Alex's Reviews > The Moonstone

The Moonstone is known as the first detective novel*, and it's a cracking one. You can see things invented here that were directly borrowed by future writers: Holmes' overconfidence (and his use of London urchins as agents); Agatha Christie's exploration of narrative reliability.

* as opposed to Poe's Dupin, which was the first detective story - I know, we're splitting hairs.

And if the mystery's not enough for you, how about mysterious Oriental cultures? Romance? Quicksand?* Opium? This is a ludicrously entertaining book, almost on the level of Count of Monte Cristo for sheer kicks.

* Things I Was Super On The Watch For When I Was A Kid And It Turns Out They Are Not Actually Things
- Alligators
- Amnesia
- Chloroform-soaked rags
- Razors in apples
- Steamrollers
- Quicksand

It shares with Collins' other masterpiece, The Woman in White, a preoccupation with narrative - from different sources, in different voices, with varying motives and degrees of reliability. Like Woman in White, it's set up like a court case: a series of witnesses come forward to tell their part of the story in more or less chronological order, while commenting on (and insulting) each other's narratives. Many characters also cite other texts: Betteredge is obsessed with Robinson Crusoe; Miss Clack carts around a variety of religious tracts, all of which are made up, which sucks because how badly do you want to read "Satan in the Hairbrush" and "A Word With You On Your Cap Ribbons"? Pretty bad, man - and finally, Ezra Jennings will cite De Quincey's landmark drug memoir Memoirs of an Opium Eater.

Which, by the way: unlike Woman in White (1860), The Moonstone (1868) was written while Collins was deep in the throes of a laudanum addiction, and the whole thing can be seen as, more or less, about opium.

Also unlike Woman in White, which features one of my all-time favorite female heroines, the diamond-sharp Miss Halcombe, The Moonstone has an awkward relationship to women. Many of its narrators are prone to statements like this:

"Men (being superior creatures) are bound to improve women - if they can. When a woman wants me to do anything, I always insist on knowing why. The oftener you make them rummage their own minds for a reason, the more manageable you will find them in all the relations of life.

The first couple times you see stuff like this you can figure Collins means for you to laugh at it - but after like ten different people say things along similar lines, you do start to wonder a little.

Woman in White just edges out Moonstone for me as my favorite Collins. Its characters - Miss Halcombe and the mighty Count Fosco - are more indelible than Moonstone's. But The Moonstone includes a thinly disguised Richard Burton, as well as the terrifically bitchy Miss Clack...look, here's my secret: I like Collins better than his buddy Dickens. This book is a gang of fun.