Alrighty, week 2 of this book of awesome AKA The Moonstone.
So, stuff is happening, yes? It appears that Rosanna McMorbid tossed herself into the Shivering Sands and I can’t say that I’m disappointed about it. But not before she sent out some incriminating letters apparently, and I can’t wait till we get to see what that note that Limping Lucy has in her possession says. Meanwhile, Rachel and her momma are looking more and more guilty, yay! Although now that Lady Verinder has kicked the bucket, I guess even if she was the one who stole the diamond it won’t matter too much.
Betteredge was not quite as awesome in this section, which was sad. He was a bit of a drama queen:
“- and began to wonder, for the first time in my life, when it would please God to take me.”
and his jerky little paragraph about how men are superior creatures to women wasn’t as funny as some of his previous kinda-misogynistic lines. And he insists that Rachel is innocent, even though Cuff TOTALLY SCHOOLED HIS ASS with his three predictions.
Aaaaaand then enter Miss Clack! Well isn’t she a basket full of uber-religious crazyness! And she brings the lady-hatin’ on full force. Miss Clack makes me wonder if Wilkie intended a lot of satire / sarcasm in this book – like all the women-bashing and over-the-top religion in Miss C is exactly the opposite of how Wilkie feels - or so I desperately hope. While I get that she was so wacky and insane that it was kinda humorous, I spent most of her part rolling my eyes. I mean, come on…
“Oh, my young friends and fellow sinners! be aware of presuming to exercise your poor carnal reason. Oh, be morally tidy! Let your faith be as your stockings, and your stockings as your faith. Both ever spotless, and both ready to put on at a moment’s notice!”
I cannot wait to exclaim to someone “Oh, be morally tidy!”. Although they won’t get the joke, but it’ll be funny to me. Overall though, she just induced a lot of “…wow” and “geez” and “ohmygod she’s nuts” written in the margins.
I did kind of like how Miss Clack totally busted that lawyer with his own argument against Godfrey.
BOOM! Lawyered.
Even though she’s coming from a hostile crazy place, I totally agree with her that Rachel likely played a part in the theft of the diamond. There! I’ve declared my guess. And I’ll probably be wrong in the end, but oh well. Especially since everyone keeps going on about how “true” and “honest” Rachel is…
Oh yeah and apparently Godfrey & Rachel are engaged! Don’t see that lasting… possibly because Rachel’s mom just died. Anyone else think that was kind of suspicious? Like she was fine this whole time, and all of the sudden some doctor tells her she’s sick and gives her medicine to take, and then she croaks. Maybe the medicine was poison? Hmmmmmmmmm? OH and who is this “respectable gentleman” that’s walking around with the Indian dudes? I have a hunch that maybe it’s Mr. Murthwaite, cause we haven’t seen him since the beginning of the book and it seemed at first like he was going to play a major part. And what happened between Rachel & Franklin to make him skip the country? And what is Wilkie REALLY trying to say with all this madness?
I JUST HAVE SO MANY QUESTIONS.
~Sarah
“like all the women-bashing and over-the-top religion in Miss C is exactly the opposite of how Wilkie feels ”
I think that’s exactly right. Wilkie’s shown, esp. in Woman in White, that he really likes women. Like, a lot. A lot of the things Betteredge and Clack say are open to ridicule (although I might’ve liked Betteredge more in this section than the first, because his love for the family and despair over Rosanna’s possible death were MOVING).
Omg they better tell us more in the next section. Mystery, you are so mysterious.
Betteredge was definitely feeling all the love for all the people, but sometimes I wanted to shake him and yell “Dear God, get ahold of yourself man!”
I *may* have clutched my hand to my bosom in woe when he was going on about how Rosanna could have been Penelope if circumstances had been altered just slightly, and his manhood couldn’t stand up to the thought of her dying all alone in a pit. Men get sentimental like that in their old age, I suppose…and I respond well to it.
I totally didn’t make the connection of “Lady Verinder seems fine but then the doctor gives her medicine and then BOOM she’s gone”. Could that doctor have been Doctor Candy who mysteriously disappeared when he got “sick”? What if HE took the diamond? And then Lady Verinder found out or was getting close so he had to shut her up??
YUP. That’s it. That’s the one.
Very interesting, I was wondering if how Dr. Candy was going to fit into all this. It’d be great (well, screwed up, but still great) if he was somehow behind Lady V’s death.
I’m pretty sure that Wilkie is against Clack’s entire way of being. Because he is awesome and she is not so much.
I refuse to believe that Rachel did it though, cause that’s the first theory that came up, and the first theory CAN’T BE RIGHT! Unless it is, and THEN I might be kind of pissed off.
HA! Like Wilkie was like “No one will ever think it’s this obvious… it’s brilliant!” Man I hope that’s the case.
Woah, woah, woah. You might be onto something with Dr. Kevorkian. I honestly hadn’t made that connection, and it does seem very strange that Betteredge didn’t mention anything about her deteriorating health, especially since Lady V. states that the Dr. basically diagnosed on sight.
*goes off to ponder*
Well now I really hope that there’s some foul-play there or I’ll feel silly! Lol.
I agree – I think Wilkie is being maaaajorly sarcastic with these narrators so far. What better way to pull the rug out from under people that annoy you than to use their own words? I wonder if we’ll get a narrator we can really get behind, or if they’ll all be eyerolly, if delightful.
It would be nice to have a truly awesome narrator. Maybe Cuff, if he gets his own section? But if not I’m still okay with all the outrageous characters too
I definitely think Wilkie is making fun of the narrators so far. I read somewhere that he based Miss Clack on these two sisters who were always coming to his door to shove tracts on him. Although I couldn’t read much more of the article because it started talking about the mystery and I didn’t want to be spoiled.
Ohhh good. I’m glad everyone seems to agree on this – wasn’t sure I was interpreting it right!