindu God, Chandra protected by priests of the order of Vishnu. This diamond was stolen by Colonel Herncastle during the Siege of Srirangapatnam and brought back to London. The diamond is believed to bring doom to the possessor. Shunned by his family, he lives a solitary life and angry at the family; he bequeaths the same to his niece Rachel. Rachel wears the diamond on her birthday celebrations and the next day it is found to be stolen from her bedroom. Confusion, heart breaks, ill luck follows; as we journey the course of this book to find the perpetuator through a series of narrations from few of the characters.
As I told earlier, this is believed to be one of the first detective novel in English. Having read it, I feel that this book has rightly set the ground rules for how such novels should be written henceforth. Any fan of the genre knows the ground rules - a mysterious circumstance, shady people, scape goats, irritating inspectors, inside job, reconstruction of crime, an investigator with a keen sense of observation, red herrings and a twist to end it all. We can see all these being brought to life in this very book. Given the timeline during which the book was written, this is pretty cool. The prose is solid. I got a chance to spend considerable amount of time brushing through my dictionary and learning newer words.
Another interesting point that impressed me was the narration style. This was not the usual 'Once upon a time' type of formal story telling. The whole book is narrated through journals written by people who were present around the time of crime and after that. Given the era when this was written, I think this is a pretty smart move. The narrations were not simply made up to look like pointing out the facts to the readers. People seemed to wander off to their feelings and thoughts during the narration which was interesting. For example, the first narrative was that of Gabriel Betteridge who was the head servant. Being an old man, he often tended to drift away from the topic and ended up talking about other things of himself, the house and the family which was common among people of such age group. This was indeed a great way of presenting a story. And Mr.Collins was able to bring the right emotions along with the narration - be it the dedication of Mr.Gabriel to the family or the irritating Miss. Cluck or the romantic heart of the Franklin Blake. Ezra Jennings was a character who was a sort of beacon bringing light to the otherwise stuck investigation. I really liked his character in the book. The Sergeant Cuff was also interesting. He was sort of a predecessor to the great Holmes and Poirot.
For modern readers who are mostly accustomed to books ranging to around 350 pages; this book can be a tad too long. But when we consider the time when this was written, I think this is fine. As name indicates there is a bit of drama and romance too with the story that takes the book up to 500 odd pages, but that was not a hindrance at any point of time. There were some confusions at quite a few places during the whole read but that can be overlooked.
Wilkie Collins was a celebrated writer who was a close friend of Charles Dickens. At his prime, he had four back to back best sellers; the last one being this novel. Due to excessive use of opium, he lost his touch and was never able to replicate the magic again. This book from the gifted writer can be considered a precursor to the modern day detective stories. A must read classic for the fans of the genre.
No comments:
Post a Comment