I was right, I did enjoy this book - and it was so long ago that I remembered almost nothing about it. In many respects, it reads like contemporary detective fiction. Among the ingredients are an insightful retired police detective, star-crossed lovers, mysterious foreigners, ancient curses, not to mention a murder.
Collins' narrative device is to pass the story around to the best observer at each given point in the story. At the outset there is some fairly conventional story-telling, but once the setting moves to England the old butler leads off, followed by the self-righteous proselytizer, and so on through eight (I think) narrators. My personal favorite is the butler, who is a great believer in Robinson Crusoe and returns to it on any and all occasions for comfort and guidance. He does not see why anyone would resort to any other text when all the world's wisdom is contained within its pages.
This narrative device has the story told by successive observers who were privy to various parts of the tale. Of course, a few letters are thrown in - it is hard to get a narrative from a dead character, but most of them here considerately left long letters behind them. In a way it reminds me of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society (wish the thing had a shorter title--) in which many letter writers create a central character.
It was fun. Maybe I'll reread The Woman in White, too. And I won't be able to resist The Haunted Hotel for long.
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